Chapter 188: The Tide of Battle
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 188: The Tide of Battle
The moment she saw it, Cheon Hong-ryeon swung her sword down, but her blade only struck the floor.
“Silver Fox!”
Cheon Hong-ryeon urgently called for Eunhyeon, and Eunhyeon, in her nine-tailed fox form, began to sprint furiously down the street.
Cheon Hong-ryeon frowned and looked up at the sky, frustrated that Erebos had escaped even though she’d had him in her grasp.
“What are we gonna do about that?” Song Hyeok-seo asked, sensing the gravity of the situation.
She clicked her tongue.
“What about Iron-Blood?”
“She’s been out of contact for a while. You think something happened on her end?”
“Hah.”
Red flower petals began to swirl around Cheon Hong-ryeon.
“Whatever it is, what I have to do remains the same.”
Cheon Hong-ryeon’s sword pointed toward the eye in the sky.
“I cut down my enemies.”
With that simple answer, Cheon Hong-ryeon shot up into the air.
Seeing this, Song Hyeok-seo followed, raising his shadows.
From the moment the eye appeared, dimensional entities everywhere had begun to rampage more fiercely, and screams echoed through the air.
The United States was now no different from a scene out of hell.
What in the world is about to happen?
Wishing someone would give him an answer, Song Hyeok-seo gripped his greatsword of shadow and charged forward.
*
While the battle in the United States was raging, Baek Seol-hyang stood in the paralyzed control room of the World Returnee Association, facing someone.
The robed figure was a complete mystery, identifiable as female only by the prominent shape of their chest. Nothing else could be discerned.
Facing the woman, Baek Seol-hyang slowly swept her hair back.
“How did you get in here?”
Baek Seol-hyang pulled her gloves taut, glaring at the shadowed face beneath the robe.
But the woman paid her no mind, simply adjusting her robe.
“You can’t kill Erebos yet.”
Twitch.
Baek Seol-hyang’s eyebrow twitched.
The voice that reached her was distorted with static and difficult to make out, but it gave off a strange feeling.
“Who are you to tell me whether or not to kill Erebos?”
At Baek Seol-hyang’s question, the woman remained silent for a long moment.
This was the World Returnee Association. Even if the other returnees had left for the incident in the US, countless defense systems were still active. Yet this woman had bypassed them all as if they were nothing.
That meant she was either incredibly powerful…
Or she had some connection to the Association.
And from her words, Baek Seol-hyang noticed another fact.
“What is your relationship with Ma-ri?”
“So you figured it out.”
As soon as Baek Seol-hyang voiced her guess, the woman let out a small laugh, as if confirming it.
“Then can you also guess why I told you not to kill Erebos?”
The woman posed the question with a leisurely laugh, and Baek Seol-hyang bit her lip slightly.
“Because a world without a villain will simply come to an end.”
As if teaching her, the woman offered the advice.
Hearing the incredibly vague counsel, Baek Seol-hyang clenched her fist.
“The words Ma-ri told me that day… did you tell her to say them?”
Baek Seol-hyang was referring to what Kang Ma-ri had said on the day she tried to stop Ha-chan during Song Hyeok-seo’s kidnapping. The woman shook her head lightly.
“I can’t tell you that much.”
With that, she turned and began to walk away.
The moment she saw this, Baek Seol-hyang threw a punch at her, but it was lightly deflected with a soft push.
Seeing this, Baek Seol-hyang’s eyes widened slightly as a laugh emerged from beneath the robe.
“Just as I’d expect from myself.”
With those final words, the woman walked away again, disappearing down the corridor.
Staring blankly at her retreating back, Baek Seol-hyang slowly swept her hair back.
“What in the world is…”
Even Baek Seol-hyang couldn’t comprehend the current situation.
She could only sense that an ominous current had begun to flow.
“…Ha-chan, just how deeply are you entangled in all of this?”
Right now, she had only one concern.
The one man she loved more than anyone else.
*
Ever since the entity lurking on the boundary appeared in the sky, the number of hunters and returnees being neutralized began to increase, along with the rampaging dimensional entities.
The creature’s eye was merely gazing down at the area, but that alone was enough to cause a stream of people to collapse, coughing up blood and losing their minds.
“Hoo!”
Amidst the chaos was Song Se-hee, weaving through the dimensional entities as she scattered several talismans.
Her blonde hair was caked with dust as she slaughtered monster after monster, her face etched with deep fatigue.
“There’s no end to them.”
The most critical task was to find and deal with the dimensional gate connected to the Divine Realm.
But for some reason, she couldn’t find the damn gate on her own.
[ She says it’s around here. ]
That was why Se-hee was now searching for the gate with Juksim.
Juksim, conserving her power in the form of a child, was clinging tightly to Se-hee’s back, her eyes scanning their surroundings.
As a native of the Divine Realm, Juksim was the one who could best sense the gate’s presence.
“You said this was Erebos’s doing, right?”
[ She says it was hidden using a divine artifact. ]
The one who had hidden the gate so thoroughly was none other than Erebos.
It seemed he had made up his mind this time, orchestrating the incident with meticulous care.
“What on earth is he thinking?”
At Song Se-hee’s question, Juksim fell silent for a moment.
Then, her eyes looked up at the sky.
[ She says it is likely not a pleasant thought. ]
It seemed Juksim knew something as well.
Seeing her reticence, Song Se-hee sighed.
“I really think it would be fine if everyone just told us things more clearly.”
Just then, a building collapsed with a deafening crash.
There stood a single dog with a bright red rope wrapped around its body.
The creature was corroding everything around it just by passing by.
Even as its own body was decaying, the monster approached them nonchalantly.
Goosebumps erupted all over Song Se-hee’s body.
The aura of the dimensional entity before her was no ordinary foe; even at her level, she could feel the danger.
[ She says it is a nameless god. ]
At that moment, Juksim lightly leaped off Song Se-hee’s back.
As she walked forward, her form shifted into that of an adult astrologer.
“I’ll handle this. You find it.”
Hearing her short command, Song Se-hee nodded.
Juksim was the expert on the Divine Realm.
It was best to leave this to her and find the gate as quickly as possible.
“I’m counting on you.”
Seeing Juksim nod, Song Se-hee immediately turned and started running.
According to Juksim, the gate was definitely here.
‘She said it was concealed with a divine artifact.’
With so many dimensional entities from the Divine Realm pouring out, each possessing their own divine artifacts, finding the traces of a gate hidden by one would not be easy.
‘In that case, I should try another way.’
Song Se-hee took out two talismans.
One was green, the other yellow. They began to burn away in her palm with blue sparks.
The burning talismans immediately became a single red dot.
The dot split into hundreds of points, divining the surrounding area, and soon relayed a piece of information to Song Se-hee.
It was the divine artifact most similar to the one Erebos possessed.
‘This way.’
Song Se-hee quickly turned her head and kicked off the ground, breaking into a sprint.
She headed for an underground parking garage.
Seeing that it was submerged in water that had poured in, Song Se-hee jumped into the water without hesitation.
Splash!
Submerging herself, she used her spiritual energy to see clearly underwater and began to move forward.
After a while, she began to see something pitch-black in the distance.
Etched beneath one of the garage’s pillars like a black hole, it was undoubtedly a dimensional gate.
‘Found it.’
The moment she saw it, Song Se-hee kicked her legs and began to swim through the water.
She held several talismans in her hand, intending to seal the gate immediately.
She was just about to reach it.
Suddenly, a faint light leaked from the black portal.
Seeing this, Song Se-hee tried to seal it even faster, but at that moment, a single blue arm shot out of the gate.
“Ugh.”
Realizing she was too late, Song Se-hee quickly changed the nature of the talismans.
The element was electricity.
After using a defensive talisman on herself, she threw the offensive one at the arm.
Bzzzzzzzzzt!
A blue flash erupted, and the entire body of water was electrocuted.
Song Se-hee didn’t stop there. Holding her staff, which was adorned with talismans, she immediately drew her next one.
Kwoong!
“Heuk!”
It happened in an instant.
She was suddenly caught in a swirling vortex and thrown against a pillar.
As her head spun from the unexpectedly strong impact, she hastily dodged a fist flying toward her.
Craaash!
The pillar behind her crumbled, and her vision in the water became murky.
As Song Se-hee tried to escape the water, she realized that instead of moving forward, her body was being sucked somewhere.
Gurgle—
As bubbles escaped her lips, Song Se-hee looked behind her and saw a fishman with deep blue skin creating a current.
Its head was clearly that of a fish, but the bright red pupils glowing in its eyes indicated its intelligence.
There was no doubt.
This creature was also one of the gods of the Divine Realm.
Juksim had told her that there were countless nameless gods in the Divine Realm, and that most of the gods who had crossed over were such beings.
They intended to establish themselves here on Earth to reclaim their names.
And the simplest way to gain a name was to make a name for oneself by taking living beings as sacrifices.
All the destruction caused by the dimensional entities from the Divine Realm was for that purpose.
Even an evil god was still a god.
The moment they obtained a name, their divinity would rise instantly, which was why these nameless gods were rampaging so fiercely.
And Erebos was using his own divine abilities to subtly incite them even further.
“Girik, giririk.”
As the nameless fishman god let out a sinister laugh, Song Se-hee’s face twisted in disgust.
“Fuck, can you stop smiling like that? It’s pissing me off.”
Since that laugh clearly held no good intentions, Song Se-hee spat out a curse and immediately changed her stance.
If that thing had no intention of letting her go, then she would just have to kill it and destroy the gate.