Chapter 443: Archangel’s Tear (5)
Skillful manipulation of magical power, as if he was deeply familiar with it.
Mature movements that allowed him to evade pursuit by an Extremity, even while thoroughly concealing his identity and magic.
Extremely rare direct spatial manipulation spells, and even the strange sense of composure felt in this situation.
Je-byeok was not the only one who felt like they were being played by that man.
An alien presence that felt somehow unsettling, even though he was a fellow Pandemonium operative.
Rather, the absence of any trace from within his robe made the sense of déjà vu even stronger.
Soryu, positioned to be wary of both Je-byeok and Lennok, frowned, exuding a chilling aura.
“I didn’t hear that a sorcerer like you would be participating in this operation. I don’t understand.”
“Indeed.”
Ermont shrugged at Soryu’s cold mutter.
“I’ve been dragging my feet all over the place following this annoying prince, but I never heard of such a peculiar person in the organization.”
He laughed, shaking off the blood-soaked hand.
“A specialized manipulator who directly handles spatial systems… I never thought I’d meet such a rare species here, one I’d only see once or twice in my time.”
“I also didn’t hear about you in this operation.”
Lennok replied indifferently.
“It seems there was a mix-up in information during Hylaea’s operation planning.”
“Do you think you can explain this situation with such words—”
Click.
Everyone flinched at Lennok’s sight as he opened the wooden box and unhesitatingly took out its contents.
Lennok’s finger gently scraped away what looked like elixir residue stuck to the inside of the wooden box.
Simultaneously, he activated Feigenbaum’s Eye, a spell artifact, to make it invisible to others.
‘It was here.’
When looking at reality in reverse from the other side of a virtual dimension, it’s possible to grasp and understand structures that conceal or are designed for something much faster.
Lennok, who instantly found the hidden space inside the wooden box, moved his hand a few times, and something firm yet soft was caught in his grasp.
Fwoosh!!
Simultaneously, a clear radiance leaked from inside the wooden box.
As Je-byeok’s eyes widened, Lennok slowly pulled the object out of the box.
Whoosh!!
It was transparent, yet a pure white mist seemed to swirl within it.
A tear-shaped jewel. Its beautiful appearance was carefully embraced by a golden crown.
They said merely possessing it would bring spiritual power. Seeing it directly, he understood those words.
Its elegantly sculpted appearance was hard to believe was an elixir. Even grasping and lifting it felt delicate.
Lennok faintly smiled behind his mask, looking at Soryu and Ermont.
“After all, what does it matter?”
“…”
Soryu and Ermont, understanding the meaning of those words, fell silent simultaneously.
Ultimately, the Archangel’s Tear, from the moment it entered Lennok’s hand, did not leave his grasp for a single moment.
Hadn’t Lennok manipulated everyone present, even using Soryu, who appeared at a completely unexpected moment and ruined the game?
The initiative for this entire affair had been Lennok’s all along.
“You worm-like bastard…!!”
A thick vein bulged from Je-byeok’s neck as he realized Lennok had deceived him from the start.
Thud!!
At the same time, the air in the vicinity heavily settled, giving the illusion that the ground was sinking due to the magical power he emitted.
But Lennok, undeterred by such pressure, turned his gaze to Je-byeok and spoke.
“Yanikus Barbaria. Choose.”
He shook the shimmering jewel held between his fingers, and the gazes of the other three followed its movement.
“If you give up the Archangel’s Tear, I’ll help you and your grandson escape.”
“…What?”
“Isn’t this more trustworthy than Soryu, who’s dreaming up some strange Kaiushyu overthrow plan?”
Crash!!
At that moment, Lennok’s body, mask and all, was crushed and exploded.
Je-byeok simply raised his hand in the air and clenched his fist, and the surrounding air warped, pressing Lennok down.
“You’re really… unreasonable.”
“Don’t speak so presumptuously, you mongrel.”
Je-byeok’s face turned red, and he roared, his lips twitching, at Lennok, who walked out casually from beyond the heat haze.
“I have no dealings with thieving worms. If I had yielded to such a threat, how could I stand where I am today?!”
If Je-byeok had been a man who compromised and succumbed to every hardship he faced, he would never have reached the Peak of Extremes and become a magnate ruling a city.
It was a transcendental realm, difficult to attain even with the greed to obtain everything one desired.
Although his health was failing and his mind and body were wavering, his power was undeniably that of an Extremity.
“Enough. No more words are needed.”
Soryu, who had been watching their conversation, coldly muttered and stepped forward.
C-crack!!
As he touched the air with his cold hand, the atmosphere froze, and a frosty blade was gripped within it.
Soryu, who instantly pulled a sharp blade from the frozen atmosphere, held it in a reverse grip and began to form hand seals with his other hand.
“It’s different from the plan, but there’s no need to abandon this opportunity. I’ll kill Yanikus Barbaria here and take Kaiushyu.”
“But the tear is in his friend’s hand, not ours.”
Soryu looked down at Lennok with cold eyes at Ermont’s words.
“He’s a rare spatial magic user. There’s no need to fight him right now.”
“…”
“Hylaea’s choice of putting such a man in charge of artifact retrieval is strange. Let’s think about it after we kill Je-byeok.”
“He’s more reasonable than I thought.”
Could it be that Soryu was willing to give Lennok time to assess the situation because he seemed useful for now, even if he could turn hostile at any moment?
It was a rather arrogant remark, but Lennok understood Soryu’s attitude.
Even though Ermont was a black wizard who had lived for hundreds of years, the initiative between the two seemed to lie with Soryu.
He was curious why Ermont had begun cooperating with Pandemonium after being kidnapped and disappearing by Maiya in the Hanghasa Labyrinth.
But there was no time to ask the cunning black wizard.
Soryu and Ermont met each other’s gaze and almost simultaneously rushed at Je-byeok, unleashing their magical power.
Kwooosh!!
The speed of their offense and defense hadn’t changed much from before, but the force of their clash had escalated several times over.
With Lennok having secured the Archangel’s Tear and now outside the city, there were no obstacles to restrict the power of the three.
Fwoosh!!
Naturally, colorless waves rotated beneath Ermont’s feet, and gemstone pillars rose.
Soryu’s entire body began to turn pure white, beyond just being cold and frozen.
At the sight of the two of them deploying their corrosive Domains and Miniature Universes almost simultaneously, Je-byeok also frowned and summoned his Mind Imprint.
Drrrrrr!!!
The air in the vicinity crumpled and shattered just from the 8-level Extremity warming up his body to use his Miniature Universe.
Dense mystical energy spread from his wrinkled hands into five streams along his fingers, scattering like smoke.
As Ermont said, Je-byeok’s martial art, which he used as his foundation, was a vicious technique rooted in the southern jungle.
A brutally powerful martial art that used maximum grip strength and centrifugal force to crush opponents as if they were crumpled.
It was obvious how Je-byeok’s Miniature Universe, built upon this martial art, would interfere with reality.
Crackle!!!
Space warped indiscriminately around Je-byeok, and heat haze rose within it.
With just a wave of his hand in the air, Ermont’s gemstone pillars, part of his corrosive Domain, shattered and crumbled into dust.
He grabbed Soryu, who had melted into the air only to reappear and charge with a sharp blizzard, and slammed him straight into the ground.
Thuddddd!!!
Soryu’s body gave way with frustrating ease, his head smashing into the ground first.
But his shattered body climbed up Je-byeok’s forearm, instantly reforming behind his back and swinging a blade.
Slash!!
A sharp flash gleamed through the blizzard, mercilessly cutting Je-byeok’s ceremonial robe.
The clear blood seeping from it showed that Soryu’s attack had not been easily shrugged off.
Saaah!!
A chilling sound, like a snake slithering.
At the same time, Soryu’s body slowly began to circle Je-byeok across the frozen plain.
From within the blizzard that had begun to rage, Soryu’s body slowly began to split and multiply.
Two, four, six, eight, then ten, twelve.
Je-byeok, clutching his bleeding wound, muttered as he watched.
“I heard that the Kabaheem royal family, who maintain the Northern Continent’s monarchy, have the coldest blood.”
“…”
“A power inherited through bloodline, neither an ability nor a Miniature Universe… It’s certainly peculiar.”
Lennok, who hadn’t missed Je-byeok’s words, nodded inwardly.
Ermont’s taunt of calling Soryu ‘Prince’ wasn’t just empty words, it seemed.
Soryu completely ignored Je-byeok’s words and unhesitatingly charged his twelve fragmented clones towards Je-byeok.
Je-byeok also slammed down the five streams of mystical energy rotating in his grasp.
Crush!!
The moment they clashed head-on, their bodies shattered and crumbled into ice fragments.
A series of destructive actions as futile as an egg hitting a rock.
Although Je-byeok’s health was poor, the sheer power of an 8-level physical ability user could be truly felt just by witnessing that scene.
The difference in overwhelming stopping power made it seem foolish to contend with physical force against the entity before him.
Nevertheless, Soryu, having reformed himself from the blizzard, relentlessly charged, pressing Je-byeok without pause.
Even as Je-byeok crushed Soryu with a single gesture, he couldn’t unleash a reckless counterattack.
Every time Je-byeok shifted his momentum to find and destroy Soryu’s main body, Ermont intervened, unleashing powerful gemstone spells.
Kwooosh!!
Had he perfectly assimilated Jaun Audis’s gemstone spells by now?
The gemstone fragments pulled from his pocket resonated with the surrounding gemstone pillars, amplifying their power severalfold.
[Changling Stone: Spell Resonance Multi-Deployment]
[Ten-Sided Jade: Catalyst Conversion]
[Amazonite: Spatial Interlock Peeling Bloom]
A dozen or so gemstones scattering in all directions simultaneously glowed, and the light that burst forth bounced randomly between the gems, reflecting hundreds of times.
The space, reduced to its limits by the radiance of the gemstone spells, peeled away like a shell, rotating in a spiral.
Kiiiieek…!!
The peeled surface of space rapidly restored itself, generating friction heat that caused the surrounding air to ignite and explode.
[Decree: Great Progression (Daejinra)]
Kwoooosh!!!
A colossal spiral of five rotating lights in the air, bending like a trumpet, poured down on Je-byeok like divine retribution.
The ground melted like molten iron from the immense firepower, then evaporated and disappeared, only its remnants, like grains of sand, turning into black ashes and rolling around.
Bombardment that no living human, nor even transcendents who had surpassed that realm, could easily endure.
But as if he had been waiting for the moment Ermont unleashed his full-power gemstone spell bombardment, Je-byeok moved immediately.
In the brief moment he endured the trumpet-shaped bombardment by tearing off a part of his ceremonial robe, he instantly closed the distance and kicked Ermont in the chest.
Thwack!!
“Kahak!!!”
The pre-deployed gemstone barrier shattered like glass as Je-byeok’s foot struck Ermont’s solar plexus.
The black wizard, having absorbed some of the impact, was sent flying dozens of meters away, crashing and rolling.
The youthful face, snake-like in its slyness, was wildly distorted with pain.
“Kieek… This is a bit too, painful…?”
“If you can still talk, then you haven’t had enough!!”
Soryu tried to block Je-byeok, who was about to stomp Ermont again and blow his head off, but he couldn’t change the situation.
Screech!!
“Ugh…!!”
Since their abilities and specialties were vastly different, they were bound to be pushed back without Ermont’s firepower support.
Lennok watched the fight between the three, then slowly began to gather his magical power.
‘I’ll have to intervene.’
Since Je-byeok wouldn’t compromise, to resolve this, he had to incapacitate that monster here.
He didn’t know how many hidden cards Soryu and Ermont had left, but if he didn’t act now, things would drag on too long.
He had to finish things quickly before the commotion in Kaiushyu leaked out and other factions got involved.
Thinking this, Lennok secretly caressed a pure white staff hidden inside his robe.
A beautiful staff with a rainbow-colored jewel and white wings spread on both sides. The ancient artifact he obtained during the battle with the Arashak Exploration Team, the Compassion of the Archangel.
It was a top-tier artifact equipped with various auxiliary spells, but its core lay in the jewel’s ability to spatially translocate inanimate objects.
By injecting magical power into the jewel and emitting it through the staff, it was possible to spatially translocate inanimate objects within one’s sensory range.
Since Soryu and Ermont considered Lennok a specialized manipulator who manipulated space, wouldn’t this artifact be an appropriate means?
Thinking so, he immediately activated the Compassion of the Archangel, designated his target, and as he began to cast the spell.
Kiiing…!!
“Hmm?”
A strange resonance began to emanate from the Archangel’s Tear in Lennok’s hand.