Chapter 141

Chapter 141

Zeon stood on the rooftop of the tallest building in the slums and gazed out at the desert.

The rough desert wind blew violently, as if it might sweep Zeon away at any moment, but his body did not budge, as though iron nails had fixed him to the spot.

CRASH—! BOOM—!

In the distant fortress, he could see Awakened locked in fierce battle.

“Scavengers, Dongdaemun fanatics, and the ones backing the fanatics. What a fucking mess!”

The Dongdaemun Awakened wore masks and changed their weapons to hide their identities. But there was one thing they could never conceal.

Their Skills.

One of the Skills commonly used by the Dongdaemun Awakened was God’s Light Curtain.

It was a Skill akin to a kind of Barrier.

It was a Skill every Paladin or Berserker learned as a matter of course.

When danger struck, the Dongdaemun Awakened would instinctively unfurl God’s Light Curtain and protect their entire bodies.

Despite its grand name, it did not block every attack. Even so, it possessed enough power to save a person’s life once in an emergency.

When driven to the brink of death, anyone would resort to the method they trusted most, and the Dongdaemun Awakened were no exception.

Thanks to that, he could distinguish them easily.

Zeon’s gaze turned toward a tall building on the outskirts of the slums.

He saw the mechanized Awakened who had collapsed from exhaustion after supplying power to the Railgun.

‘The mechanized Awakened must have come from the West District......’

But that was not all.

He could sense suspicious movements all throughout the slums.

Chaos always invited greater chaos.

In the midst of this extreme confusion, someone coveting the Spirit King’s Crown had begun to move.

‘This is exactly what Damian wanted.’

Zeon frowned.

This incident was shaking Neo Seoul’s firmly maintained order to its core.

It was not as though the entire system would collapse, but there was no avoiding major chaos.

Zeon did not want Neo Seoul to descend into chaos.

Whatever his personal feelings were, he knew all too well that Neo Seoul was humanity’s final bastion.

It was the only place where this many people lived together and where such an ultra-advanced civilization had been built.

At least, among the places Zeon had visited.

If this place collapsed, human civilization would regress by at least two generations.

That was why Zeon tried, whenever possible, not to cause problems severe enough to shake Neo Seoul’s system.

But Damian was different from Zeon.

He did not care whether Neo Seoul was shaken or destroyed by this.

To him, avenging his father mattered more than anything, and he was prepared to pay any sacrifice for it.

That was why he had unhesitatingly guided Neo Seoul into chaos.

By throwing in every item he had painstakingly gathered until now.

BOOM—!

At that moment, an explosive roar erupted, on a completely different scale from anything before.

The explosion was so powerful that the shockwave reached even the place where Zeon stood.

The building’s windows shattered, and the objects on the rooftop broke apart like sorghum stalks and scattered through the air.

‘What is that?’

A deep crease formed between Zeon’s brows.

After one side of the fortress burst open, what emerged was a gigantic mammoth.

TRUUUUMPH—!

The mammoth let out a nasal snort and attacked the Awakened who had assaulted the Caravan.

“Th-the mammoth’s going berserk.”

“Fuck! Do something about that thing.”

“Damn it!”

Panic was written clearly across the faces of the Scavengers and the Dongdaemun Awakened.

However docile a mammoth’s nature might be, it was still a Grade C large monster.

It was only treated as Grade C because its offensive power was weak; judging by its defensive power alone, it would not be wrong to call it a Grade B monster.

The mammoth rampaged madly, attacking the Awakened with its ivory tusks and all four legs. Because of that, the damage among the Awakened kept growing.

As the chaos reached its peak due to the mammoth’s rampage, those in the slums who had been eagerly watching for an opportunity began to move in earnest.

Zeon decided it was time for him to move as well.

WHOOSH!

Zeon kicked off the rooftop and shot into the air.

Zeon’s form flew dozens of meters before tracing an arc and dropping toward the ground.

TAP!

Zeon landed lightly on the road and was walking toward the desert when it happened.

“Zeon!”

“That’s him, right?”

Two figures suddenly blocked his path.

They were twin sisters whose faces were identical, as though stamped out with a cookie cutter.

“I’m Zeon, yes. Who are you?”

“It’s him!”

“We found him.”

The twin sisters ignored Zeon’s question and chattered between themselves.

Zeon felt a sense of déjà vu, as though he had seen them somewhere before.

‘Twins? Could they be the ones I saw in the square?’

He had not seen them clearly because of the barrier, but he knew there had been one old man and two girls.

The twins now blocking his path gave off a similar impression.

“Were you the ones watching from the square?”

“You knew?”

“How?”

The twin sisters opened their eyes wide, as if greatly startled.

Then they began chattering like larks.

“Impressive. You really saw through Gramps’s barrier.”

“Maybe Gramps’s skills have gone rusty.”

“His wrinkles have increased, but his skills are still as sharp as ever.”

“But how did he know?”

“He really must be Grade A.”

The twin sisters did not know that only an Awakened of Grade S or above could see through the barrier.

That was because Elder Go had kept it secret even from them. Therefore, they merely regarded Zeon as an Awakened around Grade A.

“Grade A is impressive, though.”

“It is. We’re Grade A too.”

“But he still wouldn’t be a match for us. We’re beyond that.”

“That’s true!”

Their conversation made Zeon’s head spin. First, he had to cut off their chatter.

“Did you come looking for me on purpose?”

“Yeah!”

“Why?”

“To stop you.”

“Me? Why?”

“You were heading to the desert, weren’t you?”

“You were!”

“So we came to keep you from going.”

“Why?”

“Gramps asked us to. He told us to hold you up for just a little while so you couldn’t interfere.”

“So why is he stopping me from interfering?”

“He judged you to be a risk factor.”

“A risk factor?”

“Yeah! He said the game he worked so hard to set up might fall apart because of you. We can’t have that.”

The twin sisters answered readily, their expressions bright and innocent.

“By Gramps, do you mean the Barrier Mage who was with you?”

“How did you know?”

“Because I saw him beside you.”

“You really are impressive. That’s why you’re even more dangerous.”

“Stopping the game from falling apart? Are you with City Hall, by any chance?”

“Wow!”

The twins’ jaws dropped.

There were almost no people who knew they belonged to City Hall.

At most, Elder Go, who accompanied them, and a handful of others knew.

“You’re Numbers, the execution unit directly under the mayor.”

Seeing their reaction, Zeon became certain.

“He’s really smart.”

“I wonder what his head looks like inside.”

“I’m curious!”

“Then let’s rummage through it.”

“Should we?”

“Let’s. Gramps gave us permission.”

In that instant, the smiles vanished completely from the twin sisters’ faces.

At that same moment, Zeon’s gaze sank heavily.

RIIIIING—!

Suddenly, along with a ringing in his ears, he felt a vicious headache.

It was as though sharp awls were stabbing wildly into his brain.

Even through the pain, Zeon realized what the twin sisters’ ability was.

“You’re telepaths.”

“You really are smart.”

“I hate people who are too smart.”

Just as Zeon had guessed, the twin sisters were telepathy Awakened.

Eun Su-jin and Eun Su-young.

They had awakened their telepathic ability when they were young.

They could not only read other people’s inner thoughts, but also intervene directly in their thought processes.

Because of that, even their parents abandoned them.

They had read their parents’ minds and spoken thoughtlessly, and their parents had become frightened.

―Never appear before me again. You monsters!

Those were the last words their parents had said as they abandoned them.

Their words left deep wounds in the twin sisters.

Fortunately, Jin Geum-ho, who valued their ability highly, took them in. They grew up in City Hall, and eventually became members of Numbers.

Because of the trauma of being abandoned by their parents, they did not deeply trust anyone.

The only people they trusted and followed at all were Jin Geum-ho and Elder Go.

Jin Geum-ho had taken them in when they had nowhere to go, and Elder Go cared for them purely, without any ulterior motive.

Being able to read another person’s thoughts was both a blessing and a curse.

Their talent grew greater as time passed.

Now they had gone beyond simply intervening in other people’s thoughts and could manipulate them in any direction they wished.

They had become capable of so-called mental manipulation.

If they set their minds to it, they could show their opponent hallucinations or trap them in a dream forever.

It was an ability that let them play with another person’s brain as they pleased, like kneading mud. That was why those who knew their true nature feared them greatly.

“We won’t kill you.”

“We don’t like killing people.”

“We’ll just take a tiny peek.”

“We’re curious.”

Eun Su-jin and Eun Su-young clasped hands. Then their ability surged explosively.

As befitted twins, they created a synergy that amplified each other’s abilities.

The human brain was like a sealed room with its entrance completely shut.

To infiltrate it, one first had to bore a tiny hole with a sharp awl.

This task was the most difficult.

In particular, the higher the Awakened’s grade, the sturdier their mental barrier, which made it difficult to make a hole.

If she were alone, it would not have been an easy task.

But they were twins, and they knew all too well how to use each other’s power to amplify their own.

Eun Su-jin said,

“I’ll bore the hole. Focus your strength on me.”

“Yeah!”

With that answer, Eun Su-young sent her own mana into Eun Su-jin. As a result, Eun Su-jin’s telepathic ability amplified tremendously.

Beads of sweat formed on Eun Su-jin’s forehead.

That was because, even with her ability amplified by more than double, it was difficult to make a hole in Zeon’s mental barrier.

“Tch! This is hard.”

“Keep going!”

“Yeah!”

Encouraged by Eun Su-young, Eun Su-jin raised her output even higher. Even so, not even the smallest hole appeared in Zeon’s mental barrier.

“Damn...... He feels way stronger than the Captain or Grain.”

Seong Ho-yeon, the Captain of Numbers.

Grain, the second-in-command.

Both were Grade S Awakened with tremendously firm mental fortitude.

Because of that, even the twin sisters had to spend immense concentration, time, and mana in order to read their thoughts.

They could not read Mayor Jin Geum-ho’s thoughts at all, and there was no need to read Elder Go’s.

Excluding those two, Seong Ho-yeon and Grain had been the hardest people to read, yet Zeon’s mental barrier was even sturdier than theirs.

“Ngh!”

Eun Su-jin gritted her teeth and raised her output.

Eun Su-young added her strength to hers.

After such painstaking effort, they finally managed to bore a hole the size of a needle in Zeon’s mental barrier.

“I did it.”

Eun Su-jin cried out in delight.

Making the hole was hard; what came after was not difficult.

She merely had to inject her mind into Zeon’s brain, like pouring water into a tiny hole.

Eun Su-jin immediately began the work of taking control of Zeon’s brain, and Eun Su-young supported her.

In an instant, she slipped into Zeon’s brain stem.

She intended to seize the nerve network of the brain stem.

The brain stem was an important passage connecting the central regions of the cerebrum and cerebellum to the spinal cord.

If one seized control of this place, more than ninety percent of the work could be considered finished.

That was why, when infiltrating another person’s mind, the first task was to seize the nerves of the brain stem. After that, one grasped the opponent’s mental image.

A mental image contained everything about the opponent.

Once one grasped their mental image, one could understand their past, their actions, and even their desires. And one could manipulate them at will.

Because this was work Eun Su-jin performed as casually as eating a meal, she had no hesitation.

After perfectly seizing control of the brain stem, she followed the nerve network into Zeon’s cerebrum and peeked at his mental image.

She was curious what kind of past someone with such a sturdy mental barrier possessed.

The moment she gently parted the dark curtain inside Zeon’s mind—

“W-what is this?”

Eun Su-jin’s shrill voice burst out.