A ray of light came down to the center of the battlefield, and with the light, the ground opened up. A pure white stone appeared in front of Sooryung and Sungjin. It was a disc with miniatures of the cities of this world on it. It looked just like this world.

  “So this is the World Stone.”


  “Yes. If you break it, Varka can’t keep this world anymore, and we can go back to our own worlds.”


  “Okay.”


  They looked at each other. It was time to say goodbye.

  “I will remember you, even when I go back to my world.”


  “I will remember you as my precious teammate.”


  “Your precious…… teammate……” Sooryun repeated in a low voice. I get it. That’s who I am.

  She had tried, but Sungjin hadn’t made a move, and now they had to say goodbye as teammates. She was sad, but there wasn’t much she could do. She was in love with a guy who was a strong conqueror but also a nice guy who wouldn’t play her for a one-night stand.

  “So, should we destroy it?” When Sungjin raised his sword, Varka’s image came up from the World Stone.

  “The one who came here, whoever you are, you did a great job.” It was a recording Varka had planted in the World Stone when he had created it. “Now you can decide if you want to keep this world or break this world by destroying the World Stone.”


  “Pff. Is this the World Stone’s last words?”


  “But think twice. You might not like my order, but this is the best world for humans, who are weak and stupid.”


  “You are talking too much.” Sungjin laughed. “So, Let’s do this.”


  “Ok.”


  Sungjin struck it with his sword and Sooryun played the lute. When both attacks hit the stone, the World Stone cracked, and a backflow of energy came from the fissure.

  “Ugh.” A bit of reaction was expected, but that was not what surprised Sungjin. This is……

  The truth of the world came to Sungjin when the energy flow started to cover the whole world.

  When people were covered by the black energy flow, they started to change their shape. They became chunks of revengeful spirits, and started to gather to the center. They looked like condensed dark clouds, and more and more started to gather.

  “No!”


  “I don’t want to leave this world!”


  They screamed. They didn’t just want the soma from the chip. They didn’t just want to live their peaceful lives.

  When Sungjin learned the truth of this world, he was able to understand that they had more desperate reasons.

  This was why.

  Apart from Sungjin, all the souls in this world were from the Earth that Varka had come from. They were living under tyranny.

  They had no freedom at all under brutally strict order and they couldn’t even think of criticizing the tyrant. The tyrant was the only one who had wealth, while the others had to live from hand to mouth, but they started to learn about wealth and freedom from other countries, until people finally started a revolution. There was support from the outside, and the revolution was successful. They kicked out the tyrant and…… a civil war started. Tribal conflict erupted as soon as they were free of the tyrant. They started killing each other during the civil war, and the country became just like what Varka had told Sungjin when they first met.

  Neighbors became enemies. They raped each others’ daughters, mothers and wives…… They caused people to become orphans.

  They started to regret the revolution, thinking it had been better when they had been under the tyrant’s rule. They thought that when they had been under tyranny, they never had to worry about food or if they could survive another day, but now they had to kill each other to survive, and when they died, their souls fell into an endless hell, locked in an endless loop where they had to keep killing each other. It was a loop that they couldn’t run away from.

  But there was salvation. It was a white silver light. It was the light of salvation that Varka created with order. Varka took every soul and sealed them into this new world under an absolute order. It was a distorted world, but it was a desperate form of salvation. Now that this world was falling apart, the revengeful spirits had lost their bodies from this world. When this world was destroyed, they had to go back to hell, where they had to keep killing each other.

  Revengeful spirits started to get on Sooryun.

  “Ugh.” Her beautiful skin became black. The faces of spirits came out from all over her body to blame her.

  “Is it you?”


  “You are trying to put us back where we were?”


  “This b*tch is the leader of the resistance army.”


  “I want the order back!”


  “Put us back in the system of Varka!”


  “He is the only savior for us!”


  To give freedom to humans: the resistance army tried to do the right thing, but what if humans wanted to return the freedom they got?

  Moreover……

  It was because of desperate reasons……