Prologue
The world was destroyed.
Completely and utterly destroyed.
He raised his head and looked around.
The once magnificent buildings of Seoul were reduced to bare bones, and the earth was seething. The sky was as red as if it had been drenched in the sun.
It was a clear and definite destruction of the world.
It was truly frustrating.
Betrayal and trolling right before the apocalypse – it seemed as if humanity had willingly walked into the pit of destruction.
He was an Archmage.
He did not shine in birth, body, or anything else, but the one and only talent God gave him was perseverance.
He tenaciously climbed up from being a low-level 9th grade magic civil servant to become a 1st grade Archmage, the pinnacle of all mages. It was the result of struggling to prevent the apocalypse.
He worked like a dog without a single day of rest.
Was it a reward?
No, it was too miserable and cruel to be called a reward.
He was left as the sole survivor in a destroyed world devoid of any living beings.
His appearance could hardly be called normal.
His body was twisted and corrupted.
He was barely sustaining his life in a skeletal state.
Rather than a human, it would be more accurate to call him a living corpse.
“Huff…”
Thick smoke tore through his lungs and seeped out.
His body slumped, and one arm hung lifelessly.
However, his soul still shone as brightly as before. His will, tempered by failure and despair, remained unbroken.
He couldn’t end it like this.
He couldn’t just sit down for the sake of his comrades who died for him and the countless lives he failed to save.
The ending to those great sacrifices and terrible suffering should never be like this.
A glint appeared in his one remaining blurred eye.
‘If I use everything…’
Although all living beings had disappeared, not everything was gone. Things left behind by his comrades and the technologies accumulated by humanity remained.
He traveled the world and collected everything he needed.
He opened towers filled with taboos, thoroughly studied elven magic, and analyzed all the martial arts books and secret techniques that only heirs of prestigious families could see.
Thud-thud-thud!
The earth’s crust began to twist and rise.
The erupting pillars of fire and the falling moon signaled that the complete end was approaching. Even the destroyed world was facing its final moments.
‘It’s not too late yet.’
There was still one chance left.
He gathered all the treasures of the world. Treasures that could have caused wars if they had appeared in the world before its destruction, even just one of them.
The sun flower that blooms only once every ten thousand years, the heart of an ancient dragon, the burned World Tree, and even the essence of a star buried at the very bottom.
He poured everything, even his soul, into making a tiny gem solely for this one chance.
It looked so shabby compared to the impending apocalypse.
‘Continuously calculate and analyze.’
However, everything he had learned, analyzed, and newly established was densely engraved on the surface of this gem.
It was humanity’s greatest artifact, created for one purpose only.
Magic to reverse time.
The phenomenon that transcends magical calculations and predictions was called an ability. This was no longer in the realm of magic but an ability.
To turn back time and prevent the coming apocalypse.
To create a world where his comrades don’t need to sacrifice themselves and suffer.
Starting over from the beginning, he might be able to prevent it.
‘The probability of success… is less than 1%.’
It was a hard-earned opportunity, but the chances of success were extremely low.
However, he was not anxious.
Rather, he was at ease.
“Until the very end, like a mage.”
A harsh, metallic voice squeezed out of his throat.
A mage must always maintain composure.
Within that composure, he had to sharpen his reason and shine his will. That was the best state to perform magic.
The end of the destroyed world approached.
Countless monsters resembling the forms of hell poured out onto the earth, and something huge crawled out as the moon cracked like an egg in the sky. Soon, the fragments of the moon were falling, blanketing the sky like a curtain. The world was literally crumbling.
‘Not yet. Not yet…’
He persistently endured and waited.
Even when small monsters in huge swarms gnawed at his flesh, even when building-sized monsters slammed his body, he gritted his teeth and withstood it.
He waited for the last moment.
He had to endure until the very end to grasp a new beginning.
Kwagagaga!
The huge moon’s fragments struck the earth.
‘Now!’
At the moment the planet exploded from the impact, he captured that power in the gem.
It was the ignition device to activate his ultimate magic that embodied all his knowledge. And it was the energy source.
The surroundings darkened.
It felt as if the gem in his hand was absorbing all the light.
Poof!
He drove the gem into his chest.
It pierced his heart and was embedded deep within his fragmented soul.
Somehow, it felt like his already stopped heart was beating again.
He felt his existence being erased.
He couldn’t even gauge whether it was a success or failure.
If luck was on his side, if luck followed him just this once…
Perhaps then he could complete a miracle that transcends even an ability.
Relying on luck was not very mage-like.
But it was a very human thing to do.
He was happy to face the end as a mage and as a human.
‘If I could start over…’
He wanted to have a brilliantly shining talent to prevent the apocalypse. And if he could have a good environment to nurture that talent…
It might be the minimum condition to prevent the apocalypse.
He pondered such meaningless thoughts in his fading consciousness.
The moment his will permeated the gem, time stopped.
And it reversed.
* * *
A cozy sensation was felt.
It was so warm and cozy that he wanted to keep touching it. Such a bed was a luxury in a world hurtling towards destruction.
Being able to sleep on the dirt floor in a smelly robe was considered fortunate. The smell of rotting corpses and mold even felt fragrant.
What is this scent?
A coziness that seemed to capture the sunlight was felt.
A very familiar smell.
A smell he might have encountered a very long time ago, before the destruction.
“What the…?!”
He abruptly sat up.
His mind was hazy. He was speechless at the sight before his eyes.
A scene he couldn’t even see in his dreams anymore.
Ordinary sunlight and fluttering curtains.
A floor that gleamed white in the sunlight.
Although the room was somewhat large, it was an ordinary, everyday scene that he once considered normal but was no longer so.
“What…?”
Did he die and go to heaven?
He shook his head in disbelief. He never believed in heaven in the first place.
He got out of bed and examined his body.
“This is…”
It was not his scrawny and grotesquely twisted body.
The scars etched from all sorts of hardships and dealing with villains’ crap to prevent the apocalypse were also gone. Both arms were intact, and both legs existed. They were not hastily patched-up prosthetic arms or legs. His torn, cracked, and peeled skin was smooth like white jade.
The last scene he saw flashed through his mind.
Magic that was close to an ability.
It was a success! At least half of it.
It was completely different from the situation he expected. Because it was not his body.
He performed internal observation to check his physical condition.
It was serious.
There was no mana, and a mana core had not been formed either.
It was a somewhat frail ordinary human body.
He looked at the full-length mirror on the wall.
A youthful face with remnants of childishness was reflected.
It was a fairly pretty boy. A million times better looking than his face that had been smashed and twisted as a side effect of forcibly learning magic.
He stared at the face for a long time, feeling like he had seen it somewhere many times.
It was very familiar, but he couldn’t quite recall it.
He lowered his gaze and looked at his upper body.
“This is…?”
Beautiful patterns were drawn on his upper body.
He knew what this was.
The ultimate magic he had completed by pouring everything into it, an ability that would never succeed again.
A miracle that reversed the destroyed world!
‘Authority of Time.’
It was an authority that could govern the flow of time and further dominate it. And within it, everything he had established was dormant. As if engraved in his soul, each and every one of them vividly came to mind.
When he closed his eyes, he could feel the pulse of time beyond the sound of his heartbeat.
Technology, martial arts, the Five Elements, secret techniques, and magic.
They were woven into this one equation, living and breathing within that pulse.
It was the one and only weapon that would make him surpass his past self.
Although still faint, it held such a brilliant possibility.
Magic that dominates time and is not bound by time.
Just imagining it made his body tremble.
‘Whose body is this?’
He walked to the desk.
Because he saw a wallet among the expensive watches there.
Upon opening the wallet, he couldn’t help but be surprised.
It was someone he knew all too well.
Only then did he realize why the face looked so familiar.
It made sense that he didn’t recognize it right away.
Because it was much younger.
“Lee Jin-woo…?”
The worst traitor.
The greatest troll in human history.
The slaughterer of 3 billion people.
I, who returned from the apocalypse… became the worst mastermind, Lee Jin-woo.
