-Climax
* * *
Yasin ended his brief rest and looked out the window.
Vitality coursed through his entire body, and his vision had brightened. The scenery in the darkness appeared as bright as if it had been illuminated.
The view from the Incheon Airport control tower was exactly to Yasin’s liking.
The runways curved like strands of taffy, while aircraft were tangled together like scrap metal, piling into towers here and there.
The airport terminal had been completely wrapped in gigantic carnivorous plants, transformed into something so new that not even its original form could be discerned.
In short, it was a magnificent landscape that looked like a work of modern art.
Every bit of it was Yasin’s creation.
“It’s wonderful. I like it. But I’d be even happier if there were spectators to appreciate this beautiful work. Where did they all run off to? Honestly, humans really are such weaklings. What am I supposed to do when they all drop dead and flee?”
Yasin muttered to himself.
The Mage Tower wizards were laughable, to say the least.
The thought of those fools going around proclaiming themselves great mages and receiving every manner of respect, when they couldn’t even defeat a single giant tentacle monster on their own, made Yasin snort with contempt.
The flames unleashed by the mages did little more than scorch the tentacle monsters’ skin, while the lightning they struck down was blocked by the barriers Yasin sent out and never even reached the monsters’ bodies.
After trying several times and realizing their attacks had no effect, the mages eventually tucked their tails between their legs.
They must have switched to a defensive strategy, because they abandoned the airport entirely and devoted themselves solely to evacuating the people.
What kind of mages were they supposed to be?
The army was already handling the evacuation. To think that mages had been reduced to nothing more than escorts for the military.
Yasin wanted to face a mage who knew how to fight a real battle, even once, instead of these hollow husks.
“Oudin still isn’t here? What on earth is taking him so long?”
Yasin had been waiting inwardly for Oudin for quite some time.
It had been extremely disappointing that Oudin had gone toward Chinatown instead of coming to Incheon Airport from the beginning.
Why had he chosen Nasan Haegyeong instead of Yasin himself?
Well, he must have done it without knowing. If Oudin had known, he would never have chosen Nasan Haegyeong.
He, too, must certainly have been looking forward to a confrontation with Yasin more.
‘Should I have advertised that I was here?’
But he couldn’t do that. Samir had not permitted it.
Yasin and Nasan Haegyeong had to carry out new acts of terrorism to make up for their mistakes.
They had been ordered to put on a spectacular display of terror—one grand enough to teach Banaheim a lesson for the attack it had carried out right under the Mage Tower’s nose, as if mocking it.
Following Samir’s orders, the two of them each unveiled a work that displayed their abilities to the fullest at their assigned locations.
But they had been told not to let anyone know who was responsible for the attacks.
Thus, while Yasin and Nasan Haegyeong faithfully followed Samir’s orders, they were also competing with each other.
Over which of them would claim Samir’s glory.
In Yasin’s opinion, of course, the winner was Yasin himself.
“Chimeras, huh? They’re as crude as can be. There’s neither beauty nor grandeur to them.”
Yasin mocked Nasan Haegyeong’s creation.
A monster made by mixing together every kind of race imaginable. It was merely ugly, and possessed no particularly impressive abilities.
The technique of spreading the aura of disease to turn humans into zombies and then into chimeras was something he could acknowledge, at least to a small extent.
But it could not compare with the creations he had made.
The tentacle monsters were creatures he had shown off once before, and while they might not be all that surprising, the carnivorous plant was the pinnacle of his work.
Not only ordinary people and soldiers, but even mages had fled in terror at the appearance of the gigantic carnivorous plant.
“Beautiful, grand, and mighty. It charms people in an instant, yet plunges them into endless fear. And it’s practically eternal, too.”
The gigantic carnivorous plant was Yasin’s crowning masterpiece.
He had not studied the Golden Apple for nothing.
He had been unable to create the fruit of immortality because he had not completed his research, but in exchange, he had managed to create a carnivorous plant that bestowed eternal death.
“Come on, look! Hurry over here and appreciate my work.”
Yasin spun around inside the control tower as though dancing, pointing through the windows at the airport terminal and runways.
As an ashen aura stretched from his fingertips, the gigantic carnivorous plant stirred in response.
The vines of the carnivorous plant coiling tightly around the terminal were covered in lush green leaves. The leaves trembled as they absorbed the ashen aura.
Fresh green leaves. And that was not all. Yellow flowers had bloomed here and there as well. Nor could one forget the pale green sacs, swollen like balloons.
Once the beautiful flowers bewitched people and the drifting pollen paralyzed them so they could not move, the vines would reach out and coil tightly around them, while the leaves wrapped them up in a flash. Then they were captured inside the sacs, which opened wide.
The plant snapped them up one after another, slowly digesting them inside the sacs swollen like balloons.
Even the Mage Tower wizards had lost themselves admiring the carnivorous plant’s beauty, only to become food for the monster.
He understood. The fact that it was gigantic and ate people did not mean one could fail to appreciate its beauty.
“But everything you’ve seen so far is merely the prologue. I haven’t even shown you the true beauty of the carnivorous plant—its grandeur and might.”
The plant’s ability to grow, breaking through the ground and stretching outward, was astonishing even to Yasin. He had to restrain the aura of black magic slightly.
It was not yet time to reveal its true nature. He was saving that for the real battle.
The plant had already swallowed everything in its path, leaving neither spectators nor witnesses behind. If the place were completely devastated, Oudin might not come here at all.
That was why Yasin had saved a dazzling climax. He had also conserved his strength.
He had even allowed the remaining mages to mistakenly believe they were gaining the upper hand, and taken a rest.
And yet Oudin still had not come.
“Hurry up and get here. What on earth are you doing?”
Yasin sat down in his chair again and connected to the internet.
Just as he had expected, Nasan Haegyeong seemed to have been no match for Oudin. The chimeras had all been annihilated, and Chinatown had been purified.
“Heh heh. Of course. Nasan Haegyeong, of all people… Oudin will be coming here soon.”
The thought of facing Oudin filled Yasin with delight, but at the same time, it sent a chill down his spine.
Yasin might disregard Nasan Haegyeong, but the truth was that Nasan Haegyeong was no pushover of a black mage.
The chimeras were crude, of course, but the power he could unleash through the red portals was not something to be taken lightly.
Still, a fight was only fun if the opponent was worth fighting.
Even as he thought that, Yasin subconsciously decided that he needed to replenish his strength a little more.
“Look over there. I gave them a brief respite, and it seems the mages have managed to muster a little strength?”
He spoke while looking over the runways and airport buildings once more.
Now that he looked, the gigantic carnivorous plant wrapped around the terminal did seem to have shrunk somewhat.
Several of the tentacle monsters that had been rampaging across the runways had also collapsed and were burning.
“Those idiots. They don’t even know how to survive on their own.”
Yasin went outside the control tower.
Using propulsion magic to move to where the tentacle monsters had fallen, Yasin stretched out his hand and sent an ashen aura flowing into the monsters.
He was not replenishing them with ashen aura as he had done with the carnivorous plant moments ago.
Why would he do that for creatures already burning to death?
The tentacle monsters, engulfed in the ashen aura, melted away in an instant, transforming into a thick, dark-red gel.
When Yasin pulled his hand toward himself, the lump of dark-red gel was sucked swiftly toward him. Soon, it entered Yasin’s mouth.
The thick lump of gel that had once been a tentacle monster slid hotly down his esophagus and was absorbed grain by grain into his body.
A little while later, a searing energy began coursing wildly through his entire body.
He had rested, and he had even nourished himself.
His magical power was full to overflowing, and his desire to fight reached the heavens.
‘Come, Oudin. I’m waiting for you this desperately.’
Yasin flew back to the control tower using propulsion magic. After climbing to the top, he looked out over the entire airport and released the ashen aura with all his might.
A dense ashen aura rose like a cloud from the mouth of Yasin, who had just condensed and devoured his own creation.
The carnivorous plants and tentacles writhed in response from every direction.
“You may grow even further now. The climax will arrive soon.”
* * *
After each drinking a bottle of Cheon Danbi’s potion and eating the warm corn bread Yantu had given us, we began the pursuit.
The traces of the lizardmen and orcs branched off in several directions, so we decided to choose one and follow it.
We pursued the trail where the ashen aura was strongest.
“It’s in the direction of Seoul. Did they take the nonhuman races to Seoul?”
“They might have. They could have taken them to the Mage Tower.”
“What are they planning to do with the lizardmen and orcs?”
The stronger the trail became as we followed it along the detection line, the denser the ashen aura grew.
It seemed the lizardmen and orcs had entered the country illegally after falling victim to the black mage’s mind magic.
“They’re probably planning to use them as tools of terror. But we can’t know for sure yet. It hasn’t even been definitively proven that the Mage Tower is responsible.”
“Oh, that’s true. It could have been Banaheim’s doing.”
That was certainly possible, but since nothing was certain yet, I held my tongue.
It was deep into the night, and there were hardly any cars on the roads. Only police cars and military vehicles passed by from time to time.
Our car sped along.
Since they had not even tried to conceal the trail, tracking them was easy.
But around the time we passed Bupyeong, the trail suddenly vanished. The detection line ended abruptly, as if it had been cut with a knife.
“Wait! Stop the car.”
“Why?”
“The trail disappeared.”
“The detection was interrupted? Then did they perhaps enter somewhere around here?”
“No. It’s not that. The trail disappeared completely.”
The car came to a stop, and I extended my detection carefully in every direction once more.
It was the same. The trail had vanished without a trace.
They might have entered somewhere nearby, just as Cheon Danbi suggested, and concealed their trail with a barrier.
But my instincts told me that was not the case.
‘A portal?’
If they had traveled by leaping through space, the trail could have disappeared this completely.
This time, I changed my objective and thoroughly spread out my detection anew.
As expected, I detected traces of a red portal.
It was faint, but because I had encountered a red portal before, I was able to detect it.
Nasan Haegyeong had used spatial magic to move the nonhuman races.
He must have quietly left Chinatown and taken on a new mission.
“They must have moved them through a portal from here. I can detect traces of a red portal.”
“A portal? Was it Nasan Haegyeong?”
“That seems likely.”
“Do you think the trucks that went in the other directions moved through portals too?”
“Who knows? They might have scattered in several directions to throw us off, then moved through portals. Or their destinations might have been different from the beginning.”
“What do we do now?”
“The pursuit ends here. Even though traces of the portal remain, there’s no way to determine where they went.”
I considered returning to Incheon Port and following another trail, but decided against it.
“Let’s go to Incheon Airport. We need to finish things there first. If the lizardmen and orcs show up, we’ll deal with them then.”
I turned the car toward Incheon Airport.
It was still deep into the night, and there was nothing but darkness in every direction.