What appeared before Lee Gun was—
At a glance, it looked like a jade throne with a bull's head embedded in it.
Of course, it was no ordinary chair, and Lee Gun was on guard while the adults were more horrified than anyone.
They had no choice but to be.
“Crazy, that’s a Throne of Authority (權座)!”
That’s right.
It was the symbol of the Twelve Zodiac God Seats, what is called a divine artifact.
Bestowed upon each God Seat, it was something only the Holy God who was the master of that seat could sit upon.
‘The moment one sits upon the Throne of Authority, they gain all the rights, command, and absolute power of that God Seat.’
In short, it was the very core of the God Seat!
Both Hugo and Stephen knew well what that Throne was.
The masters would never say it aloud for dignity’s sake, but the lord of Aries used to slather hair tonic all over that Throne, and the Holy God of Leo would sprawl out on the long Throne, exposing his you-know-what while sleeping.
And though no one knew who made those Thrones, the Holy Gods cherished those chairs more than their own lives, and even outside gods coveted them. They were precious items.
‘Yet that thing appeared before Lee Gun?’
‘Could it be that the Throne of Authority is trying to choose a new master on its own?’
The Throne was a sacred artifact with an ego, the God Seat itself.
It was a creature loyal to its Holy God.
But it was never to be taken lightly.
‘A creature that would try to kill its Holy God if they harmed the God Seat or strayed from its will.’
‘With its master gone, who knows what it might try to do.’
Of course, the Throne was necessary.
‘With that, I can actually inherit and use the skills.’
It was then.
As the two adults stood on guard, the Throne began to glow.
[The Bull’s Throne of Authority takes an interest in the fledgling Holy God.]
[The Bull’s Throne of Authority takes a liking to the fledgling Holy God.]
[It says he seems perfectly suited for their seat.]
At the unexpected notification, Lee Gun’s eyes went wide.
‘In other words, it’s telling me to become the Holy God of the Bull.’
It was something the Throne, whose duty was to select Holy Gods, would do.
Of course, such a phenomenon hadn’t occurred with Cancer and Aquarius.
‘Because they weren’t trying to merge.’
But the Bull’s Throne was different.
[It says he lacks nothing in courage or strength.]
[It says the sanctity of an impregnable fortress will help you achieve your goal.]
[It tells you not to do something foolish like merging, and to just become the master of the Bull.]
[It tells you to abandon that perverted Serpent-Bearer seat immediately.]
There was no doubt it had taken a liking to Lee Gun.
But what good would that do?
“Screw off. Why would I sit on a seat that stinks of cow dung? Merging would suffice.”
In the first place, Lee Gun was quite fond of the Serpent-Bearer seat.
He didn’t know why.
But the Bull’s Throne seemed displeased.
Thud!
Brown light burst from the jade throne.
At the same time, Lee Gun winced as if in pain.
“You little punk.”
The moment it exerted its power, his body began to ache.
[It says if you do not choose it, it will run wild with the Bull’s power you absorbed.]
[It says you must sit upon the Throne to safely wield that power.]
[It says you will need the power of absolute defense to avenge your enemies.]
It was a creature as cunning as the Holy Gods and the adults.
[If you do not comply...]
“Ugh, a mere chair, why are you so damn chatty.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Lee Gun’s eyes flashed.
Then, as if reacting to that emotion, surged!
Perhaps because it now had arms and legs, the thing that had been happily trotting along was summoned above Lee Gun’s head.
And Death, its expression spewing ferocious power, transformed into something like a demon.
Death seemed to have grasped Lee Gun’s purpose in an instant.
[It says not to worry about this.]
[It says now that it has evolved to the third stage, something like this is nothing to it.]
Along with that, everyone in Drakma screamed.
Kugugung!
And after Death swept through, everyone screamed.
When they opened their eyes, what appeared was a completely corroded Throne of Authority.
[The Throne of Authority has temporarily lost its power.]
[It expresses disappointment that burning it would have caused more prolonged agony than this corrosion.]
[Even now...]
“Screw off. I don’t want to hear your screaming.”
At that sight, the people of Taurus couldn’t shut their mouths.
“Th-that chair! Wasn’t it said to be the ultimate durability that even the gods of the divine realm couldn’t smash?”
“And he did that in an instant...!”
“What kind of power is that?!”
The 13th power, which could even destroy divine artifacts, was clearly extraordinary.
But Stephen screamed for a different reason.
“Hey! You, do you not know what that thing is?! I don’t know why, but that’s an item gods cherish more than their lives!”
“Shut it. I can just fix it. Did you forget my profession?”
“...!”
He wasn’t a craftsman for nothing.
And—
“It’s amusing. I don’t know who made it, but a chair punk has an ego.”
“What are you saying? You could make something like that too, couldn’t you?”
“I should make something similar later. Ah, modifying it wouldn’t be bad either.”
“You little punk, you aren’t even listening.”
That wasn’t all.
Lee Gun, who had grasped the Holy God system to some extent, sneered.
‘Those damned gods.’
This object acknowledged only gods as masters and was something solely for gods.
At the same time, it was because of this that the Twelve Zodiac Holy Gods could gain experience points from Earth.
But if he modified the Throne to his liking, would there even be a need to place a god on the ruler’s seat?
In other words, could he put a human on the jade throne instead of a god?
‘No, the gods themselves might become unnecessary.’
From the start, Lee Gun had harbored doubts about the Holy Gods, or rather, gods themselves.
‘The Holy Gods didn’t seem to appear to truly protect humans; it felt more like they showed up to gather their own holy cities.’
Indeed, even though they could have appeared sooner, the Holy Gods only revealed themselves when humans were on the very brink of death.
So even if all the unknown civilizations were wiped from this land, would the existence of gods truly be of help to them?
In fact, the very fact that the gods had conspired among themselves just to kill him alone, and more—Lee Gun even felt disgust toward the Holy Gods.
Lee Gun’s eyes flashed.
‘If no one believes in them, their existence becomes meaningless.’
At the same time, Lee Gun roughly guessed the identity of the notification voice he had been hearing.
‘The notification voice I hear might be the Serpent-Bearer’s Throne of Authority.’
Of course, Hugo had also said he heard a woman’s voice.
And that the voice was similar to Yeonwoo, whom Plutus had transformed into.
‘But it probably isn’t.’
Meanwhile, as the threat vanished, Hugo sighed in relief.
“Now, if we just extract Iban from Yongyongi and get enough defense skill data, defensive equipment shouldn’t be a problem...”
At that, Hailey gave a strange look and said,
“Wouldn’t it be better to extract it quickly, then?”
“What?”
“Hasn’t the Holy God disappeared? The blessing of Iban would have disappeared too, so if Crimson Eye chews on him in that state...”
Hugo screamed as if struck on the back of the head.
“Agh! That’s right! Until now, it was because of the Holy God’s blessing that he didn’t get torn apart!”
Until now, Yongyongi had only liked Iban so much that he had been entrusted to him, but to turn him into equipment, they needed that physical body!
“Anyway, we need to go to Yongyongi quickly!”
But that very moment—
Thud!!
Suddenly, Drakma began to shake violently.
“Aagh! The castle is collapsing!”
“!”
Cracks appeared in the castle, and the ceiling and walls crumbled.
The holy city’s people were thrown into panic.
“What’s going on, the monsters are gone! Why is the castle suddenly—!”
“Why else! The Bull has disappeared!”
“!”
That’s right.
Drakma was a castle maintained by the power of the Twelve Holy Gods.
The moment one of the powers maintaining the castle completely vanished, it had no choice but to collapse.
As the ceiling was about to cave in completely, Hugo urgently shouted,
“Gun! Regeneration!”
At that, Lee Gun scratched his ear.
“I’m doing it, but the collapse is faster than the regeneration. Our Life level is still low.”
“What?!”
“Well, it’s fine.”
Now they just needed to get out.
“I was already planning to rebuild it anyway because the castle’s design was ugly. Anyway, let’s evacuate the people first...”
But it was then.
“Evacuation will be impossible, I’m afraid.”
“!”
Arrogant opportunists appeared.
They were the mages who had been thought to have betrayed the Bull and disappeared along with the Fairy King.
And for some reason, they sneered at Lee Gun.
“We’ve been and seen for ourselves—the teleport zone isn’t regenerating at all.”
“!”
Of course, their words were true.
[Area 1 completely lost (Teleport Zone) — Irrecoverable]
[Area 2 30% loss (Shopping District) — Recovering]
...
[Area 9 80% loss (Training Ground) — Irrecoverable]
Now that Drakma had become the sanctuary of the Serpent-Bearer, the status of everything within the castle was being relayed to Lee Gun.
Yet even in this crisis, they were sneering to an absurd degree.
“Well, if you, Lee Gun-nim, flee at this rate, then fifty thousand people here will drown because of you. Surely you wouldn’t just abandon them and run?”
At those words, Hugo furrowed his brow.
‘Those bastards, why are they provoking Gun like that?’
There had to be a reason.
But the reason became clear soon enough.
Because of the words that followed.
“Cheon Seongjae, you’re the only one here who can use teleport.”
“Yeah. Do you think you alone can move tens of thousands of people?”
“...!”
Cheon Seongjae’s brow furrowed.
These were mages who used teleport. There was no way they didn’t know its drawbacks.
Being sharp, Cheon Seongjae immediately figured out what they were planning.
As expected.
“If you try to move all these people at once, you’ll die before you can, won’t you?”
“Exactly. Just moving more than 100 kg at once strains your body so much you throw up, right?”
“Even if you split them up, the castle will collapse before you’re done.”
At that, someone shouted,
“Just have the Gemini mages help!”
At the same time, the Gemini mages smiled as if they had been waiting for it.
“Ah, we’re sorry! Because Lee Gun-nim has designated Drakma as his sanctuary, we can’t use such magic here!”
“So first, Lee Gun-nim must release the sanctuary designation. Hand this Drakma over to Gemini.”
A commotion rose around them.
Hugo furrowed his brow as if that was indeed the case.
‘So that was their objective.’
To pull something like this in a situation where all they had to do was escape meant that they knew this was a golden opportunity.
And as expected, the merchant mages flashed their eyes shamelessly.
“We won’t make unreasonable demands. Merely, the ownership of the green zone that appeared with Plutus’s disappearance, the ownership of that green zone that appeared, and a modest life-saving fee. Hand those over to Gemini. Then we’ll evacuate you immediately.”
At that, Hugo and Stephen flared up.
Just as you’d expect from that cunning merchant bastard of a God Seat—right in front of the adults, these scumbags.
Soon after, as if sensing the similarity, people reacted with incredulous anger.
“Even so, there are only about a hundred of you here! Can you really move fifty thousand people in time?”
“We could manage a few more than that tiny kid, at least.”
“What?!”
“Just joking. If a hundred of us Gemini mages work together, we can move large groups. We should be able to transport about a thousand at a time.”
“!”
“But our stamina has its limits, so we can only do it about ten times. We’ll try for more, but we can’t guarantee it.”
“In other words, if we’re late, we won’t be able to escape from here at all.”
People stirred.
“Hey! Then just make a teleport zone! That would move everyone...!”
At that, the mages turned serious.
“Only a Holy God and Haizi-nim, who has received his power, can create a teleport zone.”
“!”
“Don’t worry. It’s just a matter of scale; the large-scale teleport we use isn’t much different in its formula from a teleport zone. It’s safe.”
“Anyway, we’ll move people on a first-come, first-served basis, so the holy city residents should prepare payment, and Lee Gun-nim...”
But it was right then.
Watching these people trying to do business even at a time like this, Lee Gun let out a small laugh for some reason, and Hugo flinched.
And as expected.
“Ah, is that so? That’s how a teleport zone works?”
“!”
Cheon Seongjae was smiling.
And he was, in fact, a mage whom even the ruler of Plutus had been wary of, alongside Cheon Yoo-ha.
“What. You used to claim it was a trade secret and wouldn’t even show the recipe to anyone below the rank of holy city commander. So it was just applied large-scale movement? Then I have a rough idea. I studied the theory quite diligently as a holy city member of Gemini.”
At Cheon Seongjae’s words, the mages were dumbfounded.
“Cheon Seongjae, stop spouting nonsense when you’re not even a Gemini! Teleport is a special miracle granted only to Gemini among the Twelve God Seats...!”
Cheon Seongjae pushed them aside as if telling them to get lost.
He sensed his uncle’s expectant gaze and felt elation.
And—
“Move. I can make it quickly.”
“?!”
The mages thought he was spouting utter nonsense.
But then,
“Uncle!”
At his nephew’s call, Lee Gun smiled and snapped his fingers.
Then an immense amount of mana surged toward Cheon Seongjae in one fell swoop.
Flash!
The moment Cheon Seongjae gestured, sparks ignited everywhere, and magic circles emerged.
At the same time, whirling flashes of light appeared!
Kugugung!!
Finally, at the surge of familiar energy, the Gemini holy city members froze, and Lee Gun smiled nonchalantly.
“Wow, Gemini’s not such a big deal after all. There’s no need to trade.”
[The Serpent-Bearer’s newly created Teleport Zone has been generated.]
[Capacity: 100,000 people]
(Continued in the next chapter)