Chapter 264

Posted by Kuze, ? Views, Released on February 16, 2025

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The convention center used as a refuge was bustling with the movements of medical personnel coming and going, along with the groans of the injured.

Lucian, who was sitting close to the commotion, turned his gaze to the girl in front of him.

‘Her name was… Ariel, right?’

The girl Violet had asked him to look after was currently sleeping peacefully.

Her cheeks were flushed red, her hair drenched in sweat. Her body trembled slightly with every breath she took.

Next to her lay Levi, moaning as if he were having a nightmare.

“Ugh…! I’m no doctor…”

I felt a wave of irritation toward Violet. I could understand the request to care for Levi, and throwing in an extra injured person made some sense.

But what was with suddenly referring to a girl I just met today as a future junior?

Lucian couldn’t help but feel exasperated. Had Violet eaten something weird in this chaos?

“Uugh… ugh…”

“You’re also having a tough time. Why did you even follow that Violet…”

For a moment, while clicking my tongue at Levi, who was curled up as if trapped in a nightmare, Lucian looked around. The surroundings were filled with injured people groaning in distress.

A moment ago, the medical staff wearing Cascadia armbands came in, busily attending to the injured, but there were still many patients.

“Ugh…”

As he turned his head toward the sudden groan, Ariel started to moan and thrash around next to him. She appeared to be in pain.

Lucian absentmindedly placed his hand on the child’s forehead, then quickly pulled it away in shock.

‘Her temperature is way too high!’

This was abnormal. Just by the level of heat felt, it was as if her brain was already fried.

Though startled, Lucian quickly composed himself and cast a simple cooling spell.

A cold aura emanated from his fingertips, dispersing over Ariel’s forehead.

Thanks to that, her fever had lowered somewhat, but Ariel still seemed to be in agony, groaning in distress.

“Mom… Dad…”

Lucian’s face crumpled. If Violet was right, this child was an Awakened One with Ether aptitude. There was no way someone like that should be suffering from illness this severely.

Moreover, hadn’t the doctors just administered high-end healing enhancers and various anti-fever medications with the Laplacian emblem?

Looking around, Lucian noticed he wasn’t the only one observing similar symptoms.

In his ears, the repetitive phrases of the nearby medical personnel rang out.

High fever, severe headache, and…

“Can’t you hear? Someone keeps whispering! Whispering! It’s coming! It’s watching!”

“No! No! No! No!”

There were about two or three people screaming as they cupped their ears.

Some were digging into their ear holes so hard they were bleeding.

“What the hell kind of sickness is this?!”

Suddenly missing Daphne seemed regrettable. If she were here, she could ease their conditions with her unique ability.

If a non-awakened ordinary person couldn’t understand, it was surely…

‘A curse, a binding, delayed-acting magical attack?’

As his magical senses stimulated his optic nerves, an exclusive view visible only to those who had learned magic opened up.

There didn’t seem to be anything particularly special.

Just as he was pondering whether he had missed something, Ariel’s eyes slowly opened with great effort.

“B-Big Sister Violet…”

“That person is somewhere else. I’m just a… friend of that guy…!”

Lucian gasped and waved his hand in the air as the girl’s eyes met his, an unpleasant wave of energy rushed over his face.

The unpleasant, sticky wave of magic bounced back and dissipated.

Lucian’s head froze in confusion at the unexpected phenomenon.

As he rummaged through his knowledge in his mind, planning to explain, people in protective suits approached Ariel, aiming something at her head.

–BEEP!

“…Oh dear, you have a high fever. I’ll give you an anti-fever and sedative.”

“This girl already took medication!”

“It’s a stronger drug.”

The person in protective gear declared, bringing a pistol-shaped syringe close to Ariel’s arm.

Before Lucian could stop them, the sound of the injection came out with a hissing noise.

He didn’t know when they had entered, but the protective-suited individuals were circulating around.

The armbands on their arms mostly bore the symbol of Restraid, but there were some with a familiar purple phoenix logo mixed in.

Watching the protective-suited people with suspicion, Lucian’s gaze fixed on one spot.

‘Is that Sebastian?’

In the midst of the group in protective gear was a familiar face.

Sebastian entered the refuge under the protection of the rescue team. It had barely been some time since Restraid opened the temporary corridor linking inside and outside the barrier.

‘If we had not been defeated, we would’ve been preparing to charge.’

Recalling the past, Sebastian tightly closed his eyes.

It had been long since his armored suit was confiscated, and he was relegated to a secondary soldier.

‘No, I shouldn’t dwell on the past.’

He decided to focus quietly on his role as a support soldier.

His mission was simple: to monitor the people isolated inside and assist the Ruminex researchers dispatched separately from the medical personnel.

They attended to the injured, holding detectors, injecting medicine, and verifying identities while attaching small note-like tags to their wrists.

Sebastian quickly recognized what those were.

An emergency patient classification chart. A means to categorize the seriousness of injuries on the battlefield.

‘Wait, what…?’

His brows furrowed. The method of using the classification seemed unusual this time.

Typically, people with serious injuries would receive green tags, while those appearing relatively fine would get red tags.

They were categorizing patients not by treatment priority, but by a different standard.

‘Could this be…?’

Sebastian couldn’t comprehend the situation.

Was treating and rescuing the injured not the priority?

He hesitated and asked a nearby rescue team member.

“…The patient classification seems a bit odd. It feels misclassified.”

“It’s VIP’s orders.”

The rescue team member replied curtly. Sebastian fell silent.

If it goes up to a VIP, it must be his father—he had no choice but to comply. But what was he thinking?

Just as the doubts raised momentarily, his superior approached and struck Sebastian on the back of the head.

“Hey! Who told you to dawdle here? Get your head in the game!”

“…I’m sorry.”

He instinctively felt that something wasn’t right, but Sebastian looked back at the group in protective suits with complex emotions before leaving.

Every existence has its weaknesses.

The cheetah is fast, but lacks endurance.

The turtle has a hard shell but is painfully slow.

Cute penguins lost their swimming abilities in exchange for flight.

No one and nothing can be perfect.

The same goes for the Apostles. Their bodies are strong and sturdy. They excel in magic. They can even warp reality.

But surely, there must be a cost.

Outside the barrier, according to the special lecture given to the Scholarship Officer conveyed to the Special Operations Division Violet, this was the limit of the Apostles.

-If your explanation is correct, those on site are relatively lower beings. Lower-ranking Apostles have limitations on their reality manipulation abilities.

What limitations?

-They can only manipulate one thing at a time. When attacking, they can only attack; when defending, they can only defend. At their level, they can’t handle multiple tasks at once.

Sebastian recalled the battle experiences from seconds to moments before in the Violet Network.

“The Scholarship Officer is right!”

Those guys could only manipulate reality for one thing at a time. They could summon monsters or turn me into stone, but they couldn’t do both simultaneously.

“Wait, there seemed to be a slight delay?”

-Correct. For them to use reality manipulation, they need time to concentrate, albeit weakly. They also have limited ranges. They can’t use it on opponents outside a certain distance or completely out of sight.

Only then did they understand why the Apostles didn’t just snap their fingers and wipe out the Violet units or summon calamities to eliminate people in an instant.

“They just can’t do it!”

The Apostles’ reality manipulation was akin to a single-shot rifle that would kill if hit. Though the method didn’t seem to have restrictions, after using it once, they had to expend effort to cast another.

-Listen carefully, their reality manipulation is ultimately a feat requiring advanced calculations. It’s not a divine miracle or a heavenly punishment. Energy must be consumed during that process. If you prolong combat over time, their usage of abilities will also be limited.

-Strong shocks to the body can interrupt the reality manipulation process! Don’t stop, move quickly! Or ambush from a range where they can’t see!

“Scholarship Officer! Does that make sense? Is it even possible?”

Almost immediately, a deep, smooth voice through the headset gave an unreasonable response.

-It’s possible. I just caught one of them and I’m on my way back.

“What? You caught what?!”

At Sage’s casual remark, I was left dumbfounded. What on earth has this guy been up to outside?

Irene, who had been listening to the radio next to me, looked just as bewildered, removing her headset and staring at me.

-My sister is on the scene too, so ask her for help. If it’s my sister, she should be able to execute what I said directly. And…

After a moment of silence, the Scholarship Officer’s serious voice came through the headset.

-I don’t know the principle, but listen well, Violet. If you’ve trapped the Apostle in your consciousness, you could stop them in your own way. Though it’s not as tight, they are connected to each other.

“Connected?”

-Yes, I don’t know the details, but if you target that connection, you’ll find the answer. Since there’s a precedent like you, it’s fully possible—

The communication crackled and then cut off. While it was a bit disappointing, I had heard all the crucial advice.

“Wise advice!”

“They say we can do it! Alright, let’s charge in!”

Filled with courage, the Violets charged onward once more.

–Boom!

Thirty seconds later, inside the Violet Network, every kind of anger and curse directed at Sage resonated.

“No! This can’t happen!”

That damn Scholarship Officer’s advice was only half right.

“Move quickly and hit their heads hard to interrupt their reality manipulation? Yeah, it might work. After dying a few times, I found that moving wasn’t that complicated after all. The problem is…”

“No way.”

“Ah! No way! No way!”

One squad of Violets was deployed as a test.

The remaining Black Ice was injected, and the Violets clad in exoskeletons rushed forth under smoke cover and support fire.

“Garrgh!”

In a flash, the two arms wielding dual blades of the Apostle flickered before my eyes, and the next thing I knew was Violet salami, shattered and flying through the air.

“I’m already dead!”

That behemoth, nearly the height of a three-story apartment, was surprisingly nimble and fast for its size.

It wasn’t just that; neither clumsy rifle bullets nor crossbow bolts could leave a scratch on it, and any incoming magic or threatening sniping was effortlessly bounced off or defended against.

The Scholarship Officer’s advice was akin to a pro-gamer telling an ordinary person, “If you dodge attacks and cast all your skills, you can win against your opponent.”

This was a tactic only usable by someone fast and powerful.

“Failure!”

Yet again, another squad of Violets melted away like jelly.

“Easy to say!”

Winning a fighting game involves dodging all of your opponent’s attacks, and getting a perfect score on an exam means only picking the correct answers—how could anyone fail at that?

But this was out of our league.

“Ugh! When will you come!”

In the end, we cried out for our big sister.

“Were we supposed to find a way only we could do?!”

What on earth were we supposed to do?

Already, half of Violet’s consciousness was focused on knocking down the Apostle within the Network.

While the other one had long since escaped outside of the Network.

“Yes, you little ones can do nothing!”

In the midst of the obliterated Violet plaza, a female Apostle approached, stepping over the rustling debris.

“I admit it. Your little Network is truly wondrous. There is no way for me or my companions to kill you at my level.”

Injured and surrounded, she appeared to regain her confidence, a smug smile forming on her face.

“But what about your four friends left behind? For example…”

The Apostle raised her hand. Two images of girls floated in the air.

The Violets surrounding them gasped in shock.

“Gasp! It’s Levi and Ariel!”

“What! You! How do you know that?!”

“You’ve trapped me here; I could peek into your memories.”

The female Apostle smiled slyly, pointing her finger at them.

“I’ve already become familiar with this Network. Not only that, even though half of the army you gathered has been wiped out, I can recover that amount easily. Time is not on your side.”

The Violets fell into disarray.

To make matters worse, urgent news reached the Violet Command Center.

“We’re running out of ammunition! We’ll be out soon!”

The sound of an empty armory echoed hollowly. Unit 771 reached for a new magazine.

“Uh?”

There were no bullets. In a hurry, I checked my inventory, only met by a despairing reality.

“It was impossible to arm all 2,500 of them!”

After just one bout of firepower, the ammunition for the heavy weaponry obtained from Armas had been depleted in an instant.

The ammunition for extinguisher and crossbow arrows imported through Helios had also been used up rapidly.

I hadn’t thought about it. Once you engaged in a battle with over a thousand people, the number of bullets you had to distribute increased correspondingly.

“I see, there’s no ammunition left.”

The female Apostle within the Network recited our thoughts and shook the Network again as the reality giant Apostle and the monster swarm launched an even fiercer attack.

“The tanks and vehicle units are still there, right?”

“No! They’ll melt away in a single strike of reality manipulation! No ammo for the helicopters! Standby!”

Ugh, the once favorable fight had once again turned difficult.

Think, think. What advantages do we have against them?

The Scholarship Officer said there would be a way I could do things. That I could catch them in my own way.

Connected, you’re saying?

Yes. Right now, I’m connected to the Apostle in my mind.

The reason they can read my thoughts is because they are captured in this Network.

Concentrating for a moment, I felt the Apostle’s emotions starting to resonate with us.

“Do you see? Manipulating consciousness is our specialty. It’s not something trivial bugs like you can mimic.”

The Apostle boasted. But the colors hidden behind their mask were quite different.

Anticipation, anxiety, impatience, restlessness.