Jeongwoo ran frantically and entered inside the King’s Veil that Jaehee had deployed.
If it were before, several combat personnel would have been visible at the veil’s boundary line to block any possible intrusion by the dead, but now no one was visible. All combat personnel were prioritizing Jaehee’s escort above all else.
“Huu. Huu.”
Jeongwoo took rough breaths and looked around. Since they made sure all civilians entered the shelter inside the building today, the surroundings were quiet. The civilians’ evacuation area had double and triple barriers deployed with items. Even if the King’s Veil was canceled during battle, it was enough to hold out for about one night.
Jeongwoo headed toward the guild building. While running all the way here, his whole body was soaked with sweat, but there was no time to catch his breath. The fact that all around was excessively quiet was very unsettling. If it were during combat, it couldn’t be this quiet. The anxiety he’d been trying to ignore crept up slowly.
The situation isn’t already over, is it? I’m not too late, am I?
“Blazing Flame.”
Before entering the guild building, Jeongwoo briefly gazed at the pitch-black night sky.
In the night sky, no starlight or moonlight was visible, making it look like a pitch-black canvas was spread out. Jeongwoo let out a short sigh and then steadied his breathing. Even if the battle was already over, it was certain Jaehee was still safe. The King’s Veil that was still intact was proof of that.
“Even if I can’t see anything, I know you’re listening. The time to fulfill the promise is approaching. Make sure you keep your promise too.”
He entered the Eternal Guild building where black darkness had descended.
* * *
“…Lee Shinhoo.”
The moment he entered the Eternal Guild’s office, what he saw was Lee Shinhoo. Jeongwoo unconsciously spat out the name of the man visible before his eyes. Even looking around, he couldn’t see where the others were at all. Lee Shinhoo was sitting alone in the Eternal Guild’s office with no one else around.
Jeongwoo naturally drew his sword and slowly approached Lee Shinhoo. From the blade Jeongwoo had drawn, red flames of a size he’d never seen before were blazing.
“Woo Jeongwoo, how long has it been! Long time no see. You look good, don’t you? Seems you’ve been well. I figured what you’d want to find would be me anyway. So I came out to greet you to save you the trouble of searching.”
Lee Shinhoo, who had been showing a relaxed attitude throughout, saw Jeongwoo’s blade and laughed without saying much. It was an attitude as if asking, is that all you can do? But Jeongwoo showed no reaction to Lee Shinhoo’s attitude. Jeongwoo’s expression had disappeared from his face like an inanimate object.
“Hmm. No fun. I thought I might see an interesting reaction if I came out to greet you.”
Jeongwoo shrugged his shoulders once and entered the office. He quickly swept through the office interior, but still no one was visible.
“So you’re humanity’s betrayer. I had a suspicion, but it was as expected after all. A betrayer should be someone you trusted, someone unexpected to be surprising, but it’s you? I’m disappointed. It’s a move Constellations can make and it was so obvious I could sigh. A clear casting mistake.”
“Aha. So I was insufficient to surprise you? That’s a shame. But well, it can’t be helped. It’s not like I’m doing this for fun. I can’t overturn the already laid-out board just to surprise you alone. We’re quite serious in our own way.”
Lee Shinhoo said he was serious, but on the contrary, his attitude was extremely light.
“You know what? From the moment I first met you, you had the face of someone annoying, just like Lee Wanyong.”
Jeongwoo spat on the floor. As if mixing words with Lee Shinhoo was dirty.
Lee Shinhoo’s expression hardened a bit.
“Yeah, well, actually, we did have a plan to stick close to you guys, earn your trust, and then stab you in the back when things ripened. But looking at your levels, it seemed I didn’t need to bother with that effort.”
Lee Shinhoo waved his hand in the air and took out something. Looking closely, it was a blue sphere about the size of a watermelon, and it was clearly a model of Earth. When Lee Shinhoo floated that Earth model in the air, the model began to slowly rotate. Lee Shinhoo spun that Earth model with his hand for fun. Then the Earth model began to spin at a dizzying speed.
“There was no need to go through that effort to deal with this worthless planet. We just decided to go the quick route considering economic efficiency.”
“…We?”
“Right, we.”
When Jeongwoo asked back, Lee Shinhoo chuckled and nodded.
“Why are you pretending not to know when you already know? I find this most annoying. Asking back pretending not to know when you already know, it’s disgusting.”
“This kind of thing?”
Jeongwoo thought for a moment, then raised the burning sword upward. The blade with fiercely burning red flames seemed to exceed 2 meters in height due to the flames.
Jeongwoo swung his sword toward the empty air. Then with a ripping sound, another space started to appear in the air. Seeing that, Jeongwoo chuckled. It was the first smile he’d shown since facing Lee Shinhoo.
Connecting spaces seemed to be Lee Shinhoo’s specialty.
It seemed he’d entered the King’s Veil, which those who weren’t the King’s citizens couldn’t enter, with that specialty. In other words, he tore through space and crossed the King’s Veil.
This space where the two were now was also overlaid with countless spaces of different dimensions. An ordinary human wouldn’t be able to see the connected spaces of other dimensions, but they were visible to Jeongwoo’s eyes borrowing the power of a Constellation.
“I hate pretense and lies, so I’ll ask straight: Where’s Jaehee? Looking at how the veil continues to be maintained, he’s clearly alive.”
Lee Shinhoo waved his hand. Then the countless spaces of other dimensions that had been connected were revealed as they were.
In a space where there was nothing, another space, and then another space, were touching countless times.
Jeongwoo closed his mouth seeing that sight.
The spaces Lee Shinhoo had connected were tremendously numerous, far exceeding his expectations. So many that he couldn’t even dare to try searching.
Before his eyes, another space unfolded behind a space, and behind that, yet another space continued successively.
If it were an ordinary human, just seeing this bizarre space would be enough to be horrified and unable to look properly.
Between Jeongwoo and Lee Shinhoo, countless worlds were unfolded in spaces where there had been nothing.
At this level, Lee Shinhoo was definitely a pervert.
“You…”
“Want to search yourself? Jaehee is somewhere in this space. Actually, I haven’t killed the others yet either. Since killing isn’t that difficult, it doesn’t matter when I do it. Instead, I hid them like a treasure hunt. Even if you carelessly swing your sword and space gets torn, those inside will die.”
“You should have just asked me to fight. I would have accepted anytime without using such petty tricks.”
“Hey, don’t say such graceless things. This is what you’d call stage setting. It’s cool when the prince defeats the villain to rescue the princess. Of course, that’s a story for when you win.”
Lee Shinhoo shook his head left and right while loosening his body.
“Woo Jeongwoo. I’ll tell you in advance, bombs are planted in some spaces. If you touch them wrong, a whole world will disappear. That might be where Jaehee is. Try your best.”
As soon as Lee Shinhoo finished speaking, he drew his sword. The sword Lee Shinhoo drew was a pitch-black ink-colored sword. Though no light or flames were visible, the sword with a subtle ink color seemed extraordinary at a glance.
KWANG
Lee Shinhoo’s sword and Jeongwoo’s blade clashed. Each time they clashed, there was a roar and wind like a bomb exploding.
Jeongwoo was pushed back with a slide. Unable to overcome the aftermath of the explosion, his body was pushed straight back.
On the other hand, Lee Shinhoo didn’t move at all from where he was standing.
Jeongwoo bit his teeth hard.
“Flame. Help me.”
Jeongwoo whispered quietly and gripped his sword forward. The flames that had been wrapping the blade smoothly extinguished. At a glance, it seemed the flames that had been burning on the sword disappeared, but in fact, they were seeping into the blade.
There was a crackling sound over the blade. Now the flames weren’t blazing brilliantly, but were subtly permeating throughout the blade. He had condensed and condensed again the energy of the Constellation Blazing Flame and put it into the blade.
From now on, rather than a battle between human and human, it was a clash between Constellation and Constellation.
Jeongwoo gritted his teeth and rushed at Lee Shinhoo once more.
There seemed to be a dull thud, and then immediately a large fire flashed.
