“Our hearts are candles!” “We will achieve immorality!” The Terras loudly sang the song from the Cavefire play. I barely, barely managed to avoid Uburka’s ax swing, but my heart couldn’t have been more uneasy. After I dodged the sixth blow coming my way, I screamed, “Hey! Don’t use that prayer at a time , you nutheads!” The Heavenly Demon Cult’s doctrines had been widely spread among the Terras. Through the cultural project known as Cavefire and the military training program known as the Demonic Heaven Formula Arts, the Terras adhered to the doctrines, regardless of whether they were aware of them or not. Iwish was a phrase that boosted the Terras’ morale. Though they were free to sing it as much as they wanted... “You’re going to use that prayer while trying to take me down?! You didn’t use the formula arts even when you were hunting the energy dragon. You just sat there and did aura alignment, so why are you going all out on me?” Uburka chuckled. “Ugor. Do you really not get it, Daddy?” Uburka swung his ax with great force, destroying everything in his path. Using only the wind pressure from his swing, he ground down palm trees, rocks, and all life that lived in between. “Shit!” I said. If I hadn’t stepped back quickly, at least one of my heels would have been cut. “You’re everything to us, Daddy.” “You’re our everything,” Uburka repeated. He approached me, his eyes gleaming red. His gaze was so intense that it made my heart sink a little. I thought that perhaps he had used his vital energy and was suffering from aura deviation. However, that couldn’t be right. Uburka’s wasn’t unskilled enough to enter aura deviation. Moreover, in our cult, entering aura deviation was considered a disgrace because it was like losing to yourself. Uburka was drawing so much of his aura that I had mistakenly thought he was in aura deviation. “You don’t know how much you mean to us, do you? You have no idea.” “What are you talking about? Of course, I’m your best friend—” “That’s what I’m saying, ugor. Daddy, you really don’t know yourself.” Uburka laughed heartily, finally opening up his heart as if the story he had been telling me until now was a joke. “As you said, you left messages for us. We were aware of how you saw us and what kind of messages you have been leaving for us, but watching it in our heads felt completely different.” Behind him, the Asuras clapped. “Ugor! It was worth seeing.” It seemed that the red waves were turning huge as they approached me. “Do you remember the day when you first taught us how to write? What about the day when you taught us how to pronounce words?” I gripped my sword by the hilt. An all-powerful spirit boiled among the red waves. It was the same feeling I experienced when the Constellation Murderer approached me on the fiftieth floor to kill me. Something bigger and stronger than me, and perhaps more desperate than me, was closing in on me. In the thick red waves, I could feel the thrilling bloodlust I had felt when they pointed their swords at me. I measured the distance between us and answered their question. “I remember it as if it was yesterday.” “You taught a writing system to children who weren’t intellectually mature yet. While teaching them, you first created symbols only for the things they loved and played with.” The mud was ■. The sky was ○. The sun was ☆. The moon was ★. The water was ~. The days of teaching symbols to little goblins by digging in the soft mud with my lion claws were still vivid in my mind. “You knew way more words than us, but you knew that we only need about seven ​​to survive. You may as well have resented us,” Uburka said. —Why is your perception of your world so narrow? —Here are the symbols for tree and mountain. You should strive to study more. “But you didn’t. Instead of resenting us, you wanted us to make the most of the little world we had. When it rained, you didn’t tell us that it would stop soon, so we didn’t have to worry. While we trembled in primitive fear, saying that the rain was angry and clashing with the ground, you came forward and roared.” It was the goblin word for rain, written as ke. To put it in today’s terms, it meant that water was coming. “Kerrrrrr! Keeeeeeeee!” Water was coming to the land. Outside the hut, the downpour continued. The little goblins hiding inside the hut cowered in fear. To these primitive beings, a downpour was a divine spirit that was angry at them and attacked them with rain. In a tribal society where language was yet to be elaborately structured, it was difficult to think of clear sentences like “Maybe we did something wrong and angered the spirit.” In reality, at best, words came out in pieces like “We, sky, wrong?” In those ancient times, it was difficult for the goblins to express their fears in fragmented words. That was the kind of species they were. Back then, the color of the sky was ever-changing and the reason for the sun and moon’s rotation was a mystery. All living beings trembled in fear because they didn’t know what was attacking them from outside, or what they felt on the inside. “Kerrrrrr! Keeeeeeeee!” “Kerr! Kee! Keeeeeeeeeee!” Then, someone cried out. “The water is coming. It’s coming to the ground.” It was a simple cry. In the middle of a downpour in the primordial forest, as if it was going to sweep away the whole world, a white-maned lion climbed up on a rock and roared. The water was coming. The water was coming. The water was coming... It was sorcery. It was a clearer spell than any wicked wizard could have used. “Keeeee... Keeeeeee!” Several goblins left the hut and approached the White Lion. The heavy rain had already flooded half of the hut, so they moved quickly. They climbed the high rock, slippery from the rain, repeatedly stumbling and shrieking in terror. “Kerr, keee! Kerr, keee!” The water was coming. It was coming to the ground. As dozens of goblins struggled to reach the top, the White Lion stood there, looking up at the dark sky with his head raised high. The goblins panted, gripped by fear. It was scary. The dark clouds were boiling and seemed ready to spit out divine wrath at any moment. To the ignorant goblins, lightning, thunderbolts, and thunderstorms were all abilities of the gods. The goblins couldn’t understand, overcome, or avoid what was happening. The only thing they could do was submit so that the divine spirits would favor them and spare them. Nevertheless, the White Lion roared proudly. When the world was enveloped in gray mist, everything was gloomy, and even the comfortable humidity was blown away by the strong wind, leaving the goblins confused. It looked as if the world would be destroyed at any moment. Yet the White Lion simply raised his head and roared. The water was coming. The water was coming. “... Keee, rrr. Kerrrr...” The small goblins clung to the White Lion—his paws, tail, torso, and mane. They shook in fear, unable to wrap their heads around the reason for the White Lion’s roars. They also had no idea why they had followed him when they heard the roar. And they certainly didn’t understand why they were also trying to imitate the roar that the White Lion let out. The goblins shouted with all their might. The water was coming. The water was coming. The water was coming. The downpour that lasted all night gradually weakened. The goblins who had climbed up a distant rock and looked up at the sky were the first to notice that the raindrops falling on their hooked noses became lighter. The raindrops falling on their wrinkled green forehead also became soft. What miracle did they just witness? The goblins looked up at the White Lion. The rain that had fallen all night had made his mane droop, but his eyes were brighter than the morning sun that peeked from behind the horizon. The water that seemed to destroy the world was gone. The White Lion roared happily, pointing to the water drops falling from the sky to the ground. The heavy rain had receded and now only gently soaked the meadow. The goblins tilted their heads. With a very odd emotion, the children repeated after him. That day, the Terras realized something. The White Lion was trying to teach his primordial children the word “rain.” However, that wasn’t all. What the White Lion had taught the Terras, as well as the influence he had left on them, was so great that it could not be contained in just the word “rain” alone. The Terras triumphed over fear. They had been shivering in their safe huts, praying that the divine spirits would be kind to them and spare them. They would have made altars and offered sacrifices to appease the divine spirits, preparing a scapegoat and killing a fellow goblin every rainy season. A thousand years would have been wasted. The goblins would have probably spoken with fear about rain. To them, it wasn’t just water flowing to the ground, but water pouring down from the sky where the angry gods were. Because of that, rain would have become a divine spirit, and its name would have been much longer and more terrifying, such as the World-Sweeper or Ruler of the Autumn Terror. Uburka, the living witness of Terra history, picked up his ax and leaned it against his shoulder. “But you didn’t resent us. Daddy, you didn’t just teach us how to write. You taught us something much more valuable—victory!” Victory over fear. The world was a giant mass of unknown. To escape, one had to dig a tunnel and crouch under a small hut. In ancient times, houses weren’t comfortable havens but mere shelters meant to escape from the world. “We beat our fear of rain thanks to you, Daddy.” “We defeated the fire, too.” “We have conquered the thunderstorm, the river, and the sea! We have even conquered hellish salt caves!” Uburka spread his arms and shouted, “Kerukkeeeeee! It’s not the name of a god who threatens us, but rain! It’s just rain! We overcame our fear of rain! Kerukke isn’t just a word for us. It’s the name of a war that we won, and therefore a proud trophy of ours!” “The sky isn’t a god who punishes us! We’ve deprived Keruk of its status as a god. It’s just the sky! We admire the purple silk that the sky weaves at dawn, and weep at the slowly reddening blush of the evening. However, these are no different from the tears of pity we shed for the defeated enemies! We have also plundered the sky!” “There are two ways to write. Some write what they fear. If the other species had developed a word for fire because they were afraid of fire and hoped to avoid it, we only wrote fire to celebrate our victory! Because it’s the prey we took down by piercing it with our swords! We wrote the word ‘fire’ in our damp caves and laughed about it!” In the jungle where dawn had yet to arrive, the fire rose not from the sky, but from the ground. Tens of thousands of Asuras unleashed their aura. “That is the name of our fire!” “When others fear, avoid, or try to control fire, we just shout our crimson ‘gor.’” The fire burned brighter. “Fire. How nice! How beautiful!” All the Asuras were members of the Fire Water Council. As trainees, they took their first step in martial arts using the Demonic Heaven Arts. When they became proper warriors, they studied the Demonic Heaven Formula Arts one by one, finally reaching the required skill level and taking a seat in the council. They were the elites of elites. The Asuras became excited and started swinging their spears, swords, axes, and fists. “Kekerukker! Kekerukker!” At the very front, Uburka was smiling with his arms spread out. “Daddy! You didn’t just teach us how to write or view the world! Victory isn’t the only thing you taught us, nor did it have to do with methods to face, acknowledge, and overcome the fear that everyone carries in their hearts! What did you give us? What are you to us? Were you a teacher who taught us many things?” “No! Then what are you? A god? A creator who gave us the earth and the sky so we could finally breathe? Are you just a god to us?” [The Immorality-Dreaming Muscle Pig roars.] “Then what are you to us, Daddy? My beloved compatriots! Like me, you love damp water and are charmed by the rain, and your lips tremble when the sky weeps. Your hearts beat when fire rages! My compatriots, what is Daddy to us?” “Kekerukker! Kekerukker!” “That’s right!” Uburka laughed boisterously. “Daddy, you are our world!” “You’re our everything!” “We have triumphed over all things in this world! I, Uburka, even defeated death. Therefore, we can sing every word with joy. Every sentence is proof of our victory over fear! Every conversation is a ceaseless celebration of our victory in war! We may cry, but we’re brave. We honor all who fought us, and we laugh because we have triumphed and will continue to do so in the future!” “Kekerukker! Kekerukker!” “Except for one thing.” Uburka raised his ax and aimed it at me. “You, Daddy. Kekerukker! Father!” A pure white beast descended from the sky. In Terran language, it meant neither a devil nor a god. It was a world. “We are happy to have been born in your world, opening our eyes in your world, smelling your world, and stepping into your world! Ugor!We’ll say it out loud with all our hearts, Kekerukker! We love this world!” The beast rose from the shadows of the palm trees and bushes where the light of dawn could not reach. The Asuras, rulers of the continent, lit a beacon fire where the turtle, said to have created this continent, had died. It was the Demonic Heaven Formula Arts—the whish that was lit simultaneously by hundreds of thousands of Asuras. “Now, it’s time to have our final victory!” “Kekerukker! Kekerukker!” I meant a lot more to those kids than I thought I did. That was who I was. I closed my eyes as the fire of the entire world engulfed me. Strangely enough, the fire wasn’t hot, as it was filled with love and affection for me. Only the joy of trying to defeat me was delivered to my heart. There was no fire gentler than this that could warm my heart. I recalled the moment when Teacher had cut down the snow-covered mountain. At that time, what she had in mind wasn’t just a high mountain peak. A person can become a world to someone else. At that time, Teacher had cut down a season that froze all life, slaying the world. Slowly, I drew my sword. “To be a god to someone, one must be prepared to become a parent. Those who wish to become parents must also be prepared to become a world.” The holy sword that had been with me for a long time shone brightly in white light. I gave life and an entire world to the fire. In response to my sense of responsibility, the sword that had once been a goddess turned white. I took out a pair of white gloves with Raviel’s scent on them and threw them toward the beautiful bushes. I said, “You are fire, so you would be good at burning the world. It’s the law of murim to introduce yourself before engaging in a duel. Our cult originated from the world, so shouldn’t we respect the tradition?” I was ready to summon my Death King Clan army at any time. “I am the Rank 2 Hunter in the Ascension City, the herald of the Aegim Empire, the disciple of the peony that fell in the snowy field, the Young Heaven of the Heavenly Demon Guild, the one and only moon of Ivansia, the patriarch of the Death King Clan...” I told my history of victories obtained after regression to the children who had been victorious for thousands of years. “... And your Kekerukker.” [The world has been named.] [The Anonymous World # 30-1316782 has been registered as the Lion Realm.] [May luck be with the Lion Realm.] Something fell on my sword. It was a drop of rain.