Chapter 556: From the End of Failure (3)

Clang!!

With the sound of the communication cutting off completely, the Kurbas Multi-purpose Gravity Dam’s meeting room fell into a deathly silence.

Dozens of people watched the woman standing in the center of the room, not daring to even breathe.

An overwhelming presence emanating from the veiled figure, draped in a richly colored robe, filled the meeting room.

Olivera stared silently at the broken, disconnected equipment for a moment, then turned without hesitation.

Behind her, the vampire Virgil glided along.

Keegan gritted his teeth and spoke.

“W-wait…!!”

[…]

“You came all this way, just to leave after a few words…!!”

At Keegan’s words, Olivera slowly turned her gaze and stared through her veil at him.

Just meeting the faint light of her demonic eyes behind the veil sent cold sweat streaming down Keegan’s back.

The pressure intensified with her gaze. Resisting the resonating mana that crushed his shoulders was already difficult.

But even amidst that, Keegan struggled not to forget what he had to do.

“Considering the procedures we skipped and the liabilities incurred just to guide you here, this isn’t enough.”

Keegan gasped, his face pale, but he steadfastly continued.

“Provide us with more definite information and circumstantial evidence about the Sealed Zone’s interior….”

“…Administrator Keegan Grimes.”

At that, Virgil, the vampire standing behind Olivera, bared his fangs slightly.

At the same time, a strong scent of blood wafted from beneath his feet. Keegan silently drew a shallow breath.

“I understand your predicament, but I cannot permit disrespectful words.”

“….”

Just the faint hint of his killing intent was subtly altering the environment within the meeting room.

The ancient vampire who had surpassed Parden McQueen to become the First Director, effectively the Cartel’s chief executive.

His intellect and power were so perfectly balanced that rumors of it even spread to the public, acclaiming him as the most harmoniously balanced among the massive corporate conglomerates.

“The Cartel is not bound by the city government’s interests. If you wish to understand that fact through means other than words, I see no reason to stop you.”

If a 7-level Completer were to take action here, it would be a bloodbath.

But Keegan gritted his teeth and shook his head.

“…No. I still need to hear it. If you know something, you must tell us clearly here.”

It was a somewhat stubborn demand. But Keegan wasn’t simply pushing Olivera without reason.

It wasn’t merely to be compensated for the risks he took to let her into the dam.

Olivera’s very presence here was clear proof that she had intended to go directly to the Sealed Zone.

But after a brief conversation with Lennok, she had abandoned that plan without hesitation and turned back.

Keegan believed he absolutely had to hear the reason for her change of heart right here.

Because that small action of Olivera changing her mind couldn’t have occurred without the certainty that this situation could be resolved.

“You don’t understand the warning.”

Virgil didn’t repeat himself. His red eyes grew chillingly cold.

Two streams of blood shot from between his fingers, spiraling and twisting to grasp Keegan’s throat.

“G-gasp…!!”

Keegan’s face, which seemed to hold both youth and age, twisted in agony.

As the surging blood vessels gripped his throat like living talons, choking him, Keegan’s limbs trembled violently.

[That face.]

The blood vessels’ grip, which seemed ready to snap his neck at any moment, halted due to a resonant sound from beyond the veil.

[You’re a survivor from the Sealed Zone incident.]

“Cough!!”

The blood vessels released him as if by magic. Keegan collapsed, coughing weakly.

[Most would have died shortly after the exposure, yet you managed to survive and come this far.]

“Haaah, haaah…!!”

Olivera turned her head with a languid expression towards the fallen Keegan.

She crouched slightly, met Keegan’s gaze, and murmured.

[Kaiser wasn’t pleased to see victims like you emerge. He considered the sacrifices he made to be errors stemming from the gap between insufficiency and failure.]

“Hmph…!! Who would be pleased by that…!”

[Indeed.]

Olivera readily assented.

[But in the conclusion of this maddening world, such sentiments are trivial. At least, they must appear so.]

“That’s….”

[Because that misjudgment ultimately killed Kaiser.]

“…!!!”

It was a shocking revelation, enough to make even Virgil, who had been listening silently, gasp slightly.

As the meeting room fell silent, Olivera slowly rose to her feet.

[I tell you this because, as a survivor of that incident, I believe you have the right to hear about Kaiser’s end.]

“….”

[The one who ruined your lives ultimately died in a way similar to how he sacrificed you.]

Olivera spoke with amusement, watching Keegan, who was unable to say anything.

[The fate of those who put even their own lives on the chessboard is usually like that.]

“…You too?”

Keegan quietly asked.

“Do you think your end will also be like that?”

Virgil frowned at the audacious question, as if it invited death, but he stopped when a laugh echoed from behind the veil.

Olivera looked down at the fallen Keegan for a moment, then replied with an unwavering, resonant voice.

[Is that even a question?]

There were no more questions or answers.

Leaving the silent meeting room behind, Olivera and Virgil quietly walked out into the corridor.

Outside the meeting room, the Cartel’s elite unit, waiting, quietly guided them to the dam’s wall rooftop.

Thrum-thrum-thrum!!!

A heavy, black aircraft was gliding above the dam wall, scattering a loud noise.

The dam wall. It was effortlessly flying near the Sealed Zone, an area where flight was considered virtually impossible due to the zone’s influence.

[It seems the newly developed airship has already arrived. What would we have done if anti-gravity technology hadn’t been commercialized?]

Olivera glanced up at the airship and spoke with satisfaction.

[Evan Vylun truly accomplished something great. The landscape of this city will change so much from now on.]

“The research team at Cartel headquarters is looking for a way to contact Evan Vylun. They say the author’s cooperation is essential for groundbreaking performance improvements… and they plan to entrust this task to the board of directors.”

Virgil, who had reported on the headquarters’ airship mass production project, asked as he boarded the airship with Olivera.

“Are you sure it’s alright not to help Van? Even setting aside the Chairman’s involvement, I came prepared to intervene personally if necessary….”

[From the moment he met Kaiser and survived to make contact, there was no longer a need for me to act.]

Olivera leaned slightly back into her seat and bowed her head, as if tired.

[That’s proof that this situation won’t be easily resolved by the will of either Kaiser or Adamant Thunder alone. Since I confirmed that, it’s enough.]

“Are you saying that the situation not being resolved quickly is a good sign?”

[A fragment of the past, different from reality yet infinitely close to it… It’s not something that can simply be dismissed as an illusion or a memory.]

It felt as if Olivera was faintly smiling from behind her veil.

[That was a dream we all once shared, and a dream someone still holds.]

“A dream… you say.”

[Between endless peace and reverie, someone has simply not let go of that wish. And I think I know, to some extent, who that person is.]

“….”

[Purity probably realized that fact, and seemingly tried to reclaim himself from that endlessly continuing dream….]

Only a faint chuckle remained as the airship flew further away.

[Even then, he wasn’t the only one who had such thoughts.]

A cathedral shrouded in cold mist.

A massive structure standing solitary in the southern grasslands of District 25.

Lennok hid among the buildings from where the cathedral was visible in the distance, and took out a stimulant.

The fatigue from the intense battle hadn’t fully subsided, but there was no time for long rest to recover.

He had no choice but to continue the forced march, even if it meant relying on the drug’s power.

“Do you see anything?”

“…Nothing at all.”

Felix, who had hidden his distinctive massive frame among the piles of collapsed concrete, replied.

“I don’t sense any special presence or aura outside the cathedral.”

“We still can’t rule out the possibility of a trap, I suppose.”

Ilya said, checking the equipment she was carrying.

Clatter!!

One of her five Super-Vibration Spears was already half-broken, on the verge of losing its function.

After hesitating, Ilya finally broke the damaged spear in half, completely deactivating it, and took out parts from inside.

The spear, crafted with Sybrid Echo’s technology, contained an internal control device that manipulated its movements by synchronizing with Ilya’s brainwaves.

Its practicality lay in its ability to resonate brainwaves with mana, unifying them with the spear’s movements, and applying that to superhuman combat.

It was an item worth its value and rarity. It would have been difficult to simply abandon it here.

“In the worst-case scenario, we might be surrounded the moment we reach the rendezvous point.”

“…No, they don’t possess that level of force.”

Lennok, deep in thought about Ilya’s words, shook his head.

“The forces deployed for Kaiser’s research are, by their nature, a select few. If monsters like Olivera or Madrich Onnion were involved, we would surely have sensed them beforehand.”

“….”

“For it to be a trap, the message delivery method was too secretive, and the rendezvous point is too far from the power plant. It’s evidence that they have no intention of playing tricks.”

“But….”

Instead of answering, Lennok stood up and began to walk.

Felix and Ilya naturally stood up, following the wizard with the staff, but Lennok immediately waved his hand.

“I’ll go alone.”

“Van, it’s dangerous when the opponent hasn’t shown themselves yet.”

“No, it would be safer for you two to observe the situation from outside.”

Lennok scanned the two with cold eyes.

“If we consider the possibility of a trap, as Ilya said, then we should be even further apart. Three people being surrounded at once would be the worst-case scenario, wouldn’t it?”

“….”

Leaving the two speechless, Lennok immediately headed towards the cathedral.

Quiet footsteps echoed through the seemingly deserted city.

Even at noon, the fog surrounding the cathedral was so thick it was hard to see an inch ahead.

Screech…!!

Lennok grasped the old cathedral door with his bare hand and pushed it open, seeing that the dust carried by the fog had filled the interior chapel.

Coughing softly, he walked to the front of the chapel and sat on an empty chair.

“I came alone, as promised.”

Lennok muttered alone in the empty chapel.

“Kaiser himself wouldn’t come, so it’s probably a messenger… If you have a message, let’s get this over with quickly.”

Felix and Ilya didn’t seem to notice, but Lennok had known for a long time that someone was waiting for him inside the cathedral.

He detected the presence, faint to the extreme, with his mana sense, and projected its location and traces using his spiritual perception and demonic eyes.

“Or do you plan to pray together in this old chapel?”

“…Unlikely.”

With that remark, from the chair opposite Lennok, a figure slowly began to emerge, as if its colors were peeling away.

“I am aware of divine beings, but I have no intention of revering them. To a martial artist, this place is nothing more than an inscrutable space.”

A scruffy figure, leaning askew with crossed arms, clutching something long to his chest.

A loose black robe that obscured his physique, and hair of a peculiar checkerboard-like color, mixed black and white.

But the moment Lennok saw the young man’s face, which was revealed last, he felt his breath catch in his throat.

“I’ve been up for over half a month, you see. I feel the same desire to finish this operation quickly and return. Let’s finish this and go our separate ways.”

“….”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Hmm, to ask if there’s something on my face… well, it’s already quite dirty, isn’t it?”

At the young man’s embarrassed scratch of his head, Lennok could no longer say anything.

He merely thought for a long time, then finally uttered a single name before him.

“…Krod Azlan. Was this your purpose? For this….”

“Hm? How do you know that name?”

The slightly surprised young man soon nodded with a pleased expression.

“Hahaha, it seems my achievements on the front lines are slowly spreading to the city. Have outsiders already started recognizing me?”

“….”

“It was wise to join Lord Kaiser’s operation before the civil war ended. I hope this, too, will be properly recorded as a significant contribution.”

Did Kaiser know this fact, and send this man as a messenger to Lennok?

The young man’s face, sitting before Lennok, was strikingly identical to that of the 8-level spear user who had guided him into the Sealed Zone.

No, ‘identical’ isn’t enough.

If one were to imagine Krod before he reached his full mastery, skipping decades of time, he would probably look like this.

A face full of vitality, having escaped the effects of aging by building up Hierarchy, but not yet swayed or dominated by madness and the unconscious.

The past superhumans who participated in Kaiser’s operation.

It wasn’t just the Olivera of the past, or Madrich Onnion, or the executives of Deadrise.

Purity, the Guardian of Turyeonmun and an 8-level spear user, the Krod Azlan of the past, had also participated in Kaiser’s research operation decades ago.