111th Episode (Ko Sswook)
The shackles binding all members of the Resurrection Sect had finally ended. It felt like years had passed.
I returned to the front of the Goddess’s Temple and collapsed, leaning my back against the wall.
“…How much… time has passed…?”
With blurred vision, I gazed blankly at the sky. The fading starlight had given way to a pale blue hue.
The night is retreating; dawn is breaking.
“By endurance alone… new longest record update. Hell yeah.”
I mumbled and let out a hollow laugh.
I poured all my mental power into maintaining over 600 chains, making everything hazy, but I’ve never witnessed the sunrise after enduring any challenge until now. This must be the longest.
It’s likely this is true even in any lifetime I’ve forgotten.
“Huff… Huff…”
I breathe heavily, even without doing anything. Sweat is pouring off me in torrents. This is exhausting. I can truly feel what ‘exhaustion’ means right now.
Then, at some point, a faint white light covered my body. Turning my head, I saw Phloxius casting a blessing on me.
“Kh… Khruck! Khruck!”
Phloxius’s face was even more pale than mine, and he looked like he was about to die.
He was already a bit pitiful-looking, but has he reached the point where he looks like a corpse that’s still moving? I was momentarily at a loss for words.
“Ah, well… This should do. I’ve cast… the blessing.”
Only after hearing Phloxius’s hoarse voice did I manage to speak.
“Uh… I don’t really remember, but how many blessings was that now?”
“I, I don’t remember clearly either, but… we’ve definitely surpassed a hundred, I believe. Heh heh…”
One hundred times. I was momentarily speechless at the sheer number.
I finally spoke up again after Phloxius repeated a cough that sounded like he was throwing up his soul.
“Isn’t this normal for blessings… like push-ups for angels or something, doing 100 a day?”
“I, in my apprentice days, I didn’t do more than fifty even during civilian support duties… I am, a, little tired.”
Not just ‘a little’—looking at your face, it feels like you’re about to keel over.
That was also something you pulled from the future, wasn’t it? It’s because of me that you ended up like this.
I froze in shock and gestured to him.
“That’s enough, Priest. Rest now. I’ll call you if there’s any real danger. Right now, you look in worse shape than I do.”
“No, that won’t do… while the Hero is enduring so much… I, I must… help in any way I can.”
“What, Priest. You’ve already helped an awful lot…”
“As a cleric of Kern, I… want to do something to protect the people…”
I stared at Phloxius silently.
Despite his already thin frame swaying from exhaustion, his eyes burned with an unwavering light. It was filled with admiration and respect for me.
‘Completely different from the first time I met him.’
Phloxius’s attitude changed dramatically after we returned to the city center—after he saw the countless Resurrection Sect members and monsters bound in every direction.
He actively calmed and evacuated the panicked citizens. Now, without being asked, he was giving me blessings as needed.
Even though I hadn’t explained anything, he seemed to understand.
That I was moving to prevent this tragedy in Kern.
“…”
“…”
Everything is silent around us. Citizens have already evacuated, thanks to Phloxius, and there’s no one around.
It’s actually for the best. Most people still misunderstand me and think I’m some kind of murderer. There’s no point in having them here—they’d just get in the way.
So now, it’s just Phloxius and me left, with the tightly bound members of the Resurrection Sect rolling around.
“Still, really… incredible, Hero. Controlling and binding hundreds of people across the entire city at once… This, this isn’t something even most cavaliers could accomplish. You’re much stronger than I thought.”
Phloxius looked around in amazement with wide eyes and kept exclaiming in awe.
I guess he’s talking about the shadow chains that I’ve spread across the entire city of Kern, binding the sect members.
But… what’s a cavalier? Oh right. The politicians and generals of this country. Is it an honor to be compared to those illustrious people? I don’t know. My mind feels numb, and I barely know what I’m even thinking now. Hehe.
“Uh… what do you plan to do now, Hero?”
“What do I plan to do? What?”
“Because… continuing like this will only leave us exhausted and defeated.”
Phloxius hit on a valid point.
Come on, if you were to say something ridiculous like ‘I haven’t thought about that far…’ while he’s working this hard, I’m sure fire-breath might erupt from that normally kind face.
‘Exactly, what do we do?’
Honestly, I can barely stand right now.
I’m fully focused on keeping up the 600 shadow chains; even a little distraction could make the whole thing collapse.
Shadow chains aren’t very efficient in mana consumption. That’s why I haven’t been using them much so far. Now though, to control so many bindings and personally deal with them all? Ridiculous.
Fortunately, I’ve already made sure to turn every corpse in Kern into mush while I still had the strength. Thanks to that, even if Cassas tries to mess around using them for battle, we won’t end up fighting endless corpse-monsters.
“Hero, what should we do now?”
As I stared vacantly at the ground with my wavering vision, Phloxius asked me.
I glanced at his face and muttered quietly.
“I wonder the same. What do we do now, elder?”
I spoke clearly in Korean, our native language.
Phloxius, understanding this as some kind of secret conversation, tilted his head in confusion.
―What do we do? Wait.
The reply came immediately.
Phloxius glanced strangely at me for inexplicably muttering in a foreign language. But I ignored it and continued my conversation with Older Brother Sooho.
“Then what’s next? Will we have a solution when reinforcements… uh, Astarte, arrives? Isn’t it still the same situation where we can’t kill them?”
―You can kill them when the time comes. Either you or the reinforcements can take them out. Just tie them down and beat them as needed. Sort it out first with the Resurrection Sect members here, then find a way to neutralize the ritual later.
Of course. I thought there was some grand plan here, but it’s just about dividing the tasks. After hearing this from Brother Sooho, I let out a low sigh.
Brother Sooho, sensing my sigh, responded immediately.
―What’s the problem?
“Yes, blocking Kern seems harder than expected.”
―Harder than expected?
“There are four gates in Kern, one for each direction. If even one direction isn’t sealed, it’s impossible to properly block them from escaping.”
I’ve tried this strategy before. In a past life, I experimented with it.
The closest route to the Plains of Promise is through the western gate of Kern. Once, I gave up the idea of massacring them and instead held my ground at the western gate, waiting for Seop Baek to come. It was like standing guard with a floor mat.
‘But it failed.’
The reason was simple. They tried escaping simultaneously from all four directions.
When the sect members gathered at the western gate and saw me holding the line, they instantly split into four groups and escaped Kern in different directions.
This kind of coordination is impossible with human communication. It felt like I was fighting a robot army controlled by AlphaGo.
―That’s one of the skills of Cassas’s apostles you mentioned earlier, called ‘Hive Control’, a type of black magic. It controls the minds of many people at once, allowing them to be controlled uniformly, like AlphaGo.
I complained to Brother Sooho about this current illogical situation, and he already knew the answer. Of course for someone of his encyclopedic knowledge.
I immediately immersed myself in thought after hearing his words.
‘Hive Control. A type of black magic…’
So, the thing controlling the undead was also a type of black magic? I felt they were different from traditional undead manipulation, and apparently, they are.
I opened my eyes a little wider and looked at Vestark.
“Is black magic different from regular magic, elder?”
―It’s fundamentally different. The magic humans use now is an improved version of what the First Demon King used. Black magic, however, originates from the necromancers led by Diana.
Diana. The magic used by the witch Diana? Why are they using that? Did they partner up or something?
As I furrowed my brows in confusion, Brother Sooho seemed to have read my mind and beat me to the punch.
―Hmm. There’s a deeper backstory, but as a spoiler, one of Diana’s trusted friends was named ‘Hector Cassas’. Anything beyond that gets too personal, so…
“…”
―Anyway, Jung Yong. The point isn’t world-building exposition, right? We need to deal with this immediate crisis.
“That’s true. But still, because of this Hive Control, there’s no way just me and Adrang can block Kern properly.”
The conversation returned to the start. I sighed again, and along with it, a cough burst out.
Phut. Crimson blood splattered onto the ground, coming from my mouth.
“Eh.”
As I stared in shock, I soon felt a sharp pain in my chest.
A panel came up in front of my eyes.
[Abnormal Status – Magic Exhaustion]
[Your mana has fallen below critical levels. Your stamina is rapidly decreasing.]
“Ph… Phloxius priest…”
I hastily turned my gaze to the side but stopped calling out.
Phloxius had already fainted, his eyes rolled back. He was gasping for breath, barely clinging to life.
My vision turned black for a moment, then my lips curled up faintly in irony.
‘It’s over.’
Even if I use all my remaining life force to maintain the chains… I can’t hold on for more than ten minutes. I instinctively knew that.
‘If my mana dries up and continues to drain my life force…’
I recalled the battle against Demon King Phloxius near the border village.
The pulse used by Phloxius, which drained mana. The heroes who continuously received it exploded like balloons where they stood.
This is another fatal ending then. I guess it ranks among the top five most unpleasant deaths to collect. Such nonsense came to mind.
“Huff. Next time… let’s have Adrang come here to meet us. Brother knows the direction, so there’s hope. Blocking it together will surely be better than doing it alone.”
―Hmm?
I spoke resignedly, like my final words, while Brother Sooho let out a surprised exclamation.
After a moment of silence, Vestark shook slightly and spoke.
―Hey. When did I say reinforcements were one person?
“Really?”
―Astarte? I don’t know exactly who you mean, but I’ve never said the reinforcements coming here were limited to one person.
At this bombshell statement, I let out an astonished cry.
My heart leapt erratically. Not just one reinforcement? Could there be more?
‘No. But how could that be?’
Just as I thought that no one else besides me could come to help… the moment miracle slowly began unfolding.
“Is it you, Slayer Elrichi Park Jeong-yong, who predicted the Resurrection Sect’s attack?”
Clang. The eerie yet familiar sound of steel and a deep voice rang out behind me. My heart dropped when I heard it.
‘This voice…’
Against all odds, I managed to turn my unresponsive body and looked behind me. There, standing firmly imprinted in my mind, was a middle-aged man.
The dark gleam of his gauntlets. A face covered in scars, with feral eyes. His lion’s mane of white hair captured everyone’s attention.
“…Adrang.”
This man who literally took my heart away. (Metaphorically speaking)
Hell, the first time seeing a man make my heart race like this.
“I apologize. I arrived late.”
And true to Brother Sooho’s words, he wasn’t alone.
Swish. Around Adrang, shadowy figures started revealing themselves. About ten assassin-like figures dressed in black cloaks and armed with dark daggers appeared. Seeing the familiar attire, I barely suppressed a yell.
“The scale of this terrorism seemed beyond what we alone could handle, so I revealed your identity and requested help from Adrang, who was nearby on assignment.”
Then, the elder who spoke continued appearing.
I knew this elder. The leader of Kern’s top tier assassins and master of the city’s night. Hik Toshiro.
He slowly approached with his assassins and extended a hand toward me as I sat slumped on the ground. A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“White Demon King.”
At the unexpected sound, I raised an eyebrow, but I immediately recalled my last conversation with him and smirked.
“Hero’s… Precedent.”
Hik nodded in satisfaction and returned to Adrang’s side.
I looked around at the gathered group and, overwhelmed by the dramatic situation, squeezed out all my remaining strength to shout.
“By the stars! I trusted you all!!”
