Chapter 94

Chapter 94.

‘Iranshu’ opened his eyes.

Splash.

In time with his shallow breathing, the sticky red liquid filling the bathtub slowly rippled.

“How was it, my lord?”

The Observer, who had been waiting in the darkness, asked while holding his breath.

“A moment.”

Iranshu answered in a hazy voice and closed his eyes again.

Overwhelming violence. An arrogant blue flash.

And...

even Master’s hand, cutting open the vessel’s belly and mercilessly plundering the core.

After finishing his savoring of the memory, Iranshu’s red lips slowly drew a curve.

“The core was not recovered in the end.”

“The core was...? I will immediately trace back the coordinates and confirm…….”

“No. Leave it be.”

Iranshu smiled.

“It is a trophy Master personally collected... If it entered his hands, then it was not lost.”

Iranshu lightly waved his hand and slowly raised himself up.

Squelch... schlick-

The crimson liquid clung stickily to his naked body, carved like a sculpture, then stretched out in long blood-colored threads and dripped down.

“Whew.”

Iranshu stood upright.

A tall, handsome height in the upper 180-centimeter range.

Black hair that flowed smoothly down to his waistline.

Elegant, lean muscles set along the line of his spine from his broad shoulders.

Like an exquisitely carved statue, it was a smooth, flawless naked body without an ounce of excess.

The weakness of the ‘fifteen-year-old Iranshu’ who had faced Master in the fortress no longer existed.

Only the body of a complete adult remained, radiating a rank and presence that pressed down on the surrounding air simply by standing still.

Shrrk!

As Iranshu lazily extended his palm, a stream of red liquid pooled in the bathtub surged into the air, then crystallized and changed into a crimson tie.

He slowly swept up his wet black hair.

When the hair covering his face was brushed away, the features revealed were sharply defined and beautiful enough to raise goosebumps.

Black eyes contrasted against pale skin.

Even the blood-colored madness flickering in their depths did not become a flaw. Rather, it formed a strange and dangerous harmony that ensnared the gaze.

Iranshu tied his hair with a crimson tie and whispered softly.

“For the cost of one core, it was an excellent result.”

The Observer waiting nearby carefully draped a robe made from the finest black silk over his shoulders.

However, Iranshu did not care whether the robe draped over his shoulders slid loosely down with every step.

Beneath his bare feet as he crossed the dark room with languid, fluid steps, sticky red footprints stretched in a long trail.

At last, his steps stopped.

In the deepest part of the room, thick with darkness, stood a bone-white throne made from the intertwined skulls of massive Demonic Beasts and humans.

Iranshu slid onto it, reclining as though lying down, and accepted the golden goblet the Observer offered.

As if in a good mood, he hummed and lightly swirled the golden goblet.

Inside the goblet, dark red wine swayed precariously.

Every movement carried the languid, arrogant ennui unique to the fallen.

“Master was still magnificent.”

“Congratulations, my lord.”

“But...”

Iranshu drew out the rest of his sentence and moistened his lips with wine.

Licking the blood-scented red liquid with the tip of his tongue, Iranshu said calmly, “At the same time, I was disappointed.”

Iranshu stared into the air, drawing the image of the Master that remained in his memories.

The image of the perfect superhuman Iranshu envisioned was there.

In the instant he fell silent, a suffocating pressure filled the space, as if even the surrounding air were being crushed heavily.

“...Then I will take my leave.”

Crushed by the unfathomable rank the main body was unconsciously emitting, the Observer, who could not even breathe properly, fled the room the moment he saw Iranshu’s ‘thoughts’ beginning.

Clack. The heavy door closed, and complete silence settled over the space.

Iranshu recalled only the single being imprinted in his mind.

‘Master.’

Iranshu had died while climbing the 74th Floor.

Had he lacked strength? Or had he failed to abandon the human heart?

He could no longer remember which it had been.

He only vividly remembered that after failing, he had sunk into the abyss of the Tower, met ‘Father,’ become the First Apostle, and been banished outside the Tower.

And Iranshu’s time, stopped while he was sealed away, began to flow again at the very moment Master, the final Climber, put his climb on ‘hold’ on the 94th Floor and returned to reality...

at the same time as fourteen Towers rose all over the world.

‘The gap between Master and me is a full twenty floors.’

In that hellish Tower, Master had survived twenty more floors than Iranshu, tempering himself all the while.

On top of that, ten years had passed since he returned to reality.

In that case.

If he was my master, whom I respected so deeply and hated just as much.

He should have grown stronger than Iranshu had expected.

But how had the battle with the clone been?

His swordsmanship was still perfect.

The Sword Energy wrapped around that tree branch had reached the realm of art.

A shining sword made of Mana? It was supreme.

But.

“In the end, it was only human technique...”

That was all.

Before the ‘miracle’ called Father’s Authority, it was nothing more than an old, outdated sword dance.

“Master should have become stronger...”

Iranshu dropped the golden goblet.

Clang- roll...

“Strong enough that even I would not dare aspire to surpass him... He should have engraved that suffocating gaze from the past, the one that looked down on me, and that bottomless despair into me again.”

The golden goblet rolled across the marble floor, and the blood inside soaked the ground.

Was he hiding his true skill, or was this truly his limit?

Iranshu leaned deep into the skull throne, as if bored.

“How dull...”

He sank into it even more deeply.

He submerged himself in darkness.

Kikik-

Kiaaaah-

The darkness rippled and began making noisy sounds of its own.

Snap!

“Noisy.”

Iranshu lightly snapped his fingers with his eyes closed, and the darkness that had been rampaging went silent as death.

It was control on an entirely different level from the ‘little Iranshu’ who had struggled to control even one shadow.

Leaning sideways, propping up his chin,

Iranshu’s breathing became regular.

The moment he completely sank into sleep.

Grrrrr-!

The darkness began swelling greedily beyond the throne.

Except for the radius around the throne where Iranshu sat, the entire space sank into living, moving shadows.

Crunch- crack! Cruuunch...!

Inside the thickened darkness, as though not even screams were permitted to escape so that they would not wake the master’s sweet sleep, only the sound of bones being crushed filled the space.

***

After ‘dealing with’ every last piece of trash called ‘Pandemonium,’

I moved toward the core nerve center located in the deepest part of the fortress, the engine room.

It was also the place Snowy had begged me to “please make sure not to damage.”

Shoooong-

The moment the final bulkhead Snowy had hacked opened.

“Wow.”

I could not tell whether I had stepped into another dimension or into a distant future.

My first impression was...

a temple of Magitech.

The space itself was shaped like a massive sphere.

At its center, a towering column-shaped glass tube that seemed dozens of times taller than an adult connected the ceiling and floor.

And in the exact center of that glass tube.

Floating in the air was a fist-sized S-rank Mana Stone emitting a chillingly blue light.

However, from that single little stone, energy of a density that no nuclear power plant on Earth could dare compare to was pouring out.

The near-infinite energy produced by the S-rank Mana Stone spread throughout the entire fortress like blood vessels, traveling along tens of thousands of ultra-high-voltage cables connected to the core and transparent wire-like ‘magic tubes.’

On the thousands of hologram monitors filling the walls, the fortress’s altitude, speed, energy distribution status, and external observations flashed by chaotically in real time.

The blue light emitted by the Mana Stone and the blinking lights of unknown high-tech machines mingled together, creating a strange and beautiful space inside the engine room.

The Republic of Korea’s genre was post-apocalypse.

...But I suddenly felt like I had been dropped into the middle of a future warship hundreds of years ahead.

“I became the owner of an awesome future warship in the apocalypse.”

It was neither an apocalypse nor a future warship.

But that silly impression flowed out of me naturally.

A metal bridge with a strange luster stretched straight to the central area where the Mana Stone floated.

It was the only passage by which one could walk to the warship’s ‘core.’

When I followed the bridge and walked right up to the core, the main console controlling all systems of the fortress stood firmly in place.

When I reached it.

[Unauthorized User.]

A red alarm appeared on the monitor.

Of course.

There was no way they would let just anyone drive around such a precious fortress like a neighborhood public bicycle.

But...

I knew an expert in this field.

“Snowy.”

[Leave it to me.]

When I brought the wrist wearing Snowy up to the console.

[Warning. Unauthorized external AI intrusion detected. Activating firewall. Beginning quarantine operation.]

The console’s monitor turned red, and a cold, mechanical voice flowed out.

At the same time, the entire white engine room turned red.

Warning lights spun around, making a noisy “whiiir! whiiir!” sound.

The door I had come through closed violently with a bang!

[This bastard...]

No sooner had Snowy’s vicious curse burst out than...

Crackle! Crackle!

Rough sparks began flying from the console.

“Hey, hey, don’t break it.”

[It is fine if I break it a little. Ah, I will visualize the hacking process for you, Agent.]

The moment those words fell, Snowy’s voice flowed through the monitors inside the fortress, as if it had forcibly smashed through the tightly closed firewall.

Ting-a-ling~

An adorable little sound effect with zero sense of danger.

Then, in the center of the massive monitor, a tiny fairy wearing a snow-white princess dress covered in frills popped into view.

Snowy’s original code name was apparently ‘Snow White,’ so it seemed that was how it displayed its ego.

The Snow White princess stared down at her hands and the hem of her dress, then smiled brightly while muttering something terrifying like, “If I had a real body, I could beat it up even more satisfyingly.”

Of course, the biggest problem was that the cute princess was gripping a ridiculously huge sledgehammer easily twice the size of her own body.

In front of the princess stood a sturdy iron door with a red label reading ‘LOCK!’ stuck to it.

[Then, I will begin dismantling.]

Snowy on the screen raised the sledgehammer high and swung it in a full swing at the iron door.

KWAANG!

CRACKLECRACKLECRACKLE!

...Along with a magnificent sound effect, the console threw off sparks like mad.

[Attention.]

At the same time, the “whiiir” sound that had been noisily filling the engine room cut off like a final scream.

Beyond the monitor, shattered firewall fragments were bursting out like blood.

‘Someone died!’

...It was a terrifying scene of violence that made me feel like I should shout that.

[Warning. Warning. If the firewall sustains any further damage, the control program ‘Pawn’ of the Mobile Fortress ‘Arachne’ will suffer permanent damag...]

[Do you want to be breached, or do you want to die?]

BANG! BANG! KWAANG!

Crackle! Cracklecrackle!

[Warning! Da-data corruption rate 80%... Save me, recovery impossib...!]

[Get out, you bastard!]

BANG-!

‘Now this is cyber violence.’

The warning voice of the control program named ‘Pawn,’ gasping as it spoke, gradually faded.

And a little while later.

The princess on the monitor slung the sledgehammer over her shoulder like a worker at the end of an exhausting job and flashed a sharp V sign.

[Operation Success!]

“...Good work.”

Rather than infiltration, this was murder... No, at this point, should I call it AI-cide?

I decided not to bother nitpicking the wretched serial destruction unfolding in real time before my eyes.

[Please wait a moment!]

Instead of the stuttering system voice, Snowy’s cheerful voice, having seized control, rang out like news of victory.

As though the system reboot had begun, all the monitors turned off at once with a pop.

Then immediately afterward, they turned back on, dyed in Snowy’s personal colors of blue and white light.

[Reboot Complete. System Stabilization 100%. Operation Rate: Optimal!]

Wooooong-!

Tens of thousands of machines in the engine room began breathing in perfect order under Snowy’s control.

[Agent, I will report.]

On the central monitor of the console, Snowy appeared, having cleanly shaken off the blood-red data debris it had been splattered with while swinging the sledgehammer.

As if nothing had happened, it returned to the spotless, neat appearance of a princess and smiled brightly while giving a salute.

[Complete seizure of all control authority over the Mobile Fortress ‘Arachne.’ This fortress is now 100% yours, Agent.]

Pandemonium’s Mobile Fortress, infamous for ten years as impregnable and impossible to detect.

It was now in my hands.