Cale, under invisibility magic, approached the wall.

The conversation between the guards and the Guides reached his ears.

“Damn it. What the hell is this? We’re the only ones suffering because of Hinpa. Now they’re telling us to go get even Hinpa’s share too? Does that make any sense? We already filled our assigned quota ages ago!”

“Exactly. But what can we do? You and I are the youngest here. No choice.”

The conversation between the two Guides was blunt.

“No matter what, telling us to go bring in sacrifices the day before the ritual? Does that make any sense?”

“Haah. Who knows. Ah, but since we had to bring them in so suddenly, I don’t think we managed to get proper ones.”

The day before the ritual.

That phrase reached Cale’s ears. So today really was the day of the ritual.

Glance.

Cale’s gaze went once more to the sky covered in gray fog.

Someone who looked like the guard captain approached the two grumbling Guides.

“Oh dear. Guides, you’ve worked very hard. We’ll take care of these sacrifices from here.”

“Fine. There’s no time left to bring in any more, so manage this group well.”

“Yes, Guide.”

Cale looked at the roughly ten humans who had been brought in.

People with different appearances and different clothing.

“......”

“......”

They were so terrified they could not say a single word.

‘They’re not NPCs. They’re not even semi-NPCs.’

And they weren’t users either.

They had literally been dragged here from outside the game.

-Cale. I think we may have discovered something important.

Just as the Ancient Tree said.

“@($! (%$)#$!”

At that moment, one of the people being dragged away by the guards raised his voice.

He screamed at the Guide.

It was a language system Cale could not understand.

-Cale.

The only one who had come with him, Eruhaben, spoke.

He too was under invisibility magic.

-If I’m right, this is bad.

But the ancient dragon did not continue.

The guard captain walked up to the man.

“You bastard, how dare a mere sacrifice raise your voice at a Guide?”

Smack.

The guard captain swung his club at the man.

“That’s enough.”

“Ah, Guide.”

“Tsk. What are you going to do if the sacrifice gets damaged and the ritual can’t be properly held later?”

“Ah. I’m sorry!”

One of the Guides turned away from the bowing guard captain, and the other Guide walked up beside him.

Looking at the man who was being bound by the guards and still glaring this way, he spoke.

“Take good care of this one. He’s got good eyes. It’s always guys like this who survive until the very end.”

Then he turned his gaze and asked the other Guide,

“But what’s he saying? Isn’t he one from your world?”

“Heh.”

The Guide who heard the question barely held back his laughter as he answered.

“He’s asking if this wasn’t supposed to be a contract. Says why I lied to him.”

“You brought him here on a contract instead of kidnapping him?”

“Yeah. He’s a pretty famous knight, but apparently he desperately needed money for his daughter’s treatment. So I put in an escort request, and he followed right away.”

“Oh. Then he’ll fight well later.”

“Yeah. He’ll fight all the harder because he feels wronged. Heh.”

The Guide who had stopped laughing gestured for the guard captain to step back.

“Guard captain, a moment.”

Then the Guide walked up to the man and whispered,

“@%()-. @%)^)^*!_).”

At those words, the look in the man’s eyes changed.

“......”

The man, biting his lip, was eventually dragged away in silence.

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him that if he takes first place in the fight tonight, I’ll not only cover his daughter’s treatment, I’ll also find him a doctor who can save her.”

The Guide who heard that answer gave a short, crooked laugh.

“You piece of trash.”

At that, the Guide who had brought the man over shrugged.

“Heh.”

Then he lightly spread both hands toward the sky as if raising them in offering.

“For the return of Chaos—”

Only when he said those words were the Guide’s eyes filled with sincerity.

A fierce longing for what he truly desired was written there.

“For the return of Chaos—”

“For the return of Chaos—”

The other Guide and the guards followed him in a short prayer.

“Then we’ll take them.”

The guard captain moved first, leading his men.

-I’ll follow them.

Eruhaben stepped forward.

-I’ll go find out where they’re locking these people up.

The ancient dragon left his spot, and Cale remained quietly near the Guides.

Duke Hinpa.

He had been quite strong.

Not as strong as that, but still considerably strong.

“Let’s go too.”

“Yeah.”

A few guards had remained by the gate for the bare minimum of security, and the two Guides headed that way.

Even as they walked, they kept talking.

“What the hell happened to Duke Hinpa?”

“Isn’t it obvious from what happened in the Lan Kingdom? He’s probably dead or something.”

“Mm. The saint will probably give us an answer soon.”

“All we have to do is obey that will properly.”

After saying that much, the Guide spoke in a scornful tone.

“If he died because he couldn’t even handle one fake kingdom, not even a real one, then Hinpa was an idiot. Strong, sure, but useless.”

“Still, don’t say that. There weren’t many with faith as strong as Duke Hinpa’s. And—”

At the words that followed, a strange light passed through Cale’s eyes.

“And now this place isn’t fake anymore either, is it?”

“True. That’s right.”

Grin.

The corner of the Guide’s mouth lifted.

“It is in the middle of becoming real.”

“Yeah. That’s why we’re bringing sacrifices in from outside.”

“True. It used to be a real pain. We had to register each one as an NPC or a user one by one. And to do that, we had to watch the hunters and trick them.”

As if utterly sick of it, the Guide shook his head from side to side.

“But that’ll be over soon too.”

“Yeah. Soon—”

The Guide’s gaze lifted to the sky.

The sky covered in gray fog.

“Soon, Chaos will descend.”

“Yeah. And we’re building the ground for that time.”

Still looking at the sky, the Guide murmured,

“O Chaos—”

With that, the two of them vanished through the gate.

Cale watched without going through the gate, then went back into the forest.

“How did it go?”

By the time Cale returned to the forest, his invisibility had already come undone.

A magic circle.

That was because Eruhaben had arranged it so that the invisibility magic would naturally be dispelled the moment someone entered the magic circle where the others were waiting.

“They were Guides and sacrifices.”

To Alberu’s question, Cale relayed exactly what he had seen and heard.

“My.”

Rosalyn could not hide her dismay.

“So today is the Night of Pleasure.”

Even so, her eyes were rippling deeply. She was clearly thinking about what had to be done.

“Cale.”

And Alberu reacted to one part of it.

“It’s becoming real?”

The conversation the two Guides had shared.

That was what he focused on.

The Heavenly Demon was the same.

“It sounds like this place is no longer a virtual reality, but is becoming a real world.”

Alberu picked that up and continued,

“That would make sense. After all, the enemies’ true desire was to create the Absolute God and turn this New World into a real dimension, making it their own absolute domain.”

“I think that’s right.”

Cale nodded.

“But Cale.”

Rosalyn joined the conversation.

“How is that possible?”

She did not hide her confusion.

“The system governs this world, yes, but I accept that it can’t see everything. Looking at everything that has happened so far, there have been many things that took place outside the system’s judgment.”

No one countered her question.

“But leaving science and magic aside, is it really possible to make this world real? Didn’t you say that even divine relics can’t connect here?”

That was right. Cale had not been able to use the mirror, the divine relic of the God of Death, in here, which was why he had only been able to contact the God of Death after going to the Third District.

“Ah.”

At that moment, Alberu let out a quiet exclamation.

It was also an exclamation filled with realization.

“Then how does the power of the God of Chaos exist in this place?”

The moment he said that, a strange light flashed through Rosalyn’s and the Heavenly Demon’s eyes as well.

“!”

“......!”

Some realization had just brushed past them.

Raising My Precious Absolute God.

That game looked as though it had severed reality and virtual reality, but in many places, the outside and inside were connected.

Then Cale spoke.

“I’ll have to confirm the exact details with the God of Death later. But I came up with one guess.”

Cale’s eyes sank deeply.

He retraced everything they had recorded up to now.

“The enemies.”

The hunter families.

The Demon Realm.

The forces of the God of Chaos.

“They dragged countless living beings into this game by sacrificing them.”

That had been true of the laboratory made by the Transparent Blood family.

It had been true of the demonfolk disappearing in the Demon Realm.

And it had been true of the sacrifices being dragged in by the Order of the God of Chaos.

“I thought that was all for the sake of the Absolute God.”

The Absolute God was inside this game.

The game’s title itself was Raising My Precious Absolute God. And there had to be a reason the Wanderers of the Five Colored Blood remained here.

Cale believed that somewhere in this place existed the one who would become the Absolute God.

“That’s why I thought they had offered countless lives as sacrifices for the birth of the Absolute God.”

The one who would become the Absolute God.

He had heard, through Kang Geunmok, the secretary to the chairman of Transparent Co., how that being consumed humans.

“But there are also lives in this world that were not offered as sacrifices.”

No one asked who he meant.

At the same time, his companions all thought first of one existence.

“Count Lupe of the Third Evil would be the most obvious example.”

Count Lupe.

He had not been offered to the Absolute God.

And yet he had been dragged into this game.

“There must be an enormous number of lives in this game that we still haven’t perceived. If that’s the case, then from that point on, wasn’t this place already no longer virtual?”

And not as simple data, but as something closer to souls.

Maybe real souls had been brought into this game.

Wasn’t there definitely some device the enemies had for moving souls in here?

Like the semi-NPC registration device.

‘Eruhaben Miru.’

That one was certainly an NPC, and yet it had a soul.

That too was proof that this world was not purely virtual.

“Could it be that, in order to make the world real, they’ve been bringing real lives into it?”

“Hm.”

The Heavenly Demon let out a low sound.

Cale spoke calmly.

“Maybe before long, it’ll become possible to contact the God of Death through a divine relic even from inside here.”

New World.

Cale had the feeling that the truth of this world was gradually falling into his grasp.

“My.”

The Heavenly Demon said quietly,

“Then we can’t afford to move at leisure.”

The enemies might already be far more prepared than they had originally thought.

Alberu and Rosalyn also expressed their agreement with silence.

“But.”

Cale opened his mouth.

The corner of his lips curved slightly upward.

“I don’t think the enemies were ever aiming for anything except stabbing each other in the back from the start.”

At Cale’s gaze, Alberu soon let out an exclamation.

“Ah!”

He remembered every word of the conversation Cale had passed on without leaving out a single syllable.

‘True. It used to be a real pain. We had to register each one as an NPC or a user one by one. And to do that, we had to watch the hunters and trick them.’

Then Alberu spoke.

“The Order of the God of Chaos had been deceiving the hunters from the very beginning.”

“Yes.”

And Cale thought he knew what that deception was too.

The Guides had said,

‘Soon, Chaos will descend.’

‘Yeah. And we’re building the ground for that time.’

And the Guides had also prayed,

“For the return of Chaos.”

Cale recited that prayer aloud and looked at his companions.

“It seems the God of Chaos is planning to enter this game.”

The God of Chaos would appear in the place meant for the birth of the Absolute God.

“Probably to prevent even the Absolute God, once born, from surpassing it.”

The absolute.

Chaos would not like anything absolute.

“And this holy land seems to be the ground being prepared for the descent of the God of Chaos.”

Primordial Night.

It really did seem to be a holy land of enormous importance.

“Ha.”

“Ah.”

“Mm.”

Alberu, Rosalyn, and the Heavenly Demon each let out a different exclamation.

Looking at them, Cale said,

“I think we came to the right place, at the right time, exactly as we should have.”

Cale declared it matter-of-factly.

“Let’s turn the Night of Pleasure into a Night of Chaos.”

For the enemies.

Even without saying the target aloud, everyone understood.

*****

“Ryeon! There are traces here too!”

Wanderer Cho spotted faint traces that had been left behind and walked over to Ryeon.

“Ryeon, I know you’re being careful, but even if it’s a trap, let’s just follow it. You think we’d fall for a trap from bastards like them again?”

But when Cho saw what Ryeon was doing, he stopped for a moment.

“Cho.”

Ryeon turned back toward him.

“There was a message from the family.”

At Cho’s question, she answered,

“They think the saint’s location is the holy land.”

The Five Colored Blood family.

That was the information that had come from there.

The saint was in Primordial Night.

“Oh.”

Cho’s eyes gleamed.

“Good. Then we can just kill both the holy land and the saint in one go.”

As he muttered that lowly, Wanderer Ryeon added,

“The Third Emperor is coming by.”

“Mm.”

Wanderer Cho let out a low sound.

A Wanderer with Five-Colored-grade individuality.

They were called the three Emperors, and the Third Emperor was [N O V E L I G H T] the one ranked third among them.

“Today?”

“No. Tomorrow.”

“Then it’d be better to finish this before then.”

Heh.

Cho let out a shallow laugh.

“We can just smash everything before that. Right, Ryeon?”

“Right.”

Anger was still surging in Ryeon’s eyes.

Even while suspecting that these were traces left by the enemy, she was still heading toward the holy land by following them.

She had no intention of falling into another trap, nor any chance of it.

Because she would crush everything with force.

“Let’s go.”

They hurried toward the canyon.

Primordial Night.

Wanderer Cho and Ryeon were moving there.

Their eyes lifted to the sky.

As they reached the end of the jungle, the sky came into view, and that sky was being dyed red.

The sun was setting.

Night was close.

*****

“Huff. Huff.”

“Haah, fuck.”

Two people breathing roughly.

The two people who had crossed the desert and reached the canyon. No, the two users stared at the sky filled with sunset light, their eyes shining.

“Khahahaha! Today we’re finally going to uncover the secret!”

One man burst into hearty laughter as he looked at the Death Precipice.

“Haah.”

The woman let out a long sigh and warned him.

“Hey. Don’t waste your energy already.”

“Of course, of course. Do you even know what day today is?”

The man was a fairly famous user in New World.

He ran a solo streaming channel specializing in NaSoJeol.

“Mad Attention Whore.”

That was his user name.

He was someone with quite a lot of subscribers because of his broadcasts full of every kind of outrageous stunt.

There was only one reason he had come here this time with one partner helping him film.

“Today’s the dark moon, right?”

The corners of his lips rose high with anticipation.

“The Primordial Root over there!”

The four trees that formed the only bridge connecting the gaps of the Death Precipice, the canyon.

Looking at them, Mad Attention Whore’s eyes lit up.

“Today’s the day that bridge retracts!”

His companion answered flatly,

“So you’re going to dive under that bridge?”

“Yeah! Our subscribers are going to be curious about the canyon under that bridge. Especially why that bridge only disappears on the dark moon and the full moon!”

The Death Precipice.

Mad Attention Whore’s eyes gleamed at the thought of diving into it and pulling off yet another outrageous stunt.

To his subscribers, he was a user known as Crazy Eyes, and his companion said calmly,

“At least it’ll make good content.”

“Khahahaha!”

Of course, the companion knew.

This bastard was not doing this just because it was good streaming material.

He truly enjoyed outrageous stunts.

Lately, he seemed obsessed with the Demon Realm.

“Look forward to tonight!”

Khahahaha!

Mad Attention Whore’s laughter spread in all directions with the desert sandstorm.

But it reached neither the jungle side across the canyon nor the holy land of Primordial Night.

Naturally, it did not reach Cale either.

Cale did not even know who Mad Attention Whore was.

And so Cale had no idea that today, an enormous legend no one had expected—not even Clopeh Sekka—was going to be created.

“Khahahaha!”

“Those eyes are completely insane. Tsk.”

The two users’ voices were soon swallowed by the sandstorm.

*****

‘There.’

Cale’s gaze fixed on the massive temple.

A place where countless large and small buildings were gathered.

One of the buildings in there was the archive room.

Cale and his companions had all infiltrated the holy land and reached the very front of the temple, right before the Order of the God of Chaos.