Chapter 447: The End of Paradise (1)

Crackle…!!

The acceleration of consciousness ended, and the surrounding space-time, which had slowed, began to return to its original speed.

A black-haired man appeared in the truck’s cargo bed, accompanied by a seething, pitch-black magical power.

“Things in the world don’t always go as one wishes, do they?”

“Myeong, you…!!”

He was lightly dressed in a black shirt, as if out for a stroll. The moment the young man sat on the opposite chair, Lennok shot up from his seat.

Lennok, sharply scrutinizing Myeong’s entire body, noticed an unknown anomaly and his expression hardened.

The magic, boiling up as if from an abyss, and the utterly distinct presence remained, but a faint sense of incongruity could be felt somewhere.

A strange sensation, as if he were present yet simultaneously absent from this place.

Realizing that it wasn’t a mere illusion, but that his transcendent magical sensitivity had accurately perceived Myeong’s state, Lennok asked.

“You didn’t come here in person. Are you merely projecting your consciousness here…?”

“Hmm, so you’ve reached a level where you can tell that now.”

Instead of answering Lennok’s question, Myeong offered a peculiar smile.

“Indeed, it seems you’ve made significant progress since I saw you in the labyrinth.”

“……”

“Well, it’s not something you absolutely have to hear right now. Shall we start with what needs to be said first?”

When Lennok didn’t reply, Myeong grinned and nonchalantly changed the subject.

“This truck. It’s driven by severe drug addicts. They’re so steeped in drugs they don’t care who’s going where.”

Myeong, grinning, leaned back against the seat and crossed his legs as he spoke.

“As long as the fare is paid upfront, it’s a highly favored mode of transport in the Western Continent.”

“A transportation business that uses drug addicts as drivers…”

“It’s a business created by Dominic Cabarro and spread throughout the Paraghini Republic, now an item spreading across the entire Western Continent.”

Myeong raised a finger and pointed at the driver.

“As you can see, they don’t care what we talk about, or what happens in the back of the truck. Aside from moving as paid, they’re just drug-consuming machines.”

So, they just gather drug-addicted criminals, use them as truck drivers, and pay them with drugs in return?

The criminals, with drugs seeped into their very bones, couldn’t even remember the faces or identities of their passengers, only accelerating to the destination after receiving the promised payment.

Only then did Lennok realize why the truck driver hadn’t reacted at all to seeing Tucker’s corpse, and he nodded with an incredulous expression.

“The drug lord was an extraordinary character, too. So he found a way to exploit his customers, did he?”

“His talent as a businessman was quite remarkable even within Pandemonium. That’s likely why they’re still keeping his body alive in the Republic.”

“……”

He spoke with such composure, even though he surely knew Lennok had personally killed Dominic Cabarro’s consciousness, putting him into a comatose state.

Lennok sighed, adjusted his mask, and asked.

“So, what is it? I didn’t expect you to contact me here.”

From the moment he received the mission from Hylaea in District 21, he hadn’t expected to encounter Myeong.

The fact that he entrusted the operation’s personnel selection to someone else indicated he had no intention of interfering with this matter at all.

Therefore, he had thought this would be a time to assess Lennok’s willingness to cooperate with Pandemonium’s affairs.

But Myeong ignored Lennok’s words and asked.

“The Archangel’s Tear. Why haven’t you consumed it?”

“What?”

“I specifically prepared that time-element elixir you’d been searching for since your freelance days. If you don’t use it, my sincerity won’t be properly conveyed, will it?”

“So that’s what you were talking about…”

Then, the entire operation to steal the Archangel’s Tear was Myeong’s arrangement from the start?

Lennok let out a hollow laugh and replied.

“Even setting aside the consequences of pilfering an elixir of this caliber, isn’t there a high probability of losing consciousness upon consuming it?”

An artifact of the Old World. A treasure significant enough to make a city tremble. A timeless elixir that extends human lifespan.

Isn’t it only natural for a user’s consciousness to fly away if such an item is consumed carelessly?

Considering he suffered for a full day even after first consuming Stemonia, an elixir of much lower quality than the Archangel’s Tear, it seemed perfectly logical.

“Indeed… You have a point.”

Myeong, easily convinced, grinned and shook his head.

“The Archangel series are artifacts of the Old World, ranking high in origin and performance. The faction that created these artifacts was said to be the closest to organized Ascension even in the Second World.”

“Organized Ascension…”

At Myeong’s blatant mention of the Old World before Ascension, Lennok quietly closed his mouth.

Most likely, it was a world related to WORLD 2.0, which Lennok knew about.

And unlike this 3.0 world, of which Lennok had no knowledge, he remembered quite a bit about the 2.0 game.

According to his memories of playing the game as a Magic Gunslinger back then, there were roughly four factions that maintained their power until the end in the WORLD 2.0 setting.

Among them, only one faction could have created items with a name like Archangel.

‘The Theocracy. Back then, there was also an organization called the Theocracy that worshipped multiple gods.’

The artifact Lennok possessed, Compassion of the Archangel, was obtained from Irina Pesfield, the leader of an expedition team.

And Irina Pesfield was a raider who acquired the Compassion of the Archangel under an implicit cooperation with the Cult.

It might not be so rare for a particular religious group to wield power beyond mere numbers.

But at this point, was it a coincidence that artifacts spanning the Old World and the current world were managed under the name of the Cult?

Until now, knowledge of the Old World hasn’t been particularly helpful, so he hadn’t considered it, but there might be useful information in Pandemonium.

As Lennok sorted through the game knowledge he remembered in his mind, Myeong averted his gaze and murmured.

“If you’re wise, you’d consume it beforehand. The place we’re going now is a demonic realm where you won’t easily find such leisure.”

“……What?”

Only then did Lennok’s face completely stiffen as he realized why Myeong had appeared at this particular moment.

“Wait, then the stopover the truck driver mentioned was…!!”

“I always appreciate how quick you are to catch on.”

Myeong, murmuring with a pleased expression, sharply turned his head.

“I told you earlier, didn’t I? They don’t care where the destination is, as long as they get paid.”

Snap!

As he snapped his fingers, the view outside the truck window turned pitch black, and the truck plunged into a colossal tunnel.

The surrounding scenery instantly changed.

Even as the terrain and landscape rapidly shifted all around, the driver paid no mind.

Myeong looked back at the driver and smiled faintly.

“It takes this kind of person for me to show you something. I thought it was a good opportunity.”

“……”

Rumble!!!

The truck rattled madly, then tore through the endless darkness, racing towards a light.

The moment it plunged into the brightly shining light beyond the driver’s window, a landscape entirely different from the plains they had just been traversing came into view.

Roooooar!!!

The sight of a colossal canal, so vast its opposite bank was invisible.

Compared to its overwhelming width, seemingly hundreds of meters across, the amount of water flowing at the bottom of the canal appeared woefully insufficient.

Yet, an overwhelming sound, like cascading water, reverberated ceaselessly from all directions.

Lennok, holding onto the back of the truck’s cargo bed and craning his head out, muttered.

“What a strange sight. A canal of this size is being made, yet there’s no trace of a city nearby…”

The very existence of a canal implies it’s the result of construction to draw waterways near a city, doesn’t it?

Naturally, there should be people directing this construction, or construction equipment, or signs of civilization.

But not a single person was stirring on the somewhat withered plains.

Myeong, listening from behind with crossed legs, chuckled.

“A canal? Come to think of it, it might look that way. A rather fresh interpretation.”

“…This isn’t a canal? Then this isn’t the scenery you wanted to show me?”

“Van. I wouldn’t waste your time just to show you a mere pit like this.”

Myeong chuckled, then stood up.

“What I was talking about wasn’t this pit, but the entity that’s creating it while moving in real-time.”

“Someone is single-handedly altering the terrain to this size…?”

Lennok, understanding the meaning of those words, shook his head.

The colossal canyon Lennok had taken for a canal was at least several hundred meters wide.

So, this scale of terrain alteration isn’t a single act of destruction, but merely the trace of something moving in real-time?

Lennok himself might be able to create a canal of this size if he poured all his magical power into it, but he wouldn’t be confident in causing this much destruction as easily as breathing.

If Lennok, who had long surpassed the Saint rank, was like this, then a single entity with a physique and destructive power surpassing him—

“It’ll be faster to see it directly than for me to explain. Get ready. It’ll become harder to breathe the closer we get.”

“What on earth is that…!”

Lennok didn’t need to ponder Myeong’s words for long.

Before Lennok could ask again, the sky above the truck, which had been racing along the canal, began to turn pitch black.

Simultaneously, unknown, murky energies began to descend upon Lennok’s shield from all directions.

They melted away, as if dissolving the shield at a cellular level and coveting the flesh within.

“……!!”

The moment he recognized the danger, he swiftly formed a hand seal, rapidly increasing the strength and range of his shield.

Despite his utmost swift reaction, the driver, who was outside the shield’s range, was already too late.

“G-g-ghaeek… Urgh…kek…”

From the driver’s mouth, which had been blankly gripping the steering wheel without a word, an incomprehensible groan escaped for the first time.

Simultaneously, hundreds of pitch-black age spots spread across the driver’s skin, beginning to cover it entirely.

“Ugyagyagyagyag…!!! Keheeeeeek!!!”

The driver, frantically scratching his drug-addled body with an expression of agony, finally let go of the steering wheel and began convulsing wildly.

The driver, instantly losing his human sanity, let out a violent roar and abruptly turned his head towards the back of the cargo bed.

“Kraaaaaaak!!”

Instead of the driver, who was maniacally banging on the cargo compartment separated by the glass, Lennok naturally grasped the steering wheel with magic threads and maintained direction.

Even though the driver, who had been fine just moments ago, had transformed into a monster, neither Myeong nor Lennok reacted strongly.

Instead, they merely subtly furrowed their brows in the air that was rapidly beginning to shatter.

Even within Lennok’s sensory range, spanning several kilometers, the presence of something far ahead, beyond the canal, began to be detected.

Despite the monster’s banging on the window, Lennok muttered with a thoughtful expression.

“I don’t feel much magical reaction… It’s hard to even call it a life signature. A sense of incongruity, or intense alienness… Only something far more dreadful than that is palpable.”

“Precise.”

“Given how the driver changed, is it some kind of disaster related to disease or infection?”

“It is a disaster, but that’s not its theme.”

Myeong said that, then looked back at the driver, who had abruptly stopped banging on the window.

“Judging by the signs, we should be almost there… Ah, there we go.”

“Kyaak!!”

At that moment, the driver, who had been blankly staring at the two, abruptly turned his head, his body stained pitch black.

He clung to the direction of the canal, his limbs twisting bizarrely, then he smashed through the truck barefoot and began sprinting directly towards the canal.

CRACK!!

Even as he staggered, dashing across the bare ground, he had already far surpassed human speed.

The moment the monster leaped down into the canal and screamed, stretching both arms forward—

Clang!!

From ahead, pitch-black chains flew out, instantly wrapping around his neck and snatching his body away.

“Kya-hak!! Kyahahahak!!”

The driver, letting out monstrous cries as if delighted even as his body was powerlessly dragged away.

As if he had wished for this from the start, he began crawling on all fours, following along even while being dragged by the leash.

“You’ll see it soon enough. Once you confirm it with your own eyes, you’ll understand, whether you like it or not.”

Myeong quietly said, looking at Lennok, who was speechless as he gazed down at the scene.

“Because Kebaek is that kind of being.”

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!!!

The noise grew louder and louder.

The magnificent sound of water, which he had thought was flowing through the canal.

Lennok realized that it wasn’t actually the sound of water, but the noise of something ahead, digging into the ground with bare hands and desperately crawling forward.

[Haaaaaaaakh!!!]

It wasn’t the sound of just one person.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands, transcending tens of thousands.

Like the driver who had just been chained and disappeared, a black sphere formed from tens of thousands of people, their entire bodies dyed pitch black, fused together.

A gruesome, flesh-and-blood sphere manifested from living human bodies, extending tens of thousands of arms from within to excavate soil and directly create the canal.