“...Judging by how you keep bringing up pointless crap, you must be pretty desperate.”

—Well, unlike you guys, I’m actually an intellectual! If there’s even a sliver of common ground, making peace isn’t exactly hard—even with someone I was just fighting~

Hearing Tuner’s playful tone, Se-Hoon immediately mocked him. “So then, if that common ground stops lining up, you’d betray me without hesitation even if we just made up?”

—Let’s not state the obvious. Neither of us has time for that.

Se-Hoon stared at the speaker, then slid a glance at Aria to ask if there was anything suspicious nearby. Unfortunately, though, Aria shook her head slightly upon understanding what he meant.

He really contacted us using only speaker...

Was it because he was wary of being tracked through mana? Or had he lost that ability himself after creating a world without mana? If the Demon King’s words were any indication, it was probably closer to the latter... but then again, considering how imperfect Hiranyagarbha was, it was hard to be certain.

For now... I’ll just buy time to think.

Tuner had to understand that it was their last chance to have such a conversation. Considering that, Se-Hoon just stared at the speaker in silence.

And as expected, Tuner’s voice resounded once more.

—Let’s get back to the point. I think the world outside here, the world created by the Golden Ring, has far too many problems.

“Problems... like the Towers of Heroes and the Abyss of Demons?”

—More precisely, the system that produced those two.

Click-

Every large screen in the conference room clicked on simultaneously, showing countless photos and videos on the giant displays: countless scenes of places reduced to wastelands in the crossfire of humanity’s war with the Demon Force. Every location had been ravaged violently enough to reshape the terrain itself, and some were polluted beyond recovery.

Like he had been waiting to show it all, Tuner continued without missing a beat.

—Even before the emergence of the Towers and all, there were plenty of weapons capable of creating scenes like this. But those were weapons owned by groups, not individuals. Even if someone wanted to pull the trigger, countless people’s desires were so tightly tangled together that it wasn’t so easy.

“...”

—However... what about now? If a hero falls to his inner demons or some stray demon pulls the trigger on impulse... Boom! A city is erased just like that.

Swish-

On the screens, incident after incident committed by heroes and demons streamed past without end. Some were deliberate crimes, some accidents. Some were even disasters that the perpetrators themselves hadn’t wanted.

—If I say, ‘It’s been fifty-five years since the emergence of the Towers of Heroes, so why haven’t they produced a solution?’ the people involved would feel wronged, no?

Hero crimes were a worldwide headache—a hard problem that nations and the Hero Association alike couldn’t solve even if they desperately wanted to. Countless technologies and laws had been developed to respond, but in the end, not one fully fixed the issue.

After all, in the first place, those “solutions” weren’t safety locks but ways to minimize the damage after the trigger had already been pulled.

—At the very least, this isn’t because the nations around the world or the Hero Association are incompetent. No, it’s a more fundamental problem—a problem born from humans gaining mana and becoming strong enough to transcend common sense.

By challenging the trials in the Towers of Heroes and fighting against the Abyss of Demons, humans were slipping away from a “human.” What was once defined no longer holds, making pre-existing systems, everyday life, and even the environment also fall out of alignment.

—The first-generation heroes took this problem extremely seriously. Unlike you all who were born after it all happened, they were born before it—and thus understood exactly how terrifying the ‘monster’ that they’d become was.

The screens flickered and switched to heroes whose bodies had mutated due to mana and demons that had been grotesquely warped by demonic aura. To Se-Hoon’s group, the latter looked more unsettling than the former, but by any standards, both were monsters.

—Thus those heroes began various research projects in the light and shadows to keep the new monstrous humanity from destroying Earth. And you know? That gathering of theirs became the origin of the Watchers.

“...!”

Se-Hoon’s eyes wavered at that reveal. The origin of the madmen who had ruined countless lives—even desecrated corpses—had been... a grand cause meant to protect the world?

“What a pathetic story.”

“Seriously.”

As previous test subjects of Succession, both Eun-Ha and Aria sneered in irritation but didn’t press further. The past was the past, and thanks to Se-Hoon’s help, they had no lingering attachments since their grudges had already been cleanly settled.

—Well, that was only the beginning. They went rotten in the blink of an eye, which was quite fitting for researchers who tossed morality and ethics in the trash. Actually, I liked that better—

“One more pointless tangent and we’re done.”

Silenced by Se-Hoon’s interjection, Tuner quickly got back on track.

—...Okay, okay. Anyway, after a lot of research, they concluded that as long as the individuals’ control over their powers improved and Earth’s environment kept being reinforced by mana, humanity could hold out until space expansion began.

At that moment, Tuner snickered.

—Until they appeared.

The various information pages filling the screens vanished, replaced by only seven photos distributed across the monitors.

A sea, split all the way to the ocean floor, separated into a grid.

A desert, stained in vivid colors, turned into a flowing river.

A volcano, actively burning, yet smothered in transparent flames.

A meteor, in countless species, shattered by a single arrow.

A city, swallowed by an endless darkness, filled with resurrected dead.

A mountain range, riddled with hundreds of holes, reduced to rags.

A battlefield, covered in gold, on which countless miracles occurred.

If the earlier images had been depictions of simple destruction, the seven images before them now—the landscapes created by the seven Perfect Ones—were revolutionary.

Power so overwhelming it twisted not only humans but the world that had given it to them itself. Facing transcendence, the Watchers realized far too late just how arrogant and foolish they’d been.

—If it’s the age of superhumans, you can still adapt and endure somehow. The age of the transcendent, though? Against those beings that rewrite the laws of the world as easily as editing a sentence in a novel?

“...”

—Don’t you see? Even if the war ends, even if every creation born from the Abyss disappears, true peace won’t come. If anything, you could say the age of the transcendent actually starts now. You, Lee Se-Hoon, have sown the seeds of Blessings into monsters.

Among billions of monsters, only seven had barely awakened to transcendent enlightenment—and now their ominous knowledge had been distributed to them all. How many Perfect Ones would be born from here on? How many new laws would be added?

“...”

Se-Hoon could say nothing. He’d had the same conversation with Baek-Yeon before.

If a Harbinger of Destruction is a bad ending... then a Perfect One going out of control is an early ending.

Baek-Yeon had feared Perfect Ones going berserk far more than the birth of a new Harbinger of Destruction, making her pour all her power into creating a future where no new Perfect Ones could be born.

And now, Tuner was offering a different solution for the same reason.

—The easiest method would be for the Golden Ring to modify its own system. Yet it does nothing. It’s omnipotent but ignorant. A broken god that grants wishes mechanically.

“...That’s why you’re going to create a new god?”

—Isn’t that the natural flow? If a component is the problem, you replace that component. If the person in charge is the problem, you replace that person. For that ignorant god known as the Golden Ring, it is only natural to swap it out with a god who will guide the world in the right direction.

Return humanity to human. Delete the pollutant known as mana. Erase the Towers and the Abyss. If everything were reversed to the point before it all appeared, the chaos would disappear. True peace would only come then.

—What do you think?

If everything he’d said was true, the Tuner’s solution couldn’t be called outright terrible. In fact, no one understood better than Se-Hoon—a regressor—how dangerous a Perfect One’s power was and how flimsy the Golden Ring’s world could be.

And yet, he could answer without hesitation all the same.

“It’s a pathetic answer.”

Sure, if he were a first-generation hero, they might have sympathized and joined hands for the greater cause.

But he wasn’t.

To Se-Hoon, who had been born into the world of so-called chaos, Tuner’s argument wasn’t even worth considering.

“You’re merely denying everything that came after just to run back to the past. Convenient. Narrow-minded.”

—Oh? Sometimes it’s better to go back to the beginning and start over than to patch things halfway. You did that too, didn’t you?

“Yeah. Maybe. Still, to me, your answer sounds like nothing but fear: you’re running away from the future.”

Staring into the giant screen—seemingly straight at Tuner—Se-Hoon calmly declared his final answer.

“Like you said, this world is chaotic. If there hadn’t been the restraint of the Perfect Ones and an external enemy like the Abyss of Demons, it might’ve become something even worse.”

A world of superhumans who absolutely worshipped their own synesthetic mindscapes and values? Se-Hoon had seen with his very own eyes how horrific that could become before he regressed.

That’s why he could somewhat sympathize with Tuner. Yet he still refused completely.

“But we never gave up. We overcame the trials that came with the chaos, pushed forward into the future, and kept trying to find a path where everyone can be happy.”

—...

“So I can’t agree with your answer. And worshipping a madman who treated humans like consumables as god? That’s even more impossible.”

—...

Silence fell.

—Hm. You’re right.

“...What?”

—You’re right. Why? Did you expect me not to admit it?

When the unexpected reply came after a brief pause, Se-Hoon’s eyes narrowed, which made Tuner let out a small laugh.

—I don’t think my answer is the absolute truth. If I had to put it into words, it’s the second-best option. Like, ‘If we’re leaving the Golden Ring as god, then I’d rather become god myself.’ About that level.

“...”

—But when I actually tried, it didn’t really work out. So I proposed it to you instead. I asked if you’d consider becoming the new god.

Se-Hoon’s eyes widened in realization. With all the shocking revelations, he’d completely forgotten one crucial fact: Tuner had never once said he would become the new god. He’d only ever proposed making Se-Hoon into one.

Realizing his misunderstanding belatedly, Se-Hoon immediately asked, “Why me?”

—Just like how the Perfect Ones can be swayed by a moment of enlightenment and mistake their own wish, we could make the same mistake. That’s why what the new god needs isn’t the arrogance of treating their enlightenment as truth.

“...”

—They need the humility to look back on their mistakes. And the power to return those mistakes to zero.

Se-Hoon understood now.

In short, if someone else replaced the Golden Ring to become the new god, one day they might make a mistake that would destroy the world. He, however, possessed the power of Regression. If he made a mistake, then he could not only undo it, but he could even fix everything and lead the world toward a better direction.

—You said you can’t agree with my answer, right? You don’t have to agree. If anything, that’s the correct answer!

Someone who seeks godhood is arrogant, not trustworthy. In turn, someone who has the qualifications and still refuses is cautious and therefore can be trusted.

Everything from Tuner abandoning his plan to become a god himself, dragging Se-Hoon in and creating the current situation, had merely proven Tuner right.

“...You lunatic.”

—Why, thank you. If there’s no countermeasure for the Golden Ring, I think this is the most rational option...

Tuner trailed off, having suddenly remembered something.

—Also, if you trust the Visionary’s plan over mine, I’d suggest carefully thinking it over again. The happiness that hag defines might not match yours.

He, nor anyone else, would ever be able to understand the Visionary’s synesthetic mindscape and values. With the ignorant god as well, no one knew what disasters it could bring.

So if there was an answer, the only one was to climb into that seat yourself and build the world directly.

“...”

Se-Hoon looked at the comrades beside him. Eun-Ha, then Aria, then Terra—there wasn’t a trace of the initial disgust they had at first. Their eyes said it clearly: If it’s a world you make, we can trust it.

That sure is a heavy look to give someone.

Faintly chuckling due to that overwhelming trust, Se-Hoon turned back to the screen.

“Sorry, but still no.”

—Hmm. Why?

“I’m not some amazing person fit for a grand job like ‘god.’ My calling is being a laid-back blacksmith who’s holed up in my workshop, dealing with regular customers.”

His very roots, which had brought him so far, were what kept him grounded even now.

Denied a second time, Tuner went quiet.

—Yeah. I knew you’d answer like that.

His satisfied voice resounded.

RUMBLE-

The conference hall shook violently. At that instant, Se-Hoon’s senses—which had been constantly monitoring outside—suddenly warped.

“Ugh?!”

The building they were in and the space beyond it split, each moving at a starkly different speed. The time dilation made Se-Hoon’s vision swim.

Slash!

Reacting first, Aria swung her sword at the wall and split it like paper, tearing open a massive gap—which revealed a strange landscape unfolding beyond it.

RUMBLE!

In the sky, the sun and moon cycled at a terrifying speed, tracing ring-like trajectories. Below, the cityscape repeatedly shattered and regenerated, changing over and over.

A single instant—less than a second—raced by at the pace of a day, a week, a month, then a year. And when that acceleration abruptly ended, a colossal barrier and countless weapons appeared, surrounding the building as if laying siege to Se-Hoon’s group.

“That’s... mana?”

There was still no mana in the air, but outside of the barrier that blocked their view, there were clearly weapons radiating enormous mana that were aimed at them.

In the face of such an imminent assault, everyone tensed. And it was at that moment that Tuner’s voice returned.

—I was lacking the technical edge to fight you guys head-on, so I sped some things a little. Well, I still can’t win like this, but... I can probably buy some time.

Woong-

A heavy tremor echoed from somewhere beyond the horizon, making Se-Hoon’s expression harden. That powerful wave that felt like it pierced the entire planet... was similar to something he had experienced before.

Almagest?

The singularity of celestial magic and hextech that he’d completed with Lea in Puppeteer’s world: the planet-scale spell that used the entire planet as the ritual’s framework.

Tuner reproducing such a thing... filled Se-Hoon with a horror that rose within him.

—Like I said earlier, you don’t need to agree with my will. If anything, the more you refuse, the better. The correct answer is for you to be shoved onto the divine seat by me in that exact state.

Tuner’s voice resonated with laughter.

“You’re awfully disrespectful for someone saying you’ll worship me as a god.”

—Worshiping is a one-way street. I’ll repent later, and you can forgive me appropriately!

Rumble-

Countless weapons locked onto Se-Hoon, and the entire planet shook as it prepared to forge a new god. Watching that scene from a building beyond the horizon, Tuner let out the happiest voice he’d used yet.

“Let’s write a new myth together~~!”