The kingdom was in a state of crisis.

An anomaly that began in the north had accelerated the planned invasion.

A phenomenon that turned the kingdom to ash began pushing south from the north.

The premature assault was faltering, and the pulsation from the north dealt a critical blow to the kingdom.

The kingdom turned to ashes.

The kingdom, built with numerous gathered resources, was collapsing.

The precious soldiers accumulated over ten years were reduced to ashes in an instant.

A decade of perseverance vanished in a moment.

Thus, the foundation for world domination crumbled.

As the area grinding the kingdom to dust expanded, there was a need to hasten the move south.

However, the soldiers on the ground could not advance, and the kingdom’s camouflage was peeled away by the pulsation, exposing its entrance.

In the end, they had no choice but to abandon the royal castle and rush south.

‘!’

While moving the soldiers and preparing for migration, an intrusion was detected inside the kingdom.

An invader.

How long had it been since the kingdom was exposed, and there was already an intruder?

The intruder was generally gray in color and casually walked into the kingdom without much attention.

Unfortunately for the intruder, the kingdom had no time to spare right now.

The kingdom’s soldiers, who had no time for mercy, began to move swiftly to eliminate the intruder.

A gaping hole led underground.

It was a cave where ice and metal were tangled in a chaotic mix, creating an eerie atmosphere.

On the floor and walls of the cave, metallic dust clung in patterns.

Judging by the way the iron filings stuck, the cave walls seemed to be powerful magnets.

And, occasionally, lightning flashed inside the cave, suggesting high-voltage currents were flowing.

The height was about 1.2 meters, just enough to walk comfortably.

A cave with high-voltage currents and a height of barely 1.2 meters? How could humans possibly explore this?

Not that it mattered to me.

As I ventured deeper underground, a massive chamber where multiple passageways converged appeared.

And there, a large number of ice spiders awaited.

They clung to the walls and ceiling without discrimination, seemingly taking full advantage of the magnetic cave walls.

Unlike the large soldiers wandering outside, they were not humanoid and were small, standing barely a meter tall.

Given the low height of the underground tunnels, they had no choice.

But no matter how many of those ice spiders there were, they didn’t pose much of a threat.

They weren’t Objects.

I read the conditions for their simultaneous destruction with my eyes.

If it wasn’t an Object, destruction was easy.

The gray intruder picked up a piece of ice from the ground.

Ice shards against soldiers clad in steel bodies and ice armor?

‘What do they plan to do with an ice shard?’

The intruder clenched their fist tightly and tapped the wall three times—knock, knock, knock.

Then they tossed the ice shard lightly into the air.

Before the ice shard could fall, the intruder swiftly performed a handstand and kicked their legs, sending the ice shard slowly flying into the center of the clearing.

It was such a slow projectile that it could hardly be considered an attack.

The ice shard lightly nudged a piece of metal lying in the middle of the clearing.

The metal fragment seemed to be the remains of a soldier affected by the pulsation from the north.

One of the ice spiders moved to block the rolling metal piece.

‘Is this all?’

It was an opponent that made me wonder if it was even worth paying attention to. If this was all they could do, there was no need to worry.

But then, the situation changed completely as a powerful discharge struck the metal orb in the clearing.

The metal orb exploded like a grenade, sending the spiders flying and tumbling in a heap.

Fragments from the orb scattered across the clearing, some of them striking places the intruder had touched with their fist.

A massive crack began from the point of contact, cutting across the clearing and triggering another explosion.

The high-voltage current flowing through the tunnel was the problem.

Normally, the tunnel wouldn’t collapse from this level of shock.

But the massive accumulation of shock from the pulsation, the countless metal dust and fragments from the north, and the seemingly meaningless actions of the intruder—all converged at just the right moment.

This chain reaction destroyed all the kingdom’s soldiers gathered in the clearing.

The sound of collapsing tunnels echoed underground.

‘…’

The intruder possessed extraordinary abilities.

What kind of power was this? The ability to manipulate probability at will?

Whatever power they had, they were undoubtedly a formidable force.

The current strength of the kingdom couldn’t match them.

But even a strong opponent could be dealt with in their own way.

By giving them a false victory.

If the true core was hidden and they were deceived into thinking they had won, it would be enough.

Preparations to welcome the strong intruder in the heart of the kingdom began.

After effortlessly clearing out the enemies with a single ice shard, I brushed the dust off my hands and surveyed the collapsed clearing.

The few surviving spiders were creaking as they fled in all directions.

Seeing spiders similar to the soldiers outside made one thing certain.

‘The Object that created the Ice Throne in Dobong-gu is in this cave.’

With a lively sound of footsteps, I set out to find the Ice Throne of Dobong-gu.

Following the path where the soldiers had fled led me to a massive clearing.

Ice soldiers were lined up like vassals, and the space was lit by artificial light from the ceiling.

The patterns carved into the pillars and walls somehow exuded a sense of sacredness, akin to that of a temple.

It was an awe-inspiring space.

At the far end of this space was the enormous Ice Throne, upon which sat a being clad entirely in black steel.

To put it simply, it was armor that exuded a regal atmosphere.

The floating pieces of metal decorating the air in this large room added to its mysterious ambiance.

The armor standing from the throne gripped a massive mace and began advancing with heavy, echoing footsteps.

It was a powerful and impressive entrance, but I wasn’t interested.

I only searched for what I needed to find, turning my head this way and that.

After all, that armor wasn’t an Object.

It was nothing more than an oversized, fancy ice soldier.

I broke the mace with a ghostly strike and focused on finding the Object, ignoring the nuisance of the armor.

The Object was found in an unexpected place.

It was on a table next to the throne.

On the table floated numerous metal pieces, among which one was the Object.

Disk-shaped metal pieces floated like superconductors on magnets.

Among the pieces arranged like decorations, one was hiding the Object.

A superconducting frog.

It was a frog with a metallic sheen, hovering motionless, flattened as if frozen in place.

‘Why? Why a frog?’

Was this what had destroyed Dobong-gu and thrown Korea into terror?

A frog with such a simple destruction condition.

[It dies if any part of its body is damaged.]

I had expected something stronger, maybe not on the level of Agu, but still formidable, so I felt a bit deflated.

Realizing I had identified it, the superconducting frog began to attack, emitting cold and electricity wildly.

But physical attacks couldn’t harm me.

As I contemplated what to do with this peculiar creature, I picked up the frog in one hand.

But as soon as the superconducting frog was in my grasp, it crumbled.

Though it looked like steel, it was as weak as wet tissue in my hand.

It was a monster.

The soldiers thrown as bait couldn’t even slow it down.

Even my perfect concealment was easily seen through.

The ruthless monster held my core in one hand, a playful smile on its face.

I didn’t give up until the very end, but the pressure from the monster’s grip gradually increased.

‘Is this the end for me?’

Is this how my eternal kingdom ends?

With a crunching sound, something shattered, and my consciousness sank into endless darkness.

‘Ahead… there is only darkness…’

When the frog shattered, all the soldiers gathered in the plaza collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.

The invader of Dobong-gu was finally dead.

If I had lungs, it would have been a situation to take a deep breath and feel a sense of relief.

So relieved, in fact, that my body began to float up.

‘????’

Upon killing the superconducting frog, I became the superconducting reaper.

The magnetic-filled cave allowed me to float around as if swimming through space, making it quite a fun ability.

If it had been an ability that couldn’t be turned off, like the scent of a pig statue, it might have been inconvenient, but fortunately, that wasn’t the case.

As I floated around the cave, an idea struck me.

Should I ask Sehee Research Institute to make me one of these?

The enjoyable space-floating play had to be stopped abruptly due to a sudden earthquake.

The pulsation of the Iron Tower had resumed.

With the frog’s death, the entire anthill-like network of tunnels began collapsing under the pressure of the Iron Tower’s pulsation.

I ascended to the surface to avoid the collapse and stood atop the melting Ice Throne.

Looking down from about 20 meters up on the ice, Seoul seemed chaotic.

The tidal wave threatening Seoul.

The crumbling civilization.

It was a threat far greater than the Ice Throne of Dobong-gu. It was the Iron Tower.