Chapter 180

Chapter 180

The battle between the Awakened and the undead was fierce.

They smashed them, smashed them again, killed them, and killed them again. Even so, the undead revived again and again.

“Where the hell is the core?”

“Damn it!”

Casualties began appearing among the Awakened as well.

The martial-type Awakened fighting at the front suffered especially heavy damage.

When a hole opened in the martial-type Awakened’s defensive line, the undead pushed through.

“You cursed things dare......”

Eloy swept away the undead with a swing of her spear. But even her strength could not stop all of the undead.

The undead broke through her line and approached Levin and Briel.

As the battle situation changed abruptly, Levin protected Briel.

“Tch! It’s dangerous, so hide behind me.”

“I told you I can protect myself.”

Briel took a glass bottle out of her pointed hat.

Inside the glass bottle was a clear liquid.

Briel poured a little of the liquid into her palm and muttered,

“Breeze, blow.”

No sooner had her words ended than a breeze rose and scattered the liquid from her palm.

GROOOAN!

KIEEE!

The undead touched by the liquid melted away with bizarre cries.

Startled, Levin asked Briel,

“What’s that liquid?”

“Holy Water!”

“Huh? Holy Water?”

“Yeah!”

“Does the Dokkaebi Market sell Holy Water too?”

“No, I got it from Dongdaemun.”

“Dongdaemun? From the territory of those fanatics?”

“What they worship is still a god, after all.”

Holy Water was water that had received a god’s blessing.

What kind of god it was did not matter.

Dongdaemun sold Holy Water at a high price. Of course, almost no one bought it.

Briel had bought Holy Water just in case and stored it in the subspace inside her pointed hat. But since it was literally meant for emergencies, she did not have much of it.

“Seeing that it works on undead, it really is Holy Water.”

“People say even dog shit has its uses as medicine. Looks like those fanatics are useful too.”

“I don’t have much Holy Water. This amount is nowhere near enough.”

“If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve bought Holy Water too.”

Levin gritted his teeth.

He could not leave the undead to Briel alone.

The undead were swarming in endlessly, and the time to stand by and trust only the Pegasus Awakened had already passed.

“It can’t be helped.”

With a sigh, his body turned ghostlike.

He had used Ghost Transformation.

Until now, only a very small number of people had seen his ability.

This was the first time he had revealed his ability in public.

He knew this would draw attention, but he had no choice.

To protect himself and Briel, he had to reveal his awakened ability.

A few Awakened witnessed Levin turning into a ghost.

“What is that?”

“A person turned into something like a Specter. Is that possible?”

“Is he a new kind of Awakened?”

CRACKLE!

At that instant, purple electricity surged from Levin, who had turned ghostlike.

It was Levin’s unique ability, Purple Lightning.

Purple Lightning spread through the undead around him.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—!

The undead caught in Purple Lightning exploded in a chain reaction.

The undead that exploded that way did not rise again.

Even their cores had been destroyed.

Seeing that, the magic-type Awakened shouted,

“Use lightning magic.”

“Lightning-type Awakened, attack.”

The Awakened who could use lightning-type magic stepped forward and cast their magic.

RUMBLE—!

Lightning flickered in several places, and the undead collapsed.

Some of them had their cores destroyed and could not rise, but most of the undead restored their original forms.

Though they were the same lightning-type magic, the difference in power was on another level.

Levin’s Purple Lightning possessed power several times stronger than ordinary lightning.

Because of that, it reached even the cores hidden deep inside the undead’s bodies, but the lightning magic of the other Awakened did not reach that far. That was why the undead revived.

Seeing that, Lee Ji-ryeong stepped forward.

“It cannot be helped. I wanted to preserve as much strength as possible.”

He had been holding back in order to face the master of the ancient castle at full strength, but he could not simply watch more casualties appear.

Fortunately, he had gained a hint from Levin for clearing the undead soldiers.

CRACKLE!

Sparks leaped from Lee Ji-ryeong’s entire body.

It was the phenomenon that occurred when he began using his power in earnest.

Seeing that, Gesling shouted loudly,

“Everyone, fall back. The Captain is about to go all out.”

No sooner had his words ended than the Awakened fighting the undead on the front line retreated.

However, a few mechanized Awakened hesitated, unable to understand what was happening.

Then the Awakened of the Pegasus Raid Team grabbed them by the hands and pulled them away.

“If you don’t want to die, hurry up and follow us.”

“The Captain’s lightning doesn’t distinguish friend from foe.”

At their words, the mechanized Awakened hurriedly retreated.

Once the Awakened withdrew like an ebbing tide, Lee Ji-ryeong’s body floated into the air.

At the moment everyone’s eyes focused on him, lightning so vast and powerful that it could blind the eyes erupted.

FLASH!

A colossal bolt of lightning pierced straight through heaven and earth.

Then, as if branching out, thick clusters of lightning poured from the enormous lightning bolt.

It was Lee Ji-ryeong’s main skill, Giga Lightning.

RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE!

Centered on Lee Ji-ryeong, lightning branched out in a circle, dyeing the whole world white.

A moment later, the world regained its original color.

Levin stared blankly at Lee Ji-ryeong.

“Whew!”

White heat haze rose from Lee Ji-ryeong’s shoulders as he let out a faint sigh.

“Good heavens!”

Eloy and Levin looked at Lee Ji-ryeong with appalled expressions.

It felt as if they had seen something they should not have seen.

That was how overwhelming the sight Lee Ji-ryeong had just shown them was.

A feast of lightning filling every direction within a hundred meters.

Hundreds of clusters of lightning had truly poured down like rain and devastated the earth.

On the blackened earth, hundreds of corpses lay burned pitch-black.

The undead, burned so badly that their original forms could not be recognized, had their cores destroyed and could never rise again.

It was such overwhelming majesty that no one could close their mouths.

“Insane......”

“I knew he was strong, but I didn’t think it would be this much......”

Briel’s pupils shook greatly.

The lightning Lee Ji-ryeong had displayed was so tremendous that even the cynical Briel could not hide her shock.

“Waaaah!”

“The Captain cleared out all the undead. Let’s go inside.”

The Awakened of the Pegasus Raid Team shouted and ran into the ancient castle.

Lee Ji-ryeong landed beside Levin and said,

“Did you see that?”

“......”

“You can become like this too. Join the Pegasus Raid Team. I will raise you.”

“No, thank you.”

“Even though Zeon is gone? I will become your guardian in his place. Yours and that little girl’s......”

“Brother isn’t dead.”

“You look certain.”

“Because he really isn’t dead.”

At Levin’s firm voice, Lee Ji-ryeong looked at Briel.

Briel too wore a face full of certainty, just like Levin.

Lee Ji-ryeong frowned without realizing it.

‘He may really not be dead. Since he is a Sandmancer, perhaps he found some way out.’

---

Zeon ran his fingertips along the wall.

He felt a smooth and cold texture.

Surprisingly, the underground passage was entirely made of stone.

‘If Neo Seoul knew about this, they’d raise hell trying to secure it somehow.’

It sounded ridiculous, but in this age, stone and rock were extremely precious resources.

That was because the world had turned entirely into a desert, and there were very few places where proper rock could be obtained.

Only with stone or rock could buildings be raised.

No matter how much magical treatment was applied to a building, that was only possible when proper stone materials supported it sufficiently.

After touching the stone for a while, Zeon frowned slightly.

That was because warmth suddenly came from the stone wall.

‘What is this?’

He did not know the reason, but the appearance of such a sudden change was not a very positive sign.

At the ominous feeling, Zeon hurried his steps.

Zeon realized that he was close to the ancient castle.

That was because objects he had not seen until now were hanging on the walls.

Everything needed for torture was hanging on the walls, from sharp skewers to misshapen saw-toothed knives and branding irons.

Zeon passed through the passage lined with torture tools and went deeper inside. Then a horrific sight waited for him.

Inside a prison cell made of iron bars, there was a worktable, and on top of it lay the dissected corpse of a monster.

The humanoid monster had its abdomen split open, fully revealing its insides, but not a single organ could be seen.

It was clear that the being that had dissected the monster had taken everything out.

Zeon passed the prison cell.

Deeper inside, even more horrific scenes waited for him.

Every cell was lined with the corpses of monsters whose limbs had been cut off or whose heads had been opened.

The reek of blood surged from every direction like a storm.

He could not know how many living creatures had died in this place.

It was then.

“Ghhhh!”

Someone’s groan came from inside.

It was faint, but it was definitely a human voice.

‘Cha Jin-cheol?’

Zeon hurried toward the place where the groan came from.

What Zeon saw there was a scene more horrific than anything before.

A human lay on a worktable with his limbs spread wide.

Restraints were fastened to his arms and legs, and his abdomen and head had been split open, revealing the inside.

All sorts of organs had been taken out and placed in a bucket beside him, and blood was draining through a tube into another bucket.

His muscles had all been torn into strips, revealing his white bones.

The truly horrifying thing was that the man was still alive in that state.

“Please...... kill me.”

He looked at Zeon with his one remaining eye and begged.

The man was someone Zeon knew.

He was an Awakened belonging to the Pegasus Raid Team.

He had probably been abducted during the clearing and dragged here.

In front of the Awakened, a being wearing a black robe was absorbed in disassembly while holding a knife similar to a kitchen knife.

SLICE!

With a chilling cutting sound, the Awakened’s heart was extracted.

Even so, the Awakened only felt pain and did not die.

That was the ability of the black-robed being dissecting the man.

It held the breath of the being it tortured in place.

Its name was Interrogator.

Its mission was to torture and dissect the beings brought here, then understand their bodily structure.

It possessed the ability to keep its victims from dying until it had fully understood the structure of their bodies.

Because of that, monsters and humans dragged here had to watch their own bodies be dissected while still alive.

Just like the Awakened being dissected on the worktable now.

Zeon looked at the Awakened.

The Awakened begged Zeon to please kill him.

He did not wish to live, but to die.

“Whew!”

Zeon nodded and swung his hand. Then Exion fired like an arrow and struck the man’s head.

SPLAT!

The man’s head burst apart.

No matter how great the Interrogator’s ability was, it could not keep a person alive without a head.

The Interrogator, having lost the body it was torturing, finally looked at Zeon.

The Interrogator’s eyes, hidden beneath the robe, gleamed eerily.

Shrrrk!

It raised its knife and pointed at Zeon.

As if saying Zeon was the next sacrifice.

The doors of the cells behind the Interrogator opened, and beings wearing the same black robes appeared.

They were Interrogators who had been dissecting Awakened in the other cells.

They too raised their knives and aimed them at Zeon.

At that instant, Zeon’s eyes turned as eerie as the Interrogators’.

“How dare monsters who cannot die and wander eternity point blades at me?”

FLAAARE!

Zeon’s body vanished beneath black clouds.

Exion had been released and covered his body.

With Exion wrapped around his entire body, Zeon launched himself toward the Interrogators.

GRRRRIND—!