Chapter 342
Chapter 342
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 342
Chapter Title: Black Sky (6)
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“Huh, Sister? Why are you here…?”
Isabella's eyes widened at Cassia's sudden appearance.
Watching the flustered Isabella, Cassia covered her mouth and chuckled.
“It's been a while, my dear Bella?”
“…I asked why you're here.”
Her gaze, sharp as a whetted blade, was fixed on Cassia.
Cassia shrugged and answered slyly.
“Why else? I'm here to help my husband, of course.”
“H-Husband…?”
Isabella whipped her head toward Oh-jin and ground her teeth.
He said nothing happened…!
An indescribable sense of betrayal welled up inside her.
“Hah. Do you really want to joke around in a situation like this?”
Oh-jin sighed and shook his head.
Cassia playfully stuck out her long, snake-like tongue and burst into laughter.
“A-A joke?”
“Teasing our Bella is always fun.”
“Sister…!”
Isabella glared fiercely at Cassia.
Why had her kind and gentle sister become like this?
“We don't have time for this.”
There was no time to leisurely watch Isabella and Cassia's war of nerves.
“Explanations later. Let's destroy the cores first.”
“…Yes, Mr. Oh-jin.”
“Understood.”
Isabella and Cassia, who had been growling at each other as if ready to tear one another apart, finally set aside their rivalry and turned toward their assigned cores.
[Hmm. There is much I wish to ask you, but for now, I shall hold my tongue.]
She had a mountain of questions, like why the Queen of Ophiuchus, the de facto leader of the Black Star Organization, was helping Oh-jin.
But as Oh-jin had said, there was no time to focus on anything else.
[I shall continue to mark the locations of the cores for you!]
Marks made of blue lightning appeared on the massive magic circle that spanned several kilometers.
Oh-jin nodded and turned toward the core he was assigned to.
He kicked off the ground toward the magic circle's core and shouted.
“Let's go!”
“Yes, Mr. Oh-jin!”
“Leave it to me.”
Oh-jin, Isabella, and Cassia kicked off toward their respective cores.
“Stop them!”
“We can't let them interfere with the ritual!”
The demonoids rushed out in a horde to block their path.
“Move.”
Without slowing down, he ran and thrust his spear.
It pierced through the chest of a demonoid blocking his way, the tip emerging from its back.
He flung the skewered corpse at the group of demonoids following behind.
“You're not getting away!”
Fwoooosh!
A demonoid that incinerated the flying corpse mid-air with black flames pursued Oh-jin closely.
Just as its hand, blazing with black flames, was about to touch Oh-jin's back.
Thwip!
Oh-jin fired his wire shooter and soared high into the air.
Suddenly left grasping at nothing, the demonoid reached its arm toward the airborne Oh-jin.
“Shoot him down with black flames!”
The pursuing demonoids simultaneously fired black flames.
Crackle!
Using Lightning Step in mid-air, Oh-jin zigzagged to dodge the volley of black flames.
“Kugh!”
“After him!”
The demonoids chased after him in a swarm, relentlessly firing flames.
‘This isn't good.’
Dodging the flames shot from below, Oh-jin frowned.
Lightning Step was an incredible skill that allowed him to move freely by creating footholds of lightning in mid-air, but it had the drawback of not being usable for long periods consecutively.
Furthermore, using it to make sharp turns instead of moving in a straight line shortened its duration even more.
Fwoooosh!
“Ugh!”
Just as the duration of Lightning Step was reaching its limit, a ball of black flame flying from behind struck Oh-jin's back.
He barely managed to create a wall of lightning to protect his back, but it couldn't completely nullify the impact.
“He's falling!”
Oh-jin plummeted toward the ground.
Even while falling, Oh-jin used his wire shooters on the pillars on both sides to reduce the impact, and as soon as he landed, he immediately dashed toward the core.
However.
‘There are too many of them.’
Before he knew it, demonoids were swarming him from all sides, completely surrounding him.
Fortunately, there were no 'Grand Duke'-class demonoids like Deimos among them, but it was still impossible to break through with brute force.
As Oh-jin anxiously chewed his lip.
Fwoooooooosh!
Suddenly, a massive dragon made of red flames appeared and incinerated the demonoids blocking Oh-jin's path.
“Aaaaaargh!”
Desperate screams erupted amidst acrid smoke.
He didn't even need to turn around to know who had fired the massive fire dragon at the demonoids.
“Oh-jin, now!”
“Thanks!”
The brief opening Ha-eun had created.
Oh-jin lowered his body like a sprinter preparing for a 100-meter dash, extending one leg far behind him.
‘Lightning Body.’
His legs transformed into blue lightning, and mana surged throughout his body.
When the condensed lightning reached its peak.
KRA-BOOOOOOM!
With a massive roar, Oh-jin's body shot forward like a cannonball.
“Kugh!”
A speed that even Oh-jin found hard to control.
The speed, far surpassing human limits, created a sonic boom, and the wind whipped around him.
He momentarily lost his sense of direction, but activating the Stigma of Pyxis allowed him to find the correct path even amidst the confusion.
He broke through the demonoids' encirclement and reached the core Vega had mentioned.
The core of the magic circle was a Stigma Stone the size of a basketball.
Complex formulas were engraved on the surface of the Stigma Stone, and immense mana radiated from it.
“Hah, hah!”
Having reached the core, Oh-jin panted heavily and turned his head.
The magic circle was so vast that he couldn't see Isabella or Cassia.
“Vega!”
[They've all arrived!]
Vega, who had flown high into the air to observe the situation from above, relayed the information.
[I shall give you the timing!]
“Got it!”
Oh-jin aimed his spear at the magic circle's core.
Crackle!
Lightning condensed at the tip of his spear.
[Three!]
He steadied his breath.
He focused all his body's mana into the spear's tip.
[Two!]
He raised the spear, gripped in both hands, high.
There would be no second chance.
He had to shatter the core in one go.
[One!]
CR-CR-CRACKLE!
The spear and the core collided.
He braced himself for a massive impact and squeezed his eyes shut, but.
Crumble.
It was too easy, almost anticlimactically simple.
The basketball-sized core crumbled to pieces.
“…What?”
Oh-jin looked down at the shattered fragments of the core and frowned.
Something was wrong.
An ominous feeling shot down his spine.
‘The magic circle… has stopped.’
Did Isabella and Cassia succeed in destroying their cores too?
The magic circle had ceased to operate.
No, it wasn't just the magic circle that had stopped.
“Wh-What? Why did they suddenly stop?”
“What did you do, brat?”
The demonoids fighting against the beastmen and dragonians had frozen in place like machines that had been powered off.
[Did we… succeed?]
Vega, who had been floating in the air, descended.
Oh-jin walked past the mannequin-like demonoids and returned to his original spot.
“Mr. Oh-jin!”
Isabella spotted Oh-jin and came running over.
“Did we… really succeed?”
Had she also sensed that something was off?
Even though the magic circle had disappeared and the demonoids had stopped moving, she was frowning and looking around as if something was strange.
“……”
Silence descended upon the ritual site.
The battlefield, which had been the stage for a fierce struggle just moments ago, was now as quiet as a movie theater before the film starts.
“Ah, the dark clouds…”
The black storm clouds that had covered the area began to gradually disperse.
Bright sunlight shone down from the sky where the clouds had vanished.
“Ugh, it's so bright.”
Ha-eun squinted and approached Oh-jin.
“You did it, my Oh-jin! I knew you could!”
Ha-eun beamed, patting Oh-jin's back.
Certainly, considering the situation—they had stopped the ritual and, for some unknown reason, neutralized the demonoids—it was a cause for celebration.
‘It's strange.’
It was resolved too easily.
Oh-jin looked around with a tense expression.
He saw Cassia standing blankly, staring up at the clear sky.
“Cassia?”
“……”
Cassia's body, which had been blankly staring at the sky, began to tremble slightly.
“Why? W-We definitely stopped it. But why…?”
Cassia trembled, her face pale.
Oh-jin grabbed the shoulders of the woman who was muttering as if she'd lost her mind.
“What's wrong?”
“I-I can hear it.”
Hear what?
“Th-The Heavenly Demon's voice… It's… been there since before.”
Just then.
Ruuuuuumble!!
The ground shook as if in an earthquake.
The earth at the center of the great triangle split open, and black storm clouds erupted like a volcano.
As if.
To swallow the sky itself.
“What the hell is this…”
Oh-jin watched the surging black clouds, his expression hardening.
The sky, which had been bathed in bright sunlight, was instantly being covered by the surging black storm clouds.
‘I destroyed the magic circle, so why?’
His mind was in turmoil.
He couldn't understand what was happening.
“…Dammit!”
There was no time to figure out the situation.
“Run!”
Ruuuumble!
The black storm clouds covering the sky began to pour down like a giant tidal wave.
“O-Oh-jin, what in the world is going on…”
“I don't know either, so just run!”
Oh-jin scooped up Cassia, who was covering her ears with a pale face, and kicked off the ground.
A tidal wave of black storm clouds was rapidly closing in on Oh-jin's group, like a tsunami.
“Aaaaaargh! H-Help me!”
“What is this!”
The beastmen and dragonian warriors who couldn't escape the tide of black clouds were swallowed up, screaming.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!”
Running while carrying Cassia, Oh-jin cursed.
‘Where did I go wrong?’
To anyone, the magic circle was clearly the key to undoing the Heavenly Demon's seal.
When he tried to destroy the core, didn't the demonoids desperately try to stop him?
That meant the demonoids also believed the 'magic circle' was the crucial key to releasing the Heavenly Demon.
If that's the case.
Then what in the world are those black clouds?
‘Was there a separate device for breaking the seal?’
No, that's impossible.
‘To break the restrictions of the Law, you need an immense amount of power. It's impossible to break them without any energy leaking out.’
Oh-jin himself, who had once used Heaven's Opening to break the chains sealing Vega, knew this better than anyone.
It was impossible to break the restrictions of the Law in such an open space, secretly, without letting any energy escape.
‘Then how on earth…!’
A single thought flashed through Oh-jin's mind as his face contorted fiercely.
“Ah.”
He stopped.
Oh-jin, who had been running, came to a halt.
“No way…”
Oh-jin's face turned deathly pale.
If the Heavenly Demon's voice could still be heard and the black clouds were starting to cover the sky even after they stopped the ritual.
There was only one possible answer.
“That… son of a bitch!”
The Heavenly Demon.
Was never 'sealed' in the first place.