Chapter 244

Chapter 244

GRIIIIIND—!

An enormous amount of sand spun at high speed, producing the sound of a motor turning.

To those trapped inside the high-speed rotating sand, the sound was amplified several times over, filling them with tremendous fear.

“What is this?”

Victor’s facial muscles twitched under the tremendous pressure and noise.

If it had merely been pressure, that would have been one thing, but countless grains of sand were gnawing away at his skin.

The Paladins weaker than him screamed.

“Krrgh!”

“Aaaagh! God!”

Several Paladins used Holy Shield, but it was no use. The high-speed rotating grains of sand even gnawed away at the Holy Shield.

It was a sand hell.

Everything they saw was sand, and they could not escape the tremendous pressure and blade-like wind.

One Paladin even swung his sword like mad to cut through the sand. But the sand that had briefly split apart recovered instantly as if nothing had happened, then gnawed away at the Paladins’ skin and muscles.

“Kraaak!”

“S-save me!”

Hell unfolded inside the Sand Blender.

Screams, cries of despair, and the blood spilled by the Paladins mixed into the sand and vanished in an instant.

Tears of blood flowed from Victor’s eyes.

That was because the fine grains of sand were digging into his mucous membranes.

“How...... can this be?”

He deployed Holy Shield with all his strength.

The sacred light gently wrapped around him, but only for a moment. Soon, he felt terrible pain.

The grains of sand had gnawed away the Holy Shield in an instant.

He deployed Holy Shield several more times, but it was no use.

This savage sand-laden wind that had swallowed him and the Paladins disarmed everything like a tyrant.

“N-no! If we become enemies with this man, Dongdaemun will be destroyed.”

Unlike Neo Seoul, there was no limit to the amount of sand that could be gathered here.

Since there was no need to use it sparingly, Zeon gathered all the sand within range of his control and unfolded Sand Blender.

The Sand Blender Zeon deployed at full power was not something Victor could handle.

“W-wait! Let’s talk......”

Victor tried somehow to speak to Zeon, but his voice never reached him.

GRIIIIIND—!

The high-speed rotating grains of sand swallowed even his voice.

CRUMBLE—!

His sword, made of special material, became dust, and his fingers, trained harder than steel, disappeared first in a spray of blood.

There was no pain.

That was because his body was being ground away far faster than his nerves could transmit pain.

His elbows, shoulders, and torso vanished from this world as if erased with an eraser.

Within his fading consciousness, Victor muttered,

‘That man is not human. A demon, yes! A demon who opposes God......’

That was Victor’s final thought.

With that thought as the last, darkness fell, and that became Victor’s end.

SPLAAASH—!

Victor became bloody sand and vanished completely from this world.

Only then did Zeon release Sand Blender, and the sand that had thickly covered the area around the Dokkaebi Market scattered in every direction.

“......”

It was not only the sand that had vanished.

The Paladins inside it had disappeared without leaving a trace.

At the unbelievable sight, the Dokkaebi Market merchants who had come outside lost their words.

They had heard a great deal about Zeon, but this was the first time they had actually seen him use sand.

The power of Sand Blender they saw with their own eyes far surpassed their imagination and filled them with tremendous fear.

“What...... what did I just see?”

“Is that the Sandmancer’s true power?”

The merchants thought they never wanted to become Zeon’s enemy.

That was because they did not want to vanish as bloody sand without leaving even a single trace in the world, like Victor and the Paladins.

A fear Yu Se-hee could not hide had also settled over her face.

She had long known that Zeon was a Sandmancer, and she had understood that he was an unprecedentedly tremendous Awakened, but seeing him grind away the Paladins without a trace like this shocked her so deeply that she could not say anything.

On the other hand, Briel and Levin called Zeon with bright smiles.

“Zeon!”

“Brother!”

It did not matter to them that the others felt fear.

They threw themselves into Zeon’s arms and enjoyed their reunion.

Zeon patted them and said,

“Are you both all right?”

“Mm! Thanks to you......”

“Are you all right, Brother?”

“Yes!”

After confirming each other’s safety, they pulled apart.

Only then did Yu Se-hee, who had gathered her emotions, approach Zeon.

“You’re incredible. To wipe out those troublesome Paladins in one move.”

“This way, it’ll serve as a warning to them too.”

“Johan?”

“Yes!”

“I knew it.”

Yu Se-hee nodded.

Certainly, Zeon’s method had been excessive this time.

Until now, Zeon had always kept the line.

He had been merciless to those who crossed it, but he was generally generous toward those who did not.

He rarely used Skills that controlled sand in front of people. In particular, he restrained himself even more from using Skills with such powerful killing force.

For someone like him to unleash such a tremendous slaughter Skill in front of everyone was no different from openly warning Johan and Dongdaemun.

At that moment, Briel took the top-grade Mana Stone out of the subspace inside her pointed hat.

“This......”

“You found it.”

“Mm! We found it under the place called the sanctuary.”

It was then.

“With this, it’s clear that they attacked NSSC and stole the top-grade Mana Stone.”

An old man’s voice came from behind them.

When they turned to look, they saw an old man leaning on a cane and twin sisters approaching them.

Zeon recognized him at a glance.

“Elder Go!”

“You properly flipped Neo Seoul upside down.”

“It’s chaos because of you.”

“It’s chaos because of Zeon.”

The ones speaking almost simultaneously were Elder Go and the twin sisters.

The three members of the Numbers had appeared.

At their appearance, Yu Se-hee and several merchants of the Dokkaebi Market naturally tensed.

Those who tensed up belonged to Argos’s Eye. That was why they knew the Numbers were the mayor’s hidden blade.

Elder Go approached the top-grade Mana Stone with the twins.

“I didn’t do anything, but I’ll take this. It was Neo Seoul’s property to begin with.”

“For free?”

“Surely not?”

The wrinkles at the corners of Elder Go’s eyes deepened as he smiled broadly.

---

Johan looked up at the cross in the sanctuary with both hands clasped.

His eyes as he stared at the cross were bloodshot red.

His atmosphere was so grave that no one dared enter the sanctuary.

In truth, Johan was extremely furious right now.

The top-grade Mana Stone stored under the sanctuary, of all places, had been stolen.

It was no different from having God and his pride trampled underfoot.

Suddenly, he opened his mouth.

“Have they still not caught them?”

“The Deputy Paladin Order Commander took troops with him, so he’ll catch them soon.”

The one who answered was Dayson, the Paladin Order Commander.

Even after Dayson’s words, Johan’s stiff expression showed no sign of easing.

He walked toward Dayson. At that, tension appeared on Dayson’s face.

THUD—!

Suddenly, Dayson’s face snapped to the side.

Johan had punched him without warning.

In an instant, his face swelled and blood flowed down, but Dayson kept his mouth firmly shut and did not let out even a single scream.

THUD—!

Another punch struck Dayson’s face.

A deep wound appeared on Dayson’s body, which had received God’s grace and was as hard as steel.

“Krrgh!”

A scream he had desperately suppressed slipped between his lips.

At a glance, it looked like an ordinary punch, but the reality was different.

Johan’s punch contained the power of the being he believed was God. That power pierced through the Paladins’ shields and bodies, destroying them from within.

The feeling of cells and muscles rupturing raw made even Dayson, the Paladin Order Commander, suffer.

Johan was Dongdaemun’s alpha and omega.

His ability could amplify the Paladins’ power, but it could also take it away.

That was why the Paladins feared and followed Johan.

In the end, Dayson could not endure the pain and dropped to his knees.

“What if the Deputy Paladin Order Commander fails to bring them back?”

“That......”

“What will you do then? Jin Geum-ho will definitely move. Can you handle that?”

“I apologize.”

“If you understand, then move already.”

“Yes, sir!”

Dayson answered and ran outside.

Johan watched Dayson’s back as he ran out the door and muttered,

“Useless......”

He had kept him around because his loyalty was extraordinary, but now Dayson’s incompetence was exhausting his mind.

Johan thought he would soon have to replace the Paladin Order Commander and looked at the cross.

The cross glowing red seemed to deliver a revelation to him.

He offered a prayer to God.

“God. Please pour Your wrath upon them. Give them the pain of burning their souls with bolts of divine fire, and hand their bodies to me so that I may trample them.”

It was then.

“Well, for someone who calls himself a clergyman, isn’t that prayer a bit too savage?”

Someone’s voice came from the entrance of the sanctuary.

At that instant, Johan’s eyebrow twitched.

It was a voice he had never heard before.

When Johan stopped praying and turned around, he saw the owner of the voice.

The man wore a suit that revealed a lean yet muscular body and leaned on a cane set with a blue jewel.

He was a middle-aged man with neatly combed-back blond hair without a single strand out of place, blue eyes, and a well-groomed beard.

At the appearance of a man he had never seen before, Johan’s eyes shone sharply.

“Who are you? How did you get through the Paladins outside?”

Numerous Paladins were standing guard outside.

Because it was right after the top-grade Mana Stone had been stolen, the guard was several times stricter than usual.

Yet this middle-aged man had suddenly appeared after passing through that security network.

Johan had no choice but to be wary of him.

The middle-aged man in the suit smiled broadly and said,

“The friends outside? They just let me in.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Just believe it. It’ll be better for your health.”

The middle-aged man grinned.

Conversely, Johan’s face hardened even more.

This was none other than the sanctuary, the center of Dongdaemun.

There was no way the Paladins would let an outsider of unknown identity inside carelessly. Yet the fact that he had entered without any disturbance meant that the middle-aged man before him was that strong.

Strong enough to subdue every Paladin guarding outside without Johan noticing.

“Are you...... from City Hall?”

“Did you receive God’s teaching or something? You figured it out quickly.”

“The Numbers?”

“Heh-heh!”

Instead of answering, the middle-aged man gave a meaningful smile.

Johan’s face hardened even more.

The Numbers.

The execution unit directly under Mayor Jin Geum-ho.

Johan knew the faces of several of them. But this middle-aged man before him was someone he saw for the first time.

The ones whose faces he had never seen were the upper Numbers.

“Why have the Numbers come here?”

“Are you asking because you really don’t know?”

“Don’t tell me......”

“You made this far too big. To conspire with Lee Ji-ryeong and steal the top-grade Mana Stone.”

“......”

“You didn’t truly think the Mayor wouldn’t know, did you?”

The middle-aged man’s voice grew a level lower.

Conversely, the sense of danger Johan felt rose.

The Numbers did not move unless they were certain.

In other words, it meant they had evidence that Johan and Lee Ji-ryeong had joined hands and caused this incident.

Denying it would be useless.

He needed a sacrifice to pass responsibility onto.

“Everything was planned by Lee Ji-ryeong. I had no choice but to cooperate because he threatened me.”

“Oh! Passing responsibility onto the dead? That’s a classic move.”

“The dead? Don’t tell me the Numbers killed Lee Ji-ryeong?”

“We didn’t even get the chance to step in. Lee Ji-ryeong was killed by the Sandmancer.”

“The Sandmancer? Then Zeon killed Lee Ji-ryeong......”

Cracks appeared on Johan’s face as he desperately tried to feign calm.