Chapter 57

Chapter 57.

The area around Pyongyang was wrapped in silence.

‘Wh-What… just happened?’

Resonar was dead.

The moment the system displayed the subjugation notification, that much was certain.

However, there were no cheers for the successful subjugation.

Everyone remained frozen, desperately trying to understand the ‘impossible’ scene that had just unfolded.

Awe, or perhaps fear at glimpsing the unknown.

Clang!

The sound of a heavy shield falling from someone’s hand broke the silence, but no one paid it any attention.

Everyone’s gaze was fixed on the deeply gouged crater.

Min Ji-hee forgot even to breathe as she replayed the Grand Magic she had just witnessed.

‘How… did it not revive?’

The first thing that stopped Min Ji-hee’s thoughts was not the destructive power of the magic, but the phenomenon itself: the collapse of this world’s common sense.

Resonar was a boss with an absolute rule called ‘Resonance,’ which caused one side to revive without fail as long as the opposite individual was alive, even if one side died.

Even Pandemonium’s strategy guide had declared it to be an unchanging ‘absolute rule’ established by the world.

This could not be bypassed by any method.

Because that was the rule—that is, the rule set by the system.

However, the moment the Apostle emitted black mist-like Mana and cast Grand Magic, that absolute law stopped functioning as though it had been a lie.

How was that possible?

That was a realm even Min Ji-hee did not dare to predict.

What Min Ji-hee saw was only the overwhelming result.

‘…Magic that surpasses the rules set by the system?’

Did such a thing exist in this world?

Grand Magic that could overwhelm even the system?

‘Can that even be called magic?’

Should it be called a miracle instead?

‘And the result was… that dreadful necromancy?’

Even Min Ji-hee had seen necromancy for the first time.

Necromancy was an unknown magic system whose classification existed, but which had never properly appeared on Earth.

When the Tower first appeared and Awakened began to emerge.

Many people realized that ‘this is similar to a game,’ and they gathered their intelligence to classify Hunters.

What took root upon that framework was the current Hunter classification system.

Among them, the unknown magic that had simultaneously produced humanity’s greatest fear and ethical controversy was ‘Necromancy.’

According to widely known settings, the material for necromancy was ‘corpses,’ and among them, the corpses of humans who had contained Mana were considered the finest.

The primal fear that my body, or the body of someone precious to me, might be unable to rest even after death and could be controlled as rotting bones.

Discussions began over ‘how corpses should be handled if a necromancer appears,’ and then people split into those saying, ‘Is that important right now?’ and those asking, ‘Then what is important?’ They engaged in heated debates, briefly creating noisy controversy.

That had been the entirety of necromancy.

Even when Lee A-un had summoned skeleton soldiers from remains, it had certainly been surprising, but compared to the necromancy the Apostle displayed, there was clearly a difference in class.

The Apostle had allowed dark Mana to seep into the thousands, tens of thousands of spirit and skeleton remains sprawled across the blood-soaked field, rebirthing them as a ‘legion of Knights of Death’ that emitted blue eye-light.

Moreover, what horrified Min Ji-hee more than anything else was the ‘most dangerous material’ standing at the center of this Grand Magic.

‘He used… the corpse of Resonar, the 94th Floor Break Boss, as material for necromancy? He raised that monster as undead?’

As if making the 94th Floor Boss his own limb were not enough, the Apostle had charged forward with that enormous boss-class Death Knight and a legion of thousands.

And with a single operation of snapping his fingers, he had turned that entire undead legion into massive time bombs and blown up the remaining half as well.

Unreasonable violence that raised an immortal legion from a boss’s corpse, then used that legion as bombs to erase the remaining boss as well…

Gulp.

She understood it in her head.

But she could not easily accept it.

She could not see…

The end of the Apostle at all.

***

Han Seol-ah looked down at the crater.

“What do you think?”

[This is ‘dark Mana.’]

Frozen spoke in a serious voice.

[You know that each kind of Mana used by Hunters has its own attribute, right?]

“Yes. Just as I handle Frost Mana.”

[Dark Mana can be called Mana that has reached the pinnacle of ‘black magic’ among them.]

Han Seol-ah nodded.

Just the residual energy at the bottom of the crater gave her an ominous chill, as if every hair on her body were standing on end and her soul was becoming murky.

[If the Frost Type Mana you handle tears apart the body and freezes the blood vessels, dark Mana eats away at the user’s reason and soul. It is the energy of negativity and death.]

“Negativity and death….”

The horrific end of Resonar Type 2 appeared in Han Seol-ah’s mind.

[If a mere ordinary human drew out enough dark Mana to turn the corpse of a 94th Floor Boss into undead and raise a legion of thousands? Before the magic could even activate, their ego would be devoured, and they would become a mindless monster.]

“But….”

Han Seol-ah’s eyes turned toward the sky.

There, the Apostle was floating while scattering dark Mana like black mist.

“The Apostle was completely fine.”

The Apostle had cast black magic of this scale as naturally as breathing, without any incantation or painful backlash, by lightly snapping his fingers.

[…That is why it makes no sense.]

Frozen’s voice was trembling faintly.

[Look at the texture of the Mana remaining in this crater. Mana this dangerous and wicked… does not bear a single trace of going berserk. It is the trace of Mana that did not even dare to think of defying its master’s command and obeyed while wagging its tail.]

“….”

Han Seol-ah swallowed dryly.

She had spent her entire life in bone-shaving pain in order to handle Frost Type Mana.

She had thought she had barely understood the flow of Mana and broken through her limits… but the Apostle was ruling over Mana with it beneath his feet.

[Moreover, the great one planted the pinnacle of Frost Type magic, ‘Absolute Zero,’ into this land of Pyongyang not long ago.]

“…He did.”

[An existence that can freely alternate between two miracles that stand in perfect opposition to each other without any restrictions… It is not a realm humans can dare to reach. He is a person who rules over the very ‘logic’ of this world.]

Han Seol-ah looked down at the crater while lost in thought.

Over the cold energy of Frost that had erased Pyongyang in white, pitch-black dark Mana that had overwritten even the system’s absolute rules was now laid on top.

***

“…It is over.”

One Tanker, who had been blankly looking up at the system message, muttered.

“Over?”

“For real?”

The Tankers nearby, hearing that voice, asked back in a daze.

The system message before their eyes was certainly not fake.

But this situation was unbelievable.

They had witnessed the overwhelming majesty of the 94th Floor Break Boss before their eyes.

At one point, the word ‘death’ had been engraved into everyone’s minds.

And after the battle proceeded exactly according to the Apostle’s briefing they had heard beforehand…

The ‘Resonar Subjugation Battle’ ended without a single casualty.

Was this reality?

Was it not a dream?

Kim Tae-wan looked behind him.

His vision was filled with the dumbfounded faces of his comrades, who were staring at him, their leader, with dazed expressions.

Their faces were a mess from blocking the Flame Storm Resonar had spat out.

Their faces were blotched red with heat rash, and some had blisters, making them look far from presentable.

“Hah.”

But when Kim Tae-wan saw those faces, a hollow laugh burst from him.

The Scathach Subjugation Battle had been a calamity resolved by only two people: the Guardian Han Seol-ah and the Apostle.

The Resonar Subjugation Battle?

That was truly a national-scale raid in which all of the Republic of Korea’s Hunters had been mobilized.

Kim Tae-wan remembered the previous Break defense battles.

As an A-rank Tanker, Kim Tae-wan had always fought at the very front as a Tanker unit leader back then as well.

He had gritted his teeth and maintained the frontline until the moment Han Seol-ah sniped and killed the boss.

Blood burst, bones broke, they were healed and reattached, and then they became covered in blood again…

It had been a period of endurance so painful that it nearly drove him insane.

After maintaining the frontline by gritting his teeth until the defense battle ended, he would look back…

And familiar faces would be gone.

‘When did it start?’

At first, he had cried.

Next, he had been angry.

Then, he had gradually felt hollow.

In the end, there had been moments when he gave up, thinking, ‘I will be joining you soon too.’

Before this Resonar Subjugation Battle, Kim Tae-wan had gone into the operation thinking this would be his last.

But…

Look at this result now.

There were only very minor burns blotching their bodies…

No one had died.

Everyone was alive.

“Hahaha!”

Tears flowed from Kim Tae-wan’s eyes.

On the other hand, a great laugh burst from his mouth.

“Puhaha!”

“We won! We won!”

“Waaaaaaaaah!!!”

All the Tankers had the same faces as Kim Tae-wan.

Kim Tae-wan tightly clenched the empty potion bottle left over from the operation.

A perfect clear where not a single Tanker died in a subjugation battle incomparably more difficult than anything before.

The reason this had been possible was thanks to ‘Special One,’ who had poured out such Consumable Items and Tanker Artifacts.

At the same time, it was also thanks to the ‘Apostle,’ who had sealed Resonar’s core rules, prepared for the expected dangers, and personally seized victory with his own hands.

And those two were the same person.

Kim Tae-wan raised both hands high.

“Long live the Apostle!”

Kim Tae-wan shouted with his voice full of joy.

“Long live!!!”

“Thank you, Apostle!”

“You are the best!!!”

The Tankers, and even the Healers, shouted as they threw the Artifacts they had each been distributed high into the sky.

Like mortarboards thrown by university graduates, all sorts of equipment flew wildly through the air.

“Wahahaha!”

“Hahaha!”

“Long live!!”

The area around Pyongyang filled with cheers.

***

Jin Cheon-jin did not let go of his tension.

“….”

Without shock, awe, or joy, he simply stared into the air while remaining extremely tense.

When they had previously subjugated Scathach, the system had displayed the message, [Notification: The difficulty of the Tower Break will increase rapidly], as though it had been waiting.

The wheel rolling toward destruction would not stop unless they cleared the 94th Floor of the Tower!

‘…How many days is this reprieve?’

The grace period after the Scathach subjugation had been three days.

‘The Apostle and Seol-ah succeeded in buying time in a way no one had expected and extended it to fifteen days, but….’

Then what about this time?

‘Surely we will not be given even less of a grace period than three days?’

The thought of ‘no way’ and the worry that ‘it could happen’ coexisted.

After the silence continued like that, Jin Cheon-jin, unable to bear the frustration, muttered.

“…What is this?”

The Resonar subjugation message had appeared.

But there was nothing after that.

“What about the next Break Boss?”

***

I let the cheers erupting from the ground pass in one ear.

[Gulp.]

The reaction of Min Ji-hee, who kept swallowing over the communicator as if she were so nervous and frightened, also passed.

[Incredible… amazing. This is…]

The voice of Han Seol-ah, who had once again begun muttering something incomprehensible, also passed.

None of that mattered right now.

‘….’

I…

Had goosebumps.

‘What was that?’

The moment I killed Resonar Type 2.

Time stopped.

Yet no one knew that fact.

But I…

Perhaps I was the only one in this world who could perceive the stopped time.

Within that stopped time, I read countless golden messages decorating the air.

Those messages were neither Korean nor English, but a ‘third language’ I had never seen even once.

And yet, strangely, I could read them.

Was it because I was Synchronized?

Because I was borrowing Nebula’s power?

I did not know the reason.

Only one thing mattered.

‘It said strategy judgment….’

Reviving Resonar with Great Harvest just now was a kind of exploit.

In the brief moment just before the corpse judgment vanished.

If one used a necromancy-type skill, it was possible to revive Resonar as undead.

However, there was a reason that only Great Harvest could cause such a miracle.

One had to push in dark Mana tremendously quickly and forcefully, eroding Resonar during the split-second before resurrection occurred.

And that was because the only magic with enough class to do so was Great Harvest.

It was an exploit I had learned after trying it several times in the game…

And it worked in reality as well.

No, to be precise…

It could have failed, but my ‘strategic intent’ of forcing dark Mana into it had lined up and was permitted.

‘Ha… haha.’

I laughed soundlessly.

The ones who had stopped time and debated through golden text.

They were probably Transcendents of an extraordinary level.

Perhaps they were the ones who operated the system on Earth and created the Tower.

And yet, even those Transcendents…

Reacted as though this was the first time they had seen my ‘strategy.’

‘Even though this is a strategy method I discovered after experimenting thousands of times in Lost Honor.’

What did that mean?

It meant that the ‘strategies’ I had accumulated in Lost Honor were correct answers.

And even those Transcendents…

Did not know as much as I did about how to conquer boss-class Demonic Beasts!