Beyond the Eternity

When Park Joonhyuk opened his eyes, he was assaulted by a bloody headache. It felt as if someone that drilled a hole into his temple.

While feeling stiff in several places, Park Joonhyuk raised his body and massaged his trembling temple.

He glanced around and realized he was inside what seemed to be a family restaurant. Unsurprisingly, the place was empty, and all the food on display had already been consumed. Even so, most of the furnitures and building structure was still intact.

That means this place was not invaded by monsters, but people—probably stray people.

He turned his head and noticed a gaping hole in the wall in front of him. Under normal circumstances, the restaurant owner would have probably called someone to fix it immediately.

But in a ruined world, where survival outweighed everything, no one would waste their precious money for repairs anymore—not when just living to see another day was a rare fortune.

Speaking of which, what created that hole anyways...

"Ack..."

At that very thought, Park Joonhyuk groaned as the headache intensified without warning. He abruptly remembered the events that transpired before he lost consciousness.

The Disaster of Storms.

He had tried fighting against the disaster with a mysterious fellow named Kim Jakga, but their plan went haywire and everything went to shit.

As for how the hole was created, it was the result of his desperate attempt to launch a combined attack with his clones. But his feeble effort had been effortlessly obliterated, along with his body.

The impact sent him crashing through the wall, and he lost consciousness shortly after he entered this room.

"Damnit! That son of a b*tch..."

Upon recalling those memories, Park Joonhyuk was instantly filled with irritation. More importantly...

[Warning! Defense system\'s compromised!]

[Energy levels has dropped to 10%... 5%...]

[Initiating backup generator protocols...]

[Error! Backup generator protocols has failed! Retreating process...]

Several notifications were popping on the Def. Antimatter suit\'s HCD. The full-face helmet was broken and the suit itself was torn. Park Joonhyuk didn\'t need to a genius to piece one and two.

"Tch. Damnit all..."

Park Joonhyuk removed the helmet and suit that were beginning to spark and threw It away, somewhere.

The protective suit designed to withstand Antimatter was ruined, so It was beyond useless. And there was still the ongoing Fable too.

Worst case scenario, he would have to fight the Disaster of Storms without protection.

Fuck that! The Fable has completely gone to shit! I told that bastard yet he still wanted to fight. I should have left Seoul when I had the chance. Damnit...

Despite thinking so, he was filled with conflicting desires.

If he escaped while the Fable was midway, he would undoubtedly get the short end of the stick. On the other hand, if he chose to fight, there was a real possibility that he would die without ever having the chance to select a star contractor.

Should he escape? Or should he continue the Fable?

Rumble! Rumble!

His conflicting thoughts came to a halt when the earth began to shake and he lost his sense of balance. Even the building he was currently inside, trembled like it was about to collapse.

"?!!"

Filled with a sense of urgency, Park Joonhyuk rushed out of the restaurant from the broken wall.

What\'s going on? Did Kim Jakga defeat the disaster? Did something else occur? Was it the Faceless one?

As Park Joonhyuk ran through the broken road, his mind was flooded with such uncontrollable thoughts. In a few moments, he reached the place of conflict and all his questions was answered.

Boom! Boom!

A loud sound penetrated into his eardrums and the shockwave was immediately felt by his body.

What the hell... His eyes widened.

If his overall stats was any lower, he would have been blown away by just the shockwave.

Park Joonhyuk gazed upward and spotted two figures in the sky.

One of them was a male with disheveled brown hair who was soaring through the air on six devilish wings. Those wings resembled ever-raging tornadoes shaped into sharp razors and cut through the sky with terrifying speed..

The other silhouette was a platinum-haired woman, nimbly leaping to evade the black wings that sliced through the building upon buildings as if they were made of sand paper.

A single wing flew accurately towards the woman\'s neck and the woman reacted in time by twisting her body and swinging her sword

It was a cylindrical, grill-like sword without a cutting edge or a tip, truly a never-seen-before sword. But that abnormal sword completely blew away the black wing with the pathetic sound of glass scattering like an illusion.

"???!"

Park Joonhyuk\'s eyes widened. He wore the expression of someone who was witnessing something that made absolutely no sense.

The male was the Disaster of Storms, a world-ending calamity capable of manipulating antimatter. The wings behind him were formed from antiparticles, the very foundation of antimatter, which annihilate upon contact with regular matter, resulting in explosive destruction and the release of pure energy to the surroundings.

As such, letting one of those wings touch you even a little bit was a death sentence in and out of itself. Yet that wing was easily blown away?

It was almost impossible. If such a thing was possible, would he and Kim Jakga had suffered that much?

If that were the case, they would have easily defeated the disaster. But instead, they were the ones who were defeated—and in a truly pathetic manner.

Wait, isn\'t that...

Park Joonhyuk narrowed his eyes.

He carefully studied the woman that was evading the black wings. His brain didn\'t immediately register her appearance, but upon a closer inspection, she was undoubtedly someone he had seen before.

Isn\'t that woman the one that followed Kim Jakga? What was her name again? I believe she was called Angelica. But what\'s she doing here? No, was she always this strong?

He frowned. No matter how he looked at it, she was definitely wielding something akin to the divine attribute of a constellation.

Perhaps It was a skill unique only to her identity, but what kind of power could possibly rival Antimatter?

There wasn\'t a single case like this in Song of Nightmares. It didn\'t apply to the protagonist Soo Jinyoung, the regressor Song Jaewon or even the Oracle.

Fwoom! The six wings propelled Angelica forward on a surge of gale-force winds.

With no way to defend against all six wings at once, she leaped away from the building which crumbled with a sound and summoned a tornado with her sword to blind her opponent in a swirling vortex.

"Hey, why are you swinging your hips like that? Are you trying to hypnotize me? I\'m not complaining, but how long do you plan on running? Where\'s all that energy you had moments ago, huh?!"

Boom! The swirling vortex was blown apart with sound. At the same time, something emerged and shot towards Angelica\'s fleeing back.

It was a gigantic black flash that ripped through space as move forward like a cannon shot.

"?!"

The agitated Angelica immediately leaped out to the side.

In the next moment, a black beam ripped through the void, cutting through a forest of buildings in its path. It streaked toward the Han River, almost reaching the water\'s edge before vanishing without a trace.

It was an attack that completely erased the landscape with everything in it. Unfortunately, that included survivors that were unable to escape.

[The 23rd seal of the disaster has been released.]

[The 24th seal of the disaster has been released.]

[The 25th seal of the disaster has been released.]

[The 26th seal of the disaster has been released.]

[....]

It was a true disaster. But the audience seemed pleased with the results.

[Many of the constellations are deeply invested in the ongoing battle.]

[Some constellations have recommended this Fable to other broadcast channels.]

[New constellations has arrived in this broadcast channel.]

[The constellation, Sage Equal of Heaven and Earth is complaining about the noise.]

(N/B: I changed the true name of Son Wukong to Sage Equal of Heaven and Earth since it\'s more fitting for his character.)

Park Joonhyuk, who wasn\'t within the attack range, managed to survive the destruction. But he couldn\'t say he escaped completely unharmed.

[You have infected with gamma radiation.]

[You have been inflicted with a negative status effect.]

"Shit!"

Park Joonhyuk cursed as his skin slowly turned dark.

When antiparticles come into contact with regular matter, they explode and annihilate each other. But that was not the end of it.

The explosion itself also releases massive waves of gamma radiation into the surrounding space. Without adequate protection, exposure to this radiation can damage cells of any living organisms which would lead to endless possibilities of misfortune in the future.

That was the exact reason why he wore the protective suit to have protection against those gamma radiations along with antiparticles.

However, that didn\'t mean one would be completely powerless against it.

[The Exclusive skill, ■■ has activated.]

[The ■■ has reduced the effects of the gamma radiation.]

His pale skin that was being darkened slowly regained its colour.

The world was not the same anymore. A normal person won\'t be killed by gamma radiation as long as they were blessed by the story.

Fortunately, Park Joonhyuk turned to be one of those lucky bastards. A true lucky bastard indeed.

It\'s good that this skill activated on time but it\'s rather depressing that I can\'t view my information.

For some unexplainable reason, Park Joonhyuk couldn\'t see his own status window. Perhaps it was an error in the system so he tried reporting the issue to Aurora. But she was rather useless in that regard.

She shouted things like "What the hell is this?" and "With the proud of an administrator Biri~ Biri~" and got electrocuted shortly after that.

He wondered why that was the case but It seems no one can see his status window including the administrators and himself.

"..."

Placing those useless thoughts at the back of his head, he raised his gaze upwards. Floating in the sky was Keikoku and standing on a building was Angelica.

Looking closely, sweat covered Angelica\'s darkened face.

If the situation was looked at from an outside perspective, It was clear that Angelica was at a disadvantage.

Park Joonhyuk assumed Angelica was a close-ranged fighter based on her fighting style while Keikoku was a long-ranged fighter.

As a close-ranged fighter, she would need to close the distance before she could deal any significant damage while Keikoku, who was a long-ranked fighter, could comfortably keep her at bay with long-ranked attacks.

The fact that she possessed an overpowered artifact or power of sorts was irrelevant.

No matter how strong or powerful a weapon was even if It was a powerful artifact, It was completely useless if It could not hit the target.

Not to mention, Keikoku\'s magic power stats was vastly greater than Angelica so she would definitely lose in a prolonged fight. She even looked like she was running low on stamina.

Wait a minute, where is that bastard? Did he leave this place?

Park Joonhyuk swept his gaze around but he saw no trances of Kim Jakga. He thought that he left but that was unlikely considering his personality.

So where was he during this whole mess?

"...!"

Truly abruptly, Park Joonhyuk noticed something at the corner of his eye.

In the distance, there was something laying on the floor. It seemed like a robot drum. Looking closely, It seemed to have a human shape.

Could it be...

Park Joonhyuk approached the strange object lying on the floor.

When he reached the object that had the appearance of a broken toy, he realised that the object in question was really a human. But It was unbelievable since \'Its\' lower half was messing.

If It wasn\'t for the fact that he recognised the familiar black protective suit, he would really thought It was a broken robot drum.

There was only one person who was wearing the same protective suit as him.

"...Kim Jakga?"

However, that person remained still. Obviously, It was clear that he had already left this world.

KWANG!!

There was a ear-piercing sound and something flying like a jet into the wall of a building infront of him. At the moment, Park Joonhyuk\'s consciousness was slowly dragged back into reality.

"....."

Something fell on the ground with a \'thud\'. Park Joonhyuk could only stare at it with a blank expression.

"Hah... Hah..."

It was the battered body of the woman named Angelica.

She didn\'t take note of the fact that the black wings could easily change its shape and was caught off-guard by an attack that flew towards her blind spot.

She was too tired and too slow to evade It on time, somehow managed to block it using the sword. But she was still drawn back because of the terrible recoil.

"Ah..."

Park Joonhyuk finally realised the reality of the situation.

The person who could potentially fight against Antimatter was defeated and Kim Jakga was dead. Additionally, there was no one else to fight against Antimatter except for him.

"Shit! This is bullshit!"

Park Joonhyuk cursed. And he cursed once again when he saw a devil with six wings descending towards his position at alarming speed.