Chapter 190 - Episode 25. Deus Ex Machina (5)
Chapter 190: Episode 25. Deus Ex Machina (5)
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For a moment, silence fell.
It was a metaphysical silence, as though an entire Unique World had twisted.
“What do you mean?”
“There is no need to play dumb. I know that Deus Ex Machina was put up for auction by you.”
For a brief moment, Maiad’s usually unshakable gaze wavered. Jaehwan moved closer to Maiad while keeping watch on the Vicegerents.
Maiad asked, “Why would you think that?”
The surrounding gods stirred loudly. They must have been eavesdropping.
Maiad asked again, “Why do you believe I am the one who put Deus Ex Machina up for auction?”
Jaehwan did not answer right away. Perhaps because he had drawn closer to Maiad, the high-grade gods’ attacks had slowed. They were probably trying to guess what kind of relationship he had with Maiad.
After catching his breath, Jaehwan spoke.
“If the Three Divine Artifacts were really your goal, you would have secured them first when all this began.”
Maiad had barely even looked at the Three Divine Artifacts. Maiad had been close enough to seize them at any moment.
“Did I not tell you? Because of the Seven Seats Agreement, I cannot act carelessly. The moment I move, the monsters in the sky will move as well.”
Maiad gestured toward the Seven Divine Thrones overhead. They looked like three nuclear bombs floating in the sky with helium balloons tied to them.
Jaehwan shook his head.
“It was strange from the start that something like the Three Divine Artifacts was even brought to auction.”
“What?”
“Did you really think you could buy the Three Divine Artifacts for 8.5 billion trust?”
Maiad fell silent. Jaehwan’s eyes asked the question.
Were the Three Divine Artifacts truly something that could be bought with 8.5 billion trust?
Were they really worth the same?
“That is…”
Jaehwan and Maiad both knew the truth.
They had only been assigned a price in trust because trust was the unit used to measure value. To powerhouses like the Seven Divine Thrones, the Three Divine Artifacts were not items whose value could be calculated in trust.
“They were never something that could be auctioned off in the first place. If an item like that was put up for auction, there is only one conclusion. The seller never wanted trust to begin with.”
“Even if your hypothesis is right, Jaehwan-nim, there is no proof that I am the seller.”
“It was suspicious from the moment you brought me here. If you truly wanted the Three Divine Artifacts, you would have brought someone you could really trust. Asking someone you had just met to accompany you, then entrusting them with a blank check, was absurd.”
“That was only because I am rich…”
“No. You were confident that you could recover that money from the start, whether legally or illegally.”
Maiad started to say something, then fell silent again. After measuring the distance between Jaehwan, who had moved close, and the high-grade gods targeting Jaehwan, Maiad smiled as though something had clicked.
It was a smile that said Maiad would gladly play along with Jaehwan’s scheme.
“If I were the seller, then even after the commission is deducted, the trust would eventually return to me.”
“You put it up for auction, and I would be buying it with your money.”
From a distance, the two of them talking so closely looked like intimate Companions. Perhaps that was why the gods who had been targeting Jaehwan had no choice but to stop attacking.
Maiad was the owner of the 「Rupture」, feared even by the Seven Divine Thrones and Great Lords.
“That is an interesting thought. But why would I go through all that trouble?”
“Who knows?”
“Even if what you say is true, why would I put the Three Divine Artifacts up for auction and buy them back? One mistake, and they would be taken from me. Do I look like someone who would take that kind of risk?”
“No.”
Maiad laughed as if that was amusing. Yet as Jaehwan watched Maiad laugh, his quiet certainty hardened.
“That Deus Ex Machina is a fake.”
Maiad’s gaze rippled with alarm. So startled, Maiad let X’s attack through for an instant, leaving a faint bruise by the shoulder.
“Why are you doing this? And what is X? What are you trying to gain from this fake auction?”
Maiad’s expression stiffened, but Maiad said nothing.
Jaehwan thought Maiad probably would not answer until the end.
“It seems you have no intention of telling me.”
He was curious, but he did not need an answer.
He had already achieved his goal.
“You are pretty clever.”
Andersen, who had silently listened to the conversation, sounded impressed.
“I cannot believe you used that one to restore your World Force…”
Jaehwan’s World Force, which had nearly run dry, had already recovered to a usable amount. He had been picking up the trust scattered across the ground and converting it into World Force whenever he could.
It was enough to use 「Fall」 several more times.
It was still insufficient, but it would be enough to keep the enemies pursuing him in check while he escaped.
‘Let’s go.’
Jaehwan prepared 「Earth Stab」.
He had played along with Maiad long enough. There was no reason to linger in a place with three Seven Divine Thrones and keep taking risks.
Then Jaehwan heard something that made him doubt his ears.
“If you help me here, I will help you find someone named Kim Yoonhwan.”
The gods began closing in again, and Andersen’s urgent warning echoed in his mind.
Yet Jaehwan heard nothing.
What had Maiad just said?
Before Jaehwan could answer, Maiad continued.
“I know where he is.”
For a moment, Jaehwan’s head throbbed.
The Rupture Lord’s ash-gray hair. He remembered seeing someone with that image before.
For example, when he had first asked Manri Shintong to locate Yoonhwan.
No way.
Rrrrrrk!
A thunderous roar tore through the silence.
As though it were a signal, X’s bullets riddled the ground at Maiad and Jaehwan’s feet. Panels opened around X’s elbows, pouring out rounds. X appeared to be a weapon in itself, with vicious strategic armaments covering every part of its body.
Soon, panels around its chest opened too, releasing a powerful particle wave.
Kwoooooong!
Jaehwan did not know what kind of 「Setting」 it was, but the bombardment condensed from immense World Force did not look easy even for Maiad to endure.
At the same time, the gods who had been at a standstill began moving again. Many of them were clearly targeting Jaehwan.
The second round had begun.
“Hey, snap out of it! You are not actually going to listen to that one, are you?”
Jaehwan quietly drew 「Fall」.
If he hesitated any longer, escape itself would become impossible.
But…
“Bombard him from range!”
Would he get another chance to save Yoonhwan if he let this opportunity go?
As Jaehwan hesitated, the gods had already formed an encirclement.
“He is exhausted! Wear him down slowly!”
The high-grade gods had earned their status for a reason. They used their Vicegerents to restrict Jaehwan’s movements while maintaining a barrage from afar. Masses of World Force blanketed the sky and flew toward him.
“His 「Setting」 cannot reach us from this far away! Fire!”
At this distance, Jaehwan could not fully use 「Fall」.
The high-grade gods’ Vicegerents were also withdrawing their Gigantes one after another, clearly wary of the 「Naked」 Setting.
Both 「Fall」 and 「Naked」 were sealed off while his World Force kept dwindling.
Jaehwan quickly retreated and took cover behind the auction items the staff had been carrying. The moment the panicked staff shouted at him, the incoming bombardment swept them away.
“Aaaaargh!”
“Stop firing! Stop! You will damage the auction items!”
Amid the chaos, Jaehwan picked up several auction items scattered across the floor. Some were things he had bid on.
[Master’s Treatise].
He was going to buy it anyway, so there was no problem taking it.
“You book thief!”
A murderous presence came from somewhere, followed by heavy World Force descending upon Solitary Existence’s blade. With a grinding crash, the naked Dark Heaven launched one sword strike after another at Jaehwan.
It seemed Dark Heaven had survived the Path of the Wave after all.
Boom! Kraaaash!
The attacks came with monstrous force, like bombs exploding one after another right in front of him.
A few exchanges were enough to tell him.
Dark Heaven was strong.
“Give me back my book!”
“I bought that book.”
The moment Dark Heaven joined the battle, wounds rapidly spread across Jaehwan’s body.
He was driven back, then back again.
How far had he retreated?
There was nowhere left to go.
Maiad stood directly behind him.
Tzzzt!
The boundary between two different World Forces met, sending out violent sparks.
Two people who sought the end of the 《Tree of Illusion》.
For the first time, the worlds of the only two Awakened Ones in this universe who held the same goal touched.
Maiad spoke first.
“Let us switch.”
“Fine.”
At those words, Jaehwan and Maiad changed places.
Dark Heaven and the other gods widened their eyes in surprise.
“Rupture Lord? Why…”
Without answering, Maiad unleashed vicious sword strikes at Dark Heaven and the gods. Maiad’s World Force, which had shown little effect against X, split more than ten Vicegerents in half in an instant.
Just by switching positions, the shape of the battle had completely changed.
Jaehwan looked at X approaching him.
“Do I need to deal with that one?”
“Yes. If you succeed, I will help you find your friend.”
“I heard you could not subdue it easily either.”
“I could not, but Jaehwan can. Strictly speaking, Jaehwan is the only one who can.”
With those words, Maiad charged toward Dark Heaven.
Almost at the same time, dozens of tracking missiles fired from X’s elbows.
Puh-buh-buh-boom!
Jaehwan barely kicked away some of the missiles and split others with Solitary Existence. Using the blast waves, he deflected all the remaining missiles and closed in on X.
His 「Fall」 was far more effective in close combat.
Unlike the other gods, X did not avoid close quarters.
The covers around its missile-firing wrists closed. Long blades protruded from the outer sides of its elbows and struck against Jaehwan’s Solitary Existence.
The blades had clearly collided, yet it sounded as though something had exploded.
Strong.
X rushed in without pause as Jaehwan leaped back. Its detailed chain of attacks seemed to have already figured out Jaehwan’s combat patterns.
Deflecting the relentless storm of blades, Jaehwan moved his hands busily for the first time in a while. It had been a long time since he had fought such a breathless close-range battle, especially one that forced him so thoroughly onto the defensive.
After every clash of blades, X gave him no time to catch his breath.
A frantic chain of attacks that no breathing creature could sustain.
Even as it struck Ignel’s masterpiece, Solitary Existence, the long blades emerging from X’s elbows suffered almost no damage.
X’s movements were even more astonishing. After they had exchanged dozens of blows in an instant, X’s feet followed Jaehwan’s movements exactly.
No, it was more than that.
‘It is like it knows where I am going to move.’
Even while Jaehwan pushed 「Doubt」, 「Understanding」, and the power of 「Selflessness」 to their limits, X seemed to read his every movement and pattern.
It fought with the precision of something that could see every possible outcome. There was not the slightest trace of emotion, only a strong sense of purpose aimed at killing its opponent.
Jaehwan thought,
‘Those are not the movements of something alive.’
Now he understood why Maiad had been locked in such a frustrating stalemate with X for so long.
Like a machine analyzing and turning human movements into patterns, X was learning Jaehwan’s smallest combat habits and responding to them.
X’s attacks did not overwhelm through sheer performance. They were optimized for efficiency.
It nullified every attack from this side while steadily accumulating effective hits of its own.
Andersen spoke.
“Wait a minute.”
It seemed Andersen had realized it too.
Jaehwan looked at X’s clothes, half torn and reduced to rags. Beneath them, he could see a body of pure white steel.
The enemy before him was a Gigantes.
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