Chapter 335
Chapter 335
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 335
Chapter Title: Shadows of the Abyss
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The air grew chilly.
It wasn't just the temperature.
The atmosphere itself had cooled off completely.
It was all because of Si-woo's question.
He had asked who the newbie was. And he had directed it straight at the Red Tower's Tower Lord.
His follow-up words showed no less disregard.
"I can tell it's you just by looking. Your hair's bright red and everything. Come to think of it, you used to be the Vice Tower Lord back in the day, right?"
When had she ever heard such words?
But Naila couldn't flare up like she usually would.
"Kim Si-woo."
A player who wielded ice manipulation skills.
Naila had faced him multiple times in the past, during inter-clan clashes.
What kind of humiliations had she suffered each time?
Her flames would lose their heat, and more often than not, she'd awaken trapped in ice after the clashes had already ended.
She couldn't even begin to describe the humiliation. And now, Si-woo didn't even seem to properly remember her.
That was how vast the gap between them truly was.
Of course.
'Things are different now from back then.'
The moment she laid eyes on him, Naila realized who the other two people with him were.
At first, she had assumed they were just comrades that Hailz had secretly brought along.
Naila's gaze shifted to Soo-hyuk.
'So it really was lightning.'
The power that shattered the Demon King's demonic energy and her own magic.
She had felt a familiar sensation somewhere, and sure enough, it was lightning.
In this modern era, there was only one player who wielded lightning. The streamer Lee Soo-hyuk.
And the identity of the woman with Lee Soo-hyuk and Kim Si-woo was obvious.
"What on earth is your reason for kidnapping children?"
Si-woo blinked vacantly at Naila's question, like a fool, before asking,
"What did she just say?"
"Why did you kidnap the children?"
"I heard that right."
Si-woo, who had been staring blankly for a moment, soon burst into laughter. He was the kind of man who could laugh leisurely even with dozens of mages aiming their staves at him.
"Go ahead and try overwhelming me. See if you can."
"Are you denying the charges?"
"You'll pay for your crimes very, very coldly."
"Has-beens who vanished for over twenty years sure talk big."
Si-woo, glaring at Naila with cold eyes, spoke to the two others.
"You guys okay?"
Naila was saying she would handle him herself.
But Si-woo was the first to step forward. He had noticed that ever since they arrived, Soo-hyuk's eyes had been fixed on Merxian.
"Leave the Black Tower Lord alive."
Soo-hyuk looked at Si-woo, his expression asking why. Si-woo replied,
"Why? Got a problem? Weren't you just agonizing over whether to kill him or not?"
"I've decided to kill him."
"Still, spare him. He might be useful to us."
Soo-hyuk pondered for a moment before nodding.
"If the situation allows."
He couldn't promise unconditionally. Merxian wasn't the type of opponent to let him.
Merxian, who could be foe or ally, was now standing before them as an enemy.
Merxian, who had been locking eyes with him for a while, moved his staff.
Thud-.
Whoosh-.
As Merxian's staff lightly tapped the ground, a pitch-black space formed around him.
The black space began expanding rapidly, swallowing everything nearby. Startled, Naila and the mages hurriedly distanced themselves from Merxian.
Before long, the black space had expanded all the way to where Soo-hyuk and the other two stood.
Si-woo and Ye-ryeong quickly dodged aside. Fortunately, Merxian's magic wasn't so fast that it couldn't be avoided.
"What the hell is this?"
"These black mages really have all sorts of weird spells..."
Ye-ryeong, mid-sentence, suddenly shouted in surprise.
"Hey, Lee Soo-hyuk!"
Soo-hyuk hadn't dodged. He stood there motionless. There was no way he hadn't reacted; he was deliberately waiting.
Waiting until that darkness fully engulfed him.
"Argh, seriously!"
Seeing this, Ye-ryeong tried to rush toward Soo-hyuk again.
"If he needed us, he would've said to come along."
Si-woo held her back.
"But he didn't. So leave him be."
Ye-ryeong's feet, which had been about to spring forward, came to a halt. Her shoulders twitched a few times, as if she were still debating whether to go or not.
By now, Soo-hyuk had been completely swallowed by the darkness.
And the darkness grew even larger. It devoured the collapsed Black Tower entirely and filled the center of the city before finally stopping its expansion.
Si-woo and Ye-ryeong watched the black space that had pulled Soo-hyuk in from a distance.
What kind of place was inside there? A realm of death that stripped life from all who entered?
Ye-ryeong forcibly turned her head away, thinking,
'Don't think useless thoughts.'
The Red Tower and Black Tower mages, who had scattered to evade Merxian's magic, began regrouping around them.
Si-woo glared at them coldly, drawing his spear and gripping it. Ye-ryeong naturally slipped into his shadow.
Naila, who had called the two of them has-beens, probably had no idea.
She had no clue how perfectly in sync they were after twenty years apart.
The darkness inside wasn't pitch black. If anything, it was bright.
Within the darkness created by Merxian, Soo-hyuk found himself in a familiar place.
The orphanage where he had first met Merxian.
"You knew I was here, that's why you came."
Merxian's voice came from behind Soo-hyuk.
"How did you know?"
"There was a time when I debated killing you or not."
Long ago, before Soo-hyuk's reincarnation.
The first time he learned of the Abyss and set foot there.
Soo-hyuk had gone looking for Merxian after hearing that a black mage named Merxian had taken over the Black Tower.
He had thought the Black Tower growing in power wasn't a good thing.
But.
"Once I realized you were here, I just turned back."
This orphanage was truly ancient. It had been 25 years already, so the children here back then would all be adults now.
Soo-hyuk turned around. Behind him, Merxian was gazing up at the orphanage alongside him.
"Where are those kids from back then now?"
As Soo-hyuk asked, his mind flashed to the countless skulls piled before the iron bars where the Demon King slumbered.
Were any of those skulls the children he had seen back then?
At that thought, Merxian's face before him looked like a demon's.
Because it meant he had raised children he fed daily—sometimes even changing their diapers—to be fodder shoved into the Demon King's maw.
"To resurrect the Fourth Demon King, I needed lifespan. The longer-lived the life, the greater the nourishment."
"Why do you need the Demon King?"
Naila had used the Demon King to kill Hailz and claim the title of Grand Mage. She had a clear purpose.
So what did Merxian want to do by resurrecting the Fourth Demon King?
"You really think that thing will grant what you want?"
Soo-hyuk no longer spoke respectfully to Merxian.
An adult who cared for and taught children might deserve respect, but not one who fed those children to the Demon King as food.
"We don't need it. The Red Tower and its Tower Lord do."
"Then why?"
"We needed to make money."
"Money?"
It was an answer he hadn't expected at all.
In an instant, the orphanage vanished, and the scenery around them changed.
Rundown buildings and parched earth. Starving, listless people.
Soo-hyuk and Merxian now stood in the middle of what was no different from a land of death.
"The Abyss is a barren place. No crops grow, and there are no resources to export."
Thud-.
A child collapsed in the middle of the street. It was so commonplace that no one paid the child any mind.
"Children born into poverty learn theft, and as their bodies grow, they learn pillaging. The world calls their struggles to survive 'evil.'"
On another side, children were robbing an adult.
Some wielded clubs, others rusted blades.
"Do you know where this is?"
Not expecting an answer, Merxian smiled bitterly and continued right away.
"It's where we were standing just moments ago."
"Here?"
At those words, Soo-hyuk looked around in surprise.
Crumbling dilapidated buildings and people on the verge of death. Compared to them, the current Abyss was far more livable.
It wasn't prosperous, but there weren't many starving to death.
Unlike this desolate scene, there were now restaurants and merchants buying and selling goods.
"Do you know? Over half the residents of the Abyss are involved in crimes like drugs, gambling, illegal scrolls, and human trafficking. And at the center of it all is the Black Tower—and at its heart, me."
It wasn't surprising. Just walking the streets here, you encountered knife-wielding thugs as casually as breathing.
The people here had no concepts of good or justice.
This was a place where you survived only by being like that. It had always been that way, and Merxian had made it so.
"The Abyss is overrun with those eyeing my position. Those specific ambitions become the driving force that makes the Abyss a better place to live."
In the end, the Abyss had changed according to his will.
The once-barren land had become far more livable. Even bad deeds created jobs in the Abyss.
Soo-hyuk now understood why Merxian had joined hands with the Red Tower.
"In exchange for helping the Red Tower, they covered for you."
"Bad deeds inevitably invite the judgment of justice, don't they? It's a form of insurance."
A crime city this massive should have been purged long ago. Especially the scrolls made with black magic, which white mages considered absolute taboo.
Yet the Red Tower had turned a blind eye to the existence of the Abyss and the Black Tower.
The reason was obvious.
Where did all the money earned from this massive criminal city called the Abyss go?
There was a group covering for them.
If Blue Zone was among them, it even made sense how they had rapidly expanded their power with funding.
"Exactly this bad of a guy..."
Soo-hyuk recalled what he had said at their first meeting.
That he was really only this bad, but he tried to look even worse. And that it was more tiring than it seemed.
Soo-hyuk now understood why Merxian had said that back then.
He chose any means necessary for his goals. The difference from typical villains was that his goals weren't for himself.
Naila, who resurrected the Demon King to become Red Tower Lord and now Grand Mage.
And Merxian, who used the Demon King for the Abyss's safety and to eradicate poverty.
Their reasons were completely different, but in the end, the two were walking the same path.
"No. You're just a bad guy. Even saying 'only this bad' is too generous."
"Is that so?"
"Just because you're on the same path doesn't mean you'll reach the same destination. Opportunities to turn back come to everyone."
They just ignore them because it's difficult and inconvenient.
Thump-.
Soo-hyuk's heart pounded.
His heartbeat signaled the start of battle.
In that instant, the Abyss residents who had been slumped on the ground like the dead all turned to Soo-hyuk in unison, as if on cue. The hollow-eyed residents staggered to their feet.
This was no mere illusion. Merxian's magic had already begun.
"You asked how I knew you were here?"
Gazing at the zombie-like Abyss residents approaching, Soo-hyuk's eyes gleamed.
"I'll engrave the answer into that body of yours from now on."