Chapter 213
The lightning in my sword slashed through the air sharply.
The remnants of the current scattered in all directions, exploding like small fireworks and melting away in the air. Kang Hye-rim bit her lip, displeased with the sight.
‘I need to focus more.’
It had been about a week since she received training from Seo Sumin.
Seo Sumin, who had an exceptional eye for martial arts, clearly suggested a way for Kang Hye-rim to become stronger quickly.
-Hye-rim unnie’s power is strong. Her talent for swordsmanship is undeniable.
For Seo Sumin, teaching Kang Hye-rim was perhaps the easiest thing to do. She could teach her the sword skills that she had not yet realized through sparring, and the Heavenly Thunder Sword that she possessed was not comparable to the Seven Demon Black Heaven Divine Skill right now, but it was enough to have a power that matched it if it grew well.
-What unnie needs right now is the adjustment of power. The lightning is strong. But unnie is not controlling that power perfectly, but rather, just letting it go as the power wants.
Kang Hye-rim could not refute that.
Seo Sumin’s words accurately pointed out the anxiety that she had been harboring deep in her heart unconsciously.
When the faint thing that she could not grasp took shape and appeared before her eyes, she felt helpless.
The Heavenly Thunder Sword was powerful. But she could not confidently say that she was ‘perfectly’ using this technique.
Kang Hye-rim had not used the Heavenly Thunder Sword so far because of her perfect control over that power.
Rather, she compromised with the fierce and predatory power of the Heavenly Thunder Sword, and just made a ‘path’ for it to jump.
Crunch.
Kang Hye-rim clenched her teeth and entered the control of energy.
This would not do. She could not use her power ‘half-heartedly’ like this. She would only hold Yu-hyeon back.
And also lose her memory at some point, and hurt her comrades.
Because she was not there at that time
Stupidly affected by a mental attack and wasted time
So Yu-hyeon almost died.
Zap!
The lightning that swung became stronger.
The lightning that tried to run wild outside the sword gradually calmed down and flowed along the blade.
Kang Hye-rim sweated profusely, focusing on suppressing the energy.
She thought she had succeeded in controlling the power, but
Crackle!
“Ugh!”
Kang Hye-rim lost her grip on the sword due to the lightning that ran wild again.
She thought she would succeed this time, but it was another failure.
It had been a week since she was stuck in the same place. Kang Hye-rim’s impatience reached its peak.
‘This won’t do. I can’t be a burden forever.’
She felt it when she looked at Kwon Jia and Seo Sumin. Would they really need her like this?
Did she really deserve to stand by Yu-hyeon’s side? Wasn’t she unnecessary now?
She might be abandoned again. Like her mother left her.
That day, Kang Hye-rim told Kwon Jia that she did not remember, but that was a lie.
She remembered. What her nightmare was, what she did.
She could not come to her senses from self-hatred that ate away at her heart like a worm eating leaves.
Others were already moving forward, but she felt like she was standing still in one place.
No. It was not even standing still.
She was running away from something. Without even knowing what was chasing her, she was just a coward who ran away desperately with fear.
Kang Hye-rim asked herself.
What am I running from and where am I escaping to?
What is at the end of this escape?
Thud.
“…”
At the moment when all her distractions reached their peak, paradoxically, what Kang Hye-rim thought of was not the man who reached out his hand to her, but Kwon Jia’s figure.
The image of her back, silently sweating, but never stopping her training.
Why did that stubborn image, which she had glimpsed a few times as she passed by, suddenly project vividly in front of her eyes?
Her soul showed her the perfect wall that she wanted to overcome the most at this moment.
The wall was clear and sharp.
Kang Hye-rim gripped her sword.
There was only one thing she could learn from Kwon Jia.
To never stop, to have a purpose and a will, and to work hard.
Ssssh. Hoo.
Kang Hye-rim took a breath, calmed her mind.
Let’s not think about anything else for now.
The only thing she thought of was a firm image.
It was a snare to suppress the beast of rage that was raging inside her body.
Zzzzzz.
Lightning flowed through the sword. It did not burst out, but rather wrapped around the sword like a thin membrane.
Immediately after, the shape collapsed again due to the raging energy inside her, but Kang Hye-rim felt her head clear for the first time.
It was a miracle of an instant, not even a second long.
But she found a clue for the first time.
Finally, Kang Hye-rim realized the path she had to take.
‘I have to work harder, so that I won’t be a burden to anyone, so that I can stand proudly by his side.’
Ding!
What came to her then was an unexpected notification.
***
There was no one related to the Collector who did not see the message.
It came to everyone who had the Genesis system, regardless of age or gender.
[The dimension ‘Earth’ has entered the next phase.]
[The concept of sponsorship becomes more expansive.]
[The stories that make up the world become more clear.]
[The ‘erosion’ of the worldviews occurs.]
[The stories that can be used are expanded.]
[Time left until the phase: 7 days]
Yu-hyun’s face lost its expression as he checked the message window.
“Wha, what? What is this?”
“Next phase? What does that mean all of a sudden?”
“Did something happen?”
The students were confused by the unfamiliar situation.
It was the same for everyone else.
Even Lim Gunwoo, who would not be surprised by anything, could not hide his bewilderment as this was his first time experiencing this.
Lim Gunwoo approached Yu-hyun and asked him quietly.
“Hyung. What’s going on here? Do you know anything?”
“I’m new to this too.”
Yu-hyun wondered why this had happened.
‘Could it be because of the Paradise Land?’
That was probably the most likely reason.
The havoc that the Paradise Land had caused was enough to shake the mixed world.
The evaluation of Earth had changed because of that influence.
‘The Paradise Land did something similar in my previous life. But they didn’t get caught because they handled it cleanly. But this time it’s different. I intervened and the Paradise Land failed to kill Sumin, and their secret crimes were exposed.’
The Paradise Land was the one who committed the fundamental evil, but Yu-hyun was the one who made the situation grow bigger by interfering.
Yu-hyun looked around.
The students, as well as the instructors who were collectors, were bewildered by the unexpected announcement of change.
Celine contacted Yu-hyun, who had been watching the situation.
-Senior. Can you hear me? There’s a problem.
‘Yeah, Celine. I’m very confused right now too. What’s going on? Do you know anything?’
-A document came from the central office a while ago.
‘From the central office?’
-Yes. I’ll send it to you now.
‘Oh, thank you. I got it.’
Yu-hyun checked the document that came through the Genesis Network and read it quickly.
The document was not long. But that didn’t mean that its meaning and value were low because there was little written.
Yu-hyun finished reading the [Next Phase Guide for Dimensional Earth] from the central office, closed the window, and immediately contacted Kwon Jia.
‘Jia.’
-…Yeah. I’m very confused too.
‘Let’s talk about it later. Everyone else too.’
-Okay.
Yu-hyun ended the call and had a hard time finding a clue on how to react to this sudden change.
He was worried about the new future that had never existed before, but at the same time, he felt excited.
The world began to change in a different direction.
Would it be better than before?
Or would it go down a much more serious path?
He would only know when that moment came.
***
[There is a lot of controversy over the message window that appeared to collectors around the world recently.]
The TV kept talking about the message that came to the collectors this time.
It was the same no matter which channel he switched to.
All channels related to news only dealt with this situation.
Prominent scholars and professors came out and debated for hours, and rumors that could not be verified circulated on internet community sites and such.
It was as if an indistinct devil was manipulating this situation from behind.
‘It’s noisy in many ways.’
Yu-hyun turned off the TV.
He didn’t think he would get any new information by continuing to watch it.
He already knew roughly how the situation would unfold through the document from the central office, so it might be better to focus on something else instead.
“Are you all here?”
He asked for confirmation, but he already knew.
No one knew better than White Flower Management how serious this situation was.
“Mr. Yu-hyun. What is going on all of a sudden?”
Baek Seo-ryeon, who had been feeling a bit relaxed as her workload had decreased recently, expressed her deep concern about the unexpected situation that had arisen like a goblin.
Yu-hyun quickly explained the situation briefly, knowing that everyone was looking at him.
“As you all know, something amazing happened yesterday. In seven days. No, in six days, the Earth will undergo a change.”
“What kind of change are you talking about?”
“The Earth will be more influenced by the genesis system.”
“How exactly?”
“Right now, the Earth is hardly affected by the genesis system. Would you believe me if I said that even the phenomenon that was called the Day of Thought Integration, which was a huge shock for the Earth, was nothing but a taste of the genesis system?”
Yu-hyun scanned the audience.
Everyone was mesmerized by Yu-hyun’s words and couldn’t take their eyes off his mouth.
“That limit will be loosened this time. More than now.”
“How much more?”
Kwon Jia asked.
The situation was unexpected even for her, who was a returnee, so she was quite curious.
“I don’t know the details either. But if the Earth has been affected by 10% of the total so far, I think it might jump to 40% with this one.”
Yu-hyun finished his rough calculation.
He knew the future when the Earth was ‘completely’ integrated into the genesis system.
That was the end of the world called Phase Apocalypse.
It wasn’t hard to analyze based on that.
“Hmm.”
The wrinkle on Kwon Jia’s forehead deepened.
She also had a rough idea of what level 40% was.
Yu-hyun continued his explanation.
“The biggest change would be, of course, the level of support that the Divine Spirits can give. Until now, it was only limited to points, but this time, the restriction will be reduced considerably. If you’re lucky, the Divine Spirits might even give you ‘stories’ directly.”
“Then what is ‘erosion’ exactly?”
Kang Hye-rim, who had been silent until then, opened her mouth.
The phenomenon of erosion was also a topic that everyone here was curious about.
“Erosion is… literally erosion. The erosion of Worlds of Thought. The stories of those worlds start to eat away at reality.”
“Are you saying that some worlds of thoughtgo berserk?”
“It’s not well known, but there have been similar things to erosion before. Some thought worlds, if no one touches them, will have their phantasms spill out to the outside. You all know that, right?”
Everyone nodded their heads.
The era of thought integration was the greatest upheaval in human history.
That’s when collectors appeared and thought worlds were created, and phantasms popped out from inside them.
“Some thought worlds are harmless even if you leave them alone. The Labyrinth of Minotaurus, where the minotaur dwelled, was like that. On the other hand, there are places where if you don’t periodically eliminate phantasms, they multiply and come out of the thought world. Well, now they’ve become collectors’ point farming grounds.”
For collectors, thought worlds where phantasms multiplied endlessly were endless sources of points.
And that had been fixed for years and led to the association setting up boundaries, and it had reached the level of an unwritten rule that should not be touched.
“But that’s over now. When ‘erosion’ occurs, the thought world will eat away at reality and gradually materialize.”
If you don’t clear the swamp thought world, it will be eroded by swamp from the entrance.
If you don’t clear the oceanic thought world, that area will become a sea of water.
What this meant was that humanity no longer had time to spare.
The world would change like that in six days.
“You have to prepare yourselves. The changing world won’t wait for us.”
The world still didn’t give them any rest.