# EP50. The Avatar of the Morning Star
In the depths below, life and death repeat endlessly.
Ivan's thoughts were now torn to shreds, losing all continuity. Dying, killing, dying again—an endless cycle. A mechanical repetition where the concept of time had disappeared.
Even in the moment of death, he used only the training accumulated throughout his life to deliver the next strike. Even as his head was lost and the nerves throughout his body contracted chaotically, his attacks never ceased.
He had lived his life killing others. He reached this point by passing through those fierce moments where he had to kill or be killed.
A teenage conscript, nothing more than cannon fodder dying on the front lines. From those ephemeral moments when the average life expectancy at the start of war didn't even reach 15 minutes, until now.
His soul was a sharpened sword forged by that fierce history. Only hardship and struggle had proven his worth.
So, even in the moment of death, he mechanically swung his axe, fired his gun, and even dug in his molars to inflict wounds.
With the sole judgment that any injury inflicted on the opponent would certainly help the next "comrade" survive. With that thought alone.
With only that thought, the Annihilation Squad, who were merely ordinary humans, could kill a god. The hope that even if one of them died, that death would be used meaningfully.
As someone who stood in the same ranks as them, Ivan delivered his next strike even as his life slipped away.
-Thud.
As the axe embedded itself, reason returned. Once again, a flash of thought beneath the comma grass filled his head.
"Why are you giving up?"
"Why must I do this? Why did you bring me here?"
"I lived an ordinary life and was dying an ordinary death. I didn't achieve any great feats or hold any great power. I was just an ordinary student."
"So, Lord. Why must I be the one?"
Maximillian's divinity penetrated his body as his memories screamed. Echoing through his mind.
In that moment, Ivan found himself as a man gazing at the sky amidst falling rain.
"I lack confidence. Don't expect this of me. I cannot fulfill your will."
He was filled with fear. The transmigrator of this remote world cried out on the day his daughter was born. He said an ordinary life would have been enough. That if desired, he would gladly return the power given to him, if only...
And the sky whispered.
"A hero is not a title given to the strongest."
The inverted sword looked at him and whispered. Raindrops flowed down the well-polished blade. Between them, Maximillian's distorted face was reflected.
"The most courageous one."
"It doesn't require extraordinary power or earth-shattering talent."
"But courage to never kneel in any moment."
"The magnanimity to smile even when facing your own death and the death of your friends, family, and people."
"And thus, the confidence to be a lighthouse illuminating the earth beneath the dark sky."
"Just walk. Even if you kneel and crumble, rise again without giving up and walk. Grasp your sword again with blistered hands and walk. In every moment those steps continue, the world will call you a hero."
At the sword's whisper, Maximillian sobbed. He was afraid. It was absurd. He hadn't fallen into this world because he wanted to.
"My son. I did not choose you because you are extraordinary. I chose you because you can succeed. Do not seek extraordinariness. Protect the ordinariness of others with your ordinariness."
"If you need extraordinariness, I will place it in your hands, and when you lack the strength to walk, I will dwell within you."
"You need only walk with your sword. Walk for your world."
"I do not expect from you. But speak what you desire. Then your god will place your wish in your hands."
Water droplets fell along the blade. Maximillian, staring at this for a long time, was thinking of his daughter.
The entire world would call him a slaughterer. Everyone who knew him, everyone who loved him and whom he loved, would condemn him as a traitor and willingly hate him.
The path before him clearly led through a field of thorns.
Yet, he grasped the sword.
"Lord, can I succeed?"
"If you desire it."
He stood up holding the sword and looked at the sky. In some mountain region of Tilles under the rain, he raised his blade toward the sky wrapped in dark rain clouds.
Blankly, unsteadily, as if drunk.
With one desire, the one thing needed even in the mud.
Hope.
When Maximillian fully extended his sword upward, the sky split in half.
"...Whoosh...!!"
The rain poured down, avoiding his blade. The distant rain clouds in the sky were precisely cut away, and the raindrops no longer wet his body.
Between them, the morning star was shining.
That day, a hero was born. The 10-year veteran of the room. The man known as the Noble Executioner of Tilles, the Knight of Force, departed for the battlefield.
Sky Slash. The hero's most powerful strike. With half-gone reason and half-gone body, Ivan perfectly recreated the trajectory of that day and slashed upward.
The Demon King's body was torn apart. But soon—
"A mere imitation."
The Demon King's lips curled into a smirk. Then, his blade flipped around and pointed toward Ivan. He had no thought of blocking the blade. Ivan once again offered his chest.
The blade plunged in, and his thoughts were severed.
"What's next?"
There is.
The one thing that sustained his life. The most intense emotion that a battlefield stray dog who had to live with death would possess.
Survival instinct, fighting spirit, desire for improvement, and encompassing them all.
Killing intent.
The mindset of craving life while killing everyone before him and slaughtering all who charged at him. So—
-Thud!!
It was Einar's signature technique. Dominion. Following the axe blade in his hand, gravity distorted, and all living beings willingly knelt and offered their necks to him.
With all his might, he unleashed that strike in its entirety. His raised arm struck down on the Demon King's head, splitting it in half and embedding into the floor.
Another flash lit up in his mind.
"Kuh...hack...!!"
Maximillian was coughing up blood. The toxic energy and curses accumulated in his body had already reached fatal levels.
The only reason he hadn't died was that his body had somehow transcended the human realm. Unaware of this, the Saintess was pouring healing magic into him as if filling a broken jar with water.
Divine power beyond what a human soul could endure was reconstructing him. The sword in his grip was already heated to a red glow under the Demon King's toxic energy.
In that state, he knelt on one knee and looked at the Demon King.
"Magnificent."
The Demon King had collapsed on his throne with his limbs torn apart. This massive demon, spewing black blood, looked down at the hero while coughing up bloody fluid.
Beside him lay Beolgrin and Gil Berg. To clear the path to the Demon King, they had willingly rushed forward to block his attacks, as if throwing away their lives.
Through that opened path, the exhausted hero moved forward.
"Now you... are the god of this era."
The Demon King smiled and blessed the hero's future. As a demon who worshipped the strongest, this was only natural, and it would have been the same regardless.
A stranger from a distant world. The fact that a brother from his homeland would survive and triumph in this hellish world filled him with joy.
Though he himself had failed, what did it matter now? The hero had earned it. So, the god of all demons willingly bowed his head and exposed his bare neck.
"Strike. Become a god and reign, brother."
"What country were you from?"
"Does that matter now?"
"Tell me."
The Demon King chuckled and answered.
"Spain."
"Religion?"
"Catholic."
"Can we go to heaven even if we die?"
"Having endured hell long enough, if the Lord truly exists, He would take pity on us. Brother, though you must remain in hell for much longer, I hope that path brings you sufficient joy."
Squeezing out his last strength, he struck the Demon King's neck. As the Demon King's body rolled to the floor, the Saintess, who had barely been keeping herself upright until then, finally collapsed.
She spoke with a strained voice.
"At last we... we've brought peace to the world..."
"Soon it will be so."
"What...?"
The hero closed the Saintess's eyes and gathered his comrades. From below, Enrique came up panting, covered in blood. Throughout the battle, she had been holding off the demons climbing the Demon King's tower alongside Einar.
With half-closed eyes, she looked at the hero and then examined the dead Demon King's corpse.
"Take this damn hulk away."
She threw the unconscious Einar onto the floor and collapsed against the wall.
In his 18th year of transmigration, in the 8th year since embarking on his journey as a hero, the Demon King died. Only after all his companions had collapsed did he sit down and fall into thought.
Now he had overcome one of the greatest hurdles.
The demons would scatter. The remaining Dragon Generals would hide, and the United Kingdom would expand its territory by reclaiming lost lands.
What remained now was...
Just as Ivan had done, Maximillian also observed Ivan's life. As they destroyed each other, absorbing divinity and mixing their spirits and flesh in this moment, the two observed each other's lives through each other's eyes, forgetting themselves and sinking into contemplation.
"Homeland, is it."
The Demon King lowered his sword with a sigh. The surroundings had somehow changed to a snowy field. This was the realm of concepts. A realm created from thought, transcending vision.
Countless weapons were stuck sideways in the ground, and beneath them lay the bodies of many who had fallen as if asleep—the landscape of the demon realm.
It wasn't a place that existed in reality. This was the scenery painted by Ivan's mental image. Each one was a life mentor that Ivan had seen and learned from. Since Ivan's eyes never forgot what they had seen, everyone here represented the teachers who had been transformed into Ivan's martial foundation.
Now Maximillian could also know the names of all those people.
Those who had gone before.
Ivan was looking at Maximillian with calm eyes. The two stood in the same mental image.
"Now in your heart, this land has become your homeland."
"..."
"You are better than me. I remained a stranger until the end, but you have now decided to live as a part of this world."
The Demon King smiled. In truth, there was no need for conversation. The two already knew each other's hearts more clearly than they knew themselves.
The boundary that distinguished the two as separate entities had long disappeared. Their souls and divinity had already become one in the struggle.
So, in this conceptual territory rather than physical space, the two faced each other and recognized each other through mental images.
The Demon King quietly nodded.
"If that is so, then the future of this world should be shaped by the will of its people."
"Maximillian."
"One need not become a god."
"What...?"
This was something Ivan couldn't read even through the memories of divinity. At Ivan's question, Maximillian smiled and sat down heavily.
"One need not become a god, brother. If you desire it, if that is your will."
"Explain."
"When we close the final page of the story, we can choose. Whether to return, to become a god, or to live on. I chose none of these, so now I have no pages left."
Transmigrators. Those who appeared occasionally throughout history, strutting about as if they had their own epic, and then disappeared.
When this world was designed as a furnace for gods, if the souls of this world were sulfur and the hardships prepared for ascension were iron ore, then the transmigrators were like the wind.
Wind that made the flames burn higher, melting the iron mass for ascension more purely. Just as the Demon King of the last war had done.
Wanderers from distant worlds, guided by the hands of gods. Their endings varied, but they had choices remaining.
To become mere humans walking the earth, to climb the path of ascension and prove themselves, or to depart toward their homeland.
"Don't give up."
The sword in Maximillian's hand cried out urgently.
"Don't give up, my son. How much sacrifice have you made for this moment? And how long have I waited for this moment?"
Maximillian smiled and stuck the sword upside down into the ground.
"Lord, haven't you always said?"
-Maximillian.
"If I desire it. So, I now desire my ending."
-You will be forgotten... Don't do this. Don't let your sacrifice flow away in time. This world will forget you, and all the blood you've shed will vanish in vain.
"My life itself has become my reward. It is enough now."
-Maximillian...!
The Demon King stood up, having released the sword from his hand. He walked up to Ivan and, stretching out his neck, said:
"Therefore, live on, brother who has forgotten his homeland. I will now remain among those who went before in your 'homeland' and watch over your future."
My story ends here. But the story of this world is just beginning.
So, regardless of the ending, I will turn the next page with joy and anticipation.
"Maximillian."
"May there be heaven for us too. Having walked through hell in life. Lord, have mercy on us."
Maximillian closed his eyes. Somehow, a sword hilt was now in Ivan's hand.
It was Isabelle's sword.
He raised his gaze again to look at Maximillian. Their eyes met. Perhaps because they shared the same memories, Ivan could feel what Maximillian desired now.
The one who kills the Demon King must be the hero. And it is a child's duty to surpass their parents. Just as the greatest wish of parents is to close their eyes while watching their children grow.
The reason he endured all these sacrifices and chose the path of the hero was now in Ivan's hand.
Reading that intention, he raised the sword straight up.
"Isabelle's."
The Demon King smiled and bowed his head.
"Morning Star Descent."
The mental image shattered.
["Impossible" Quest @#$! For True Freedom.]
[Objective]
[Defeat Ivan Petrovich Yeremov.]
[Accomplish this. This is the last chance for your world, and the final duty given to you.]
[Properly commemorate a man who sacrificed everything for all of you.]
Yu-jin stared with hollow eyes at the back of the man who was standing up on the ground.