Chapter 151
Chapter 151
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 151
Chapter Title: Faith (1)
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The office of the Four Heavenly Kings' Cluesti.
Zoroaster handed over the neatly organized report to Cluesti.
"I've compiled the information on the Celestial Knights entangled with Ju Gonghyeok."
- Celestial Knight No. 898, Guardsand: 4th-floor administrator. Missing after erratic behavior.
- Celestial Knight No. 611, Rahu: 20th-floor administrator. Activities untraceable after Ju Gonghyeok's mission. Appears to be concealed by Four Heavenly King Hydrich's faction.
- Celestial Knight No. 700, Langdarma: 30th-floor participant. Died after direct confrontation with Ju Gonghyeok.
- Celestial Knight No. 925, Lilianne: Originally a high-ranking demon, promoted to Celestial Knight immediately after contracting with Ju Gonghyeok.
"Oho~ Oho~ This is quite intriguing."
Cluesti examined the report closely and asked.
"My astute Zoroaster, what do you make of this?"
"He's long surpassed Celestial Knight level."
Zoroaster, who had personally witnessed Ju Gonghyeok on the 30th floor, guaranteed it.
"No Celestial Knight could possibly match him."
"What about Archduke-level Celestial Knights like Mastema? Or perhaps Slaughter Duke Alloken or Wicked Duke Baphomet?"
"No, Zoroaster. I will handle this myself."
Cluesti adjusted his cherished fine fedora.
"I've had my eye on Ju Gonghyeok since the 1st floor. I planned to use him in the faction wars after the 40th floor, but no matter how crucial those wars are—and they are crucial indeed—a promising poison like this must be uprooted early."
"A wise judgment."
"And the next report concerns her?"
"Indeed. Lilianne's behavior alongside Ju Gonghyeok is suspicious as well. She seems to be absorbing the essences of other Celestial Knights. Moreover, her attachment to Ju Gonghyeok goes far beyond a mere contract."
"No way! How enviable for one man to monopolize the love of a lovely succubus queen!"
Cluesti's gaze slowly shifted to the corner.
"Isn't that right? Lilianne."
"No! Lord Cluesti!"
Lilianne was flat on the floor, trembling violently.
Following Ju Gonghyeok, this was her second round of prostrating herself today.
"I know nothing about Guardsand or Rahu!"
"Is that so? Then what explains the essence of Langdarma wafting from your very pores, Lilianne?"
Cold sweat trickled down Lilianne's forehead as she locked eyes with the carpet, avoiding Cluesti's glare.
"Forgive me! That trash Ju Gonghyeok went beyond anything I could handle! He colluded with Four Heavenly King Hydrich, sacrificed Celestial Knights as offerings, broke my horn, and then blackmailed me!"
"Oho~ Oho~ It must have been no small ordeal for you, my succubus Lilianne."
"Yes! He absorbed Langdarma's essence using a pearl made from my horn and framed me as an accomplice... Sniff..."
Cluesti nodded as he watched Lilianne on the verge of tears.
"I see~ I understand completely. I, Cluesti, deeply regret and lament my failure to comprehend your suffering until now."
"Ah, Lord Cluesti. I am grateful for your ocean-like magnanimity."
"Oh, it's nothing! Really."
A razor-sharp glint, as if ready to devour her alive, flashed in Cluesti's eyes.
"I nearly deluded myself into thinking you were using that human as a puppet to kill the Archdukes, even me, and absorb our essences. Of course, my succubus queen would never do such a thing."
"......"
"Even with all that greed, one needs a vessel worthy of it, right? My dear Lilianne would never overstep her station and hold a blade to my throat."
"Quite right... Lord Cluesti!"
"Oho~?"
Cluesti rose from his chair and approached her prostrated form.
"Lilianne? Did you not just hear a certain thin voice from somewhere?"
"Such accusations are utterly unjust!"
"Of course. It couldn't be."
Cluesti whispered softly.
"Wasn't it I, Cluesti, who alone took in you succubi, abandoned by the other Four Heavenly Kings as dishonorable, useless, and vulgar?"
"......You are absolutely right."
Cluesti produced a gem.
Its name was Thunderlight Crystal, an S-rank accessory he had crafted himself.
"Deliver this to him."
"As you command!"
As Lilianne received the Thunderlight Crystal, Cluesti smiled and stepped back.
The Thunderlight Crystal was an item that would plunge Ju Gonghyeok into peril.
"I do not obsess over battle like Vaincliffe, nor over power like Hydrich. I believe—and firmly believe—that your intellect and abilities hold value in other ways."
"......"
"My succubus queen. Please do not disappoint me."
Kneeling, Lilianne could not see Cluesti's expression.
She simply had to prostrate like a worm and await his upright command.
Even after Cluesti left the office, she remained prostrated there for a long time.
"I want to take it all."
She murmured unwittingly.
Among demons, succubi had the most pitiful physical prowess.
Their mental abilities were overshadowed by other destructive spirits, and they were created solely to seduce humans and demons sexually.
A vulgar race from birth.
The most inferior demons.
She had been born as the leader of that race.
"I'm going to take it."
She coveted everything of Cluesti.
Cluesti's power, Cluesti's authority, Cluesti's honor, Cluesti's dignity. Cluesti's composure.
And Cluesti's life.
"I'm sick of being called a whore. I want to rip apart every mouth that utters 'succubus.'"
She had survived Cluesti for now.
Given her ties to Ju Gonghyeok, who had slain numerous Celestial Knights, execution would not have been surprising.
Excluding Langdarma, no other of Cluesti's knights had been sacrificed—a stroke of luck.
In any case, she had endured all manner of insults and lived.
With a gamble staking her worthless, worm-like life, she had lured Cluesti to the 39th floor battlefield.
Just as Ju Gonghyeok desired.
"You human scum, I've done more than enough as you asked."
A low voice, unlike any she'd ever let others hear, escaped her lips.
"Kill him quickly. Kill Cluesti."
Pure lust for power and dark desires took root in her depths.
"Kill him, absorb him, and I will become a Four Heavenly King. A great demon with power that no one can ignore...."
Overreaching, ungrateful vulgar trash—it didn't matter.
A wretch with nothing wants to seize everything it lacks.
* * *
Quite some time had passed.
Ju Gonghyeok had broken through the 30th floor. The ten-floor milestones were now behind him.
It was time to join humanity's vanguard on the cusp of the 40th floor.
The frontline hunters inwardly harbored great expectations for the addition of such formidable strength.
Humanity's next target: the 39th floor.
As the assault team's city Deus led the frontline hunters in shedding buckets of sweat,
Ju Gonghyeok was in a small dungeon tucked away in a corner of the 35th floor.
A glowing stone cave overflowing with bright light.
Ju Gonghyeok held a round glass tube inside.
"Found you."
Keeek──!
The donut-shaped cylindrical glass tube contained a skull-shaped mass of light.
The light mass spun furiously inside the glass tube, seeking an escape.
Keeeek───!
A nerve-grating noise.
To prevent its escape, Shijo, who had blocked the cave entrance with darkness, furrowed his massive eye.
= Hey, what is that thing? It's so noisy.
= Yeah, little brother. What is this? It's not an avatar, not a monster...
The light mass dwelled in the dungeon but was no avatar. Certainly no monster.
Ju Gonghyeok shook the glass tube and said.
"It's human."
= Human? That?
Mi Huwang pointed at the finger-sized light mass as if it were absurd.
"To be precise, it's what you'd call a dimensional refugee."
= Dimensional refugee? Seems like one of the weirder ones.
Mi Huwang cocked his head curiously.
Regardless of the outside, the thing inside the glass tube shrieked as if tearing apart, racing hamster-wheel-like around the donut-shaped tube.
Keeeek───!
Its speed gradually accelerated, causing the glass tube to glow brightly.
Mi Huwang narrowed his eyes.
= Isn't this getting too fast? I can't even see it moving.
"Normal."
A speed even the SSS-rank War God, Mi Huwang, couldn't gauge.
Nathaniel couldn't hide his astonishment.
- Wait, could this be?
"You've heard of it?"
- I've heard rumors: the Transcendent of Asirheim. The fastest human across gods and all dimensions.
'Flash of Asirheim' Thialfi.
The being in the glass tube was once a 'great hero' of a single dimension.
He had clashed three times with the evil god 'Utgard Loki' and emerged victorious each time, even challenging head-on in a speed duel the Thunderlight Pursuer Cluesti, Babel's fastest and a Four Heavenly King—the hero of 'Asirheim.'
"But now it's just a fast thing."
A sneer curled Ju Gonghyeok's lips.
Thialfi was indeed faster than Thunderlight Pursuer Cluesti.
Thialfi possessed the authority to move faster than others' thoughts.
Be it god or human, he always moved faster than their cognition.
Confident in that power, Thialfi challenged Cluesti, Babel's fastest Four Heavenly King, to a speed contest.
Who was faster? They raced past a predetermined finish line, hurtling through twelve dimensions for three days and nights.
Yet Thialfi could never surpass Cluesti, no matter how hard he ran.
To break his limits, he pushed his authority to the maximum.
And finally, he surpassed even his own thoughts.
In that instant, Thialfi lost his sense of self.
He burned away his ego in the world of superluminal speed.
"Let's make a contract, Thialfi."
Keeek───!
Thialfi's scream, yearning to run free.
Gazing at the light mass with only primal thoughts remaining, Ju Gonghyeok whispered a name.
"Want to beat Cluesti?"
The glass tube's vibrations ceased.
Thialfi looked up at Ju Gonghyeok with a clear gaze.
= Clu... es... ti... Clu... e... sti...
Having lost his ego, Thialfi dropped out of the race and vanished, and his dimension 'Asirheim' perished.
But this light mass remembered the name Cluesti all too well.
"Want revenge on Cluesti?"
= Clu... Clu... Clu... esti!
Wheeeeeeng───!
The glass tube erupted in blinding light.
= I am faster than Cluesti!
It discerned nothing else, but its obsession with Cluesti was terrifying.
Ju Gonghyeok imprinted a spirit seal on Thialfi, turning him into a spirit under his command.
He attached the glass tube containing Thialfi to his prosthetic arm.
Thialfi's glass tube was a card against Cluesti and a means to enhance his prosthetic.
"The groundwork to catch Cluesti is done."
Ju Gonghyeok projected an image of Deus's conference room.
It was a device he had installed during his last visit to Deus.
"Now it's about time for Christina to make up her mind."
The great leader whom Deus revered like the heavens.
Mother Christina.
The conference hall was thick with an ominous atmosphere centered on her.
Ben-Hur, Marcus, Chin-Long, Jehman.
Disciples who had followed her like limbs since founding Deus.
They all shouted with furious faces.
Even the silent executives wore rigid expressions, barely holding back.
Surveying the room, Christina spoke again.
"I'll say it once more. I believe it is right to cede Deus to him."
"Mother! Please!"
"That's absurd! Mother Christina!"
The executives pleaded with angry or tearful faces.
But Christina's decision remained unchanged.
"Deus's wise new master will be my cherished disciple, Ju Gonghyeok."
It was a decision that would not be reversed.
Her mind was utterly clear and sound.