Chapter 680: The Oldest Bloodline (2)
Boom, boom, boom!!
The image of a truck speeding across a barren wilderness.
“It seems Leisen Azamaha has been privately collecting information about the Old Bloodline for a long time.”
The young man, gripping the steering wheel, put down his phone and turned his head.
“During that process, he is presumed to have contacted black wizards and planned to siphon off slush funds with their help.”
“……”
“Although he failed and was himself encroached upon by some unknown power, that was probably…”
Lennok silently took out a small relic ring from his pocket and examined it.
A ring he acquired in exchange for fulfilling the request of an old black wizard, Raoul.
An item that showed no special abilities other than manifesting the shape of an old tree through magical property transformation.
Lennok knew that this was an item symbolizing a very old wizarding family, but he couldn’t find any other clues.
He had put it out of his mind, thinking a chance would arise someday, but he never expected it to be linked again through the Outer God incident.
The shape of the tree drawn on the ring and the fragment of Annihilation’s Tree Lennok had obtained.
If there was no connection between these two concepts, that would be stranger.
‘The Oldest Bloodline, huh…’
As Lennok traveled the continent and explored knowledge, he learned that several old wizarding families existed.
But what was related to this incident was undoubtedly about the bloodline that wielded black magic, symbolized by Annihilation’s Tree.
And Lennok had a rough idea of who the owner of this bloodline was.
The young man, Armand, continued his explanation while driving the truck.
“If the black wizards hold the secret of the situation, hearing about Leisen’s corruption from them should be a priority.”
Before responding to Armand, Lennok squinted and stared at the rearview mirror.
“I think I need to hear why a Central Council aide is still accompanying me. Don’t you think?”
“……”
At that casual remark, Armand broke into a cold sweat, visibly tense.
“…Our aides represent the Central Council in preparation for emergencies.”
“Represent?”
“When the Council’s intervention needs to be demonstrated in external activities, aides act on its behalf.”
Armand answered, smoothly turning the steering wheel.
“Of course, for official interventions or major incidents, the Council’s directly subordinate special agency takes over all authority, but…”
“Meaning you’re occasionally deployed when matters need to be handled in secret.”
“My presence alone will prevent any demands for attendance or testimony regarding this matter. That’s what aides are for.”
A position that exists to assist the Senate in all its affairs.
Lennok didn’t bother to pry why a unique superhuman like Armand was involved in such work, as was his usual custom.
He simply focused his mind, holding the fragment of Annihilation’s Tree branch he had obtained from Leisen.
Kiiing…!!
He projected his magic, synchronized with the Outer God’s encroached body, through omnidirectional mana sensitivity.
Lennok instantly found the strongest reaction near the undeveloped zone and pointed towards the setting sun.
“That way.”
Sweat began to bead on Armand’s forehead as he drove the truck towards the sunset.
“Wait, that place is…”
As soon as they crossed the ridge of a sand dune, the remains of a massive construction site unfolded below.
All sorts of equipment of unknown purpose and workers busily moved everywhere, and thick drums incessantly moved back and forth.
Every time the thick pipes installed throughout pulsated, black liquid leaked out, soaking the sand.
The scorching heat rising from the ground and the strong smell of oil, so intense it made them forget that sensation.
It was an oilfield.
“……”
Armand, who had been staring blankly at the landscape below for a long time, turned his gaze.
“Um… Van. This is…”
“Yes.”
“You need to be sure, Van.”
Armand’s expression was wavering.
“If we turn the oilfield upside down and achieve nothing, an enormous claim for damages will be filed against both of us.”
“……”
“I’m not afraid to die, but for my account to become overdrawn… for my card to be confiscated… Ugh!”
Armand clutched his stomach as if the mere thought gave him a stomachache.
Lennok scoffed, turning his gaze away.
“Stop with the useless talk and let’s go down.”
“Van!!”
Lennok was already out of the truck and walking down the sand dune. Armand sighed and followed, leaving the truck engine running.
Crossing over leaking oil pipelines, Lennok unhesitatingly approached the workers and stared at them.
The workers, covered in black oil, belatedly spotted Lennok and frowned intensely.
“What? Who are you?”
“Why are you staring at people so creepily…”
The workers, about to snap at him, flinched back slightly upon seeing his elegant silver staff and black coat.
“…Are you perhaps a supervisor?”
“If you have business, go to the field headquarters over there.”
The workers kept grumbling, seemingly determined to speak their minds even as they watched Lennok nervously.
“Damn it, can’t even get a proper break.”
“Just want to catch some sleep quickly…”
“Van.”
Armand, who had followed, cautiously spoke, subtly glancing at Lennok.
“They’re ordinary workers. If you kill them because you don’t like them, there will be consequences later…”
“……”
Lennok understood what Armand thought of Adamant Thunder, but instead of replying, he spoke to the workers.
“If you want to rest, you may.”
“What?”
“I’ll take responsibility. Go get some sleep and rest. I’ll inform the field headquarters.”
At those words, the workers’ expressions instantly brightened.
“Oh, finally a supervisor who makes sense has come.”
“Well, in that case, I won’t refuse… just a moment… Hehe.”
The workers, looking rather happy, leaned against the oil pipeline and tilted their heads back.
But after a short while, the workers stood up, looking bewildered.
“…I can’t sleep.”
“That’s strange. I was so sleepy just a moment ago…”
“No, how do you even sleep?”
“……”
As Armand’s expression gradually hardened while watching, Lennok asked again.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Huh? Quite a long time.”
“For me, if you count by years… huh?”
The workers tilted their heads again.
“I definitely worked here for a very long time. Can’t remember it well…”
“Come to think of it, when did I last go home?”
Lennok asked again.
“How old are you?”
“My… age…?”
“Age? What… is age?”
Gradually, little by little, like a broken tape, the workers’ voices became disjointed.
At the same time, the faces of the once ordinary workers began to distort slightly.
Lennok looked at them and asked again.
As if to nail down all his previous questions.
“What are your names?”
“……”
The silent workers replied.
“…I can’t remember.”
“Who… who was I?”
“I, I, I… what am I doing here?”
“This can’t be…”
Beyond Armand’s pale face, muttering, the deceased, unable to even remember their names, writhed.
“I, I… want to go home…”
“Where is this?”
“I, Iii…!!!”
The workers’ skin inverted from within, rotten muscles and bones protruding, transforming them into horrific monsters.
Beasts covered in black oil, with bone fragments hanging everywhere, howling.
[Kuaaaaah!!!]
Armand stared blankly at the sight and muttered.
“They were all dead from the start.”
“This is an oilfield that was abandoned long ago after drilling was finished.”
Lennok replied.
“Oil is leaking everywhere from the pipelines, but there’s no attempt to fix them, and the drill rigs are broken and buried in the ground. There are no villages or facilities that should be near an oilfield.”
“That’s…”
“There was a major accident once, and all the personnel involved were massacred and buried alive.”
“……”
“And in that state, the bodies, steeped in crude oil buried beneath the oilfield, were exploited like this, disguised as a functioning oilfield.”
[Kureeegegegekh!!]
Lennok explained, pointing at the shriveled pony-like oil monster charging at them.
“Controlling the dead is within the Domain of necromancy, but it’s not impossible through other disciplines either. Especially if it’s just about binding dead spirits to a body, spiritualism is enough. But…”
The moment he placed a finger on the forehead of the monster, which was sputtering, unable to break through the shield.
[Transcendent Thunder]
Crack!
Blue electricity burst forth, instantly exploding the entire oil mass.
Boom!!
With oil fragments sliding off an invisible shield in mid-air behind him, Lennok said.
“They soon lose almost all their intellect and become monsters, without even a trace of humanity left.”
“……”
“There’s probably a specific term for this phenomenon, but I don’t know what the spiritualism community calls it…”
They trampled over the broken pipelines and writhing monsters, heading towards the central drill tower of the oilfield.
The drill tower, broken in half and covered in dust, clearly showed it had completely ceased functioning upon closer inspection.
“…You are right, Van.”
Meanwhile, Armand’s clones, who had explored various parts of the oilfield, spoke.
“All the workers here died and became monsters, and it seems the facility stopped functioning decades ago.”
It seemed they had fought with monsters, as various unknown oily substances stained parts of the clones’ bodies.
Lennok looked at Armand’s clones with an interested expression and asked.
“Your clones seem to have physical forms. What’s the exact principle behind their operation?”
“Yes…?”
“Most unique abilities are like that, but yours is quite anomalous for an innate ability.”
Armand’s clones, looking bewildered and at each other, said.
“Basically, it’s a replica… to put it another way, it’s a method of duplicating my mental image and infusing power individually.”
Armand 5 picked up where Armand 2 left off.
“As we create a foundation with will-thought and infuse magic to construct a physical form, the more our numbers increase, the weaker we become.”
“So, during combat, we use two or three, and only increase the number when exploration is needed.”
“I see…”
“We explored the entire oilfield through the clones, but we couldn’t find a suitable entrance or passage.”
While Lennok was deep in thought, Armand, who had discreetly merged his clones back into one, let out a deep sigh.
“It’s clear they’re doing something near the oilfield… but I don’t know where to start digging.”
“They’re not doing something near the oilfield. Didn’t you see the oil leaking between the pipelines?”
“Yes?”
“Oil couldn’t possibly still be leaking from pipelines that have been broken for decades.”
Seeing that Armand wasn’t getting it, Lennok explained again.
“The cracks in the pipeline are recent. What do you think it means that they’re pumping oil through broken pipes?”
“……”
“These people aren’t hiding near the oilfield. Rather…”
Lennok said, walking into the drill tower.
“They’re hiding directly beneath the oilfield.”
Between the fragments of the broken drill tower, Lennok found a lever unusually free of oil and pulled it.
The entire oilfield began to sink, as if plunging downwards.
Rumble!!
What appeared to be a vast sandy expanse sank completely, and fountains of oil erupted from all sides.
At the same time, the ground rapidly descended beneath them.
The oil flowing beneath their feet lubricated the friction points with the passageway.
Unable to withstand the frictional heat, it ignited, creating a fiery passage all around them.
In an instant, the oilfield, which had sunk dozens of meters down, stopped like an elevator in front of a dark underground cave.
Creak!!
A pitch-black underground cave made of bedrock, where not a single ray of light shone.
It was as if it had opened its mouth wide towards the two of them, waiting for their approach.
Armand, clutching his sword with a tense expression, muttered.
“How can there be such a deep underground cave beneath the sand…!!”
“They extracted magic from the corpses, layered it onto the oil, and mixed it with sand to solidify it.”
Lennok lightly ran his hand over the pitch-black wall of the underground cave, impressed.
“It’s much harder than I expected. By forcibly mixing magic and hardening it, it gained a strength that oil naturally doesn’t possess…”
“Van.”
Armand asked in a stiff voice.
As he took a step forward, Armand’s body split into three.
“Here, I will take the lead and clear the way. Could you provide support from the rear, Van?”
The Oldest Bloodline. And black wizards associated with Annihilation’s Tree.
He didn’t know what awaited them beyond that cave, but it wouldn’t be strange if secrets, originally forbidden to Armand, were hidden there.
What he had to do now was to risk his life and assist the wizard.
Armand, tensing up and drawing out his magic, was slowly closing the distance into the cave when…
“Before you go in, I’ll cast a simple spell. It will help.”
“Understood.”
Lennok, looking at Armand’s clones with an intrigued expression, said.
“Now that things have come to this, there’s something I want to experiment with.”
“Yes? An experiment—”
As a bewildered Armand 3 turned his gaze towards Lennok.
A powerful lightning bolt, falling from the sky, struck Armand 3 directly on the crown of his head.
“Aggghhh!!!”
“Van!!”
“Why are you attacking me…?! Huh? The pain is…”
A startled Armand 1 leaped back, hastily trying to create distance, then looked bewildered.
Because instead of burning pain, he began to feel an overwhelming surge of power on a different level.
Lennok looked at Armand 3, who was trembling in place, and asked.
“If I cast an enhancement spell on just one clone, can the other clones share that power?”
[Gathering Shackles]
[Thunder Remnant Body]
[Three Extremes of Thought]
“What in the world is this…!!”
Crack, crack!
Azure lightning flashed around Armand 3’s body, accelerating the rotation speed of his magic.
A line of blue light formed in his vision, and every sensation in his body sharpened, condensing.
His hair stood on end, and everyone gasped at the illusion of its tips turning blue.
Armand 3 looked at his fingertips, which were sparking with electricity, utterly dumbfounded.
“This is…?”
“It’s the third revision of my lightning-based enhancement magic.”
Lennok said, crossing his arms and nodding.
“Re-revision, you say?”
“Among the three versions, it has the best output, but conversely, the worst efficiency or fuel economy.”
“……”
“After experimenting, it seems the power doesn’t disperse even when an enhancement spell is specifically cast on one clone. That’s a relief.”
At Lennok’s words, Armand’s other clones replied with disgruntled expressions.
“I have no idea what’s a relief about it, but…”
“I think I know.”
At that moment, Armand 3, who had been silently bowing his head, spoke.
His gaze, shining with blue light, was already filled with an unknown certainty.
“Did you not directly acknowledge that I am the main body of the clones?”
“…What?”
Armand 3 stepped forward, disregarding Armand 1 and Armand 2, who gaped in astonishment.
“The matter of ego independence, which is inevitable for those with clone abilities. I have been directly recognized for it by the Archmage.”
“N-no, what are you talking about!!”
“Damn it, why is my unique ability suddenly…!!”
A flustered Armand 1 hastily tried to retract his unique ability, but Armand 3 didn’t look back at him.
Instead, he asked Lennok with a completely changed, confident tone.
“If a clone gains power superior to the main body, is it still a clone or the main body?”
“……”
“I realized that clones are also people, they have egos, and they deserve equal rights to the main body. I express my respect to you for teaching me that.”
Lennok smiled at Armand 3’s words and asked.
“Your personality seems to have changed a lot?”
“From the moment I was reborn with power from you, I am no longer Armand Martins.”
Armand 3 replied with a resolute tone.
“As you wish, I will cooperate as a vanguard for this incident. But after it’s over, I will leave Vulcan.”
“…What?”
“I’m sick of living as a Central Council aide.”
Armand 3 said, crossing his arms as if sneering at the other clones.
“I will abandon my clone identity and enjoy the new life that Adamant Thunder has gifted me.”
“……”
At that astonishing declaration, Armand’s other clones stared silently at Lennok, unable to reply.
Lennok tilted his head, watching them.
“I didn’t intend to enhance the consciousness itself… Was it a bit too much?”