Plenty fell to Lee Geon's power.
Of course, the opponent was the supreme leader commanding an army.
His strength, body, and authority were all supremely elevated.
That power was such that even the holy gods were wary and insisted on defensive battles.
But even such a monarch knelt before the power of a calamity deity.
[You have devoured Plenty.]
[Experience points rise significantly.]
[Your level has increased by five.]
[lv. 29]
[Physical functions have been upgraded.]
[Speed increase, dynamic vision increase, sensory increase.]
[You have obtained points (20).]
[Total points held (40).]
[Skills available for leveling up.]
[Super Regeneration (S)] [Thirteenth Sense (D)] [Acts Forbidden by God (F)] [Resurrection (F)] [Summon Disciple (F)]
[And is delighted.]
[They excitedly urge each other to level up their skills.]
The people cheered.
It was true that the monarch had fallen, and the monsters covering Seoul began to falter.
[The king's aura cannot be felt.]
[He has vanished from this world!]
All monsters were connected to the monarch.
They received commandments from the monarchs, and with the monarchs' power at their backs, they could trample the holy gods and violate humans.
Therefore, the moment the monarch's power was cut off, the monsters realized immediately.
'The monarch's extinction!'
It was a dangerous situation.
The invaders of Plenty, having noticed the loss of their lord, began to retreat hastily.
[Retreat!]
[We have no chance of winning!]
[If we stay here, that snake holy god will devour us all!]
First, they had to return to their original camp. Then they had to borrow the power of another camp's master.
But.
Boom!!
[!]
As if asking where they thought they were running off to, Cheon Seongjae, wearing Lee Geon's face, raised his hand high.
"Now, of all times."
Cheon Seongjae's eyes, wreathed in flames, glowed gold.
"Do you think you can just leave as you please?!"
The furious Cheon Seongjae slammed his fist into the ground, and instantly green pillars of fire shot up everywhere.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
As though life itself was boiling over, the ground churned into lava.
And the pillars of fire surging up from that lava quickly turned into ferocious snakes, blocking the monsters' path.
Boom!!
The monsters screamed.
"Kieeeek!"
[Damn it!]
The moment the monsters' retreat was blocked, a war cry rang out.
It was the holy warriors who had been on the receiving end.
"Don't let them get away!"
"Don't leave a single one, wipe them all out!"
The resounding shouts struck the monsters' hearts.
And that war cry was like the roar of human fury boiling up from the earth!
"Waaaaaa!"
It was a reverberation as if the ground itself was shaking.
When the holy warriors charged, the monsters looked utterly bewildered.
Because the situation was different from usual.
Now that the monarch who had been sustaining them was gone, they felt intimidation for the first time in their lives.
They were cowed by the humans they had seen as mere food.
But there was something even more terrifying.
Crunch!
[……!!!]
It was Lee Geon, moving even faster than the holy warriors' shouts.
He was literally moving faster than the ear-piercing battle cries.
Just when he appeared in the west, he vanished. When a comrade's scream came from the north, another comrade's head flew off from the south.
And in that chaos, Lee Geon was smiling eerily.
And then, just when they thought they had finally caught sight of him, their comrades' heads went flying without fail!
Even trying to surround him was useless.
His axe, almost like a blunt weapon, crushed his comrades' bodies like tomatoes, and the severed heads he hurled like baseballs turned his comrades into lumps of flesh.
Boom!!
It was truly like witnessing a cannon's power.
Before that power, the monsters were completely frozen.
So the paralyzed monsters tried to flee away from Lee Geon's line of sight, but perhaps he had anticipated even that.
"Welcome."
Hugo, drawing his bowstring, smiled.
He had been waiting for prey in the exact opposite direction from Lee Geon.
And the moment the monsters entered his range, he loosed the arrow.
Bang!!!
The arrow, condensed with the power of the Serpent Bearer, exploded like a nuclear bomb.
Kwagwagwang!
A brilliant flash covered the city, and the monsters caught in the energy vanished without a trace.
Of course, normally he wouldn't even consider borrowing Lee Geon's power, but now there was no choice.
[The Scorching Master is gloomy.]
Well, since he borrowed the Serpent Lord's power, all experience and tribute would go to Lee Geon, not his own holy god, but that didn't matter.
'You reap what you sow. Who told him to dig his own grave.'
And since these were monsters seeded directly by the monarch, even as little ones, they gave considerable experience.
[All contribution goes to the Serpent Lord.]
[The Serpent Lord's divine throne energy greatly increases.]
[All experience points go to the Serpent Lord.]
[The Serpent Lord's followers happily gather tribute.]
[The Scorching Master is horrified.]
It wasn't just Hugo in the spotlight.
The Cheon siblings, each awakened as holy beings of life and death, demonstrated their abilities.
Cheon Yuha, holding the Judgment of the Earth transformed into a scythe, landed lightly before the fleeing monsters.
[!]
Did she silence even her presence and sound?
Emerging with black smoke, Cheon Yuha activated a skill.
It was a holy being's skill newly acquired with her awakening!
Crunch!
The scythe swept through the enemies in a circle.
Even if she was surrounded and her path blocked, it posed no hindrance to her.
[Death Does Not Discriminate (SS)]
Surrounded by black power, Cheon Yuha simply passed through the monsters' bodies.
She was like a ghost.
And that was thanks to the realm dominance authority belonging to .
That skill, which allowed entry anywhere, could let her pass through living humans as well.
No matter where the opponent hid or was trapped, she could approach freely without constraint.
And that was the power of , which comes equally to all things.
It was one of the basic characteristics of divinity.
And perhaps it was no coincidence that , with her exceptional talent for killing presence, was drawn to .
Maybe that's why.
"Kieeeek!"
The holy warriors were astonished by the newly awakened ones' attacks.
And Kali, who was swinging her sword, seemed inwardly flustered as well.
'Cheon Yuha, she's gotten stronger.'
Kali was the one who grasped her growth at a glance, more than anyone.
Of course, she often subtly nettled Yuha verbally, calling her weak or whatever, but that was a kind of provocation.
It was to stimulate Cheon Yuha, who always had more potential but couldn't break out of her shell.
But even so, she hadn't thought Cheon Yuha was stronger than herself.
She had that much confidence in her own skill, after all.
But now.
'Honestly, I'm not so sure now.'
That's why Kali couldn't help but swallow dryly.
It felt like she had just barely cracked out of her shell.
At the same time, with her strong desire for growth, she secretly felt envious.
'I wanted to become a holy being too.'
And it wasn't just the Serpent Bearer's holy beings who surprised the holy warriors.
Boom! Boom!
The holy warriors were in an uproar because of the weapons the Divine Palace members were shooting.
Rumors quickly spread that the power of their weapons was absurdly strong.
"What? That dead-last constellation's stats are no joke?"
"They always had high base specs, but this time it feels different! Their weapons are insane!"
"Pulling out 100% of their strength, plus additional functions... Anyway, you have to see it to know! I've never seen anything like it! It's amazing!"
"!"
And things like equipment and holy relics are essential items for humanity's survival, items you can't help but be interested in.
At first, they brushed it off as a joke, but after confirming the weapons' power firsthand, the holy warriors were in an uproar.
"Whoa! Is that a Heaven's Workshop product?"
"Hey, why even ask? If it's not the Heaven's Workshop, who else would make something like that?"
supervised by the Hammer Constellation, was an elite workshop where humanity's greatest artisans gathered, and the highest institution responsible for all human equipment.
Its pride was the strongest in the world, so even the government and the Ten Stars walked on eggshells around them.
So normally, they would refuse to use it because it was too filthy, but now.
"Wow, at that level, it's seriously crazy! Should I ask them to make me one too?!"
"Hey! Gote! How did you put in a request with that Heaven's Workshop? Introduce us, we want t... aack!"
Gote, who had shot an arrow at the holy squad leaders, raised his voice as if telling them to stop talking nonsense.
These idiots, what Heaven's Workshop?
"All of these were made by the great Lee Geon-nim, you know?"
"What?!"
The emergence of weapons surpassing the Hammer Constellation.
That astonishing news soon spread across the world.
And perhaps even to the Heaven's Workshop.
Just like that, the invading Plenty army in Seoul was wiped out, without a single one escaping.
And along with that, Lee Geon obtained something new.
[You can reclaim the zones (Black Zone, Red Zone) that Plenty had occupied.]
[You can take the authority that Plenty held.]
Humanity's counterattack had begun.
* * *
1 AM.
It was a time when the defense of Seoul had successfully ended and they were now in the middle of the cleanup.
"Hey! Cheon Seongjae!"
Hugo couldn't help but squabble with Cheon Seongjae.
"What on earth are you doing! Hurry up and get out of there!"
"Noooo!! I'm never coming out for the rest of my life!"
"What?! Are you insane!"
That's right.
Hugo was quarreling with Cheon Seongjae because he refused to come out of Lee Geon's body—well, technically it was a slime, but anyway, Lee Geon's body.
Apparently, for the ultimate fanboy, the slime body in the form of Lee Geon was heaven itself.
Collecting figurines or cosplay was on a completely different level.
This was practically the very body of that great hero one could only see in videos from 20 years ago.
Indeed, Cheon Seongjae was sobbing, with tears like chicken droppings.
"It's so cool, I just want to live in this body forever!"
In the end, Hugo, trying to catch his escaping son, clutched the back of his own neck.
"Argh! Why, of all things, did you have to go into the body of Geon from 20 years ago! After I went through all the trouble of birthing and raising you so beautifully!"
"I don't need it! Uncle is the best!"
Right then. As if she couldn't bear to watch any longer, Cheon Yuha raised her scythe.
Since she had become a holy being of , though probability existed, extracting a soul was a simple matter if she put her mind to it.
And sure enough.
"Come out now."
Slice!
"Aaack! Noooo!"
Ultimately, pulled from the slime's body, Cheon Seongjae had no choice but to return to his own body.
Watching that, Hugo was satisfied from a distance.
'As expected of my daughter, splendid...'
"Now I'm going in. Move."
"What do you mean, 'now'?!!"
In the end, the only sane ones watching the scene—the holy warriors of other squads and the scribe Gwisun—clicked their tongues as if the whole thing was utterly hopeless.
Sure, Lee Geon had his cool points, but still, the mental world of fanatics was incomprehensible.
Actually, what was truly incomprehensible wasn't that.
"Isn't the holy being of a total selection mistake...? No matter how you look at it, shouldn't both of them have become holy beings of ?"
It was a matter for congratulations that they had become holy beings of death and life, respectively.
But neither death nor life, both holy beings seemed perfectly to the liking of their respective constellations.
[ takes a liking to this Cheon Seongjae's .]
[ takes a liking to this Cheon Yuha's .]
[Each holy being will be a great help to the Serpent Lord's divine growth.]
[Warning. You are in a lv.29 state. You are drawing attention from lords of similar level.]
[When you reach lv.30, anomalies will occur in your body.]
[If you are not mentally prepared, control your experience so you do not reach lv.30.]
What the anomaly was, he wondered, but Lee Geon thought little of it.
He still had time before level 30 anyway.
'I definitely feel that as I approach 30, my physical abilities have skyrocketed.'
And right now, that wasn't what mattered.
"Geon. Let's talk for a moment."
"!"
Hugo, who had been having a headache over his children, dragged him to a secluded spot.
Being dragged along, Lee Geon frowned.
"What now? Why someone who's eating..."
But Hugo, looking serious, grabbed Lee Geon, who was sucking on a pack of fruit juice, and asked.
"I wasn't going to ask, thinking it was private, but..."
"?"
"Who is Yeonwoo?"
"!"
At that name, Lee Geon's eyes widened.
(To be continued in the next episode)