NOVPUB
Chapter 244
Time suddenly thawed and began flowing again.
Suho’s mind returned to the real world—to the dimensional rift, where his shadow soldiers were still in the middle of clearing out the Demons of the Rift. Jiwoo and Harmakan were quarreling nearby. 𝔫𝖔𝔳𝖕𝖚𝔟.𝔠𝔬𝖒
Suho’s eyes gleamed sharply, and in the blink of an eye, his figure vanished. When he reappeared, he stood in the midst of the surviving Demons of the Rift. He crossed his arms, his Kamish’s Wraths emitting a dark red aura.
Advanced Dagger Mastery.
The dark energy filled his vision entirely. In the next moment, his newly acquired skill sliced through the air in fluid, precise movements.
Suho skidded to a stop some distance away, having been a blur during his entire attack.
[Demon of the Rift has been defeated.]
[Demon of the Rift has been defeated.]
[Demon of the Rift has been defeated.]
The creatures along his path were reduced to unrecognizable tatters, cut down so swiftly they couldn’t even scream.
Witnessing the aftermath, Beru stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
“Kieeeek?! Th-that... Could it be?!”
“Suho?!” Jiwoo exclaimed from the back, belatedly noticing the daggers. “Where did those weapons come from...?”
To her, it seemed like magic. She had witnessed demon horns appearing in Suho’s hands one moment, only to morph into a pair of daggers the next. These weren’t ordinary daggers, either—they emanated an unmistakable, potent magical energy.
“Young Monarch! Where did you acquire such precious equipment?!” Beru cried as he flew over in a flash.
Suho grinned. “My father gave them to me.”
Beru was stunned speechless.
“Your... father?” Jiwoo mumbled.
She tilted her head in confusion, but Beru’s eyes filled with tears of pure emotion. The shadow ant could not possibly fail to recognize the Kamish’s Wraths, since they had once been Jinwoo’s weapons of choice.
“Young Monarch! Do you know what these weapons are? My liege used them to defeat the other Monarchs, I’ll have you know.”
Beru’s expression was wistful as he began to chatter excitedly about his memories of Jinwoo.
Kamish was a dragon, the highest-ranked creature among magical beasts, second only to the Monarchs themselves. These daggers, forged from that dragon’s sharpest fang, were once powerful enough to wound even the Monarchs—all except one.
“Even the Kamish’s Wraths, which sliced the throats of the other Monarchs, were useless against Antares,” Beru explained.
He continued to say that the daggers had struggled to penetrate Antares’ hard scales, and if they did, they inflicted only minor wounds beneath. They weren’t enough to deal a fatal blow to the King of Dragons. Worse still, one of the blades had even shattered during a battle.
When Jinwoo used the Cup of Reincarnation to rewind time, he went after Kamish again and created the daggers anew. He deemed them the most reliable weapons for regular use.
“You sure love an infodump,” Suho remarked.
“Ahem. My apologies, Young Monarch. I do tend to get a bit enthusiastic about the details.”
However, Suho gave him a thumbs-up. Beru shrugged and continued his explanation with pride.
“The daggers were used for war for decades after. That resulted in some damage to the blades, as you can see. It was especially unavoidable in fights with Antares.”
“Well, of course,” interjected the tiny lizard at Suho’s side, nodding with his arms crossed.
Antares had a very satisfied smile on his face. He vividly recalled the moment Jinwoo had forgotten his place and dared to strike him, only to break one of the daggers in the process.
“It is impossible for a dagger made from a dragon’s tooth to pierce my body. I am Antares, the greatest dragon to ever—”
“And that’s why the Monarch now uses daggers made from your fang,” Beru cut in.
“Wh-what?!” Antares shouted, his eyes bulging as if they might pop out of their sockets. Though they were obviously intact, the tiny fangs inside his gaping mouth seemed to ache for some reason.
Completely oblivious, Beru praised him, flashing him an approving thumbs-up. “My liege has created weapons from all sorts of dragon teeth, but yours were undoubtedly the best.”
Is that a compliment or an insult? Antares wondered, confused and growling through clenched teeth.
“Suho, enough idle chatter,” the dragon grumbled. “We are here for a reason, are we not?”
“Indeed,” Suho replied, turning his head.
Their purpose in entering the dimensional rift with Jiwoo was to find a passage to the Sea of the Afterlife.
“Allow me to guide you, Young Monarch!” Beru said, gesturing toward the direction in which the purified demon souls were traveling.
***
The dimensional rift was riddled with cracks. The fissures were constantly shifting, appearing and disappearing in this strange realm.
Just because Suho’s party knew which direction to head didn’t mean it would be simple to find the opening that led to the Sea of the Afterlife. What they needed was bait—a role Antares had designated to Seo Jiwoo.
“Guh...!”
As they moved along with the flow of purified souls, Jiwoo suddenly went pale and collapsed to the ground.
Suho looked back, confused. “Jiwoo? What’s the matter?”
“I... I can’t... I can’t breathe...”
Something was wrong. Jiwoo was overwhelmed by a sense of suffocating terror, as though continuing forward would lead to her death. She could hardly draw breath.
“Harmakan! Find the cause!” Suho ordered, immediately turning to the demonic spirit. If an S-rank hunter like Jiwoo was suffering such mental anguish, it could mean a powerful being was nearby—perhaps a sorcerer from the arcane realm.
Harmakan looked troubled after hearing Suho’s command. “Master, this does not appear to be anyone’s doing. It seems to be...”
Beru, who was next to him, squinted as he quickly scanned their surroundings. “Young Monarch, it seems we’ve arrived.”
All around them, countless cracks shimmered like walls of broken glass.
Beru continued, “One of these must lead to...”
“The Sea of the Afterlife.”
Antares finished the shadow ant’s remark, then glanced at Jiwoo, who seemed to be hyperventilating.
“The terror she’s experiencing is the instinctive repulsion all living beings feel. It’s her survival instinct. No matter how strong her mana is, all life forms tremble before death.”
“What? Then what about me?” Suho asked.
“You... You’re an extraordinary human,” Antares said, grinding his teeth and frowning.
It was probably the first moment since the beginning of time itself that the King of Dragons had ever discussed unfairness when it came to lineage. Jiwoo seemed about to faint at any moment, yet Suho felt nothing at all.
“In any case, we’re at the right place, then,” Suho concluded as he came to terms with the situation.
He was about to have Jiwoo take a step back when the breach over her head suddenly shattered open. A grotesque bud sprang forth.
[Nightmare Bulb]
The disgusting bud split into four sections, opening a crocodile-like mouth and lunging toward Jiwoo, who sat on the ground just below. Already struggling to breathe, she froze in terror, unable even to scream.
That’s it.
Jiwoo’s gut told her that this grotesque plant was the same as the one that had devoured her soul and dragged her into the Sea of the Afterlife. It was still hungry for her, drooling at the sight of its prey.
It’s going to eat me again...
But the sense of doom flooding her did not manifest into reality.
“Don’t you dare!” Suho shouted.
He lunged upward and slashed through the stem of the monstrous plant just as it was about to swallow Jiwoo. The bud fell to the ground, writhing violently and emitting an ear-piercing, otherworldly scream.
But as Antares had warned, the weeds from the Sea of the Afterlife did not give up so easily. This was especially true of weeds like the nightmare bulb. They were disgustingly determined.
Despite its head being severed, the stem rapidly sprouted new growth—or rather, new roots—that shot out at an alarming pace. Using the roots, it began making its way toward Jiwoo again, crawling across the ground like a centipede.
Ruler’s Authority!
The Kamish’s Wraths flew out of Suho’s hand in straight, precise lines.
This time, the blades pierced the bud itself rather than just its stem. Its petals, torn apart and dangling, burned up on the spot.
[Nightmare Bulb has been defeated.]
“Hah...”
As the creature was reduced to scattering ashes, Jiwoo finally felt like she could breathe again. The mysterious thing that had been lying in wait for her was finally gone, and a wave of relief swept over her.
She looked at Suho from where she was slumped on the ground and offered a faint smile. “How’s that... for bait?”
Suho bowed deeply in gratitude. “You did wonderfully. Thank you.”
Jiwoo shook her head. “Don’t mention it. I’m the one who asked for this anyway.”
She still felt guilty toward the comrades who remained trapped in Eternal Slumber. Even now, they were slowly dying, wasting away while she alone had escaped. She was even an S-rank hunter now, which only amplified her guilt and tormented thoughts.
Still, Jiwoo’s role in this mission was complete.
“Harmakan,” Suho called, raising his head and glaring at the jagged hole from which the nightmare bulb had sprung. “Fix the coordinates.”
“Yes, Master.”
Magic circles immediately formed in Harmakan’s hands.
The dimensional rift was an inherently unstable place. Even though they had discovered a passageway to the Sea of the Afterlife, there was no guarantee it would remain connected. The coordinates of the spaces could shift at any moment.
Of course, there was a being who had managed to create stable connections between dimensions even in such a chaotic environment—Yogumunt, the Monarch of Transfiguration.
That ability wasn’t unique to Yogumunt, though there were differences in level. Kandiaru, the second most powerful being in the arcane realm, had also been capable of it.
[Harmakan activated an instance dungeon.]
An instance dungeon, one of Kandiaru’s legacies, was an expansive magical ritual capable of twisting existing dimensions to create a “mirror world.” With slight adjustments, this ability could also be used to create a simple door instead of a fully-fledged alternate world.
Whoosh!
Harmakan stretched out his hands, and magical chains shot forward. These chains forcibly bound the unpredictably fracturing cracks, pried the rift open wide, and locked its coordinates in place.
“Unbelievable...” Jiwoo whispered, her eyes filled with sheer astonishment.
Before them, a colossal gate materialized, radiating a suffocating and ominous energy.
A notification sounded.
[Gate: “Sea of the Afterlife” has been created.]
