Duo Leveling LITRPG | Post Apocalyptic | SYSTEM-Chapter 207 - 274+275 - The One Who Grabs the End

Even with all of his stats fully restored, Jhin's hands were sweating from the sheer pressure of it all.

The Emperor casually drew his sword.

"Looks like you've regained your strength."

"...Thanks to someone."

"Then come—let's see it."

But just as the Emperor moved, Jhin saw something else.

In that stern face, in those unflinching eyes—

There was regret.

Something sorrowful, wild, and helpless screamed from within as the Emperor fixed his gaze on him.

And then—

He struck.

"Struggle all you want."

Schaang—!

The Emperor's massive greatsword came crashing down faster than thought.

Jhin instinctively raised the Meteor Sword of Calamity, clashing steel to steel.

He activated Soft skills without hesitation and locked into combat stance.

"Come at me with everything you've got… Show me your limits!"

Chaeaaang! Clang!

Each second fractured into dozens of slivers, and even those slivers demanded precision to perceive.

That was the only way to even see the Emperor's strikes.

He was barelyPowerging to stay upright inside that storm of blade and momentum.

But not all attacks could be blocked.

"Kgh…!"

[Skill: 'Hyper Regeneration (F)' activated.]

The regeneration kicked in, but the wounds were deep—too deep to vanish right away.

More injuries stacked up. He was forced to retreat, breath ragged.

'Too fast…'

In raw stats, they were likely close.

No doubt, the Emperor was monstrous, but Kyle was no pushover either.

What made the difference… was skill.

'Melvin—the Emperor of the Alon Empire, a Swordmaster.'

He wasn't just a ruler. He was a legend forged over decades.

His sword techniques far exceeded S-rank.

A slash that looked like it would come from the left suddenly cut from the right.

So masterful that even Soft skills struggled to keep up.

"Impressive, Kyle. My blade doesn't reach you easily."

"...Can't we end this now?"

"End this?"

"There's no need to destroy the world. Isn't this the place you've spent your entire life protecting?"

Once, the Emperor had stood at the vanguard, fighting to preserve the crumbling world against corruption and collapse.

It made no sense—for him to now serve the Vaccines.

The Emperor gave a faint laugh.

"Still dreaming, I see."

"No. I'm being completely realistic. There are ways. There are methods. The Vaccines aren't invincible."

"Indeed… your use of viruses was worth watching."

"Then—!"

But again the Emperor's sword danced.

Another cut. His shoulder split open, blood fanned in the air.

Grinding his teeth, Jhin summoned magic.

[Skill: 'Fireball (F)' activated.]

Low-tier magic. The power of a single orb wasn't worth much—

but there was no limit to how many could be cast.

Thousands of flaming spheres lit up the dungeon, swirling like a storm around the Emperor.

They struck with precision, like fangs biting into prey—

Fwoooooosh!

—but the Emperor cut them all away with a single swing.

Jhin had expected that.

Steeling himself, he closed the distance.

But the Emperor stopped him with a raised blade.

"This is where it ends."

"...What?"

"Even with methods and resistance, the end of this world cannot be stopped."

"You're saying that like it's fact—!"

"Because every server has an expiration date."

His voice was quiet. And tired.

"It doesn't matter what you do.

This world will collapse when its channel dies.

That's the end of it. Everything halts. Everything resets."

Jhin suddenly remembered the Moon Dungeon, Meteor of Calamity, where time itself had frozen.

Iru-ri had explained:

A dungeon stops functioning when its foundation is gone.

'A world without a pillar always collapses.'

And the Emperor kept going.

"Let's bring this to a close. As you can see… my people await my victory."

"...But Emperor, will destroying this world suddenly bring you a new option?"

"At the very least, it may preserve our lives."

"That makes no sense—!"

In that instant, the Emperor vanished—

And reappeared right before Jhin.

This strike was nothing like the ones before.

It was overwhelming. Fatal.

Like a mountain falling from the heavens.

"They say the blade of a true swordsman can split mountains."

['Melvin Alon' activates Skill: 'Mountain-Splitter (S)']

An S-class finisher.

The Emperor's swing looked slow.

But it wasn't.

It covered everything. The entire field was inside its range.

"Kyle… You've always stood in my way.

Do me a favor—and vanish for the world's sake."

"...What a load of crap."

Jhin roared and met the sword head-on with everything he had.

KWAANG! BOOM! KRRRACK!

The dungeon—barely holding shape—began to crack and shatter from the force of their clash.

The world itself groaned.

Reality twisted.

Stone split.

And amid the storm, something hidden began to emerge.

The object Ike had buried here.

The thing this entire dungeon had been made to protect.

The Kill Switch.

"Th-the Kill Switch!"

"We have to get it!"

Both the fanatics and the players, who had been watching, now surged forward.

Even though their goals differed, they all locked onto the same thing.

"Don't let them take it!"

But just then—

Something happened that no one had foreseen.

Not the Emperor.

Not Jhin.

Not even Administrator Ike.

Coincidence?

Fate?

No one knew.

[NPC 'Hawk Alon' has grabbed the Kill Switch.]

[Due to an 'Unknown Flow', NPC 'Hawk Alon' is fusing with the Kill Switch.]

And so, the worst became reality.

If you traced it back, everything had begun with a single command:

the order to assassinate Kyle, issued to an NPC named Hawk.

"We can't let players control this world any longer. It's already too late. We have to kill Kyle—before he grows any stronger."

"...Understood, Father."

Melvin Alon — a Swordmaster and the Emperor of an empire — had issued the order.

And the one who received it?

His own son, Hawk Alon.

It was a command to murder the very hero who had, until now, helped save their world.

But for them, it was justifiable.

An act carried out for the sake of the world itself.

"Only if we kill Kyle can we reclaim control. Only then can we reach the right ending..."

That was the "justice" the NPCs believed in.

But in the end—

Hawk Alon was overwhelmed.

Crushed by Kyle's overwhelming strength, he was killed that very day.

And so, the world fell.

And one person found their world crumbling beneath them: the administrator.

"I can't let it end like this. I have to find a way… That's it. I'll hide the Kill Switch."

Ike — the one who sensed the collapse before anyone else — moved quickly to hide the Kill Switch.

What he created then was a temporary dungeon, modeled after the "Final Dungeon."

It was the most recent one to be cleared, and thus the easiest for him to reproduce.

But that choice… turned out to be the problem.

[The soul of 'NPC Hawk Alon' is being drawn to an unknown flow.]

Though Hawk Alon had long since died, his soul had not yet fully disappeared.

Perhaps because he had been too important.

And so, his soul drifted—drawn straight into the temporary dungeon Ike had made,

a near replica of the ancient temple where he'd died.

And that wasn't all.

[Player 'Jhin' has activated 'Call of the Goblins'.]

A skill unleashed across the entire Black Ground.

Even Hawk's soul had been affected by it.

[NPC Hawk Alon responds to 'Call of the Goblins'.]

[!]

[The soul of NPC Hawk Alon swallows the Kill Switch under the influence of an unknown flow.]

All of it was coincidence.

And yet also—inevitable.

What mattered now was that these events, stacked on top of each other, had led to this very moment.

The worst possible outcome.

[NPC Hawk Alon lets out a roar!]

Jhin narrowed his eyes and swallowed hard.

"...Ha."

A monstrous presence.

Forming slowly before their eyes, the thing now called Hawk Alon radiated an energy that defied reason.

An NPC—once the central pillar of Exodia 1.

A being that was never meant to die.

And yet here he was—revived.

Having swallowed the Kill Switch, that terrifying power now scattered in every direction like a storm.

It made Jhin's skin crawl.

'Hawk's soul was still lingering...?'

That alone was hard to believe.

Wasn't it because he had died that the world had collapsed?

Now the world had collapsed, and yet the very man responsible for that chain reaction…

…was back.

It was absurd.

A cosmic joke.

A cruel black comedy.

'Damn it…'

The dungeon fell into a frozen silence.

Everyone's breath hitched. No one dared to speak.

Even the Emperor himself had gone pale.

He stared at Hawk as if seeing a ghost, reaching his hand forward as if it might somehow pull the truth closer.

"Hawk… Is that really you?"

—Krrrk?

[Skill: 'Crisis Detection (A)' has activated.]

The skill activated on its own.

Jhin didn't wait to find out why.

He dodged on instinct alone.

A beam of light flashed through the spot he had just vacated. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The Emperor barely avoided it as well, his eyes burning as he glared toward Hawk.

"What in the world…?!"

His voice trailed off.

Because what happened next—

Was something that shut everyone's mouths.

Tssssskt.

A strange buzz—and in the next moment, the fanatics nearby fell silent.

Or rather—

They were gone.

What remained of their lower bodies toppled to the floor with sickening thuds.

Perfectly clean severed cross-sections.

Gone—without even a scream.

Hawk's laser didn't just kill. It erased.

Different from the beams fired by the Vaccines, but no less terrifying.

And then—Hawk opened his mouth.

"I am…"

The voice was distorted.

Metallic. Robotic. Neither alive nor entirely artificial.

His eyes were unfocused, movements uncoordinated—like a broken machine or a zombie.

'...And the problem is—'

'Even in this state, he's strong.'

Stronger than Jhin and the Emperor combined?

No. That wasn't even the right scale anymore.

'Not enough… not nearly enough.'

Jhin felt it. Like he was standing in front of a god.

This wasn't the domain of humans.

His whole body rang with alarm, every hair on his skin standing straight up.

Crisis Detection continued flashing in his system.

'This is dangerous.'

This wasn't a warning. It was a funeral bell.

Death is right in front of me.

Breathe… steady yourself…

The only fortunate thing?

Hawk wasn't doing anything—yet.

He had only attacked once. Since then, he'd made no moves.

'Is he still disoriented?'

Jhin exhaled slowly, steadying his injured body.

He'd taken quite a few hits from the Emperor, but he could still move.

'First, assess the situation. Even in a tiger's den, you live if you keep your head on straight.'

To summarize:

Hawk Alon, long presumed dead, had somehow been revived.

Before anyone could process that, he had swallowed the Kill Switch.

Now the world teetered at the edge of annihilation.

Jhin examined Hawk from afar.

'Does he still have a mind of his own?'

He'd spoken—or tried to. That meant some trace of thought remained.

But everything about him—his gait, his focus, his voice—was wrong. Off.

'He's not human. But not a monster, either…'

One thing was certain:

He was not a friend to mankind.

He had fired that beam without a shred of hesitation—erasing multiple NPCs like they were insects.

'Maybe he remembers what I did to him…'

Because it had been Jhin who killed him.

And if Hawk remembered that…

then vengeance wasn't an illogical outcome.

"...Ahh."

But of everyone present, the one most shaken—

Was none other than Emperor Melvin Alon.

"Hawk…"

He had seen Hawk's corpse with his own eyes.

He had watched the world collapse because of it.

He had mourned his son.

Because he was not only the Emperor—

He was Hawk's father.

And now, that son—once dead—was standing again. Alive. And wrong.