D.I.O

Clunk. Clunk.

Merlin opened his eyes to a familiar noise and vibration. His entire body felt lethargic, and he had no strength.

“What is this place… am I inside a train?”

He sat on a seat made of a luxurious material, so he felt as though his whole body was completely submerged in the lavish seat. Merlin had a dumbfounded expression on his face. All the seats around him were quite spacious, and there only seemed to be 12 seats in one car. Furthermore, the inside of the train car cabin was so quiet that Merlin involuntarily lowered his voice when he spoke out.

‘I… based on my last recollection…’

While making himself as small as possible, Merlin tried to recall his memory. Fighting against the anti-Union factions, he was ambushed by the Legion force’s attack. It was an unavoidable situation. His opponents were beings that had reached the transcendent realm a long time ago, and Merlin’s physical condition wasn’t normal at the time either.

‘And in that state, I was looking for an opportunity to resummon Apollo.’

However, unlike when dealing with Leviathan, his new enemies had seen the appearance of Apollo and knew of his ability to summon him, so they had been wary of his every movement.

And once they started to become wary and cautious, it was next to impossible to properly use his Flame Rubies. This was because Muspelheim’s core, which possessed [exclusive] power in and of itself, couldn’t be used properly unless Merlin maintained the highest level of concentration.

“… Lancelot.”

It was then that Merlin remembered Lancelot’s name.

Yes. It was him. It was Lancelot who had turned everything around.

Because Lancelot bought him some time, Merlin was able to recall a [method]…

“What is up with this guy? How did he get in here?”

“Huh?”

Having been lost in thought, Merlin quickly lifted his head. Suddenly, a man in a training suit was sitting in the seat opposite him. Overall, the man had a cool impression, and unusually, he had yellow-green hair.

‘Huh? I’ve certainly seen him from somewhere…’

While Merlin was still thinking about who the man was, he heard a new voice.

“It must be His will.”

“Well, of course, that’s obvious. Who would dare ride this car if it went against His will?”

Merlin turned his head. There, a man with long red hair was sitting with his legs crossed, his gaze seeming reluctant to leave the gray cover of the hardcover book in his hands.

“… Ah!?”

And at that moment, Merlin’s head turned like lightning toward the man with yellow-green hair.

“What… why?”

The man with light green hair had an unsatisfied expression on his face, but Merlin didn’t register it. This was because Merlin recalled the last time he had seen this yellow-green haired man.

“Level 50…”

Merlin recalled how the man in front of him and the foe he was fighting at that time collided against each other and subsequently engulfed and destroyed an entire galaxy. Right, Merlin had seen him before. The man was the one that appeared in DIO’s prologue video. At that time, his DIO guide, Mary, had told Merlin, who was bewildered by the tremendous battle scene, about the man.

“That’s an Absolute God. In your worldview, where Grand Masters who are Level 20 are considered insurmountable monsters, that being is on a completely different level. Based on DIO leveling standards, he’s a Level 50 being. This video clip is just an illustration of a wider worldview and a reminder that there are beings like this that exist somewhere out in the wider universe.”

According to DIO’s level system, Level 20 was a low-level transcendent, which included Grand Masters and great mages; Level 30 was a mid-level transcendent, which included the existence of Demon Kings and Emperor Class beings. Though it was often said that the universe was wide and filled with all sorts of existences, the truth was that one had no true enemies once one reached Level 30.

However, the man in front of Merlin was a greater level than that. Moreover, the man wasn’t even a Level 40 being. Merlin couldn’t fathom what a Level 50 being signified.

‘An Absolute God…’

Seeing Merlin groaning involuntarily, the man with yellow-green hair made a surprised expression.

“Eh? Level? Wait, is this guy from…”

“That’s right. He’s a user of the 2nd generation talent development system that Jenica created. He’s an Irregular as well.”

“Hehe… Jenica, that rascal, she made a much better system than what I expected.”

At the words of the red-haired man who still didn’t take his eyes off his book, the yellow-green haired man looked at Merlin with a set of curious eyes. Trying to remain as calm as possible, Merlin asked a question.

“You both are…”

“That’s right.”

Merlin’s expression hardened after he saw the man nod his head.

‘Oh my god.’

They weren’t just giants. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the two in front of him were among the strongest and most powerful beings in all the dimensions of the universe.

God of Martial Arts, Poong-ho.

And the God of Magic, Flame Dragon.

It was widely known among the Masters that these two, who were also members of the 12 Zodiac Gods, defeated the former God of Martial Arts and the God of Magic respectively to ascend to their current position as Absolute Gods. The Masters knew of this fact because the Empress of Magic, Jenica, who was the developer of DIO and a disciple of Flame Dragon, had left bits and pieces of information within DIO of this fact. Moreover, Poong-ho came out in the prologue, so what more needed to be said?

But the important issue for Merlin right now weren’t these things.

Woong!

Merlin concentrated and pulled out his Editor Blade. He checked his inventory stock. Luckily, the stored items were in good condition.

‘I don’t know how things will turn out, so I need to remain vigilant…’

When Merlin gave an order to Apollo, Apollo had said, ‘It’s not like you can summon me for a thousand years.’

But what Apollo stated wasn’t true.

‘Thousands of years, ten thousand years… Well, it’s possible to maintain the summon if I live sparingly and conserve energy…’

By burning the evil spirit, specifically the evil spirit’s karma, that had crossed over from another dimension in Pathway to Hell, it was possible for Merlin to produce countless artificial spiritual pathways. He had made so many that nearly everyone on Earth could possess one.

Additionally, that evil spirit’s karma allowed him to reproduce a 100% copy of Muspelheim, which was said to be difficult to buy even if one sold off five or six planets for it, and Merlin had further succeeded in reproducing the core of Muspelheim.

That single evil spirit’s soul, with its enormous evil karma, had allowed him to do this much. It was an immensely effective and efficient process.

‘But now, with all those slave contractors in the New Continent…’

Woong!

The Flame Ruby, which contained the essence of Muspelheim, hovered around the Editor Blade before disappearing into Merlin’s [inside].

‘With the tens of thousands of slave contractors at my disposal…’

The slave contractors were all atrocious beings that were now bound for Pathway to Hell.

Whoosh!

Once again, another Flame Ruby disappeared inside Merlin. Of course, Merlin didn’t ingest or absorb it. If he swallowed Muspelheim’s enormous power, his body as well as his soul would have incinerated instantly into nothingness.

“I see.”

And Flame Dragon, who hadn’t even looked at Merlin until now, raised his head.

“You were the originator of amplification.”

“… the originator?”

“Yeah. But it’s funny… I know about the process and functions of amplification, but I hardly know anything about you… everything seemed to be going well, but after only 400 years of operation, a bug emerged.”

“A bug…”

We are bit.ly/3iBfjkV, find us on google.

Merlin was puzzled by the Flame Dragon’s incomprehensible words.

[We’ve arrived.]

“Ah, finally, we’re here. Let’s head off, Cain!”

“Hmm. Dark, hold on.”

Flame Dragon, Cain, gestured toward Poong-ho, Dark, to wait for a moment before grabbing a handful of his red hair, which reached all the way down to his waist.

Clip.

Cain lightly clipped a bundle of his hair. He bundled the cut strands up like the leeks sold in the market before handing the bundle to Merlin.

“… What is this?”

“Don’t take it off your body, even for a second. If you go [outside] at your level, He will forget you.”

“Tsk. Cain… you’re too kind, man. Don’t worry too much and come quickly. As you said, it must be His will.”

Saying so, Dark got off the train first and Cain followed soon after. Merlin, who didn’t even know where he was, moved to get off the train while continuing to place Flame Rubies inside of himself.

Poof!

“Eh!?”

And in that moment, the world changed.

[Let’s go now! Hurry!]

[Don’t rush me.]

A huge dragon, whose whole body was made of flames, and a tiger, with yellow-green fur, were moving away at high speed; however, Merlin didn’t even consider chasing after them.

[This… what the hell is this?]

His depth perception had disappeared; it was as if a dimension, based on a three-dimensional worldview, had been taken away.

The world reflected in his eyes was, so to speak, like a still life drawing that was drawn with a brush and paint. It was horizontal and vertical, but there was no height or depth, and yet, Merlin could see that there was movement.

[Oh! Did the youngest come in? Really?]

Just then, a bald black man walked up from his side. The man didn’t look normal. The man looked like an SD character (Super Deformation Character) whose head was as large as the rest of its body combined.

[… You are?]

[Hmm? Ah, what the heck? I thought a new 5th Stage of Civilization was formed, but it’s just an individual. You’re not even at the highest level… How did you get here?]

[I don’t know.]

[You don’t know? Then it means that it was His will… Well, good timing. I was bored at the moment anyway. Follow me.]

The man smiled happily and held out his hand toward Merlin. Not feeling any sense of malice from the man, Merlin finished inserting a Flame Ruby [inside] himself before stretching his hand to grab the man’s outstretched hand.

[Huh… What?]

However, Merlin couldn’t hold the man’s hand. When he tried to hold the man’s hand, which Merlin saw quite clearly in front of him with his own eyes, he couldn’t grab anything.

[Hmm? Wait a sec. What dimension do you see this place in?]

[Everything looks like it’s in 2D. Even the color looks like something from a painting.]

[What? A painting? Ugh… that’s gross. Even though you received Mr. Cain’s scales, your cognitive ability is still low.]

The man grumbled something along the lines of, ‘I knew he had lost affection for his work, but was it to this extent?’ before moving his own hand to take Merlin’s.

[Well, at least you didn’t recognize me as a ‘sentence’… I guess that’s something, no?]

While the man was grumbling …

‘What?’

For a moment, Merlin had the feeling that the man was reading him. It didn’t feel like the man was intrusively digging into his inner world; it felt more like a huge, unknown gaze was sweeping through his life.

When Merlin showed his surprise, the man put on an apologetic look.

[That wasn’t intentional. However, you’re like an open book, so it’s difficult not to look while we’re touching.]

The man threw out a half-hearted excuse that read along the lines of, ‘Even if I look, it’s only the table of contents, not the entire book’, before he nodded his head.

[Well, thanks to that, I roughly understand the situation. Follow me.]

Merlin began to move, led by the man who was striding forward. Merlin wanted to resist, but he couldn’t. Without the man holding his hand, Merlin wouldn’t be able to take a single step in this bizarre space.

‘I’m so dizzy…’

Merlin, who currently perceived the world as a two-dimensional space, felt like there was three-dimensional movement. The inevitable confusion he felt as he moved through the space made him feel queasy.

And, as Merlin was feeling confused and dizzy, the black man spoke out.

[Ah, my introduction is late. I’m called Human.]

[I’m a human, too…]

[Of course, you are. If it’s uncomfortable, please call me Person.]

[Alright, Person.]

After obediently nodding his head, Merlin asked the question that had consumed his mind after waking up in this strange place.

[Where is this place?]

[Where is this place… Okay, since it’ll be a bit boring while we traverse down this road, shall we talk?]

Person said as he smiled.

[Based on my observations, your human civilization is currently in the 2nd Stage of Civilization, right?]

[Yes.]

[Then… let’s see. Assuming that there are no major accidents or great wars that would cause your civilization to retreat, in about 150,000 to 300,000 years from now, your humanity will be able to go beyond the 2nd and 3rd Stages of Civilization and reach the final stage, the 4th Stage of Civilization.]

Person smiled as he stated his explanation. It was as if he was saying, ‘of course, that would be difficult and improbable, but anyway.’

[After reaching that stage, the entire universe will become a perfectly recognizable area for your humanity. It will be possible to measure the exact size of the universe as well as to move from one end to the other. Your humanity will be able to consume most of the stars in the universe like fuel, and if you raise an army, you will have tremendous power. You may even be able to capture gods.]

[That’s amazing.]

[An endlessly developing civilization is such a scary thing. However, however…]

After that, Person let out a deep sigh.

[The problem is that when the stage of civilization reaches that level, one has no other choice but to realize the truth that one doesn’t want to know.]

[The truth one doesn’t want to know?]

[Right. In this universe, there exists a Creator, who created the universe and all dimensions…]

Person’s facial expression, which had been full of smiles up until now, turned serious for the first time.

[The truth is that the great and wonderful civilizations that are created, their rich history and immense power… all of those things are just fleeting thoughts to him.]

Merlin realized at a certain point that Person was talking about his own personal story, not the human race Merlin belonged to, but instead of pointing this out, Merlin asked.

[What do you mean by thought?]

[In other words, nothing truly exists.]

Person’s footsteps stopped as he spoke in a low voice.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew. They were now in an empty space with a single huge tree. Merlin, who was intimidated by the power that was oppressing his entire body, could see dozens of children and small animals sitting and playing with each other around the huge tree.

[Anyway, going back to the beginning, do you know where this place is?]

Person asked with a smile… a smile that was on a ridiculous 1:1 head to body ratio face…

But Merlin felt a tremendous amount of pressure from Person. This was because Merlin felt an unimaginably huge civilization and a long history from Person.

[This is outside the universe in which we were born and raised. It is a place that only beings independent of Him can reach.]

When He first opened His eyes, there was only Him.

Feeling lonely, He made a universe.

However, the world created from nothing only existed, in the end, in His imagination and thoughts.

[I was wondering how he’d make his way here, but it seems you guided him. Did you take care of him because he’s your junior?]

At that time, a yellow-green tiger approached quietly and spoke to them. However, the tiger wasn’t a big figure; it was almost the same size as Person. Likewise, a red dragon, situated nearby, was around the same height as well.

Person answered.

[He’s the fourth human to come here, so I felt a responsibility to take care of him.]

[The fourth human?]

When Merlin parroted Person’s incomprehensible words, Person pointed to one side.

[Besides me, the other two are relatively famous, so you probably know them. They seem to be well known to your civilization.]

[What are you talking about…]

Merlin tilted his head before following Person’s hand and looking at where Person was pointing. There was a young monk sitting quietly with a calm expression on his face and a blonde boy with an angelic smile.

[The Reincarnator and the Savior.]

[Should I know those two?]

Looking at Merlin, who was still thoroughly confused, Person laughed.

[I’m fairly sure you know them.]