Player who Returned 10,000 years Later

“I’ll be in my room because I have something to do, so let me know when Si-Hun and the others arrive,” Oh Kang-Woo stated.

“Tch.” Lilith clicked her tongue in disappointment, but only for an instant. She smiled brightly and nodded. “Yes, Master Kang-Woo. I will contact you as soon as they arrive.”

‘I saw you click your tongue. No chance I’m gonna let you touch me with your tentacles.’

Kang-Woo turned away from the sullen Lilith and quickly walked away.

“Sir Kang-Woo!”

Iris approached him on his way to his room and bawled her eyes out while grabbing his hands. After consoling her that he was alright and telling her to stop worrying about him and focus on her duties, Kang-Woo finally managed to reach his room.

“Okay.” Kang-Woo lightly stretched and drew out his demonic energy, which spread throughout the room and solidified as if it was coating the walls. “Gáe Bulg.”

Kang-Woo created a dark-red spear and threw it as hard as he could at the wall. Clang! The spear bounced off the wall coated with demonic energy along with a clear metallic sound.

“This should be good enough.”

Kang-Woo lightly knocked on the coated wall and walked toward the center of the room. He took a deep breath in and focused his mind.

‘I’ll deal with the digestion first.’

He had not melted down the Constellation of Agony’s power that he had absorbed with the Authority of Predation yet. He had been planning on digesting it along with the powers of the ancient demonic beasts, but he ended up having to digest just the Constellation of Agony after failing to acquire the corpses.

‘Well, it can’t be helped.’

It was far better than getting greedy while risking his relationship with the angels getting sour. Besides, he would have a chance to acquire the corpses in the future. Although the demonic energy within the corpses would dissipate over time, he had no other choice.

“Now, then.” Before Kang-Woo began, he uttered the words that he hadn’t said in a very long time. “Status Window.”

He could not remember the last time he had opened it— no, he had almost forgotten about its existence. Since it had been a long time, he had decided to check his status.

[Status Window]

P????yer Name: Oh ????????

Lev????: 86 [Nin???? Awakening]

“... The hell is this?”

His status window was filled with unknown letters. Kang-Woo looked down at his status window, warped as if it was filled with static, and frowned.

‘No way… Did you forget it because it barely appeared? Have you been writing away without thinking of stats and hiding it now because you were put in a pickle?’

“What the hell are these black letters?”

Kang-Woo looked down at the warped portions of his status window. However, no matter many times he opened and closed it, the letters did not disappear.

‘I don’t think they’re doing any harm, at the very least.’

Since he had no idea something like this had been happening before opening his status window, it likely was not influencing his powers in any way. After thinking for a while, he clicked his tongue and shook his head.

‘I have no idea.’

In the first place, the system, which was known as the providence of the universe, was a highly abstract thing. Since Kang-Woo had no clues or anything to guess from, it was beyond him to figure out why this had happened.

“I’ll set it aside for now.”

Kang-Woo closed his eyes and meditated.

Splash.

He saw a black sea. It was the endlessly stretching Demonic Sea. It surged, whirled, split, united, upturned, and burst. It was irregular and unrestricted, a chaotic sea of infinite demonic energy.

‘I can’t believe I’ve gotten used to seeing this insane sea.’

Kang-Woo smiled bitterly as he observed the raging black sea. Although it looked highly unstable, this was merely the shallow end. As one went deeper toward the Abyss, the ferocity of the demonic energy became more severe.

‘Well, then.’

Kang-Woo went down toward the sea of demonic energy, and placed his foot on the raging surface.

Fshhh—!

The sea of demonic energy froze along with a disturbing noise. Kang-Woo’s abnormal demonic energy control had quelled the violently raging sea. He walked on the surface of the sea that had become as hard as concrete. There was a monster pierced by countless teeth on the surface of the sea.

- A-Aaaahh.

The Constellation of Agony was groaning with his mouth open.

Kang-Woo smirked. “You’re still like that? What a crybaby.”

He shook his head. The Constellation of Agony had been reduced to this state after experiencing molting only once.

“Where the hell is your backbone?”

Kang-Woo walked toward him while clicking his tongue.

- A-Aaaahh. The Constellation of Agony looked toward Kang-Woo. - Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!

Crack, crunch.

The Constellation of Agony screamed while twisting his body madly. He frantically struggled to get away from Kang-Woo as far as he could.

“It’s pointless, man.”

The Constellation of Agony had already been sucked into the Demonic Sea by the Authority of Predation. There was no way that a mere Constellation of Evil would be able to overcome the force of the Demonic Sea when not even the Demon God was able to.

- Y-You… You, you, you…

The Constellation of Agony’s dangling eyeball that had been mangled by the sharp teeth stared at Kang-Woo. He repeated his words like a broken radio.

- A-Aaaahh. I see. I see.

He nodded what remained of his head as if he was convinced of something.

Kang-Woo frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He approached the Constellation of Agony and grabbed his head.

The Constellation of Agony muttered while sobbing, - It… was you. You were… the Demon of… Prophecy. He trembled in extreme fear. - You were…! The Demon of Proph—

“The fuck are you talking about?”

Kang-Woo grimaced at the Constellation of Agony’s incomprehensible words. He likely did not know Kang-Woo well enough to be spouting such bullshit.

“You see, I’m…”

Rip. The corners of Kang-Woo’s mouth tore all the way to his ears, and sharp teeth pierced out from the skin over his cheekbones.

“The loyal retainer of Lady Gaia, and…”

Kang-Woo’s jaw dislocated, his mouth opening beyond what was humanly possible, just like a snake swallowing a large prey. His mouth reached all the way down to his solar plexus. Despite that, Kang-Woo was speaking as clearly as before.

“The Protector of Light.”

Munch! Crunch!

The Constellation of Agony was eaten alive by the abnormally wide mouth. He was squashed, pierced, twisted, and contorted.

Grrrrk.

The body of the Constellation of Agony was broken down into bits within Kang-Woo’s stomach and dissipated into the black sea.

“Buuuuurp.”

Another evil being had disappeared thanks to the Protector of Light (Type: Darkness).

***

Riiing!

[You have devoured the entirety of the Constellation of Agony’s Deific Essence.]

[A portion of the Deific Essence is sealed.]

[The Deific Essence devoured by the Authority of Predation is interfering with the system’s restrictions.]

[Raising the level cap from 86 to 89!]

“Eh?”

‘Only three levels?’

Kang-Woo frowned aggressively. He saw the message that a portion of the Deific Essence was sealed.

‘No wonder he was so weak.’

Kang-Woo clicked his tongue. He did indeed think that the Constellation of Agony had been way too weak for his grandiose title. Other than the fact that the Divinity within his demonic energy made his defense extremely solid as well as his absurdly fast regenerative speed, he had been nothing special.

“I didn’t manage to get my Tenth Awakening Trait.”

Kang-Woo sighed in disappointment. He had been looking forward to leveling up to get his Tenth Awakening Trait the most, but he had been one level short of reaching Level 90.

‘I had a feeling that it would be a clue to earning Divinity.’

Since the battle with the Constellation of Agony made him painfully aware of how important Divinity was, he was even more disappointed.

“Tsk,” Kang-Woo clicked his tongue and shook his head.

‘I guess I’ll hope for better next time.’

There was nothing that he could do at the moment. He could try to go out of his way to acquire the ancient demonic beasts’ corpses, but it was pointless.

‘There aren’t any ancient demonic beasts that possess Divinity.’

Even if there were, Behemoth would be it.

“Let’s see… In that case…”

His excitement had died down due to having been one step short of reaching his Tenth Awakening, but there was one additional thing that he had managed to acquire.

‘Dragon tongue magic.’

It was the knowledge that he had gained after drinking the treasure known as the Repayment of the Dragon God. Kang-Woo organized the knowledge of dragon tongue magic swirling around in his head. His eyes shone with curiosity.

‘Manifesting magic by using the power imbued within words, huh?’

It was an extremely interesting method. Dragon tongue was obviously the keystone of dragon tongue magic, and dragon tongue itself was the beginning and end of all magic.

‘The language wasn’t created for communication purposes in the first place.’

Dragon tongue was a magical formula in the form of language. One could only use dragon tongue by adjusting one’s intensity, pitch, pronunciation, and speed of one’s speech to a degree of perfection.

Normal magic and skills also required activation words or to be cast, but in those cases, it was mainly used for materializing an image, or the symbol of the magic or skill itself.

‘It can also be used for the coolness factor, like Reynald.’

Kang-Woo was reminded of the kind-hearted young man who had gone out of his way to shout his skill right before he was about to attack.

‘He was a kind-hearted fellow, but to think he died so pitifully.’

Kang-Woo shook his head as sorrow swept over him.

‘That’s why activation words should be short and concise. It should also never give away what the attack does. For example, Rasengan is better than Gomu Gomu no Jet Pistol.’

In any case, dragon tongue did not stop at simple activation words that allowed one to manifest an image, but the magical formula itself.

‘In other words, as long as the mana required for the manifestation of magic is supplied…’

Simply saying the dragon tongue was enough to activate the magic.

Silence fell in the room. Kang-Woo stroked his chin and got up from his chair.

“This is pretty fun.”

Possibly because his hopes had not been high, he was having a lot more fun than he had expected. It was not because he was after the power of dragon tongue magic; however strong it was, it would not be as good as the Authorities of the princes of Hell. If he simply wanted strong techniques, he wouldn’t go out of his way to research dragon tongue magic. He was not interested in how powerful or useful dragon tongue magic was.

‘The way to imbue power into language…’

Kang-Woo was curious about its principles.

“Mmm.”

Kang-Woo smiled and stretched. His motivation was through the roof for some reason.

‘Maybe it’s because my growth has been stagnant for a while.’

The Chaos skills and demonic energy from the Abyss were so difficult to control to the point that they could lead to his death; he seemed to have unknowingly accumulated stress due to such dangers.

Kang-Woo decided to take this chance to research dragon tongue magic. Thankfully, he wouldn’t be researching it alone; he had someone he could discuss dragon tongue with.

Whoooom.

The communication crystal orb vibrated. Lilith’s voice flowed out of it as soon as Kang-Woo put his hand over it.

[Master Kang-Woo. Just now—]

“Yeah, I know.”

Kang-Woo turned to face the door.

Rumble.

He could feel vibrations similar to a rhinoceros charging. He lifted the demonic energy protecting the room.

Bam!

The door was destroyed.

“Kang-Wooooooooooooo!”

Echidna jumped into Kang-Woo’s arms.

***

“... I can’t?”

“Yeah. You can’t use dragon tongue, Kang-Woo.”