Chapter 328

Chapter 328

Seo Tae-ran’s subordinates, having released the Stage One seal, were unstoppable.

Since they had already revealed one of their secrets, they no longer hesitated to use force.

Once their unsealed bodies were combined with the Gauntlets of Execution and even Holy Water, most undead were no match for them.

The Zombie Soldiers that appeared from the darkness melted away at once under their offensive.

Unlike the undead that had turned ghostlike, the Zombie Soldiers possessed physical bodies.

With their feeble bodies, they could not withstand the attacks Seo Tae-ran’s subordinates poured down on them.

After wiping out every Zombie Soldier, the subordinates looked at Seo Tae-ran.

They were waiting for their next order.

Seo Tae-ran’s gaze turned to Zeon.

“Where should we go now?”

“If we go about one hundred meters straight ahead like this, it’ll be a dead end. A path turning left should appear there.”

“You can see all that?”

“Rather than seeing it, I can feel it.”

Zeon answered calmly.

Even if the space had been consumed by thick darkness, it was not perfect nothingness(無).

The darkness merely occupied the terrain that had originally been there.

Zeon’s senses were piercing through the darkness and spreading throughout the underground space.

It was possible because there was sand even in the underground space.

Seo Tae-ran nodded.

“That’s quite a convenient ability. I wish I had Awakened an ability like that too.”

“Isn’t your current position good enough? You’re none other than Neo Seoul’s second-in-command.”

“If I had a stronger ability, I could be of greater help to the mayor.”

“I feel this every time, but your loyalty really is remarkable.”

“Lord Zeon, have you no intention of devoting yourself to City Hall? If you wish, I could even give you the Deputy Mayor position.”

“No, thank you.”

“Why? Is Deputy Mayor not enough to satisfy you?”

“As you know, I dislike being tied down anywhere.”

“For someone like that, haven’t you formed ties with quite a lot of people?”

“They’re ties that formed naturally.”

“You dislike anything artificial? May I understand it that way?”

There was a sharp edge in Seo Tae-ran’s voice.

She was offended because Zeon had rejected her proposal again.

Zeon was the first person to whom she had made a recruitment offer twice, and also the first person who had rejected both offers.

This unfamiliar experience made her angry.

Fortunately, she was an extremely rational person, and she knew how to compose her emotions quickly.

“I said something unnecessary. Please pretend you did not hear what I just said.”

“I’ll do that.”

Zeon nodded and walked past Seo Tae-ran.

Seo Tae-ran stared intently at Zeon’s back.

Seo Tae-ran feared or found no one difficult except Jin Geum-ho. But even to her, Zeon was a difficult opponent.

He treated those on his side warmly, but kept a blade-like distance from those outside the line.

He cut off any room to approach him at the source.

Emotional appeals did not work on him, and threats worked even less.

Nor could she threaten him by taking those close to him hostage. If she did, Neo Seoul would be devastated.

Zeon was a man with that level of ability.

That made him extremely difficult to handle.

‘Even so, in the end, he’ll kneel beneath my feet. No matter how strong an individual is, he can’t face all of Neo Seoul.’

Seo Tae-ran hid her true feelings and followed behind Zeon.

The victor always laughed at the very end.

One had to know how to endure until then.

Fortunately, Seo Tae-ran had tremendous patience.

THUD!

A dull sound came from Zeon’s foot as he walked ahead.

He had touched a wall.

It was the one-hundred-meter point Zeon had spoken of.

At the dead end, Zeon turned left.

“He really is something like a ghost. To walk freely through darkness this thick.”

Elder Go admired Zeon at the sight.

Zeon paid no attention to their reactions and walked silently.

Fortunately, after the Zombie Soldiers, there were no more undead attacks. Even so, the group did not relax their guard as they followed behind Zeon.

No one knew how long they walked like that.

Everyone’s sense of time grew strange.

It felt as if they had walked for several hours, and also as if they had wandered for days.

If there had not been a man like Zeon, who was like a lighthouse, they would have collapsed from exhaustion long ago, or lost their sense of direction and fallen behind.

At least because Zeon walked firmly without wavering, they could follow him blindly.

Zeon, who had been walking silently until now, opened his mouth.

“It’s the exit.”

“The exit?”

The twins reacted first.

Being the youngest, they were the most mentally exhausted.

Seo Tae-ran furrowed her brow and said,

“Where is this exit supposed to be?”

“We only need to go a little farther.”

“How much farther......”

“Here.”

Zeon suddenly stopped.

Because of that, Seo Tae-ran, who had been following right behind him, nearly planted her nose into his back.

Fortunately, she stopped in time, and the disaster of colliding with Zeon did not occur.

“Where is the exit......”

The moment Seo Tae-ran opened her mouth, Zeon fired Fire Missile forward.

CRASH—!

With an explosion, the door blocking their way shattered, and light flooded in.

“Kuh!”

“Ugh!”

Their eyes, adapted to the darkness, could not handle the intense light.

Everyone except Zeon squeezed their eyes shut, avoiding the stimulus as much as possible.

Only Zeon kept his eyes open and stared ahead.

“Hoo!”

He let out a sigh without realizing it.

Because the sight beyond the intense light pouring in provoked him.

Outside the exit, a huge structure supported by large pillars could be seen. It resembled a temple he had seen once before.

The problem was the countless corpses scattered through the corridor, which he guessed was part of the temple.

Corpses, every one of them collapsed in miserable states.

They were the Awakened of the expedition that had entered this space first.

The corpses had rotted so badly that maggots were already swarming over them.

The twin sisters’ faces twisted at the sight.

“Damn it!”

“What the hell happened in here? So many people died.”

Judging by the equipment they wore, all of them had been powerful Awakened.

Seeing such people decomposing while crawling with maggots was more than enough to deliver a tremendous visual shock.

Seo Tae-ran, who had been examining the corpses for a moment, tilted her head.

“This is strange.”

“It certainly is strange.”

Elder Go agreed with Seo Tae-ran’s opinion.

The twin sisters asked with puzzled expressions,

“What’s strange? The number of corpses is shocking, sure, but I don’t see what’s strange......”

“It seems you girls don’t see what’s strange.”

“So what exactly is strange?”

The twin sisters snapped and looked at Elder Go.

The one who answered their question was not Elder Go, but Briel.

“The corpses have already decomposed this much.”

“So why is that......?”

“The timeline doesn’t match.”

“What do you mean by timeline?”

“The expedition fell underground roughly a week ago. It’s impossible for corpses to rot this badly in that time.”

“Are you stupid? Why is that impossible? Corpses rot quickly once they’re exposed to air.”

“That’s outside. Here, the temperature is abnormally cold.”

“Oh, you’re right?”

Only then did the twin sisters realize that the air inside the temple was extremely cold.

It was so cold that their breath came out white on its own.

Just as Briel said, it made no sense for corpses to decompose this quickly in an environment like this.

“Something’s here.”

“There’s definitely something.”

The twin sisters simultaneously wore serious expressions.

It was then.

CRACK—!

The rotting corpses, swarming with maggots, suddenly rose with the sound of bones grinding.

The corpses stood while spilling their rotted intestines, and ghost fire bloomed in their eyes.

The sight of corpses burning with ghost fire while swarming with maggots was truly horrifying.

The problem was that among the corpses were people Seo Tae-ran, Elder Go, or the twin sisters knew.

Even Seo Tae-ran, who was counted among the most cold-headed people in Neo Seoul, briefly lost her composure at the dreadful sight.

“That person was definitely the captain of the Blue Falcon Raid Team.”

The captain of the Blue Falcon Raid Team had been a Grade B martial artist.

His main Skill was Berserker.

As the name suggested, he became a berserker mad with rage and swept away his enemies, a tremendous Awakened.

Though the aftereffects were severe and he could not use it for long, he was an expert who became invincible for the thirty minutes he used the Skill.

It was shocking enough that such an expert had died, but now he had revived as an undead.

For Seo Tae-ran, it was enough to leave her dumbfounded.

“Just who did something like this?”

“A Necromancer.”

“You’re saying a real Necromancer exists?”

“And an extremely powerful one at that. We may face a sight even more dreadful than this.”

Zeon’s voice had sunk deeper than ever.

That was how intense the sense of crisis pressing down on him was.

There was no such thing as an ordinary Necromancer.

Because the existence called a Necromancer itself was far from ordinary.

One who rejected death.

A wicked existence that denied the principles of the world head-on.

One who piled up mountains of corpses to build a temple for himself alone.

The Necromancer Zeon knew was such a being.

“So this place was the temple of a high-ranking Necromancer.”

“How can a Necromancer build a temple? Aren’t they beings who deny god head-on?”

“He must be trying to become god himself.”

“That’s......”

Elder Go could not continue and let out a groan.

That was how tremendous the shock of Zeon’s words was.

Seo Tae-ran asked in place of Elder Go, who could not continue.

“Is that possible?”

“I don’t know either. But the master of this temple must think so. That must be why he built a temple like this.”

It was then.

Briel, who had kept silent until now, opened her mouth.

“Pilgram!”

“What?”

“He’s a Necromancer who remains as a legend in Kurayan. The worst Necromancer, who killed tens of thousands and built a temple from their corpses. They say the reason was to become god. All the races of Kurayan joined forces to capture him, and only after suffering tremendous sacrifices did they finally manage to kill him.”

“You’re saying a Necromancer like that really existed? How do you know that?”

Seo Tae-ran looked at Briel with a suspicious expression. But Briel did not feel the need to explain herself to her.

There was no time to explain anyway.

Grrr......

Groooaaar......

The dead Awakened were walking toward them, making grotesque sounds.

The sight of the rotting Awakened approaching while their bones creaked was frightening enough to haunt one’s dreams.

Zeon muttered in a low, settled voice.

“I don’t know whether the master of this temple is truly Pilgram, but I’ll admit his taste is vile.”

To send the corpses of the expedition against those who had come to rescue the expedition.

It was crude, but it would be hard to find a more effective way to break an opponent’s spirit.

Zeon asked Briel,

“What do we need to do to give the dead rest?”

“Kill the Necromancer, or else disassemble them at the atomic level or burn them. Otherwise, they’ll keep coming back and tormenting us.”

“So that’s how it is?”

Zeon nodded and walked forward.

At that moment, the sand piled on the floor began to ripple.

The sand rose like waves and struck the revived dead.

GRRRRIND—!

The sand, rotating at terrifying speed, disassembled the dead at the atomic level, and white phosphorus flame burned the remains, which had been broken down into particles smaller than dust, without leaving a single trace behind.

The dead revived by the Necromancer were erased from the world that way.

Amid the burning flames, Zeon muttered,

“I know you’re watching me. I won’t keep you waiting long. Necromancer!”