Chapter 64 - Episode 10. The Rebirth War (2)
Chapter 64: Episode 10. The Rebirth War (2)
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Jaehwan’s lips twitched for a moment before he answered.
“Two thousand years.”
“I-Is that true?”
“Would you start speaking politely if it were?”
Cheongheo’s expression hardened at Jaehwan’s words.
He had realized it was a lie.
“...Are you making fun of me? Just how long were you inside that Tower...”
“Not as long as you think.”
There was a hint of weariness in Jaehwan’s voice, so Cheongheo swallowed his retort.
No matter how many years Jaehwan had trained, the past week could not have been easy. Even the strongest soul would have been horribly worn down by such a period.
They had not been together throughout his entire training period, but Cheongheo and Jaehwan had now spent more than a hundred years together.
Instead of pressing him further, Cheongheo said, “Hmph. Whether you have lived for a thousand years or two thousand, you are still a brat to me. I was born first, after all.”
“Even if you live another two hundred years, you will never change, old man.”
Despite his words, there was a strange warmth in Jaehwan’s voice.
“Let’s get moving.”
Cheongheo and Jaehwan rose and continued onward.
After they had run for some time, Cheongheo sensed that their destination was drawing close.
The time had come to see why they had come here.
“Are you really going straight to the 《Palace of Rebirth》 like this?”
“Yes.”
“Just the two of us?”
“I am not alone. There are two of us.”
They had spent a full century together, yet Cheongheo still had no idea where that confidence came from.
“The Palace of Rebirth will not be an easy opponent. You still do not know how strong the Lords are.”
“...”
“It would not be too late to build up more strength first. We could attack the 《Palace of Rebirth》 after more Awakened Ones emerge from Gorgon.”
Jaehwan had yet to face an Adapter who had surpassed the tenth stage.
Cheongheo had.
Adapters who had reached the tenth stage. Lords who had surpassed Lieutenant General rank and reached Warlord rank. Cheongheo knew all too well how powerful they were.
No matter how much stronger Jaehwan had become, the two of them alone...
“There is no time.”
“Time?”
“Do you think those Lord bastards will wait for us?”
They were not dealing with just anyone. They were Awakened Ones.
Once the Lords learned that Awakened Ones were appearing throughout 《Chaos》 in great numbers, it was obvious they would not sit idly by.
“They will expect us to gather the Awakened Ones and make a move. We need to strike while they are off guard, before they commit their full strength.”
Certainly, the 《Palace of Rebirth》 would not have a proper military force stationed there yet.
There would be quite a few people waiting to be resurrected, but even the strongest among them would only be at Lieutenant General rank. Warlord-ranked Lords rarely died, and even if they did, they would promptly return to life through the Fruit.
However, things would change if they kept delaying.
Once the Palace of Rebirth learned that Chaos was gathering Awakened Ones, it might use a special method to bring living Lords into 《Chaos》.
The Narrow Gate, a Dream Demon Treasure that allowed living beings to enter 《Chaos》 as the dead without taking their lives.
The Palace of Rebirth was where that Treasure was kept.
Jaehwan continued, “And I do not intend to deal with everyone in the 《Palace of Rebirth》. I will only take away what matters most to them.”
The things that mattered most to the 《Palace of Rebirth》.
Cheongheo immediately understood.
“You intend to steal the Fruit.”
Even as he said it, Cheongheo could not quite believe it.
Take back the Fruits that had been stolen from them?
Was that even possible?
“And one more thing.”
“...Do not tell me you mean to destroy the Narrow Gate too.”
Jaehwan nodded.
“If we destroy it, they will no longer be able to cross into 《Chaos》.”
“That is true, if you can destroy it.”
If they took every Fruit and destroyed the Narrow Gate, the Lords of the 《Great Realm》 would no longer be able to interfere in 《Chaos》 so easily.
“They could still come over by dying, but few would choose that.”
The 《Great Realm》 was always at war.
Warlord-ranked Lords and those above could determine the outcome of a war, so they had to preserve their lives at all times. With the 《Palace of Rebirth》 destroyed, no Lord would casually kill their subordinates to send them into 《Chaos》.
Of course, all of that only mattered if Jaehwan and Cheongheo managed to seize the 《Palace of Rebirth》 safely.
Cheongheo let out a soft sigh.
“It would be the best possible plan if we can pull it off. But even getting there will not be easy. The 《Palace of Rebirth》 lies at the far end of the eastern desert. To reach it, we must...”
“Pass through Manticore Fortress, which Geumcheon Hall occupies. That is why we came here.”
The grand outline of Manticore Fortress appeared in the distance.
Battlements dozens of meters high rose into the sky. At their tops, enormous winged lion statues looked down at them with regal dignity. There were countless statues embedded along the battlements at regular intervals, too many to count.
Cheongheo’s expression grew complicated.
By sheer area, it was larger than Gorgon.
He had known that already, but seeing it with his own eyes made it feel real. No matter how strong they had become, their opponent was an entire fortress.
The two of them were about to face one.
“The Geumcheon Hall Master will not let us through willingly. What are you planning to do?”
The guards who spotted them racing toward the fortress at incredible speed blew their whistles. The Warning skill had activated.
Jaehwan answered expressionlessly.
“The same thing I always do.”
Cheongheo snickered.
“Right. That sounds like you.”
Dokbul erupted in flames.
A barrage of Stabs poured toward the fortress’s battlements. Cheongheo’s fierce slash followed, cutting the desert in two.
The terrified guards screamed and fled, and the earth let out a heavy groan. A thunderous blast rang out as one side of the Outer Fortress’s battlements was blown away completely.
It was the moment when the first line of the brilliant history later called the Rebirth War was written.
* * *
The sound of destruction that shook the entire fortress passed through Manticore’s western Outer Fortress gate and reached the Inner Fortress.
At the height of the tremor, every Adapter in Manticore realized it.
One of the greatest monsters in all of 《Chaos》 had just arrived at the western Outer Fortress gate.
“...No way.”
Im Jinhong, the Geumcheon Hall Master who had recently become Manticore’s new Fortress Lord, felt it too.
He was even watching the scene unfold with his own eyes.
Crash!
On the holographic screen installed in his private office within the Inner Fortress, the outer edge of the fortress was being torn apart.
Violence was the only word that suited the sight.
What attack in the world could be more savage and brutal than that?
On the screen, Jaehwan silently repeated his Stabs. Every time his hand moved, the outer fortress crumbled into ruin.
“This is the first time I have seen a rumor that was not exaggerated.”
A short while ago, when the intelligence organization Geumcheon Hall had dispatched to Gorgon was wiped out, Im Jinhong sensed that something was wrong.
Just in case, he had even sent the Nether Ghost Envoys, who were packed with sixth-stage Adapters, but they too had been annihilated. It was unbelievable. The Nether Ghost Envoys he had sent possessed enough force to handle two or three of the Ten Halls of Chaos.
Yet they had been massacred overnight.
Still, it had not been a complete loss.
It was unfortunate that Geumcheon Hall’s northern branch had vanished, but they had obtained several crucial pieces of information about Gorgon’s Fortress Lord, including the incident known as the Path of the Wave.
To think that bastard was him.
Im Jinhong brought up a secondary screen and checked the footage the Lord of Darkness had sent him.
It showed a man repeatedly stabbing at a gigantic Ice Dragon.
“Find the Product that escaped from the Tutorial.”
The footage had arrived with that message.
The moment Im Jinhong first saw it, he cursed his fate. So much would have changed if he had checked the footage only a little earlier.
“You look troubled, Geumcheon Hall Master.”
A woman’s voice came from somewhere nearby.
Im Jinhong furrowed his brow at the strange resonance entwined with it. He knew the owner of that voice well.
No, calling her a woman was not quite right.
“No wonder the Lord of Darkness wants him. Just looking at him makes the back of my head tingle.”
Space distorted, and a woman with pink hair tightly tied back appeared. Small horns protruded from between her hair, making for an especially striking sight. She wore a black tank top and short hot pants.
It was attire that did not suit 《Chaos》.
Im Jinhong spoke. “This is Chaos. Wear such vulgar clothes only where your kind lives.”
The woman looked Im Jinhong up and down in his yellow robe, then snickered.
“You are wearing shit-colored rags, and you are criticizing someone else’s fashion sense?”
“...”
“Chaos people really think this place is the martial world. A few martial-world natives get a foothold here, and now they want to act territorial? Do you think martial-world people are the only ones in Chaos?”
Im Jinhong was left speechless, his expression twisting miserably.
The woman did not care. She could only stare at Jaehwan on the hologram in amazement.
“Wow, look at that. What kind of technique is that?”
“...”
“He sends all those Nether Ghost Envoys flying with one hit. Damn, that is incredible.”
“Sirwen, did you come here just to needle me?”
Im Jinhong, who had been forcing down his anger for quite some time, finally snapped.
By his usual standards, it could barely be called anger.
He could not treat the woman before him carelessly.
She was practically the person who had built the Geumcheon Hall of today.
Her true body was not particularly strong in combat, but nobody anywhere in 《Chaos》 could afford to treat her lightly.
She was one of the rarest species in the 《Great Realm》.
The Dream Demon, Sirwen.
She was one of the five hundred bearing the title of Master Craftsman, even in the 《Great Realm》.
“Needle you? I came because I heard something interesting was happening.”
Sirwen watched the holographic screen quietly, then spoke as though it were an afterthought.
“Did you hear that the Jade-Faced Lord appeared in 《Chaos》?”
“...I did.”
“Really? Then this will be easier. As far as I know, that Jade-Faced Lord runs around calling himself an independent Lord, but he actually belongs to the Fifth Zone. You know that, right?”
Im Jinhong nodded.
A few days ago, trouble had erupted in Garuda, the western fortress where the Nether Ghost Envoys had been lying in wait. A tremendously powerful figure had suddenly appeared, slaughtered every Nether Ghost Envoy, and destroyed half the fortress.
Someone strong enough to massacre the Nether Ghost Envoys, who possessed combat power comparable to sixth-stage Adapters.
Im Jinhong had only learned the figure’s identity later.
Bang Cheonil, Lieutenant General of the Fifth Zone and Jade-Faced Lord.
A Lord’s force had risen in western 《Chaos》, which he had occupied.
Im Jinhong gritted his teeth.
“I never thought the Lord of Steel would make a move after the Lord of Darkness. They said the Grand Lord Accord was still being upheld, but upheld my ass. They are having a grand old time.”
《Chaos》 had now taken on the shape of a proxy war between the Lords of the 《Great Realm》.
He was currently the Lord of Darkness’s representative. If so, who was the Lord of Steel’s representative?
Im Jinhong thought there was a strong chance that the man on the hologram would be that representative.
Then Sirwen spoke again.
“But I heard that Bang Cheonil, the Jade-Faced Lord, was beaten to death by a Hall Master.”
“That is good news...”
Im Jinhong trailed off and stared blankly at Sirwen.
A moment later, he asked again.
“Who did you say died?”
“Bang Cheonil, the Jade-Faced Lord.”
“By whose hand?”
“One of the Ten Hall Masters. Ah, you did not know?”
One of the Ten Hall Masters had killed Bang Cheonil, a Lieutenant General of the 《Great Realm》?
It was impossible, even if he died and came back to life a hundred times. The gap between a Ten Hall Master and a Lieutenant General was greater than the gap between a dragon and a human. Even if every Ten Hall Master had attacked together, they could never defeat Bang Cheonil, the Jade-Faced Lord...
“You know those people Gorgon’s Fortress Lord is gathering to form that Abyss Expedition or whatever? The South Sea Hall Master who belongs to it killed Bang Cheonil, the Jade-Faced Lord.”
Footnotes:
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