Chapter 22
Chapter 22
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Half-Human Half-Divine!
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Tower Management Bureau.
The place where talents dispatched from the leadership of each floor had taken their positions.
Ever since the special power known as the Tower connected all the worlds.
They were managing it not through power or violence, but through cooperation.
Their main job was handling illegal immigration.
Being able to cross over to other worlds was a huge draw for vicious criminals.
Especially on the 6th Floor, where technology leaks were extremely tricky to control—the moment a criminal slipped out, it was impossible to predict the damage they might cause.
Movement between floors had to go through the Management Bureau.
That was the only possible way.
Yeah, that's what they thought.
Weeeeng! Weeeeng! Weeeeng! Weeeeng!
The director of the Tower Management Bureau, McKellen, was breaking out in a cold sweat.
Since the Tower appeared, the number of nations that had maintained their form could be counted on one hand.
He'd believed such incidents were a thing of the past, but now an enormous energy wave was spreading across the skies above Neo Seoul, the new capital of South Korea.
"Shit."
A curse slipped from his lips.
Someone was descending straight from the 5th Floor to the 3rd Floor, bypassing the Tower entirely.
"What about the 4th Floor? What are they saying?"
"They report only minor tremors. It seems like it's tearing through dimensions directly to the 3rd Floor."
"Shit—!"
A longer curse this time.
The situation was that dire.
"How the hell are they ripping through dimensions without going through the Tower? Even a grand archmage on the 4th Floor couldn't do that?!"
This wasn't just some person coming down.
Back in the Tower's early days.
The five-year inter-floor war had been hellish, to put it mildly.
It was now a page in history, but the piles of corpses and rivers of blood from those days had forged the current peace—
"What the hell... is coming down here?"
His fists clenched tightly amid the cold sweat.
He had no idea what was happening, but whatever it was didn't look like it had good intentions.
And if civilian casualties mounted in Neo Seoul—
"This could really spark another inter-floor war."
Dizziness gave way to a stabbing headache. Whatever was tearing through dimensions could crush Neo Seoul with ease.
"D-Director! The Hunter Association just sent a shared link for drone footage!"
"Connect it! Now!"
He clasped his hands as if in prayer.
"Jesus— Jesus."
Some said the Tower's arrival had rendered religion and gods meaningless.
Director McKellen thought the opposite.
If things like that existed, surely a saint nailed to a cross could too.
In that vein, he kept praying.
"It's connected!"
The massive main monitor in the Management Bureau displayed drone footage of the skies over Neo Seoul.
Dark clouds swirled like a vortex, but the real focus was the eye of the storm.
Blue lightning bolts shot out in all directions, like signal flares for war.
When his eyes met the being emerging from within, despair flooded his entire body.
"Jesus Christ."
The divine beast called the god of the Old Martial World, the Azure Dragon.
The deity of the 5th Floor, which hadn't stirred even once during the inter-floor war according to records, was descending in person.
It's over.
Just its appearance would rain lightning like a downpour on Neo Seoul.
No, this could be the end of South Korea as a nation—the spark for a second inter-floor war.
At that moment—
"D-Director!"
"...!"
A black-haired woman in office attire appeared on the screen.
One of the 3rd Floor's Seven Apex Hunters, top-tier in raw firepower.
Meteor, Yoo Ye-na.
Right, she was in Seoul.
Realizing that, the director shouted immediately.
"While Yoo Ye-na holds it off, tell the 5th Floor to take responsibility and stop it! Unless they want a real war!"
The stunned bureau sprang back into action.
"Please, Ye-na. Please—."
His lips, once invoking gods, now uttered only her name.
"......"
Seoul skies.
Yoo Ye-na stood alone amid the pouring lightning, poised and dignified.
Even in the fierce winds and cold, her elegance and poise remained intact.
"Azure Dragon."
Beyond the warped space, the Azure Dragon's silhouette was visible. It would descend here directly soon enough.
"What brings you to our world?"
Kaboom!
The response to Yoo Ye-na's question was far from welcoming. No words, just blue lightning hurtling toward her.
"Do you truly desire war? The people of the 5th Floor will suffer even more. War is best avoided altogether, but if you start it, I won't run."
An ultimatum.
The moment that thing descended, Seoul would be half-destroyed at best, if lucky.
Worst case: total annihilation.
War was inevitable.
Kraroom!
But the Azure Dragon offered Yoo Ye-na no reply.
She was just a pathetic insect blocking its path.
That was the extent of its impression.
"Very well."
Grind.
Yoo Ye-na gritted her teeth and raised both hands above her head.
In an instant, the swirling clouds slowed as if blocked by an invisible wall.
The cascading lightning clashed within, creating sonic booms.
"If you won't answer for whatever reason, I won't ask further—
But her psychokinesis was beginning to push back against the Azure Dragon's arrival, however slightly.
"This is our land. No place for a mere god to trespass."
She had no idea if it would work.
Glancing down, she saw the Seoul cityscape.
Determined to buy as much time as possible for evacuation—
'Please, stay safe.'
She harbored a small wish amid the catastrophe.
Eeeeeeng!
"Argh! So loud! Have some consideration for elves!"
The piercing alarm blared through his ears, echoing across the city to alert civilians to the crisis.
The city was chaos.
Most cars lined the roads had stopped, and people frantically sought shelter per the alarms.
Kwaaaaang!
"Kyaaak!"
"Mooommm!"
Screams erupted like reflexes with every lightning strike.
Yoo Ye-na was doing her utmost from above, but it wasn't enough to suppress all the bolts.
"P-President! Where are you going right now?"
"Wait! The underground parking is that way, not this!"
Kim Yang and Reneah tried to stop me, but I ran the opposite direction.
"You two head that way and evacuate!"
Looking up, I could see the Azure Dragon's silhouette beyond the clouds.
That meant something had gone wrong with Baek Yeonhwa.
"Damn it! Why isn't she picking up?!"
I'd been calling the other Apex Hunter, Ryu Seram, nonstop, but no answer.
She was probably off as a hunter, helping evacuate people or assisting Ye-na.
In the end, I had to step up.
No matter how genius Yoo Ye-na was, she couldn't block one of the Old Martial World's gods alone.
'Only one person can stop it.'
Baek Yeonhwa.
And I was currently the only one in Seoul who knew where she was.
'Cops, hunters—no one's answering.'
Not that a mere civilian like me would be believed anyway.
"Hah! Hah!"
"Uwah!? My ears hurt!"
The two kept following.
I stopped briefly and yelled at them.
"What are you doing?! I told you to evacuate first! I have somewhere to be!"
"W-We can't leave you behind, President!"
"How dare I flee alone? I am the Elf Queen, after all."
Kim Yang and Reneah absolutely refused to leave me.
Kim Yang aside, Reneah had a bow on her back.
Her combat prowess against the Net Queen last time.
And as the Elf Queen... she could be a big help.
"Fine. Reneah, come with me. Kim Yang, stay out of it as much as possible. Got it?"
"P-President, promise me too. Don't push yourself."
"Don't worry. I'm always cool-headed."
Yeah, I was perfectly rational.
If the Azure Dragon descended and they learned about Baek Yeonhwa.
The 3rd Floor would launch an investigation into her—
And at the end of that trail.
'Would be our Meracle!'
Fuck.
This could turn into a real disaster if mishandled.
One bad client, and we'd be branded the trigger for Seoul's destruction.
I hurried even faster toward the abandoned factory where Baek Yeonhwa said she'd meet Luca.
"Hah—! Hah—!"
At the factory entrance, an ambulance lay toppled on its side, abandoned.
Probably the one I'd called at Baek Yeonhwa's request.
From outside, the factory had already lost its structure, collapsed.
Rushing inside, the air changed.
Like a dragon's lair.
On the 4th Floor, a dragon's lair was called a dragon's table.
A place where it harvested the lives of intruders who dared invade its domain.
Yes.
The factory interior was Baek Yeonhwa's dragon lair.
Bodies littered the floor.
Unknown if alive or dead, but their black masks marked them as the assassins she'd mentioned.
And atop them.
A lone, majestic half-human half-divine being stood.
Azure Dragon wings, horns, and a long trailing tail.
Tears streaming from her golden pupils seemed like hope that some humanity lingered within her—
"Grrooooaaar—!"
But the Baek Yeonhwa we knew was gone from the figure roaring dragon breath, threatening us.
'Yin and yang energies have harmonized, but the power is too vast to control recklessly.'
Her words from the interview day hit me belatedly, as she brooded sadly.
"Ah, so that's what you meant."
I should have.
listened more carefully.
Such regrets were brief.
But what use were they now?
"Grrooooaaar—!"
Another roar.
A warning not to approach.
Yet strangely, it felt less like a threat and more like a plea.
She didn't want to hurt us.
Please, just stay away.
Toward the Baek Yeonhwa crying out as if begging—
"Hoo."
I took a deep breath.
And stepped forward, one foot at a time.