Chapter: 190
*
A newly woven magic came crashing down, drawing a vivid trajectory. Kwang, a dry explosion was heard, followed by a shout.
“Evacuate! Damn it, Isser has been hit!! Abandon, give up!!”
Lives scatter like snowflakes. On the road leading to the Eternal Palace.
Despite this, Ivan did not turn his head. His gaze was fixed ahead, checking his condition, surveying his mana, and inspecting the functions of his muscles, bones, and nerves as he walked.
“Th, Third…,”
Lucia’s cautious voice was heard. However, Ivan shook his head.
“Do not look away. Focus on one thing.”
“But…”
“The battlefield we must fight will always present itself like this.”
Magic erupted without warning. Flames, cold, lightning, explosions, telekinesis, mental control, and hallucinations…. All types of magic that elves could wield, in an all-out manner.
They appeared in midair without any prior preparation, claiming the lives of several each time.
While dealing with such spells, they had to avoid the enormous branches that occasionally came crashing down from the sky. Each one was as massive as a building, making them even more lethal.
However, the elves and the Cleanup Unit’s agents. They grit their teeth, refusing to flee, even when their comrades rolled across the frozen ground right beside them, wielding their weapons.
– Look here.
All seven hundred of them at this location entered the battlefield with that single thought.
– Look at me.
Not the Hero Party heading towards you now. Look at us who will die and fade away with just a touch.
This was a kind of diversionary tactic. To draw attention by sacrificing troops and to stab the dagger known as the Hero Party into the enemy.
Ivan, who had always carried out that operation during his military service, knew that he had to move forward without haste.
Losing the only opportunity they had created because of impatience would be something he could never forgive himself for.
– Kwaaang—!!
On the path to the Eternal Palace, a collapsed building exploded, and something flew towards them.
Looking at what had dropped with a thud, a familiar face appeared.
Ivan remembered the names of every agent present here. The ‘fragment’ that had fallen beside him was that of the only survivor from the Third Strike Team.
Yet.
“Do not mourn for those who have departed first.”
He bit his lip and took another step forward, with feelings and pace no different from before.
The best mourning would be to offer flowers after victory.
I will remember you. All of you.
With a coldly hardened face, Ivan moved forward. The Eternal Palace was now revealing itself.
Beyond the howling snow, the form of a gigantic tree wrapped in red aurora appeared like a veil.
Each of its branches was comparable to the spires near the Eternal Palace. A giant tree composed of maggots and leeches loomed over them, casting a shadow.
“How do we… Where do we start… ugh….”
Rundis spoke with a vacant tone, and Ivan responded shortly.
“Straight to the heart.”
There was no need to be overwhelmed by its external grandeur. The core of that entity was the milestone inside the Eternal Palace; everything else was secondary.
Even now, the soldiers continuously challenging it were alleviating the external pressure. The massive body, the endless monstrosities, and the sporadic bursts of magic, all of it.
The battlefield of the Hero Party is not made to be such a place.
While our side engages in attrition warfare, before all of our forces are literally ‘exhausted’, we must carve out the enemy’s core.
A dagger. And the dagger does not need to be overwhelmed by the size and capabilities of the enemy. At the most precise moment, simply inserting a refined strike will suffice.
“Lucia, Rundis.”
“Yes!”
“Carry Elpheira and Oswald. From here on out, we will run.”
Clack, he checked his weapons one last time. Axe, pistol, dagger, explosives, and various potions.
After quickly assessing his gear, Ivan clacked the bullets into the chamber of the pistol and spoke.
“Battle ready.”
*
The path to the yard where the milestone was located in the Eternal Palace was already familiar. Ivan moved forward without a moment’s delay.
The interior of the palace was filled with branches and monsters.
The corridors within the palace, tainted by otherworldly mana, twisted. Hallucinations illuminated walls like paths, while open routes were concealed by walls.
Some of the monsters that rushed at them were illusions, and suddenly, monsters would spring from empty spaces, biting at them.
However.
‘182.’
– Kaaang!!
Ivan swung his axe in a clean arc, cleaving a monster that lunged at him. He roughly wiped the oozing body fluids off his hand and took another step.
‘183.’
He kept track of every single step he took.
The basic training for Cleanup Unit agents begins with perfectly correcting three habits.
Mind: Standardizing the maximum amount of activity that can be done in one breath.
Body: Recognizing the maximum efficiency achievable through one’s physique.
Steps: Training to measure each step precisely down to the centimeter without error.
This means treating one’s own body as a weapon, ensuring one’s ‘catalog specifications.’
Though when this concept was first established, Enrique scoffed and asserted it was impossible. Regardless, Ivan had already internalized this ‘basic training for agents.’
‘184.’
Illusions, auditory hallucinations, monster attacks, twisted structures, darkness, blinding light, and noises disrupting balance.
All of these barriers are ultimately external. If one is a trained agent and a scout for the Hero Party, they should be able to find their way even in the most chaotic situations.
‘185.’
Calculating time in seconds, memorizing steps in centimeters, and after completing training that ensures never forgetting a map once seen or an area once breached.
One should be able to navigate through the labyrinth of disarray that breaks the rules of this world.
– Chwak!!
Again, as he cut down a monster’s neck, Ivan took a step. He had 186 steps left to the yard, with only 2318 remaining.
“Front!!”
“I’m reloading!!”
“I’ll respond!”
Behind Ivan, his party members continued to engage in combat, swinging their weapons. They cleared out the monsters surging from outside the area Ivan had secured.
A monster in the form of an elf lunged at him. As Lucia’s dagger smoothly severed its neck and arms, a monster preparing to reload shot an arrow.
A gigantic shield suddenly spread out in front of Rundis. The arrow that thwacked the shield transformed back into monster form and slithered across the ground.
As Rundis stumbled backward from the impact, Elpheira stretched out her hands.
“Six o’clock, duck!!”
As Lucia hurriedly lowered her head, Kwang, lightning swept across the front. The electric charge bounced off the monsters, hitting the wall, and extinguishing.
What remained was only the foul-smelling corpse of the monster.
– Kaaang!!
Beside the staggering Elpheira, Oswald swung his sword. The monster that aimed for Elpheira’s neck was blocked by Oswald.
“Die!!”
Oswald, weeping blood tears, roughly shoved the staff he held in his other hand into the monster’s body. Soon, Kwang. An explosion erupted, and the monster’s body was shattered into pieces.
“Reload complete!! Commencing fire!!”
“Ugh!”
At Rundis’s shout, Oswald covered his ears and crouched down.
– Kwaaaang—!!
With an overwhelming explosion, the monsters crawling in from the side were obliterated in one strike. Literally, their forms vanished above the ankles. The bullets, laced with fire, swept through the monsters and pierced holes into the corridor walls.
Through the breached wall, the snowy sky and shimmering aurora shone through. The party, shaking their dazed ears, began to move again.
Each moment they lived through, entering the Eternal Palace.
‘281.’
Ivan stepped forward at the front.
*
In the yard, not a single tree remained. The ancient forest created for the eternal rest of countless elves was nothing but a low hill.
On the snow-covered hill stood a gigantic monument. Receiving the red aurora, it pulsed like a heartbeat, sending mana into the sky.
Thump, thump. With each pulse, new aurora appeared and faded. Mana spread across the sky like arteries, and ominous omens fell, scattering over the battlefield of Kalion.
Ivan gripped his axe tightly and moved forward. He ascended the hill. The snow crumbled beneath his feet, and remnants of dried-up roots and branches crumbled below.
Beyond that, finally, before the unveiled milestone.
A woman stood with her back turned.
“Ah, you have come.”
Gazing upwards at the monument, quietly.
“O Guiding Guest. I have heard your voice. Along with the voices of many people. Has there ever been a day when you were truly the ruler of this land as you are today?”
With a wave of her hand, the aurora infused. Slowly, brighter, then redder. It gathered like thick, sticky blood.
Ivan, still gripping his axe, slightly motioned with his chin.
“Elpheira, stop the milestone. Oswald, assist Elpheira. Lucia and Rundis, support me.”
“It’s a futile task.”
The woman finally turned around. Elpheira barely stifled a scream and let out a muffled gasp at the sight of her revealed face.
“Oh my….”
The woman had no face. Only a gaping hole, like the maw of a leech, lined with razor-like teeth.
Yet her hair, attire, manner of speaking, and voice were all too familiar.
“I see.”
Ivan nodded expressionlessly.
“There was one thing that was needed but was not enough, even when bestowed with intelligence, magic, and sacred power.”
Among the multitude of techniques researched using the milestone by elven academics, there was always one thing lacking. Their arts were clearly at best, leaving no room for doubt, but only one thing.
It was something that the elves initially did not need to research for.
However, to forge the Seven Dragon Lords, or rather, for any existence to persist as ‘an intelligent being’, that one thing was indispensable.
“Consciousness. The last piece of the puzzle for this being, which has a soul but no spirit, was you.”
“The divine resides within the body. Not the power of some trifling relic, but a true divine essence. From the heavens—.”
She spoke with a lively laugh. Ivan took a step forward and aimed his pistol at her.
The woman’s head turned precisely to face Ivan. From her mouth came a cacophony, a blend of the voices of a boy, an old man, a woman, and a man, overlapping like the flutter of insects’ wings.
“You, human. Mortal. The descent of the divine has ended, so kneel and now praise the eternal winter to come. Pray with all your wretched soul, for your true god.”
Her voice caused his party members to bleed. Blood tears streamed from their eyes, and the swelling blood gushed out from their lips.
Ivan squinted and took a deep breath. Beolgrin was right. The overwhelming pressure emanating from her felt almost sweet—unpleasantly so.
The sanctified power of ‘that’ being. Each shattered fragment scattering through the air filled Ivan’s arms and legs with new strength.
“There were many names once attributed to her. The curses you whispered as you feared the heavens and seasons were her names. You, mortal. Do you dare to challenge the heavens with your bare arms?”
“It’s not the first time.”
Standing before his writhing party like a dam against a tsunami.
As he released that pressure, he took another step forward.
“I have encountered those who believe themselves to be gods.”
And in the future, he would meet even more ‘gods’.
But if there was one thing he had experienced, was certain of, and could attempt, then yes, the truth had always been singular.
“Fallen.”
Lifting his axe, he adjusted his stance, steadied his breath, and concentrated the sacred power surging through his arms into one point.
Towards the heavens.
– Jjeoreong—!!
He swung his axe.
*