Chapter 1201: Legacy (2)
He had once thought about it.
What if Lennok’s awakening in this world wasn’t a coincidence?
What if he stood here as the price for choosing transcendent talent and a penalty?
What if Lennok already knew the method or process behind it?
“……”
The Black Consumer Project.
A plan that began decades ago in Vulcan, buried in darkness after countless failures.
Kaiser’s method to examine all failures and find the answer for what came next.
The greatest and most hideous failure Lennok had encountered since awakening in this world.
The truth he couldn’t reach, despite digging into the project for so long, despite chasing Kaiser for so long.
Ironically, Lennok could only hear about the project’s truth after letting go of that lingering attachment.
The power to edit and configure human fate and talent.
A project to control and manage innate aptitudes and causality as desired.
“……”
He tried to say something, but couldn’t.
His lips parted to form a voice, but no words came out.
The reason Lennok awoke in this world.
The reason he existed, holding transcendent talent and a commensurate ‘price’ in both hands.
The reason he had always believed the project’s truth was connected to himself.
That was—
“What does it mean… to edit human talent?”
In the frozen silence, he managed to part his parched lips.
A stillness so profound it felt like his ears would burst. In the unheard silence, even his senses seemed to fade.
His vision blurred so much that even Ethan’s figure at the end of the distant corridor appeared indistinct.
“To directly reset fate or causality is…”
“……”
Bzzzzzz—
An agonizing ringing in his ears.
A sense of unreality, as if even the words Lennok himself uttered belonged to someone else.
Nevertheless, Lennok was, by now, unconsciously voicing questions that had naturally arisen from within.
“Even if Kaiser Bajour was a Regressor… how could he have arrived at such a conclusion?”
Two truths Lennok had learned in the Ninth Tribulation of Kundara.
Kaiser’s horrific end, his head severed and gone. The secret that he was a Regressor who used the talent of Reversing Heaven.
How could the project, centered around Kaiser’s regression, have become so distorted in its conclusion?
But Ethan tilted his head the moment he heard Lennok’s retort.
As if Lennok’s reaction to questioning it was unexpected in itself.
“Was it not that you chose not to hear the answer from me, having already reached it yourself?”
“……”
“Or was it because, while chasing the project, you chose a different answer?”
Ethan, who had answered with an emotionless voice, almost immediately understood the reason and nodded.
“You believed that even while wanting to know the answer, I must have dreamed of the same thing as you.”
“……That’s.”
“We tried to defy fate, but in the end, we had to face our lack of talent.”
Leaving Lennok, who couldn’t properly string together words, Ethan slowly moved.
“We walked a tightrope with Transcendent beings, even borrowing their authority through illicit means, but even that soon reached its limit.”
“……”
“In the process of examining all the world’s failures and searching for answers, we hoped, relied, yearned… and finally realized.”
Ethan whispered, gazing at the advancing army outside the window.
“If you lack talent and qualification, you must create and fill those lacking parts yourself.”
“……”
“To defy fate, one must create fate directly.”
It was an answer similar to, yet different from, the conclusion Lennok had drawn.
Just as Lennok had instinctively believed and been certain of, it wasn’t the same, even while desiring the same thing.
He was searching not for hope, but for a method.
He was creating not qualifications, but answers.
Because they desired the same thing, Lennok saw himself in Ethan, empathizing and trying to understand.
However, the conclusion Kaiser reached at the end of the project was not the same as Lennok’s.
“……I see.”
He knew that the project had begun to create an answer that didn’t exist.
He already knew the bitter conclusion that everything had changed after countless failures.
But the conclusion Kaiser reached at the end of the world-shaking project was—
To edit human talent and fate, to create the key that would lead to the next step.
“That’s how it was.”
Lennok slowly raised his gaze and closed his eyes.
“When they said Kaiser changed at the end of the project… that’s what it meant?”
The truth of the Black Consumer Project he had chased for so long.
The true nature of the wish Kaiser Bajour had at his final moment.
Kaiser hadn’t sought to reach the next step with his own conclusion and answer.
Nor had he tried to directly create or find an answer for himself through the project.
What Kaiser had wished for in his final moment was ‘someone’ who would reach the next step in his stead.
If he designed the project, not wishing for his own answer, but for someone who could provide the answer he desired.
If, in that process, he endured innumerable failures and ultimately sought to meddle with human fate and talent.
“……”
A sharp pain pierced a corner of his chest, as if it had been run through.
At his final choice, a form of evasion that was not truly evasion.
Lennok, too, understood and accepted the choice he had made, in a way.
“You would understand.”
Ethan whispered, as if aware of Lennok’s emotions.
“If you truly saw the same thing as us and came this far, you would understand.”
“……”
“If you wished for the same thing, and chased the same thing to get here… you would understand that feeling.”
“……I.”
“If someone must answer in the face of impending demise. If, even as a mere echo, it could serve as a stepping stone for what comes next.”
At the far end of the endlessly stretching corridor, Ethan looked directly at Lennok and said,
“He thought it was fine if it wasn’t him who saved the world… that’s what he thought.”
Those were the words Lennok had once heard directly from Kaiser himself.
At the final moment when the Kaiser of the past sacrificed himself for Lennok at the end of the Restricted Zone.
If he didn’t lose his initial resolve. If, at the end of the conclusion, he had no regrets.
Then he could always become an echo for what came next.
The last will of the past Kaiser, who vanished while repeating those words to himself.
Had only those words remained with Kaiser through decades of time?
Was even the reason Kaiser changed and failed at the project’s end also that?
If editing human fate and talent was a ‘process’ to create the answer Kaiser himself desired.
If that ‘result’ had transcended decades of time to stand here, in this very place.
“……It wouldn’t have been such a grand and noble plan,” Lennok murmured.
Even as he understood and realized many things, his thoughts didn’t stop.
In the chain of questions and answers, Lennok glimpsed a truth beyond what Ethan spoke.
What Kaiser truly desired. The betrayal he yearned for, even abandoning his own pursuit.
The sacrifices and side effects that must have inevitably accompanied that process.
“If the project truly reached the level of editing human fate and talent, if as a result it was interfering with causality…”
Lennok’s eyes gleamed through his disheveled hair.
“Then, it must have ultimately targeted living humans. It would have been nothing short of large-scale human experimentation conducted city-wide.”
“……”
“If they sought to dissect and analyze humans, arbitrarily alter their nature and origin, and even manipulate their thoughts and values…”
Lennok’s voice dropped to a chilling tone.
“How is that any different from the Outer Gods of the Outer Sea, who are offered human fates?”
“Perhaps so.”
Ethan agreed.
“Human sacrifice is inherently an act that mimics outcomes other than death, which was originally granted to life. It’s a process that induces contradiction by imitating outcomes that no longer exist in this world, thereby achieving efficiency that transcends causality.”
“……”
“But what we desired was not such an efficient ‘failure.’ We believed that if there was a path to success, no matter how inefficient, costly, or filled with lingering attachment, it was worth attempting.”
Ethan slowly raised his gaze and whispered,
“We thought it would be enough if we could ‘create’ transcendent talent that could change everything.”
“……Is that so.”
Why was Ethan telling Lennok this?
Was it because Lennok was a Seeker who had pursued the project and reached Ethan?
Was it because Lennok had stopped questioning at the last moment, even trying to abandon his lingering attachment?
No, Lennok knew it might not be just that.
The identity of the project. The ‘someone’ Kaiser wished for in his final moment, not himself.
Because he vaguely guessed who that was.
Because he vaguely knew that the secret of the Black Consumer Project he had chased for so long was closer than ever.
Lennok had accepted all of Ethan’s explanations and even this moment.
“……”
He wanted to deny it, but Ethan’s words were not wrong.
Kaiser’s answer, his choice, even his betrayal at the very last moment—Lennok could understand it all.
Because he had chased after Kaiser this way, because he had seen Kaiser’s life overlap with his own while digging into the project.
Had he not stood here, afraid, wanting to escape, yet still wanting to know?
But—
“That’s… not the answer I want.”
Lennok murmured, walking in the opposite direction from Ethan.
“It’s not a conclusion I can reach, nor a path I can follow.”
“……”
“I… don’t wish for it that way. Not in a way where I entrust the answer to others, wishing for it through them…”
Since awakening in this world, he had always been here because he wanted to remain true to himself.
Because he willed and resolved it himself, in a distant journey where he strove to be himself until the very end.
Because not for a single moment had he ever allowed another to fulfill that wish for him.
“Was that why you returned at this time?”
Lennok stopped thinking and turned his gaze.
“Are you still dreaming a dream that hasn’t ended, even after the plan to edit human fate failed?”
“Ars Nova fell, the project failed, and we all had to scatter,” Ethan replied.
“Trust we believed would never break was shattered, and we lost much… but something still remains.”
“……”
“A ‘success’ harvested at the cost of the project’s termination, which had only known failure. That result still remains in Vulcan.”
“The project’s… success?”
A success reaped at the very end of the Black Consumer Project.
Did this mean Ethan Bajour decided to return to reclaim it?
Upon hearing those words, Lennok understood that Deadrise’s ultimate goal was to return to Vulcan.
Not just because Vulcan was their spiritual home and base, but because they had left something more important there.
Because the meaning and legacy they gained by sacrificing and losing everything were there.
If so, the true meaning of the Vulcan reclamation battle, scheduled immediately after the subjugation campaign, was, indeed—
“You would understand.”
Ethan asked the same question again.
“If you truly saw the same thing as us, you would understand.”
“……”
“If you’ve been digging into the power that edits and sets human talent and fate for so long, even without truly knowing its nature…”
Ethan, who had reached the end of the corridor and stopped, said,
“It must be because you yourself believed your existence might be connected to the project.”
“……”
“An 8-level wizard. Jindun’s Successor. A Seeker who reached the answer faster than anyone, transcending such titles… if you wanted to know where your talent and qualifications originated.”
Ethan looked at Lennok with an expressionless face and tilted his head back.
“Then, it would be necessary to directly confirm here whether your existence and talent were the result of the project.”
“That… was why you answered my questions about the project honestly.”
It was impossible to stand here driven by vague curiosity or a thirst for knowledge alone, without any reason or motive.
Because he had always been certain that the project’s secret was vaguely connected to himself.
Because he had strived to uncover that truth.
Ethan, too, had faced Lennok and felt a sense of déjà vu about his existence.
Was Lennok’s existence a part of the project that Ethan had failed? In what way had Lennok envisioned the answer to stand here today?
If Ethan had waited for this moment to confirm that before returning to Vulcan.
“……Before I answer your question, I’ll ask one last thing.”
Lennok slowly opened his eyes and looked up at Ethan.
“Kaiser and Ethan. Which one are you now?”
Whether Lennok’s existence was the result and a part of the project.
Whether the talent and price Lennok had set were the project’s doing.
There was one truth he had to confirm before knowing that.
Who was this man, standing before Lennok, claiming to be the Marshal, yet never revealing his own name?
Was the proof Lennok thought of etched into Ethan’s neck, hidden between the collars of his old military uniform?
Had he truly severed Kaiser’s head and affixed it to Ethan’s body?
Without confirming that, he could go nowhere.
To find out where that lingering attachment went after the project failed.
To find out what Ethan truly desired in Vulcan—
“I believe I’ve already answered that once,” Ethan said with an expressionless face.
“My name is no longer important to me. So, there’s no reason to answer that question.”
“Oh, really?”
Lennok opened his eyes, retorted, and took a step.
As he stepped forward, the empty corridor warped.
Whoosh!!
As he drew up mana, a hot flame took hold in his hand.
Clenching the rising fire, Lennok muttered with an expressionless face,
“Then from now on, I suppose I’ll have to confirm it myself, with my own hands.”