The Hero Returns

The situation in the city was even more catastrophic.

In pure chaos, screams of people mixed in with the sounds of buildings collapsing. The whole place had turned into a pandemonium.

Monsters that appeared in the skies didn't even attack humans. Actually, people who got scared by those creatures and tried to run away ended up injuring themselves most of the time.

Rumble, gugugugu—

A small villa steadily tilted to its side until its support finally gave way.

"Kkyaaaahk!" A young woman hurriedly running away while carrying a toddler screamed helplessly.

She didn't have any time to escape. Just as the structure was about to fall on top of her...

Slice—!

She squeezed her eyes shut, but then, her ears caught the sound of something being cut down.

KA-BOOM—!

The sound of a building crashing down could be heard from quite some distance away. Wondering what was going on, she opened her eyes only to discover a vast expanse of the sky.

Land—

The awakener carrying her made a worried expression, "Are you alright, miss?"

"A—ah, yes... T—thank you, I..." She stared at her savior with stunned eyes. This man's face was somewhat familiar to her. "Mister Lee Ju-ho?!"

"If you go in that direction, you should be able to find an evacuation shelter," Lee Ju-ho pointed toward the World Cup stadium over there. "Please hurry."

"T—thank you so much!"

The woman hurriedly bowed her head at him and then began running over there with every ounce of her energy.

Lee Ju-ho, who had been urgently moving around nonstop until now, took a short break here. This catastrophe occurred without any warning whatsoever, and he began his rescue efforts right away. Even so, he was feeling the acute lack of manpower at the moment.

Jiiing, jii-iiing—

His phone was ringing. The call was coming from Hak-joon.

"Hey, how's your side?"

"The ground split up, and lots of people seem to have been injured, bro. The city is basically half-destroyed, too..."

"Sounds like it's the end of the world or something. What about Miss Je-su, though?"

"She was with me, but I sent her off to an evacuation shelter. Even then, I'm still worried about her."

"Don't worry about the situation in the evacuation shelter. After all, the material used to build those shelters will withstand the planet splitting apart in half. If you're still worried, though, you should send a couple more people from the association over there."

"We're already short on manpower, so we can't do that. What about Su-hyeun, though?"

"Not sure. I did hear that he came back, but after he went off to speak to Mister Kim Dae-ho, I can't reach him at all."

There was no way Su-hyeun would be standing still under the current situation. This phenomenon was apparently taking place throughout the entire planet, so without a doubt, he must've perceived this crisis by now.

And sure enough...

Bzzz—

His phone vibrated briefly to alert him of the incoming text message.

"I got a text. Hold on."

Keeping his fingers crossed, Lee Ju-ho hurriedly confirmed the contents of the text message. Indeed, it did come from Su-hyeun.

"Is it from Su-hyeun?"

When Lee Ju-ho remained silent for a little while, Hak-joon realized that the text had to have come from Su-hyeun and quickly asked for a clarification.

Lee Ju-ho heard the question and read the text aloud, "If you wait for a little bit... I'll somehow handle it...?"

That sounded as if Su-hyeun knew something about this situation.

"What does that even mean?"

"He says he'll somehow take care of this. Hey, can you hang up for a second?" Lee Ju-ho said before ending the call himself. He then hurriedly called Su-hyeun's phone, but...

"The phone of the caller you wish to reach is currently offline. Please try again..."

The call didn't get through.

* * *

[Earth Shrink Technique]

Su-hyeun continuously performed the Earth Shrink Technique to rush ahead.

After confirming the fissure, then hearing about the story related to the collapse of Yggdrasil from Luslec, what Su-hyeun did next was to head to Sun Wukong's residence right away.

"As expected, you came here."

But when he arrived, the one waiting for him was Buddha.

Sun Wukong wasn't home. Su-hyeun already knew that quite some time had passed, yet the Monkey King hadn't returned.

Su-hyeun had many things to ask Buddha, such as why the latter asked him to go and speak to Brahma despite knowing the truth.

But there was no time for him to leisurely ask at the moment.

"How long has it been since I left?"

The time flow of Su-hyeun's world and this place was not the same. Although the difference shouldn't be too vast, at the bare minimum, several days here should equal one day on Earth.

"It must be around one month or so."

"One month..."

If it had been that long, even someone like Sun Wukong would've collapsed from exhaustion by now. Not only that, but his opponent this time was not some small fry but Master Subhuti. There was no way that their battle still hadn't ended by now.

"Did you come here to see the Great Sage Heaven's Equal?"

"Yggdrasil has begun collapsing, sir."

"Yes, I'm well aware."

Ku-gugugu...

Suddenly, the whole forest tilted to one side like a slope. The ground split apart and jutted up like a staircase. It seemed that the disarray in the boundaries separating different realms was also happening to this place.

More than likely, all the worlds existing within Yggdrasil were experiencing a similar situation right now.

"Something must've happened to Odin," said Buddha.

"Aren't you going to help?"

"Does it look like I'm not doing anything to you?"

Only after listening to Buddha did Su-hyeun realize what he had been doing. A portion of the large fissure in the sky was gradually closing up.

"Is he stopping the fissure from opening up even further?" Su-hyeun thought.

Buddha was using his powers to stop the wall separating one world from another from crumbling down brought on by the collapse of Yggdrasil.

What was happening right now didn't just affect this one world. The fissure extended to several worlds, so the act of stopping one fissure from opening up was basically the same as containing all of the fissures.

Su-hyeun initially thought that the collapse was happening really quickly. As it turned out, he was wrong. It was happening much slower than the predicted rate, all thanks to Buddha, who prevented the fissure from growing larger and thereby stopping the collapse of Yggdrasil itself.

"What are you doing, young man?" Buddha spoke up suddenly, prompting Su-hyeun to snap back to reality. "Have you not come here to find the Great Sage Heaven's Equal?"

Buddha then pointed in a direction. That was where Sun Wukong could be found.

Su-hyeun nodded, "I shall head there immediately."

He performed the Earth Shrink Technique once more. The space folded, and the pathway instantly narrowed. While taking several steps in the blink of an eye, he continued to scan the area to find Sun Wukong.

Ka-boom—!

He heard the noise of Ruyi Jingu Bang smashing the ground apart.

"Could it be?"

Land—

Su-hyeun's steps came to a brief halt as he changed direction. It was scarcely believable, but Sun Wukong seemed to be still fighting even now.

Ruyi Jingu Bang had been extended high up into the sky to pierce the clouds. Su-hyeun quickly headed in that direction and eventually spotted Sun Wukong perched on top of the polearm.

"You're here, little bro?"

"Third Brother?" Su-hyeun stared at Sun Wukong in shock.

It supposedly had been a month.

From the sound of Ruyi Jingu Bang destroying the ground, Su-hyeun assumed that the fight was still ongoing, but that wasn't the case at all.

The reason why Sun Wukong increased his staff's length was to alert Su-hyeun to his current location.

"Third Brother, uncle—"

"He passed on two days ago."

Two days ago, he said, which meant they had been fighting for 28 days straight.

Sun Wukong was in the "dragon robe" attire that Master Subhuti had personally crafted. No attack would've been able to tear or damage it.

Yet, such a dragon robe had been ripped and shredded all over the place. That indicated how intense the battle must've been.

What should Su-hyeun say here to console his older sworn brother?

As he fell into a bit of a dilemma, Sun Wukong smirked deeply, "You came here because of that, right?"

While asking that, he looked up at the fissure higher up in the sky.

"Looks like Buddha is somehow stopping it. Even then, it seems that he isn't going to be enough. And I'm guessing that what is happening right now isn't only happening in this place. Leaving that alone will cause an even bigger problem, won't it?"

He spoke in a somewhat more mature manner.

For some reason, Su-hyeun felt his heart relax while listening to Sun Wukong. He felt pressed for every single second up to this point, but now, he found himself with some mental leeway.

It had been the issue with his mindset, in other words.

"Why don't we do it together?"

"That's why I'm here, Third Brother," Su-hyeun quickly approached Sun Wukong.

After reaching the top of Ruyi Jingu Bang, Sun Wukong placed his hand on the polearm and issued a new command, "Extend even further, Ruyi."

Fwhoooosh—!

Ruyi Jingu Bang shot up even higher, bringing the duo closer to the fissure. They peered over the fissure's edge to look inside, but unsurprisingly, they couldn't see anything.

"So, we basically need to close this thing, right?" Sun Wukong asked.

"This is probably inside Yggdrasil's trunk, Third Brother."

"Yggdrasil?"

"Yes."

"I've already heard about that tree from uncle a few times in the past. I always thought that was some first-rate nonsense since no tree can be that big, but it was all real, after all?" Sun Wukong replied, stunned.

Still, he seemed to be aware of Yggdrasil to some degree. That pretty much eliminated the need for a lengthy explanation.

"From this moment on, we need to enter this fissure and gain access to a much deeper part of Yggdrasil's trunk."

"You mean, in there?"

"Yes. And we must find the cause of the fissure, Yggdrasil's 'roots.' It also goes by another name, which is..." Su-hyeun recalled the cause of Yggdrasil's collapse that Luslec had told him earlier, "Apparently called the God Realm."

The God Realm was the world where gods gathered to live together. It was also in charge of managing Yggdrasil's roots. The legendary World Tree's collapse was caused by its roots being disturbed.

Even if it was a gigantic tree that connected countless worlds, it was still a tree in the end. If its roots collapsed, then the worlds above it were also bound to collapse.

"The God Realm..." The facial muscles of Sun Wukong quivered visibly.

He was clearly excited, seemingly enjoying this development. He might not have shown it outwardly, but he had been feeling depressed about Master Subhuti's passing. Therefore, the current crisis proved to be a not-so-bad kind of stimulation for him.

"Sounds like fun."

"But we might get lost if we make a mistake somewhere."

"We'll all still die if this carries on anyway, am I right?"

He was right about that one.

After all, the world's collapse was directly connected to the demise of every single entity in there. Maybe Sun Wukong, an immortal existence, or gods on Su-hyeun's level might survive in the end. Still, what would be the point of surviving in the destroyed world if you were the only one alive in it?

Su-hyeun had already experienced that to know all about it.

"I can't hold myself back anymore." Sun Wukong shrunk the size of Ruyi Jingu Bang and tied the weapon on his back. "Let's hurry and get going already!"

* * *

The inside of the fissure was truly chaotic.

It was impossible to differentiate colors in this place. The drab darkness or pure whiteness of the place, where the path was, or in which direction they were heading was impossible to tell.

Even so, they were still fortunate. They had Ruyi Jing Bang, after all.

"Hold on tight, little bro!"

"Of course!"

Su-hyeun and Sun Wukong, with Ruyi Jingu Bang in between them, traveled to the lower depths as the staff extended further and further.

Without the polearm extending in one direction all this time, they wouldn't even have realized where they were going.

This was the second reason why Su-hyeun sought out Sun Wukong in the first place.

"Lower. Keep going lower...!"

Yggdrasil's roots were obviously located in the lowest and deepest part of the tree.

Initially, it would've been quite challenging to find the correct path. Without the fissure opening up, there would've been no straightforward method to find out where the end of Yggdrasil was or where its bottom-most realm was even located.

But now, Yggdrasil was collapsing, and fissures were opening up everywhere. Entering through the gap in the trunk of Yggdrasil itself to go deeper shouldn't be all that challenging to pull off.

And so, they traveled like this for an unknown length of time.

Fwhoooosh—

Su-hyeun's and Sun Wukong's eyes finally took in the sight of a world that did have discernible colors.

Once they began literally falling from the sky, they summoned clouds under their feet and stopped their fall. Su-hyeun settled down on the fluffy cloud and peered over the edge.

"So, this is..."

They couldn't go any lower or deeper than this place through Yggdrasil's trunk.

They reached the lowest place in Yggdrasil, the tree that weaved together countless worlds.

"Is this the God Realm?"

From the name alone, Su-hyeun imagined this place to be truly stunning. He thought he would see a place where fairies playfully darted around and perfectly ripened heavenly fruits and beautiful flowers in fields that stretched endlessly.

He imagined they would be welcomed by idyllic scenes of various gods strolling around aimlessly.

But all those things were nothing more than Su-hyeun's imagination.

"It's... already all over."

The skies had turned black. The forests were burning, while the corpses of dead gods were piled up like hills.

The howls and screeches of unknown monsters densely filled this world.

"We, uhm, didn't come to a wrong place, right?"

Sun Wukong's doubt was well justified. No matter how one sliced it, this world simply did not suit the glamorous title of the God Realm, after all.

However, Su-hyeun was sure of it. "We definitely came to the correct place."

He could see some faint letters in the distance, barely visible through the gaps of burning and crumbling buildings.

They said, "Asgard."