-I Found You
Leviathan was descending. It was not somewhere very close.
As it moved toward the Gangnam District Office, it was casually bringing down buildings. The buildings toppled one after another like dominoes.
Countless people inside those buildings must already have died just from it drawing near, but the sight of massive buildings crumpling like cardboard boxes sent a chill through my heart in its own way.
“We have to hurry!”
Ren immediately polymorphed into a dragon.
There was neither time nor need to leave the area. There was no one around watching. Even if there had been, it probably would not have mattered.
In an instant, a dragon of unbelievable majesty appeared before my eyes.
It was my first time seeing Ren polymorphed into a dragon, so I was quietly startled.
My worries had been unnecessary. She looked so dignified and powerful that even Leviathan could step aside.
“I’m on. Let’s go!”
As if the two of them had already discussed it, Gil quickly climbed onto the dragon’s back and shouted. Then the dragon rose smoothly into the sky.
I wanted to keep watching them, but I did not have that luxury. I immediately turned my gaze toward the Eternal Life Building.
I had already sensed it. In that short time, a red portal had opened in the Eternal Life Building, and countless goat demons were pouring out.
But I did not deal with them right away.
‘You can wait for a moment.’
Leaving the goat demons alone for a short while, I first extended several strands of detection magic.
One headed toward the red portal in the Eternal Life Building where the goat demons were pouring out, while the others spread toward the various places our mages had rushed to.
Samir would undoubtedly cause disasters simultaneously. There was no way he had opened a portal only in front of the Magic Tower.
His goal would be to create enormous chaos and take over this country himself.
So we, too, were deploying countermeasures in every direction.
We had to protect key infrastructure such as power plants, and we had to guard major military facilities as well. Places where the leadership was gathered—the Blue House, the National Assembly, government complexes, the Management Bureau and the Hall—as well as economic centers like Yeouido had to be protected.
Mages had been dispatched to all of those places.
Most importantly, we had to stop Leviathan, which was attacking the city indiscriminately. I had also attached lines of detection to Ren and Gil.
I hoped everyone would do their part well. Wherever the balance of power collapsed, disaster would coil itself deep.
After extending the lines of detection, I quickly scanned the areas. As expected, red portals had opened everywhere. Everything was filled with acrid black energy.
Goat demons poured out. Even so, the mages were managing to defend. For now.
The situation in front of the Management Bureau was much better than before. The black energy there seemed to have been almost washed away. Cheon Danbi and the elves must have done well with the purification.
The dragon was just now approaching Leviathan.
‘May everyone do their best… May no one die….’
In the end, I would stop it. But until then, they had to hold out.
Once I entered the heart of the Magic Tower and killed Samir, the one who had caused all of this, his contract with the Demon Realm would automatically be undone.
Then Leviathan and the goat demons would return to where they had come from.
“Geee! Geee!”
“Geee! Geige! Geege!”
“Kai-e! Kai-e!”
“Kai! Kai! Kai-e!”
The noisy voices drew closer and closer. I could no longer ignore them.
Looking around, I saw the goat demons spreading in all directions at tremendous speed.
There were no living people moving nearby, so they must have been going farther out to hunt.
There seemed to be about several thousand of them. Some of them had surrounded me from a distance and were noisily chattering.
Seeing how they did not rush in recklessly, they seemed to have realized that I was no ordinary human.
Though they should have been second to none when it came to speed, they were approaching me very cautiously.
Now I would deal with them. Not only the ones surrounding me, but every single one spreading in every direction.
Leaving the lines of detection connected as they were, I newly drew up mana and created a wave.
‘I’ll freeze all of you at once.’
Compared to the last time I encountered the goat demons, the terrain was much more advantageous for me. Back then, it had been inside the Magic Tower made up of unfathomable cliffs, but now it was an open street.
There was no passage directly connected to the Demon Realm here either.
That meant there was no need to use spatial magic here. All I had to do was simply spread freezing magic wide and strong.
‘This is my world. You are the outsiders.’
The Demon Realm energy wrapped around the goat demons was foreign to this place. Therefore, filtering it out was extremely easy.
If I registered the wave of black energy in my magic circuit, I could eliminate even the distant ones in a single stroke.
‘Freeze every living being that possesses black energy!’
I spread my arms wide, extended my hands, and turned in a circle. Soon, waves of freezing surged from my fingertips like a waterfall.
The ones who sensed the activation of magic hurriedly screamed—or perhaps shouted warnings.
“Geee? Geee!”
“Kai! Kai! Kai-e!”
But it was already too late. Frost-like waves of freezing encroached upon space in every direction at the speed of light.
Chachachachachachachacha!
Chachachachachachachacha!
The goat demons froze solid before they could even attempt a clumsy attack. Even the sounds they had been shouting were trapped inside ice like glass walls.
The fact that there were no living people in the area was a deeply sorrowful reality, but in terms of subjugation, it made my work simple. It meant anything that could become a variable had disappeared.
Because of that, I extended my magic without worrying about anything.
The waves of freezing magic stretched on and on. They did not miss a single goat demon that had spread far away. They seized them without hesitation.
Over the cars tangled on the road, over the buildings crumpled and collapsed like cardboard boxes, and around the goat demons carrying black energy like clouds, bluish glaciers formed in an instant.
The subjugation ended swiftly. The goat demons were no match for the current me.
‘Is it over?’
I activated my golden vision and swept my gaze around the surroundings. There were no living creatures moving. Silence drifted in every direction.
If the silence until moments ago had been the desolation of everyone being dead, this silence now merely meant the clean completion of the subjugation.
As all the goat demons containing black energy were trapped inside the glaciers, sunlight flashed.
Though the city illuminated by that sunlight was still a scene of disaster, the restored brightness was welcome nonetheless.
Now it was finally time to go to Samir.
The red portal remained open. As if Samir had left it open to invite me in.
I slowly approached the red portal and called forth light from the depths of my heart.
Pure white light. Waves of sacred light spread to every corner of my body. They vibrated through my blood vessels, muscles, and nerves, and through every single cell that made them up.
The waves that had reached the tips of my fingers and toes returned to my heart once more, rose like a great tide toward the space between my brows, and gathered there.
Infinite energy gathered in one place.
I was ready.
‘Samir, show yourself.’
At that moment, the red portal surged violently, and a fierce gale rushed out through the gap.
A violent wind blew from within the portal. Of course, it was not a simple flow of air. Black energy was pouring out.
I thought Samir might be coming outside in response to the call of my consciousness, but that was not the case. He still chose to hide behind the scenes. He was still sending out his minions.
‘Coward.’
What emerged from the portal was a gigantic goat demon. A goat demon with splendidly curved red horns.
However, it was far larger than the red-horned goat demon I had seen before. It was worthy of being called a giant. There were two of them.
“Geee! Geee!”
“Kai-e!”
Perhaps because they were giants, their voices boomed like thunder as well. The air vibrated sharply.
Their movements were as fast as the wind. Because I had been quite close to the portal, the two of them stretched their feet over my head in a single step.
But I was faster.
‘Void!’
Since everything was already prepared, I did not need to hold a long intent in order to activate spatial magic.
In an instant, a void formed between them and me. The rock-hard hoof of the red-horned goat demon stepped not on my head, but into empty space.
It sank deep. Into a void that could never be leapt across….
But both of them had not fallen into the void. Astonishingly, one of the two had detoured around it.
No matter how much of a void it was, it could not extend infinitely to either side. The core of it was forming a chasm between my opponent and me, so the sides merely stretched out close to infinity.
And yet the giant goat demon had detoured around that distance at a speed close to infinite and charged toward me.
It was a dreadful creature. Worthy of admiration.
“Kai-e!”
However, that one made the mistake of making a sound.
It was not merely the sound of footsteps—it used its voice. It sounded as if the voice had been made while passing the far-off endpoint of the void, nearly infinitely distant, yet it reached me as if it were right beside me.
Because it had run at that speed.
I quickly formed a new void in the direction from which it was approaching. For a fleeting moment, I thought I saw red horns, and then they vanished into the void.
“Kai-e…….”
Even the lingering echo of its scream was sucked deep into the void.
I closed the void. I sealed it so they could never escape.
Even if they were giant goat demons with rather impressive red horns, even if they were remarkable creatures capable of astonishing speed, it did not matter.
They, too, could not be my match.
Now the red portal stood open and empty. Its rippling form was like a serpent’s maw.
I stepped right up before it.
But I had no intention of entering the portal. I did not have to enter the Magic Tower to find Samir.
Nor would I wait until Samir came outside.
I planned to drag him onto the battlefield. Onto a new battlefield where only Samir and I would face each other one-on-one.
I sent the line of detection I had extended into the red portal earlier deep into the interior of the Magic Tower.
The inside of the Magic Tower was filled with Demon Realm energy, causing merciless interference with the waves of detection. But it could not block my detection magic.
The covert waves burrowed in as if seeping into the enemy’s heart.
The interior of the Magic Tower, with Leviathan and the goat demons having departed in large numbers, seemed much more deserted than when I had investigated it last time.
However, the powerless black mages who had outsourced disaster to Demon Realm life-forms were moving busily, doing something. I passed them by.
The one I was pursuing was only their leader, Samir.
With detection magic, I examined closely the infinite pentagram marks that were prevalent throughout the Magic Tower.
Since it was the Magic Tower of the black mages who followed Samir, infinite pentagram marks of all shapes and colors filled every direction, but among them, I had to find the original.
As expected, distinguishing it was not difficult. The shape and color I could never forget, even in my dreams—Samir’s infinite pentagram—was gathered in one place at the center of the Magic Tower.
‘I found you!’