Chapter 237

Chapter 237

CRACKLE, CRACKLE, CRACKLE—!

Sparks and flames scattered along the purple current.

A spectacle of purple electricity filled the room.

The intense purple flashes seemed ready to burn their retinas.

The current mercilessly battered the Paladins.

“Krrgh!”

“Hup!”

Several Paladins were electrocuted by the unexpected attack and dropped to their knees. But none of them lost consciousness.

It was thanks to the heavy armor they wore.

The heavy armor made exclusively for Paladins possessed enough defensive power to deflect most attacks.

Thanks to that, they managed to endure Levin’s Purple Lightning without collapsing. But because Purple Lightning’s power was so strong, that did not mean they took no damage at all.

Their bodies were numb all over, and the burning sensation left the Paladins unable to easily regain their senses.

Only Victor, the deputy commander, was unharmed by the purple current.

A faint white film had spread across his entire body.

He had used Holy Shield, something only high-ranking Paladins could deploy.

A little while later, when the tidal wave of purple current filling the room vanished and the room regained its original color, Victor widened his eyes.

“Damn it!”

The intruders and the top-grade Mana Stone stored inside the cell had vanished without a trace.

The only ones inside the room were him and the Paladins.

Victor shouted,

“The intruders stole the Mana Stone and fled. Catch them at once.”

“Yes, sir!”

The Paladins who had recovered from the shock of electrocution rushed outside.

Victor ran at the front and thought,

‘They’re no ordinary bastards. To disappear with the Mana Stone in the blink of an eye like that. They must have learned a special Skill.’

They had vanished without a trace from inside a cell sealed on every side.

Unless they had used Teleport, it was impossible. But Teleport was a technique that had not yet been realized.

Neo Seoul was researching it, but they had only established the theoretical foundation, with almost no progress.

‘Then Blink? No. Blink doesn’t activate if your sight is blocked. Its movement distance is only about ten meters too.’

Even in Neo Seoul, only an extremely small number of people could use Blink, which could be called a lower version of Teleport.

Victor roughly knew the Awakened who could use Blink.

‘It wasn’t them. They were clearly children.’

He had seen them, if only for an instant.

A boy with buzzed short hair and earrings, and a girl wearing a pointed hat.

The only fortunate thing was that the moment the buzzed-haired boy released the purple current, Victor had instinctively used a Skill.

‘Infinite Tracking!’

It was a Skill used when pursuing enemies of the Church.

It planted a secret scent on the enemy’s body.

A scent that only the one who used the Skill could smell.

The target did not even realize that such a scent was coming from them.

Victor used Infinite Tracking to grasp the target’s route.

“First floor.”

They were dozens of meters underground.

The target had also been in the same space just a moment ago. Yet the target had moved to the first floor in an instant.

If they had not used Teleport or Blink, only one possibility remained.

‘An Awakened with the ability to pass through objects.’

He had never once heard of such an Awakened existing. But the result spoke for itself.

It told him that the intruder possessed the ability to pass through objects.

Victor hurriedly gave an order.

“Strengthen the Church barrier. Even someone who can pass through objects won’t be able to pass through a strengthened barrier.”

“Yes, sir!”

One Paladin answered and used Telepathy.

—Intruder detected. Strengthen the sanctuary barrier to the highest grade immediately.

—What happened?

The monk in charge of the barrier asked back.

At that instant, the Paladin’s anger exploded.

—Didn’t you hear me say intruders are inside? Raise the barrier to the highest grade immediately.

—A-all right. Wait a moment.

—Wait for what? Adjust it now.

Meanwhile, Victor and the Paladins reached the first-floor chapel.

Their eyes saw Levin and Briel’s backs disappearing through the Church door.

DING, DING, DING—!

At that moment, the bell hanging from the steeple rang, and the barrier surrounding the Church strengthened. But by then, Levin and Briel had already escaped the Church.

“Damn it! We’re too late.”

“Release the barrier.”

Once the barrier was strengthened to the highest grade, even the Paladins could not pass through it.

BANG! BANG!

As proof, Victor and the Paladins were blocked by the barrier and thrown back.

The Paladin who could use Telepathy shouted at the monk in charge of the barrier.

—Release the barrier.

—What kind of bullshit is that? Weren’t you the one who told me to strengthen it?

—The intruders already got out.

—Damn it!

The monk in charge of the barrier hurriedly released it.

The Paladins looked impatient as they watched the barrier slowly thin.

Victor ground his teeth.

“How dare they invade the sanctuary as they please. I’ll never forgive them.”

The fact that the sanctuary had been trampled by unknown intruders made him feel humiliated.

He swore he would catch the intruders who had stolen the top-grade Mana Stone and tear them to pieces.

Just then, the barrier was finally released.

Victor and the Paladins hurriedly began the pursuit.

Dongdaemun had already shifted into wartime protocol.

When the bell hanging from the steeple of the Church called the sanctuary rang, all of Dongdaemun was sealed off.

Every passage leading out of Dongdaemun was closed, and Paladins and monks blocked the major roads.

Ordinary residents were forbidden from going outside, and as all kinds of barriers and magic circles activated, Dongdaemun became perfectly isolated from the outside.

Victor began Infinite Tracking.

“They haven’t gotten out of Dongdaemun yet. All Paladins, capture them.”

---

Zeon moved his right wrist back and forth.

The restraint around his wrist made his movements unnatural. It was not only his body that felt unnatural. The mana inside him had hardened like stone and refused to move.

It was the power of the mana restraint.

“Interesting item.”

“Do you have any idea how many people were ground down to make that thing?”

Eloy asked while looking at the mana restraint with a horrified expression.

“I imagine that was the case.”

“There’s a magic tool development department at City Hall. It’s commonly called the New World Team.”

“That’s a nice name.”

“Hundreds of lunatics are gathered there, all with the ambition of opening a new world with the items they develop.”

“They gathered that many people in one team?”

“Someone decided that lunatics need to hang around other lunatics to create synergy, and did that absurd thing.”

“Who was that person?”

“Who else? The very top bastard.”

“Jin Geum-ho?”

“That’s right!”

Eloy nodded.

Not every Awakened specialized in combat.

Those who bloomed their traits toward research, like Briel, were all shoved into the magic tool development department.

Their support was unlimited.

Money, materials, anything they wanted was supplied in any amount.

At first, there had been a lot of criticism about that.

The reason was that they devoured too much money for no use. But after a few years passed and the New World Team began producing results one by one, that criticism vanished.

Every item the New World Team released was groundbreaking.

Armor made from new materials.

Artificial limbs that combined Magic and machinery.

Firearms created to hunt monsters.

All kinds of restraints, magic circles, and barriers created to keep Awakened in check.

The items made by the New World Team spread rapidly into civilian society and raised Neo Seoul’s overall level.

The influence of the New World Team had been absolute in Neo Seoul’s rapid development.

“That’s interesting. Gathering mad scientists and Awakened in one place.”

“Don’t even mention it. The department supporting them is bled dry every day because those people keep causing accidents.”

Fortunately, Mandy, the other personality, did not work in the New World Team’s support department. If she had been in the support department, Eloy’s personality would probably have been out all the time instead of Mandy’s.

Eloy stroked the mana restraint and murmured,

“Strange, isn’t it? To harden mana so abilities can’t be used.”

“What’s stranger is the material used to make the mana restraint.”

“Why?”

Eloy looked puzzled.

It was an item developed by the New World Team.

Creating new materials by combining monster by-products and metals was nothing to them. Of course, whether the new material they created would have the desired effect was unknown.

Zeon stroked the surface of the mana restraint.

“It seems to be made from a special material.”

“What’s special about it?”

“It’s hard to explain in words......”

“Ah! Then don’t say it. I can’t stand headaches.”

“All right.”

Zeon smiled faintly. But his eyes as he looked at the mana restraint were colder than ever.

‘This feeling...... is it dragon bone?’

It was only a trace amount, but dragon bone had definitely been included in the mana restraint.

The method by which Zeon discovered that was simple.

It was because he felt an energy from the restraint similar to the dragon’s eye embedded in the Gauntlet of Extreme Heat.

He had worn the Gauntlet of Extreme Heat for a full eight years. It had also been over seven years since he embedded the dragon’s eye into it.

Naturally, he could not help being sensitive to dragon energy.

‘They’re insane! Using dragon bone for something like this.’

Dragons, the strongest lifeforms.

As far as Zeon knew, only seven dragons had crossed over from Kurayan.

Crasias, who had turned Earth into this state, was an exception because he was a godlike being in the form of a dragon.

As a backlash of Terraforming, he had vanished without leaving even a trace in the world.

Among the remaining seven dragons, one had been hunted by Deioden and the Awakened led by Jin Geum-ho.

The second dragon, Haieltun, had burned away after a fierce battle with Deioden, leaving nothing behind.

Zeon did not know the whereabouts of the other five dragons.

He had wandered the world for eight years, but he had never once encountered a being he suspected to be a dragon.

‘Then that means they made this using the first dragon’s bones?’

Deioden had not told him what had happened to the first dragon.

His goal had only been hunting dragons. He had no interest in how humans used the corpses of the dragons he successfully hunted.

‘So they advanced Neo Seoul using the dragon’s corpse.’

Only then did one of the questions he had been carrying all this time come undone.

There was a technological gap of over a hundred years between Neo Seoul and other colonies.

By common sense, that should have been impossible.

Civilization had the nature of ink dropped onto water, spreading around and dyeing everything black. It naturally spread to the surroundings and dyed them the same color.

Because of that, a technological gap of over a hundred years occurring did not make sense by common sense.

‘That was the difference. Something that other colonies don’t have, but Neo Seoul does. It was the dragon’s corpse.’

Neo Seoul had undoubtedly achieved this ultra-advanced civilization by creating new materials from ingredients harvested from the dragon’s corpse.

With this, one of the great questions Zeon had carried all this time was resolved.

Just as Zeon shook his head at the shocking truth, it happened.

STEP! STEP!

Footsteps sounded beyond the door.

Someone was walking toward the cell where they were imprisoned.

Eloy sprang to her feet and took a guarded stance.

“Are those NSSC bastards charging in again?”

They might have come to take revenge for what had happened to their comrades. But only one set of footsteps echoed through the corridor.

Not a group, but one person was approaching.

“He’s here.”

Zeon stood up as if he had understood something and walked toward the door.

CLACK—!

At that instant, the small window on the door opened, and the visitor’s face appeared.

The visitor’s and Zeon’s gazes met.

“It’s been a while, Zeon.”

“Lee Ji-ryeong!”

The one looking at Zeon beyond the window was none other than Lee Ji-ryeong.

He glared at Zeon with eyes as fierce as a lion’s.

“If you survived, you should’ve lived in hiding or gone to another colony. Why did you return to Neo Seoul? Because of you, many people have been inconvenienced.”

“So you planned something like this?”

Instead of answering, Lee Ji-ryeong smiled, revealing his white teeth.