Chapter 93 - Episode 13. Catastrophe (7)
Chapter 93: Episode 13. Catastrophe (7)
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It was a blow no one could stop.
“Cayman!”
It should have been.
“South Sea Hall Master!”
Two figures came rushing in, stirring up a fierce gale.
Cheongheo and Karlton.
Cheongheo radiated streams of white aura, while Karlton was enveloped in silver brilliance. Without a moment’s hesitation, they struck out with their sword and fist.
Crash!
Cheongheo’s sword and Karlton’s fist struck Samyeong Hun’s blade almost at the same time. Their powerful spiritual power collided, and silver light burst from Cheongheo and Karlton’s mouths.
“Urgh...!”
Cheongheo’s sword broke under the impact, and Karlton staggered back, clutching his ruined right hand. Even their combined spiritual power could not block a General’s sword.
Still, it was enough to change the situation. In the instant the sword’s path shifted, Cheongheo and Karlton succeeded in pulling Cayman beyond its reach.
Samyeong Hun narrowed his eyes.
“Not bad.”
Overwhelming Spiritual Pressure filled every word.
Cheongheo and Karlton’s bodies swayed as they resisted it.
Cayman, you were fighting a monster like this?
Even Jaehwan, who had opened Creation, had not been this terrifying. Cheongheo’s knees went weak from simply meeting his gaze.
Cayman weakly raised his head.
“Divine Doctor, where is the Fortress Lord...?”
“He has not returned yet.”
Cayman’s eyes instantly dimmed.
“But it has already been two hours... Then the Fortress Lord...”
“We do not know yet. Do not jump to conclusions.”
As Cheongheo and Karlton supported Cayman and retreated, sparks erupted from the factory. Three figures appeared on its roof.
Each possessed an aura comparable to that of a Warlord.
Samyeong Hun’s indifferent gaze turned toward them.
“The Factory Masters.”
The Factory Masters who had emerged from inside the Strange Factory glared down at Samyeong Hun. They had seen the expedition members and Horned Beast remains staining the ground silver, and their expressions had hardened.
EDSAC spoke first.
[Black Shadow Strategist. What do you think you are doing?]
“It has been a while.”
[I asked what you think you are doing.]
Samyeong Hun’s brow twitched.
It irritated him that creatures no stronger than broken-down Warlords could act so arrogantly. Yet there was a reason for it.
Officially, Lords could not carelessly harm Factory Masters. They were responsible for suppressing the Sole King’s power.
...The Sole King.
The strongest god, said to have been sealed personally by the Great Lords of the twelve zones and Big Brother long ago.
Samyeong Hun’s lips curled.
“I am looking for a Product. Once I find it, I will leave at once.”
[By Product, do you mean the Awakened One who has opened Creation?]
...They knew?
[You people have not changed, even after tens of thousands of years. You treat a life with a soul as an object.]
Samyeong Hun’s mouth opened, then closed.
To be lectured by a machine. It was the sort of thing worth recording in the life story of the Black Shadow Strategist. Samyeong Hun snickered, thinking it might be amusing to record this humiliation later.
“Either way, I would like you to open the factory doors for a moment.”
[For what reason? This is difficult at the moment.]
“Looks like our Product tucked its tail and ran into the factory.”
[As I said, that is difficult at the moment.]
“Difficult... You do not understand what I am saying.”
For the first time, the smile vanished from Samyeong Hun’s face.
“I said open the damn door, you fucking piles of scrap.”
A tremendous blast of wind erupted from Samyeong Hun. Everyone standing with their backs to the factory stumbled and fell to the ground. The pressure was so immense that cracks spread across one corner of the supposedly indestructible factory.
[How dare you...!]
IAS’s arm trembled and changed shape. Soon, her entire elbow had transformed into a sharp blade.
The Factory Master had taken up a combat stance.
Light flashed in Samyeong Hun’s eyes.
“You said you were sealing the Sole King.”
As though this worked out better, Samyeong Hun drew his sword.
“I do not know exactly how strong this Sole King is.”
The Sole King, Catastrophe.
One of the Three Ancient Gods, supposedly. The strongest god of the 《Abyss》, said to have required every Lord of the twelve zones to seal. A being surrounded by nothing but baseless rumors.
“The Great Lords of the twelve zones were much weaker hundreds of thousands of years ago.”
And Samyeong Hun was now stronger than the Lords of the twelve zones had been back then.
It was only a fallen god capable of producing scraps like Deadmans.
“I am Samyeong Hun, the Black Shadow Lord.”
The Ninth Zone’s only strategist, Darkness’s second General.
His proud confidence burned around his sword in Calamity Flame. Almost at once, IAS shouted, and the factory’s Horned Beasts charged Samyeong Hun together.
“Do you think mere machines can contend with a Lord?”
Slice.
Dozens of Horned Beasts lost their heads to the sword that cut through the air. Vivid silver scattered through the sky like rain.
He feared no fallen god.
Not even death.
That was why he could come here.
[Shut up!]
IAS, covered head to toe in blades, screamed and rushed at Samyeong Hun. Overbearing spiritual power poured from her spinning body like a top. Its destructive force was enough to overwhelm any Lord, creating a powerful sandstorm across the area.
But then,
[Stop, IAS!]
EDSAC and JOHNIAC rushed forward, realizing something was wrong and trying to restrain her.
“Too late.”
Blue spiritual power surged from Samyeong Hun’s body.
The space behind him distorted, and a beast with a blue mane appeared.
A lion of immense size.
Transcendent-grade skill, 「Blue Madness」.
A being that tore apart false Sublimity and protected the authority of Lords.
The instant the lion roared toward the sky of Chaos, time stopped throughout the area.
Then the lion moved.
It was only a single swipe of its paw.
IAS’s limbs were severed as she charged. Little JOHNIAC was cut in half at the waist. EDSAC, who had leaped in to protect them, lost its head.
Three Factory Masters, each at the level of a Warlord, had been annihilated in an instant.
A power that permitted no miracle existed there.
Ah... Ah...
For a moment, Cheongheo resented his own eyes.
Would it have been better if he had not seen that sight?
Even if every surviving expedition member attacked together, they had no chance of defeating Samyeong Hun.
The greater problem was that there were five Lords at a level similar to his.
They could not win. This was a battle they could never win.
Cheongheo had unknowingly taken several steps back when a hand seized him from behind. Startled, he turned around.
“D-Divine Doctor... What happened? Do we have a chance? What happened to them...?”
It was Yoon Yong, the Thunder God Hall Master, sitting on the ground with blood streaming from both eyes.
“Divine Doctor... Please, say something.”
Only when Cheongheo looked into Yoon Yong’s blood-covered eyes did he understand.
I see. You did not see it.
That was why you could still say such things.
That thing was not human. Humans could not defeat a monster like that. So...
“Has the Fortress Lord... not returned yet?”
For a moment, it felt as though he heard a voice from somewhere.
‘Are you going to run away again?’
The scene from nine hundred years ago overlapped with the present.
Cheongheo barely stopped himself from stepping back, then looked down at the Thunder God Hall Master gripping him.
“The Fortress Lord...”
Cheongheo thought of Jaehwan.
Jaehwan, who had gone to meet the Sole King, Catastrophe.
Thinking of him, Cheongheo suddenly turned to look at Black Shadow Strategist Samyeong Hun. It suddenly did not feel real. The being Jaehwan had gone to meet was stronger even than that General.
A being far beyond any absolute measure of strength.
You brat, how can you...
Cheongheo could not see Jaehwan standing before Catastrophe, but he could imagine it.
That brat would surely wear the same expression even before the Sole King. Jaehwan might be dead by now.
But even if he had died, he would not have knelt until the end.
As Cheongheo thought that, the trembling gradually left him. It was strange. Little by little, something began to boil up from deep within his heart.
Cheongheo opened his mouth.
“Yoon Yong. The Fortress Lord has not come.”
He calmly delivered despair.
“But we have not lost yet.”
He did not give up hope.
“So we can still fight.”
What if Jaehwan was not here?
What was so terrible about it being only them?
“Is that so?”
Cheongheo took Yoon Yong’s limp hand and helped him up. Yoon Yong’s unsteady body slowly rose. Having lost his eyes, having lost the world, he still rose to his feet.
He was not the only one.
The expedition members who had fallen as if dead began to rise one by one.
Kang Hwang, who had lost his left arm.
Shin Mugeuk, who had lost his right leg.
Yulhen, whose side had been torn open.
They all rose while relying on one another. As if they were all one frail human being.
Or as if they were all declaring themselves to be one 《Chaos》.
This was 《Chaos》.
Chaos was here.
“I cannot believe it.”
Samyeong Hun stared at the expedition members before him, disbelief filling his eyes.
He had shown them a power that should have crushed their will to fight.
Yet why?
What Lord had ever dared look at him like that? Those were the eyes of people who could decide their own lives.
Samyeong Hun frowned at the emotion seeping from deep within his chest without his knowledge.
...Sublimity. How ridiculous.
In the 《Great Realm》, Sublimity belonged only to Lords.
Dignified, sublime, noble beings.
The only beings in this world that knew honor.
They were Lords, and because they ruled that land, it was called the 《Great Realm》.
Then what were those people?
Sublime despite not being Lords.
Dignified despite not being Lords.
Boundlessly noble despite not being Lords.
They existed by denying the Lord before them.
They seemed to be saying this.
There are no Lords.
Samyeong Hun admired their spirit, and because he admired it, he became afraid.
If every Awakened One from that accursed Tower was like this, could they truly sell them to the 《Abyss》?
Samyeong Hun tightened his grip on his sword.
“Vargas. The plan has changed.”
“...Yes?”
“Kill them all. Keep only the Product alive.”
They could mass-produce more Awakened Ones.
What mattered was the Product in question, and the Tower said to have been made by the Product. With those two, they could replenish Awakened Ones as many times as they wanted.
“Let us finish this.”
At Samyeong Hun’s gesture, the blue lion moved.
It approached the expedition neither quickly nor slowly. As though the end was neither too fast nor too slow, it advanced at the very pace of fate.
Cheongheo and Karlton were flung away by the lion’s paw. The lion’s enormous mane cast a shadow over the members standing unsteadily.
So this is the end.
But we were not wrong.
No miracle would happen.
The world would not change.
Even so, their lives had not been wrong.
They did not close their eyes. Each of them looked directly at their own death.
And so they saw it.
Ah.
The scenery around them rippled.
Then,
Thud.
An ink-black sword caught the lion’s descending paw.
True to its name, it was a lonely sword.
The landscape dyed by that sword was endlessly dark and lonely. Yet the world they had all been waiting for stood against the Spiritual Pressure of the mighty Lords and protected Chaos.
“I am sorry.”
Through the sparks bursting from the collision of blade and claw, they saw a man’s face.
“I came too late.”
Jaehwan had arrived.
Footnotes:
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