NOVPUB[Translator - Peptobismol]
[Proofreader - Demon God]
Chapter 335
“Guhk!”
“Haa... Haa...”
More than two thousand people collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
They were the Awakened from the Mana Stone Mine expedition who had fallen into the underground barrier.
Now, every last one of them had escaped and returned to the surface.
“Huff... Huff...”
Old Man Go lay sprawled out, wheezing as though he was on the verge of death.
He had poured all his strength into breaking the barrier—he couldn’t even lift a finger now.
The twin sisters lay on either side of him.
Having supported Old Man Go, they too had exhausted all of their power. As a result, they were completely drained as well.
Seo Tae-ran gave an order to her subordinates.
“Prioritize protecting the Numbers.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Her subordinates responded in unison and surrounded the three of them.
Their bodies, too, were covered in wounds large and small.
One had a gash so deep that their internal organs were visible.
For an ordinary person, such a wound would have been fatal long ago. And yet, despite such injuries, the subordinate showed no sign of pain.
It was as if they lacked the very ability to feel pain that any human should naturally have.
That wasn’t the only strange thing.
The deep wounds they had suffered fighting the Bone Drakes were healing rapidly.
Even the injury that had split open enough to reveal organs had already closed up considerably.
It was a level of regeneration impossible for normal humans.
It was a secret Seo Tae-ran and the City Hall had desperately wanted to keep hidden.
A superhuman unit with such extreme regenerative power was far more valuable when kept secret. But now, with so many witnesses, it was no longer a secret.
That left a bitter taste in Seo Tae-ran’s mouth—but there was no helping it.
The Bone Drakes were not enemies one could face while keeping secrets.
Her subordinates had unleashed their Second-Stage Seals and fought the Bone Drakes head-on—thanks to that, the other Awakened had survived.
The problem was, even after such fierce battles, they hadn’t managed to completely take down the Bone Drakes.
They were monsters that wouldn’t die.
No matter how powerful Seo Tae-ran’s subordinates' regeneration was, it still fell within the limits of living beings. 𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑝𝘶𝘣.𝑐𝘰𝘮
Wounds that exceeded those limits could not be healed—they would worsen and lead to death.
But the Bone Drakes were different.
No matter how much you destroyed them, they came back.
They were undead.
Literally unkillable unless their core was destroyed—they would never truly die or be destroyed.
Seo Tae-ran’s subordinates had struggled to locate the Bone Drake’s core—but ultimately failed to find it.
The only thing left was a drawn-out battle of attrition.
Taking their time to find and destroy the core was the only option left to them.
The same was true for the other Bone Drake that the other strategy leaders had been facing.
Even with all their experience, the team leaders could not locate the hidden core and ran into serious difficulties.
In the end, they gave up trying to defeat the Bone Drakes in a short time and instead focused on preventing them from attacking other Awakened.
No one knew how long they fought.
Several strategy leaders were seriously injured and had to retreat from battle.
That left the remaining fighters in a desperate situation.
That’s when it happened.
Just as the Bone Drakes were gaining the upper hand against the strategy leaders and Seo Tae-ran’s subordinates, they suddenly lost all life and crumbled to pieces.
Shattered into large skeletal fragments, the Bone Drakes never moved again.
“What the hell? We didn’t even destroy the core.”
“Could it be... the Sand Mage killed the necromancer?”
This happened right after Zeon had sealed off the Bone Hydra with his sand wall.
Naturally, everyone assumed as much.
Even undead with infinite regeneration would lose all incoming mana and collapse the moment their necromancer died.
It was exactly then that the barrier had been lifted.
“Everyone out!”
At Old Man Go’s shout, the exhausted people didn’t hesitate—they fled the underground.
And now, this was the result.
Two thousand three hundred Awakened lay sprawled out on the ground, panting for air.
Not a soul had ever been so grateful for the scorching sun that beat down on their skin.
“Shit... We actually got out of that hellhole.”
“Haa... Haa... If I ever go underground again, I’m not human—I’m a damn monster.”
“Never thought I’d be this happy to see sunlight again.”
Most people lay on their backs, basking in the blazing sun. But not Levin and Brielle.
“Why hasn’t he come out?”
“Don’t tell me something happened to him...?”
Their faces were filled with worry.
That’s when Eloy spoke to them.
“You’re worried about him right now? Don’t be. He’s the kind of guy who’d claw his way out of hell itself. You’re not telling me you’ve lost faith in him, right?”
“Who said anything about losing faith?”
“We’re just worried, that’s all.”
As the two flared up, Eloy grinned.
“Exactly, little brats. That’s why you just need to believe. You can worry about everyone else—but not that guy.”
Still holding onto the crazed fox spirit, Eloy looked up at the sky.
Like the others, she was taking a moment to enjoy the sun.
And then it happened.
KWAHHH!
Far beyond the horizon, the sky suddenly darkened—and a storm began to swirl.
It was a phenomenon often referred to as a dragon's ascent.
A sandstorm spiraled up from the earth, rising toward the sky like a dragon ascending to the heavens.
“What is that?”
“Is that a tornado?”
The vortex, born from the ground, tore through the darkened skies in an instant.
And it continued to swell rapidly.
Pulling in surrounding sand and air, it grew several times in size in a flash.
CRAAACK!
As if enraged by the storm, lightning began crashing down from the blackened sky.
Each strike turned the entire world white.
Bolts of lightning so massive, it would take an S-rank Awakened at full power to summon them—rained down nonstop on the sandstorm.
CRAAACK!
With each bolt came a thunderclap like a monster’s roar.
It looked as though the lightning and the vortex were fighting each other.
Like two giant magical beasts, locked in a battle for dominance.
Everyone was stunned, mesmerized by the sight.
Thankfully, they were far enough away. Had this happened nearby, people would’ve been running for their lives from the lightning.
“Whoa...”
“That’s insane.”
“What the hell is going on over there?”
They were in awe of the overwhelming spectacle nature had conjured.
But a few among them watched the phenomenon with serious expressions.
“That’s not natural.”
“Something’s happening over there.”
“Shit.”
Even though it was happening far away, their hair stood on end and chills ran down their backs.
The instincts of high-level Awakened were warning them.
Something was wrong over there—very wrong.
FLASH! BOOOM!
As time passed, the clash between lightning and the vortex only intensified.
The lightning rained down like a storm, and the vortex grew into something massive enough to consume an entire region.
KWA-KWA-KWA!
The violently spinning sandstorm surged upward like it was squeezing out its last reserves of power.
Hundreds—no, thousands—of lightning bolts struck it down.
It looked like the end of the world.
Just watching from a distance was enough to make their blood run cold.
Brielle muttered, as if suddenly realizing something.
“Don’t tell me... is that Zeon?”
“That’s what Zeon did?!”
Levin stared in disbelief at the unnatural disaster unfolding before them. But Brielle didn’t answer.
All her attention was fixed on the sandstorm.
None of the people here believed Zeon could create something like that.
And understandably so.
The sandstorm before them was something no S-rank Awakened should be capable of producing.
But Brielle knew.
Zeon’s true power was far beyond what people vaguely guessed at.
“Zeon... Just what kind of monster are you fighting?”
---
Ssssshhk!
A charred figure plummeted from the sky.
Falling like a meteor—it was Zeon.
Even as he fell, his gaze was fixed upward.
Nigel, the half-dragon he had just fought, had vanished like a mirage.
The lightning that had rained down in fury, the overwhelming pressure—gone, like none of it had ever happened.
The sky was now perfectly clear.
Even the sandstorm Zeon had summoned was fading away.
“So... I didn’t win.”
But it wasn’t quite a loss either.
To put it plainly—he took one heavy blow and returned a few light ones.
“Click! Looks like I got the short end.”
Technically a draw—but meaningless.
Nigel hadn’t gone all out. Neither had Zeon revealed all his cards.
Nigel likely realized that too.
And yet he let it go.
It seemed that Nigel hadn’t been interested in Zeon’s true strength.
All he wanted to know—was whether Zeon met his minimum expectations.
Once Zeon passed that threshold, Nigel had no hesitation in leaving.
Even as he plummeted, Zeon thought:
“That gem he pulled from Pilgrim’s chest... that’s gotta be the reason Nigel showed up.”
No matter how legendary Pilgrim was as a necromancer in Kuraian, now he was nothing more than a dungeon boss.
A fixture—nothing more, nothing less.
And yet he created monsters far beyond his rank.
The Bone Drakes. The Bone Hydra.
There was no way Pilgrim, now just a boss bound to a dungeon, could have created those on his own.
He must’ve used the gem hidden deep in his chest.
“A power too dangerous for any human to possess. That’s why Nigel came for it...”
What Nigel intended to do with the gem, Zeon didn’t know.
If Nigel—already unimaginably strong—used the power within that gem, he would become something unstoppable.
“But he didn’t seem interested in using it. On the contrary... he looked like he was actively avoiding it. As if using it was strictly forbidden. Why?”
As Zeon was lost in thought, the ground rushed up beneath him.
Even for someone like Zeon, falling from this height could’ve been fatal.
But Zeon wasn’t the least bit worried.
—Pii!
A tiny whale poked out of subspace and gently caught his falling body.
Gaia had saved him at the last second.
Lying on Gaia’s back, Zeon stroked her head.
“Thanks.”
—Pii!
“Sorry. I couldn’t even lift a finger.”
—Pii! Piii!
“I know. I believed in you. I won’t make you worry like that again.”
—Pii?
“Yeah. I promise.”
Only after Zeon’s clear answer did Gaia stop her nagging.
Gaia gently descended to the ground, Zeon still on her back.
Once they landed, Zeon dismounted.
By the time both feet hit the earth, Zeon had already recovered his appearance.
The blackened skin and scorched hair had fully healed.
Thanks to one of his powers—hyper regeneration.
Though not on the level of the Bone Drakes, Zeon could instantly regenerate his wounds.
It allowed him to recover even from catastrophic injuries.
Even his tattered, burnt robe had returned to its original form.
Made from Leviathan hide, the robe had an auto-repair function.
Unless it was destroyed on the atomic level, it would always return to its original state.
Because of that, Zeon didn’t look at all like someone who had just survived a brutal battle.
Tap. Tap.
Zeon sighed and brushed the dust off his robe.
He could sense the survivors gathered beyond the horizon—those who had escaped the underground.
“Phew... I fell pretty far. Ugh. Now I gotta walk all the way over there?”
[Translator - Peptobismol]
[Proofreader - Demon God]
