Daddy is too Strong-Chapter 367

Do-Jun picked up after the children for a bit, then turned off the bedroom lights and walked out into the living room. He threw on a cardigan over his white shirt as he glanced back at the bed, where the children were tangled in their sleep, before pulling out the Core Talisman from his pocket. Having already completed exploring the Core up to the fifteenth floor, he was now planning to explore the Deep Realm.

Just as he closed the bedroom door, a messenger app notification sounded from his phone. Do-Jun took the phone out of his other pocket and checked the screen. He’d been added to a group chat for S-rank Hunters.

[Lee Kang-Hyun has added Lee Do-Jun to the chatroom.]

Kang-Hyun: I’ll send the photos we took earlier today, Supervisor Lee.

With that, notifications came in nonstop. Photos from their visit to the sauna earlier in the day flooded the chat. Do-Jun scrolled through them with a small smile and even uploaded a few pictures he had taken on his phone.

Do-Jun: Thank you for the photos.

To let the S-rankers carry on with their usual conversation, whatever it may have been about, he quietly left the chat. Then a brilliant light streamed from the talisman, enveloping him.

***

“I’ve been waiting for you, adventurer.” A voice was heard greeting him.

He had arrived, not in the Deep Realm but in the Buffer Zone. A gentle breeze stirred the flowers in the field, and standing there was a woman. Her voice and appearance matched someone Do-Jun knew well: Cecilia. However, something was different about her. Gone was the mischievous energy, replaced by... calmness.

Do-Jun was familiar with this person. Not in terms of appearance, but the aura she exuded was identical to the memory that had briefly flickered through his mind when he first obtained the Broken Wooden Plaque that read “Return to the Origin.”

It wasn’t a clear memory, but he vaguely recalled a woman in flowing white robes driving a sword into his abdomen and saying, “Go back. You’re not ready yet.”

What happened afterward, he couldn’t remember. But her voice back then had been filled with sorrow.

“It seems you don’t remember,” Cecilia said, understandingly. She looked as if she already knew everything.

Do-Jun stepped forward slowly. He stopped when he was about a meter away from her.

Cecilia remained silent for a while, then said, “My name is Cecilia. Cecilia Epicurus.”

The moment that surname left her lips, Do-Jun’s eyes narrowed in surprise. Epicurus... So she was Epicurus.

It was a name he had seen far too often in the Interpreter, which he had obtained two years ago: Epicurus, the traveler of the Deep Realm. As he descended through the Core, Do-Jun had traced the remnants she left behind.

“So you were the author of the Interpreter,” he remarked.

“I knew it would be with you. Yes, the Interpreter is an artifact I created. No, rather, it became an artifact later on. It started as a journal I kept when I first entered the Core... a book imbued with the source of my power,” Cecilia replied.

Do-Jun retrieved the Interpreter from Ivela’s Pouch. It shimmered faintly with a white glow. That had never happened before.

He held it out to her. Cecilia accepted it and checked its completion rate, which had surpassed ninety percent. Her memories had gradually returned over time because each time Do-Jun increased the Interpreter’s completion, it was like placing another piece into a puzzle. Piece by piece, her memory had come back.

Cecilia handed the Interpreter back to Do-Jun, who asked, “You don’t need it?”

“It’s better in your hands than mine now. More importantly, there’s something I need to tell you. No, first, I owe you an apology. Because of me, you were forced to fight endlessly, through eternity.”

Tens, no—hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times... or perhaps even more than that. Too many to count. Do-Jun had lived through countless regressions in the Martial World.

Cecilia closed her eyes, then slowly opened them and said, “The world was once... destroyed.”

***

A hundred million years ago, two Transcendents were born in the Deep Realm, later to be known as the First Transcendents. It was an unprecedented event. Back then, humans who transferred into the Core rarely made it past even the eighth floor, let alone reach the Deep Realm. Over time, the two rose to great power and eventually became administrators blessed by the Core.

The two, who used to fight over first and second place on the ranking, were naturally removed from the board when they took on the role of administrators. Solomon took charge of Cosmos as its Keybearer, and Cecilia took charge of Origin.

Meanwhile, the Encroachment continued. Humans from other planets were constantly funneled into the Core’s tutorial zone. But of course, most couldn’t adapt to the Core and died in droves.

“We can’t let this go on,” Cecilia had said.

To save them, she proposed to Solomon that they offer their help. Solomon, known as the King of Wisdom at that time, agreed. They decided to act as guides, posting strategy tips on the Core Forum. Sometimes, they even returned to the upper floors to lend assistance directly.

However, unlike Cecilia, Solomon grew increasingly disillusioned. At first, he had agreed with Cecilia’s dream of coexistence, but the humans who managed to survive soon began betraying and killing one another. Their selfishness eroded any chance of peace. And slowly, Solomon’s very nature began to corrupt along with the fall of humans. At first, he tried to persuade them, but later, he stopped even that, resorting to outright slaughter.

Cecilia tried to stop him, but Solomon said, “This wretched world will never know peace, no matter how hard we try, Cecilia Epicurus. After seeing what they’ve done, do you still believe they can be persuaded to peace—to Ataraxia? No. Absolutely not. It was doomed from the start.”

He instead proposed that the two of them, using the Keys they held, should become Kings of Dimensions and recreate the world entirely. Cecilia refused. Just like that, their ideals clashed, and they parted ways.

She continued striving to save humanity. Meanwhile, Solomon honed his power by overcoming trials in the Deep Realm.

“And before I knew it, Solomon became the Supreme Demon, the Primordial Evil of the Deep Realm. He created the demons and formed his own faction. Chaos, already rampant in the Deep Realm, erupted into bloodshed.” 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

She took a brief pause, then continued, “First, he invaded the Spirit Realm. Then he began attacking the other Transcendents. The inhabitants of the Deep Realm were swept up in the carnage. This marked the beginning of what came to be called the Great War.”

Do-Jun listened quietly to Cecilia’s story. Without a change in expression, he simply lent her his ear.

“Solomon gradually expanded his forces. People began to accept that he would eventually seize the throne. But then another force emerged. One you know well... the dragons and their lord, Izaas. His power was immense. He subdued Solomon, who had been unstoppable until then. And when Solomon finally fled, Izaas and the dragons vanished with him.”

Cecilia bit down on her lower lip, then continued, “The Core, already in ruin, deteriorated rapidly. No one could trust anyone. If they weren’t ‘me,’ then they were the enemy. Even the administrators turned against each other, perhaps under that same influence. And through it all, the Encroachment continued. Thousands of years passed just like that, and when the Encroachment of the last remaining planet, Earth, came to an end...”

Solomon returned, more powerful than ever, and one of his subordinates, Baal, approached Cecilia. She could not defeat him.

“He took ‘Origin’ from me. With both Keys in his hands, Solomon set off on a long massacre. Starting from the first floor of the Core, all the way to the fifteenth... Administrators, monsters, humans—anything in his path, he killed them all. I tried to stop him. I tried to reason with him.”

However, Solomon did not kill Cecilia, either because he still felt some lingering affection for her or because he thought she might still be useful.

“But Solomon refused to listen. He returned to the Deep Realm to fight the powerful once more. One by one, he took them down. The Usurpers, the Transcendents, the Spirit Queen... None of them could stand before his strength. The dragons appeared again, but by then... it was too late.”

Cecilia smiled bitterly. “And finally, after claiming victory in the Second Great War, the Path of Dimensions opened before Solomon. But he could not ascend it. He needed recognition from Ouroboros to be truly complete. So he sought out Ouroboros.”

But Ouroboros did not acknowledge him. Even though he held both Origin and Cosmos, Ouroboros did not share any power with him.

“Solomon fell into despair. Consumed by rage, he returned to the Deep Realm to build the strength to kill Ouroboros. He needed to recover the power he had lost in his battle with the Dragon Lord. And while Solomon slept...”

Cecilia stole the two keys—Origin and Cosmos.

“And with the power of Origin, I traveled back in time,” she revealed.

Cecilia went back to a point before the Second Great War. But even then, she couldn’t stop Solomon. Even though she held both Keys, the outcome was always the same.

“In the end, there was only one path. The world would be destroyed. No matter how much I tried, no matter what I did, nothing changed. Solomon destroyed everything. And in the end, there was nothing left in the world. So I, too, began to grow... indifferent.”

Cecilia eventually gave up. When she returned to the past again, she didn’t help anyone. She simply drifted through time, awaiting the destruction to come.

And then... something approached her.

“It was none other than... Ouroboros. And it spoke to me.”

She didn’t realize it at first when she saw the tiny snake. At first glance, it looked like any regular Status Window Snake. But she quickly recognized it upon seeing the mythical creature hidden inside its mouth.

“Go to Earth, right now,” Ouroboros had said.

Earth was the final planet soon to be consumed by the Encroachment.

“And then...” Cecilia slowly lifted her head, meeting Do-Jun’s eyes. “It told me to find a man who was going to die soon.”

A man who could rewrite fate.