EP.190

The newly woven magic fell with a brilliant trajectory. Boom! A dry explosion echoed, accompanied by a shout.

“Evacuate! Damn it, Isser has been hit!! Abandon it, give up!!”

Life scattered like snowflakes. On the way to the Eternal Palace.

Despite this, Ivan did not look away. His gaze was fixed straight ahead as he checked his condition, monitored his mana, and assessed the functions of his muscles, bones, and nerves while walking.

“I… I can’t…”

Lucia’s cautious voice could be heard. However, Ivan shook his head.

“Do not divert your gaze. Focus on one thing.”

“But…”

“The battlefield we must fight on always takes this shape.”

The magic erupted without warning. Flames, cold, lightning, explosions, telekinesis, mind control, and hallucinations… all types of magic that elves could wield, in all directions.

Appearing out of thin air without any prior preparation, each time taking several lives.

While dealing with such spells, they had to dodge the huge branches occasionally crashing from the sky. Each one was as massive as a building, rendering this threat even more deadly.

Yet both the elves and the cleanup unit agents fought through gritted teeth, never fleeing, even when comrades rolled across the frozen ground beside them.

– Look here.

The seven hundred or so present at this place fought solely with that thought in mind.

– Look at me.

Not the Hero Party coming towards you. Look at us, who could disappear at any moment from just a slight touch.

This is a kind of diversion operation. To draw attention by sacrificing troops and to allow the so-called Hero Party to strike.

Ivan, who had always carried out this operation during his military service, knew that he must move without haste.

Losing the one opportunity they had created because of impatience would be something he could never forgive himself for.

– Kwaaaaang—!!

On the path to the Eternal Palace, a collapsed building exploded, sending something flying towards them.

Turning his gaze to where it landed, he recognized a familiar face.

Ivan remembered the names of all the agents present. The ‘fragment’ that fell beside him was once the sole survivor of the 3rd Strike Team.

However.

“Do not mourn for those who have departed first.”

He bit his lip and once again resumed walking with the same stride and emotions as before.

The best tribute is to lay flowers after the victory.

I will remember you. All of you.

Ivan moved forward with a cold, hardened expression. The Eternal Palace was now revealing itself.

Beyond the distant swirling snow, the massive tree shrouded in a veil of red auroras appeared.

Each branch was comparable to the spires near the Eternal Palace. A gigantic tree, composed of maggots and leeches—tiny magical beasts—cast its shadow on them.

“What do we do… where do we start… uh…”

In response to Rundis’s bewildered voice, Ivan replied shortly.

“Straight to the heart.”

There was no need to be overwhelmed by the exterior’s majesty. The heart of that thing was the milestone located within the Eternal Palace, and everything else was secondary.

Even at this moment, the soldiers constantly challenging it were relieving the external pressure. The massive body, endless magical beasts, and the magic erupting sporadically, all of it.

The battlefield of the hero party is not a place like that.

When allies are engaged in a war of attrition, before all of them are literally ‘worn out’ at the end of that fight, cutting out the enemy’s core.

A dagger. And the dagger does not need to be overwhelmed by the enemy’s size and abilities. Timing it perfectly and landing a precise strike is all that is necessary.

“Lucia, Rundis.”

“Yes!”

“Carry Elpheira and Oswald. From now on, I will run.”

Clicking into place, he checked his weapon one last time. Axe, pistol, dagger, explosives, and various potions.

Quickly confirming the state of his arms, Ivan clicked the cylinder of the pistol and loaded a bullet as he spoke.

“Combat ready.”

*

The path to the courtyard of the Eternal Palace where the milestone was located was already familiar. Ivan moved forward without delay.

The interior of the palace was filled with branches and magical beasts.

The corridors of the palace, contaminated by the otherworldly mana, twisted and turned. Illusions projected the blocked walls like a path, while the opened routes hid themselves as walls.

Some of the magical beasts charging at intervals were illusions, while others would suddenly leap out from nowhere, biting down with their jaws.

However.

‘182.’

-Kaang!!

The axe swung by Ivan cleanly cleaved the charging magical beast in half. He wiped the splattered bodily fluids off his hand and took another step forward.

‘183.’

He was counting each step, memorizing every single one.

The basic training of a Cleanup Unit agent starts with perfecting three habits.

Heart—standardizing the maximum amount of activity that can be accomplished in a single breath.

Body—recognizing the maximum efficiency possible with one’s own physical form.

Step training allows for each footfall to be measured precisely in centimeters without error.

In other words, it treats a person’s body as one of the military assets, training to secure a “catalog specification” of one’s own body.

Although Enrique scoffed and declared it impossible when this concept was first established, Ivan found himself having already internalized this “agent basic training.”

“184.”

Hallucinations, auditory illusions, sudden assaults by magical beasts, complicatedly twisted structures, darkness, blinding light that paralyzes vision, and noise that disrupts balance.

All those obstacles are ultimately external matters. If one is a trained agent and a scout for the Hero Party, one must be able to find a path even in the midst of such circumstances.

“185.”

If one has trained to calculate time in seconds, remember strides in centimeters, and never forget a map seen once or an area traversed once, then surely one can find a way even in the realm of kings that deviates from the rules of this world.

*Swish!!*

Once again slicing off the neck of a magical beast, Ivan took a step forward. The 186th step. The distance remaining to the support was 2318.

“Front!!”

“I’m reloading!!”

“I’ll respond!”

Behind Ivan, the party continued fighting, wielding their weapons vigorously. They were clearing away the magical beasts pouring in from outside the area Ivan had forged a path through.

One magical beast, taking the shape of an elf, lunged at them. When Lucia’s dagger cleanly severed its neck and arms, a creature, reloading in the back, shot an arrow.

A massive shield suddenly unfurled in front of Rundis. The arrow that struck the shield rebounded and transformed back into a magical beast as it fell to the ground.

Rundis staggered back from the impact as Elpheira stretched out her hand.

“Six o’clock, duck!!”

As Lucia hastily ducked, a thunderbolt swept across the front. The electricity that bounced off the magical beasts acted as a bridge and dissipated upon hitting the wall.

What remained was only the putrid corpse of the magical beast, exuding a foul odor.

*Roar!!*

As Elpheira staggered from the discharge, Oswald swung his sword beside her. The attack aimed at Elpheira’s nape was intercepted by Oswald.

“Dieee!!”

With tears of blood streaming down his face, Oswald roughly thrust the staff he held in his other hand into the magical beast’s body. Soon, Baam! A booming explosion shattered the magical beast into pieces.

“Reload complete!! Commence firing!!”

“Ugh!”

As Rundis shouted, Oswald covered his ears and hunched over.

– Kwaaaaaang—!!

With an overwhelming explosion, the magical beasts that crawled in from the side vanished in a single strike. Literally, their forms disappeared above the ankles. The bullets, extending with flames, swept through the magical beasts and pierced the wall of the corridor.

Beyond the pierced wall, the snow-laden sky and shimmering auroras were reflected. The group, shaking their dazed ears, took their steps once more.

Each moment of entering the Eternal Palace, they experienced that process.

‘281.’

Ivan stepped forward at the lead.

*

In the courtyard, not a single tree remained. This ancient forest, created for the eternal rest of countless elves, was merely a low hill now.

On top of the snow-covered hill stood a massive stone pillar, standing alone. Receiving the red auroras, it shot its mana into the sky as if pulsing with a heartbeat.

Thump, thump. With a single pulse, new auroras appeared and faded away. The mana covered the sky like an artery, and amid that, ill omens dribbled down, scattering across the battlefield of Kalion.

Ivan gripped his axe tightly and moved forward. He ascended the hill. The snow crumbled at his feet, and remnants like dried-up roots and branches shattered beneath him.

Beyond that, before the finally revealed milestone.

A woman stood with her back turned.

“Ah, have you come?”

Looking up at the monument, calmly.

“O esteemed one. I have been listening to your voice. Along with the voices of many people. Has there ever been a day like this, when you were truly the ruler of this land?”

The woman’s gesture was imbued with the auroras. Slowly, brighter. And redder. It gathered like sticky blood.

Holding the axe, Ivan nodded slightly.

“Elpheira, stop the milestone. Oswald, assist Elpheira. Lucia and Rundis, support me.”

“It’s a futile endeavor.”

The woman finally turned her back. On her revealed face, Elpheira barely suppressed a scream and released a suffocated moan.

“Oh my….”

The woman had no face. Only a gaping mouth that opened like a leech, lined with saw-like teeth.

However, her hair, attire, tone, and voice were too familiar.

“Indeed.”

Ivan nodded expressionlessly.

“When granting intellect, magic, and divinity to the milestone, one thing was still lacking.”

Among the countless technologies that the elven scholars had researched using the milestone, there was one thing that was missing. Their skills could certainly be deemed as the finest products a race could possess, but there was just one.

The elves originally had no need for this and did not require any research.

However, for the Seven Dragon Lords to be created, or rather, for any being to exist as an ‘intelligent life form,’ there was one essential and indispensable element.

“Consciousness. So, you were the final piece for this guy who had a soul but no spirit.”

“The goddess has descended into your body. Not the power of some trivial artifact, but a true god in the truest sense. Up in the sky—.”

The woman laughed heartily. Ivan took a step forward and aimed his pistol at her.

The woman’s head turned precisely toward Ivan. From her mouth, a cacophony of voices—boys and old men, women and men—mingled in noise, overlapping like the flapping of an insect’s wings.

“You, human. Mortal. The descent of the god has ended, so kneel now and praise the eternal winter to come. Pray with all your wretched soul for your true god.”

With her voice, the group bled. Blood tears flowed from their eyes, and the clotted blood surged out from their lips.

Ivan narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath. Veolgrin was right. The formidable pressure emanating from the woman felt sweet. To the point of discomfort.

The divine power of ‘that.’ Every time those broken fragments scattered through the air, new strength flowed into Ivan’s arms and legs.

“There were many names for the goddess. The curses whispered every time you feared the sky and the seasons are her names. You, mortal. Do you dare oppose the heavens with your own arms?”

“This is not the first time.”

Standing before the writhing group like a breakwater against a tidal wave.

Releasing the pressure and taking another step.

“I have met those who believed themselves to be gods.”

And in the future, he would meet even more ‘gods.’

However, if there is one thing he has experienced, is certain, and can attempt—yes, there has always been only one truth.

“They died.”

Ivan raised his axe, took position, steadied his breath, and concentrated the divine power surging in his arms into a single point.

Toward the sky.

– Shruuuuuu—

He struck.