The Final King Has Returned — Episode 165
Sin Jeonghyeok's expression contorted.
Into his field of vision came the sky that had been cleaved apart.
Along with it, he glimpsed the figures of users swept away and hurled aside by the shockwave.
"What the hell...."
A single sword strike.
At the sight of a single attack—no, not even a direct strike, but splash damage—triggering an earthquake and slicing apart the sky, Sin Jeonghyeok was left speechless.
Truly, an absolute sight.
Drakan displayed a divine majesty comparable to the sight the Warrior Yujin had shown in the Broken World, and Sin Jeonghyeok instinctively realized it.
Drakan.
That he had risen to the same rank as Yujin.
An urgent whisper echoed in Sin Jeonghyeok's ear.
[V-Vice Chairman! Drakan has risen to EX Rank! Even Leira and Paul were helplessly defeated! H-He's even finished the Awakening Quest! W-We can't win!]
It was one of the executives of Simseong Iron Stars who had whispered to him.
Sin Jeonghyeok clenched his teeth as he heard those words.
Drakan's Awakening Quest.
Sin Jeonghyeok already knew the results of that quest.
The aerial mobile fortress, Voltaha.
The fact that Drakan had completed his Awakening Quest was tantamount to the completion of a superweapon that would change the paradigm of the battlefield in Arde World.
"Damn it all!"
Sin Jeonghyeok froze on the spot.
His mind, which always worked with sharp precision, was not arriving at a judgment easily this time.
Two Over Rankers, the strongest combatants Iron Stars possessed, had been helplessly defeated without even managing to touch a single hair on Drakan's body.
The enemy superweapon they had tried to stop was already complete, and Drakan had become the second user since Yujin to rise to EX Rank.
The war's defeat had become as plain as day.
But having come this far, it was too late to surrender to Drakan now.
The very moment Sin Jeonghyeok was thinking this.
"So you're the enemy commander."
The hazy mist descending from the sky immediately transformed into a human form.
When a handsome man in a black suit ill-suited for the battlefield, his skin deathly pale, revealed himself, Sin Jeonghyeok flinched.
Because he knew very well who this man was.
"Vampire King...."
The Vampire King, Nosferatu.
One of the six chieftains of different races following Drakan.
Sin Jeonghyeok instinctively realized.
Drakan.
That bastard had sent Nosferatu, the Vampire King, to kill him.
"What are you all doing? Attack him, now!"
Sin Jeonghyeok shouted in a cracking voice.
Because he couldn't die here like this.
Almost before Sin Jeonghyeok's words had finished, his personal guard—composed solely of High Rankers recruited with his financial power—began to move.
Nosferatu watched this and quietly drew his blood sword.
At that moment.
The space beside Nosferatu distorted, and an undead draped in black robes slowly appeared, floating in the air.
"Arch Lich!"
One of the personal guards flinched in place and shouted.
Arch Lich!
One of the three strongest undead the Deathless King possessed, and one of the highest-ranked necromancers.
That undead had appeared beside Nosferatu.
[By the command of the Great Lord, I shall face you from now on.]
When the Arch Lich brandished his staff, countless undead began to rise from the earth, their numbers endless.
Watching his personal guard begin to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, Sin Jeonghyeok clenched his teeth.
The bad ending he had never wished for, one so terrible he couldn't even imagine it, flickered before Sin Jeonghyeok's eyes.
* * *
The center of the battlefield.
There, I stood.
Paul and Leira, who had rushed at me targeting me, were already bound and had lost their combat power, and the tide of battle was gradually tilting toward victory for our side.
The airships Iron Stars had sent out had long since been torn to shreds by our aerial fleet's attacks, and air superiority had already fallen into our grasp.
Though the enemy had greater numbers, the moment the aerial fleet poured indiscriminate bombardment onto the enemy lines, numerical superiority lost its luster.
BOOM!
Even now, the roar of the aerial fleet's bombardment slamming into the ground rang in my ears.
The Bone Dragon traversed the skies at will, attacking the ground, and a wyvern squadron led by Flyingman followed in its wake.
From the moment air superiority was seized, Iron Stars had no chance of victory whatsoever.
At that very moment.
"I have captured the enemy leader as commanded."
Nosferatu's voice was heard.
I turned my head toward the direction of the voice.
And there, just as Nosferatu had said, was Sin Jeonghyeok, his entire body bound, forced to his knees, glaring at me.
I slowly walked toward Sin Jeonghyeok.
"That's right, you won the war in the game."
One step.
As I took a step forward, Sin Jeonghyeok began to spew words no one had asked for.
"But can you truly defeat me in the war of reality?"
Another step.
As I approached, Sin Jeonghyeok's shoulders began to tremble.
Madness already overflowed from his eyes.
Sin Jeonghyeok laughed as if he had lost his mind.
"How long do you think your girlfriend's skirt can protect you? I am Sin Jeonghyeok! Vice Chairman of the Simseong Group! I've risen to a position that someone like you, a mere gaming cripple, wouldn't dare look up to!"
Madness flowed from Sin Jeonghyeok's voice as he shouted thus.
Thud. Thud.
I quietly walked toward Sin Jeonghyeok, looked straight at him, and spoke.
"Hey, Sin Jeonghyeok. Did you really think I'd start something without even considering that?"
At my words, Sin Jeonghyeok's expression twisted strangely.
I looked at Sin Jeonghyeok and smiled.
It would have been absurd to proceed against a big shot like Sin Jeonghyeok without a single card up my sleeve.
While staying in the Southwest, I had already planned out all the strategies to take him on in reality together with Sin Hayeon.
And that was the reason Sin Hayeon was not by my side now.
"War in reality? Bring it on whenever you want."
I bent down and whispered quietly into Sin Jeonghyeok's ear.
"Because you'll be a loser there too."
"You bastard!!"
At my words, Sin Jeonghyeok screamed and thrashed about, perhaps from rage, but that was all.
There was no need to pay any heed to the thrashing of a loser.
I stepped back and gave an order to Nosferatu.
"Nosferatu."
"Yes, Master."
"Kill him."
"I obey."
Receiving my command, Nosferatu raised his blood sword and immediately struck down at the crown of Sin Jeonghyeok's head.
"Drakan! I'll kill you—...."
Sin Jeonghyeok spewed curses and insults at me until the very end, then met his death just like that.
Leaving behind the loot dropped by Sin Jeonghyeok's permanently departed character, I looked at Paul and Leira, who were likewise bound, and spoke.
"Your boss is finished."
Sin Jeonghyeok was dead.
"I know. That it was your boss who started this war. If he hadn't been obsessed with me over such a petty reason as wounded pride, this unnecessary war would never have happened."
I spoke, looking at Paul and Leira.
My words were right and proper.
This war had occurred entirely due to Sin Jeonghyeok's unilateral decision.
From the beginning, the guild called 'Simseong Iron Stars' itself was a grotesque guild formed by forcibly integrating two different guilds through financial power, and since its purpose was revenge against me, this was a natural result.
Of course, there were other intentions mixed in, such as a challenge for hegemony, but the fundamental cause was revenge.
"And just now, I sent away your boss, the root cause of the war."
I raised the Iron-blood Executor and pointed at the shining loot Sin Jeonghyeok had left behind.
"Now that your boss is gone, I don't think there's any need to continue this war."
I said, looking at Paul and Leira.
With Sin Jeonghyeok dead, supreme command of this battlefield lay with these two.
"Surrender unconditionally. I'm feeling merciful, so I'll graciously accept it just this once."
I smiled, looking at the two Over Rankers.
Of course, I wouldn't have minded killing them and continuing the war.
But continuing the war would also have been a loss for our side.
Because the real fight had not even begun.
My true opponent, and the final boss of this main story—the Warrior Yujin.
To face him, I had to preserve my forces as much as possible, and of course, recruit other high-level talents.
For example, talents like the Axe King Paul or the Assassin King Leira, who were looking up at me from before my eyes.
"What if we continue fighting?"
To my words, the first to answer was the Axe King, Paul.
I burst into laughter at those words and pointed at the sky.
"I'll give you my answer with this."
The moment Paul and Leira's gazes followed the tip of my finger.
A shadow descended upon the entire vast battlefield.
Along with it, a massive form pierced through the dark clouds and revealed itself.
The aerial mobile fortress, Voltaha!
The Dark Alliance's ultimate weapon had finally made its first appearance.
Not only were countless cannons installed on Voltaha's underside, but at its very bottom, a metal tower shaped like a giant lightning rod was condensing a dark-red mass of light at its tip.
It was the destructive weapon possessed by the aerial mobile fortress Voltaha—'Wrath of Steel'.
And around Voltaha, numerous airships and wyvern units floated in the air.
Alarm filled the faces of Paul and Leira as they saw that sight.
I looked at the two of them and spoke.
"Will you still keep fighting even now?"
At my words, Leira and Paul slowly shook their heads.
"We surrender unconditionally."
"We will."
The moment the word surrender left the mouths of the two.
[Simseong Iron Stars has declared surrender in the war.]
A notification window appeared before my eyes.
It was the end of the war.
* * *
The war between Drakan, the Dark Alliance, and Simseong Iron Stars!
As it was the beginning of Phase 3 and the second clash between user forces following the war in the North, countless people were focused on this war.
And among them was Sin Hayeon.
Jeil World Tower.
The location of the Jeil Group's headquarters, and the tallest skyscraper in Seoul.
In the sky lounge on the top floor, which offered a full view of Seoul's cityscape, the live broadcast of the war between the Dark Alliance and Simseong Iron Stars in Arde World was currently being shown on a massive TV screen.
[We surrender unconditionally.]
[We will.]
The moment the surrender finally came and the war ended.
Sin Hayeon, watching that scene while sitting at a table drinking tea, smiled.
"I won."
Saying so, Sin Hayeon looked at the old man sitting across from her and added.
"Chairman Sin."
Chairman Sin.
The old man thus called bore a faint smile at Sin Hayeon's words.
There were two men in the Korean business world known as Chairman Sin.
One was Sin Yeongsik, the chairman of the Jeil Group and Sin Hayeon's father. The other was Chairman Sin Hyeonsik, the chairman of the Simseong Group—the second-ranked conglomerate in Korea's business hierarchy—and Sin Jeonghyeok's father.
And now, the 'Chairman Sin' sitting before Sin Hayeon was Sin Hyeonsik.
The emperor of the Simseong Group was now sitting face-to-face with Sin Hayeon.
"You remember the terms of the bet, don't you?"
"Of course."
At Sin Hayeon's words, Chairman Sin nodded and slowly began to recite the price of the bet to Sin Hayeon.