“...”

Seeing the figure before him, Se-Hoon forgot how to speak.

That body, which looked as though countless shadows had been compressed together and was clad in immaculate white vestments without a speck of dust. Those slowly turning golden gears on the exposed right side of its chest. And... the wheel-shaped halo behind its back that shimmered with a golden light.

The giant clump of shadow—holy yet ominous, beautiful yet horrifying—was the unmistakable form of an enemy Se-Hoon could never forget.

“...The Destroyer of Moralities.”

The strongest of the Harbingers of Destruction: the one who had completely shattered the Human Alliance and played the decisive role in the world’s demise. Now, that nightmare incarnate was standing before him once again.

That has to be a fake. There’s no way it’s real. Se-Hoon forced his wildly pounding heart to calm.

Even if the Forest of Repetition was the place that had once given rise to the Destroyer of Moralities, that form should still be impossible. Telling himself that, Se-Hoon regained his composure and surveyed the surroundings that had changed the moment the figure appeared.

I’ve been moved to a different place... the others are gone too.

The frozen forest was now a cavern packed with mechanical devices, and the four who had been beside him only moments ago had vanished without a trace. But everything felt too realistic to be an illusion, yet too unreal to be real at the same time. It was as if... he alone had returned to the time before he regressed.

Se-Hoon frowned, trying to make sense of such a contradiction—

Ah.

A memory surfaced.

Right... this is where Offering created the Wheel of Severed Bonds.

It had been here that he had first confronted the Destroyer of Moralities back then. Knowing that, Se-Hoon finally had the last piece of the puzzle.

Am I inside my own memory then?

If he were in a world born from his memories, then both the Destroyer of Moralities appearing in its prime and the others vanishing made sense. And in that case...

Having assessed the situation, Se-Hoon ignored the Destroyer of Moralities and raised his hand like a blade, then thrust it straight into his own solar plexus.

Splurt-!

The pain was duller than usual; the flow of blood felt subtly different. He had confirmed it wasn’t reality. With certainty, Se-Hoon activated Dream Manifestation to awaken himself forcibly—

“Still as impatient as ever.”

The wheel-shaped halo glowing behind the Destroyer of Moralities’s back—the Golden Wheel—began rotating in reverse.

Swish-

Se-Hoon’s hand left his solar plexus, and the wound closed without leaving a trace. Everything returned to its starting point like time had reversed.

Se-Hoon’s expression stiffened.

This is...

He was in a place undoubtedly born from his memories, from his very own synesthetic mindscape. That meant that, at the very least, control over himself should not have been interfered with.

So how? How was the Destroyer of Moralities interfering with his actions?!

“Because this place isn’t your memory alone,” the Destroyer of Moralities said calmly at that moment, as if responding to his thoughts. “Just as you first met me here, I too first met you here. So, strictly speaking, this is our memory.”

Those words made Se-Hoon make a strange expression. His own memory had been mixed with a Harbinger of Destruction...? The implication sent a chill down his spine.

“Let’s stop talking about this for now. Once this conversation ends, you’ll naturally understand.”

“...”

“First... I should explain what kind of situation you’re currently in. Otherwise, you’ll just keep on trying to burst your heart or something.”

The Destroyer of Moralities’s featureless head rippled, seemingly smiling.

“As I said, this is a world within our memories. In reality, you’re standing blankly beside the young Three Dogs and Trailblazer. By now, they have probably noticed something strange as well.”

With its hands clasped behind its back, the Destroyer of Moralities began slowly walking clockwise around Se-Hoon.

“Next, what is our purpose here? Primarily, to remove you from the battlefield. At this point, there is essentially no one who can calculate a winning strategy against you.”

“Primarily.... In other words, there’s an objective beyond that.”

“A personal one, yes.”

The Destroyer of Moralities stopped, having completed a half-circle around Se-Hoon. In the next instant, the surrounding laboratory was washed away like waves and replaced by something new.

Instead of machines and cave walls, trees grotesquely twisted by demonic aura surrounded Se-Hoon as a sky stained with a riot of clashing colors formed above. Just a glance was enough to make the forest seem haphazardly fused together.

Examining the forest, Se-Hoon narrowed his eyes.

The Tinted Forest...

The place where he had encountered the Destroyer of Moralities for the second time—the corrupted forest where he had deliberately allowed his heart to be pierced and absorbed.

Like the Offering’s lab, the new location was another place where their memories overlapped...?

Se-Hoon’s expression hardened slightly.

“...”

An ominous realization had brushed past his mind. He ignored it—

“The reason I summoned you here is to show you a chain of causality you have yet to realize.”

“...”

The Destroyer of Moralities had stepped forward again, speaking the realization aloud for him.

“Where should we begin...? Let’s start with the changes that occurred to your unique skill, the Blacksmith of Bonds.”

The Destroyer of Moralities opened its right hand, and a dull-colored ore materialized above it, glowing faintly. Se-Hoon’s Fatestone—the Tainted Ore—had appeared in the Destroyer of Moralities’ palm.

“Originally, your unique skill merely turned bonds into ore. But after your regression, new derivative skills branched out from it.”

Bond Imprint: a skill that embedded a Fatestone directly into the body.

Bond Recreate: consume a Fatestone to reproduce memories and power.

Sever Bond: use a Fatestone to extract part of one’s soul.

All three were skills that had not existed before his regression; Se-Hoon hadn’t gotten a skill each time his own bond level increased previously.

“Why did such skills emerge? Blaming the regression alone is vague and illogical. I’m sure you already knew that too.”

The Destroyer of Moralities gently stroked the Tainted Ore... then his gentle whisper made it into Se-Hoon’s ears.

“Isn’t it far more likely that the true cause was a drastic change in your synesthetic mindscape, one severe enough to alter your unique skill, before your regression?”

Se-Hoon’s heart stopped for a split second. A realization he had overlooked—or perhaps deliberately avoided—had risen to the surface.

“Like... the day you and I became one.”

Whoosh!

The Destroyer of Moralities tossed the Tainted Ore upwards, which dissolved into noise midair before gathering in front of Se-Hoon’s eyes. That noise then settled and transformed into a status message—of the description of a specific skill.

[Soul of Samsara]『Unique』

[Having entered the cycle of Samsara, you have been granted the power to gather and cycle souls.

*You can kill a target and absorb their soul for use

*Soul Imprint: Allows you to equip souls to use freely

*Soul Recreate: Consume a soul to reproduce its memories and power

*Sever Soul: Use your own soul to extract a fragment of a soul

*Soul◼◼──]

“...”

Se-Hoon understood. The various skills that had branched out from his unique skill... did not originate from him. Those were permitted only to the Destroyer of Moralities, once the human Noah Campbell, and the Golden Wheel.

That which should have existed only once lay deep within his synesthetic mindscape.

“You...”

Se-Hoon glared at the Destroyer of Moralities.

“Now the cause and result of your unique skill’s transformation are clear. Let’s move on to the next causality.”

The Destroyer of Moralities turned to face him as the scenery changed once more.

Whoosh-

A vast black sea was churning below a pitch-black sky... Se-Hoon’s pupils trembled faintly. The desolate landscape where everything but he had been annihilated—his final memory before his regression.

“...So this memory is ours too?”

Se-Hoon was in disbelief. At that point, the Destroyer of Moralities should have been slain already. How could their memories even overlap?

The Destroyer of Moralities gazed out over the black sea.

“On that day, you looked upon the dying world and felt regret, which you forged into your Fatestone—your soul—and into a single dagger.”

The eyes of the Destroyer of Moralities lingered on one area, seemingly peering into Se-Hoon’s past... or maybe even its own.

“The colorless dagger pierced your heart, activating the synesthetic mindscape skill Return to Origin. And thus, like a miracle, you regressed thirty-one years into the past.”

“...”

“However... do you truly believe such a result was possible through a miracle alone?”

“Miracles” were simply phenomena that resulted due to the Golden Ring’s direct intervention. For example, the powers of Perfect Ones or the destructive force of Harbingers of Destruction.

Yet, despite the level of such miracles... it still didn’t seem enough to fully explain Se-Hoon’s regression.

“Your regression was an act bordering on omnipotence, something even Perfect Ones and Harbingers of Destruction could not imitate. Why, then, did such an event occur for someone without qualifications?”

The Destroyer of Moralities slowly raised a hand, its finger pointing at Se-Hoon’s chest.

“The answer is simple: at that moment... you—no, we—already had the key to make it all happen.”

Se-Hoon’s gaze followed the fingertip downward, and his gaze slowly landed on the dagger that was now embedded in his solar plexus.

“...”

The colorless dagger, devoid of power, seemed unchanged. His hand reached out instinctively and grasped its hilt, prompting a noise-filled message to appear.

[Wheel of Severed Bonds]

[Tier: Mythical] [Quality: Perfect] 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

[A divine weapon forged from the unification of eighty-four thousand souls.

By unifying souls that failed to reach ascension, it can artificially elevate their rank.

*Can unify souls that failed to reach ascension to raise them to that realm

*Unified souls outside the range of influence will separate again

*Grants usage of ‘Flawless Circle of Completion’]

The Mythical-tier weapon created by Offering before the regression and later claimed by the Destroyer of Moralities was in his hands? But how—

The moment the question arose in his head, the answer had already inadvertently slipped from Se-Hoon’s lips.

“When we unified... was that when?”

The Destroyer of Moralities had absorbed the Wheel of Severed Bonds into himself to prevent its destruction. Then, Se-Hoon had merged his soul with it. So, in that case, when the Destroyer of Moralities was slain while he was revived... the ownership had naturally transferred over to him.

If that’s true...

Then the regret he had forged at the end was not his alone—

“...It was the regret of all of us.”

Se-Hoon lifted his head. Sung-Ha, Luize, Amir, Eun-Ha, Kwang-Soo, Manuel, and countless other familiar faces. Heroes he had once established bonds with or had fought alongside him in the Human Alliance. Tens of thousands of people had surrounded him and the Destroyer of Moralities.

“These are the eighty-four thousand heroes who either formed bonds with you or were slain and absorbed by me. They all flowed into you along with the Wheel of Severed Bonds.”

“...”

“At the time, your synesthetic mindscape was too rigid, making the proper unification with them fail. Like that, everything was about to end—until you changed.”

During the final moments before total annihilation, Se-Hoon had poured his unspoken regret into the forging of the Wheel of Severed Bonds. That regret had then become the guiding force for the eighty-four thousand souls.

In the face of a world being consumed, they all shared a single desperate wish: to flee from a doomed future, escaping the present despair, by reclaiming the infinite possibilities of the past—to return everything to the origin.

“...”

Connecting all the dots, Se-Hoon froze from the shock. However... there was a new doubt that surfaced.

Wait... even if everyone’s wish completed the Wheel of Severed Bonds and activated the Flawless Circle of Completion, it’s still just a power... isn’t it?

Regression was a power that denied the Golden Ring, the world itself; it was an almost omnipotent reversal of time and space. To activate it required not only power rivaling the Golden Ring but also something that could neutralize the Golden Ring...?

“!!!”

It was then that Se-Hoon realized it. A look of horror flashed across his face as the Destroyer of Moralities burst into laughter.

“As you have come to understand, a single power alone wasn’t enough. So what was the remaining piece? Let’s return to the very beginning.”

Thump.

His heart beat.

“Before the regression, our souls were unified. I, the Destroyer of Moralities, was slain while you, Lee Se-Hoon, were revived.”

Thump!

An identical heartbeat echoed—indistinguishable from the previous one.

“However, once souls have been mixed... do you truly believe they can be perfectly separated?”

An inseparable existence born from two becoming one.

“At present, you may be closer to Lee Se-Hoon. But I do not desire such ambiguous distinctions.”

The Destroyer of Moralities took a step forward. At that moment, a strange resonance echoed from both of their chests.

Woong-

The source for each was the same: their hearts, their very souls.

“That is why I waited. For you to come to this forest; for an impossible contradiction to occur.”

The final piece needed to complete the regression. The unique skills inherited from the Destroyer of Moralities. The origin of the Wheel of Severed Bonds. The talent of a soon-to-be Harbinger of Destruction that never existed before the regression.

All results converged toward a single cause.

Woong!

From both of their chests, a dark crimson core emerged: the Harbinger Shard passed down from the Destroyer of Moralities and the Harbinger Shard carried by the post-regression Golden Wheel.

Two seeds, both born from the Forest of Repetition, reacted violently to the other that should not exist.

“This time, we shall truly become one, Warhound!!”

“Get the hell away from me, you bastard!”

BOOOM!

The Destroyer of Moralities and Se-Hoon collided head-on.