Chapter 25
The fading black mass of light was gradually being absorbed into Keureion.
From Keureion, which was absorbing the black light, an even more sinister aura could be felt.
Jeon asked cautiously.
“Is that the master of this temple?”
Deiodeun answered, stowing Keureion away.
“It is merely the remnant of a god who lost his divinity. At best, a husk that couldn’t even exert ten percent of its original strength.”
“So it truly was a god? Is it possible to kill a god?”
“Did I not tell you? It is merely a husk that lost its godhood.”
“But…….”
“It is not even a being of Earth, merely a fragment of Kurayan trapped in a dungeon and barely clinging to life. Even without me, it was a being that would have eventually perished on its own. So do not make a fuss.”
At Deiodeun’s words, Jeon pressed his lips shut. But his face remained filled with a light of confusion.
It was already hard to believe that a being called a god actually existed, not to mention the unfamiliar word “Kurayan” being brought up.
He had thought he knew Deiodeun to some extent by now, but the truth was he didn’t know him at all.
Deiodeun’s strength was beyond his imagination.
He spoke to Jeon.
“Still, you survived admirably without kicking the bucket. There shouldn’t have even been any sand.”
“I barely survived.”
“Hmph! As long as you didn’t die, that is enough.”
Vwoooosh!
Finally, the black light that was the god’s remnant was completely absorbed into Keureion.
Deiodeun looked at Keureion with a satisfied smile.
“Now the minimum preparations are finally complete.”
“What preparations do you mean?”
“…….”
It was then.
Rumble!
Suddenly, the temple began to shake.
It was the phenomenon of the dungeon itself collapsing as the temple’s master perished.
Massive pillars toppled powerlessly, and the ceiling caved in.
Space was swallowing the temple itself.
A world was being annihilated.
Deiodeun watched without a word, and Jeon was overwhelmed.
Jeon took in the sight of the perishing world.
At that moment, their bodies were enveloped in light and teleported.
Shortly after, the place where the two reappeared was right in front of the stone gate where the dungeon entrance had been created.
The moment it expelled the two, the stone gate vanished without a trace.
Jeon looked around, but the stone gate was nowhere to be seen.
It had perished without leaving a single trace, as if it had never existed from the start.
Entering and returning from the dungeon felt faint and distant, as if in a dream. But it was neither a dream nor a delusion.
The Eksion absorbed into his body was proving that fact.
Perhaps because he had absorbed Eksion and risen another level, his dominion had increased tremendously.
Deiodeun was the first to launch himself out of the sand pit, which was a hundred meters deep.
Jeon unleashed his Sand Step.
The sand automatically pushed Jeon out of the massive pit.
The moment they emerged from the sand pit, blinding sunlight greeted them.
They couldn’t know how much time had passed inside the dungeon, but in the real world, morning had broken.
The flow of time inside dungeons varied case by case.
In some dungeons, one day in reality became ten days, and in others, it was exactly the same as reality.
Therefore, it was impossible to know how much time had passed in reality without checking directly.
However, neither Jeon nor Deiodeun had any interest in such matters.
What was important to them was that they had conquered the dungeon hidden deep beneath the desert.
In this dungeon, Jeon had completely absorbed Eksion.
Now he had secured the minimum means of self-preservation to protect himself even in places without sand.
Fortunately, the rampaging Eksion had stabilized upon defeating Gigarein.
He was now ready to use Eksion at any time.
As Jeon’s rank rose, Eksion’s power would also increase.
He stole a glance at Deiodeun.
Because he wondered, having grown this strong himself, just how much stronger Deiodeun had become.
God-killing (神殺).
If Jeon had killed Gigarein the Guardian, then Deiodeun had killed a god.
Even if it was a god whose strength had weakened after losing its divinity.
Jeon well knew how great and tremendous a might that represented.
‘I thought I had caught up considerably, but I’m still far away.’
Even so, Jeon was not disappointed.
Deiodeun was old, but he himself was young.
He had many more days left to live, so if he steadily continued his efforts, he would be able to catch up to him someday.
Having followed Deiodeun, Jeon’s personality and mindset had unknowingly come to resemble his greatly.
Deiodeun moved without even resting
Jeon also unleashed his Sand Step.
Having risen to D-rank, his ability to utilize sand had developed by leaps and bounds. Thanks to that, he could move at nearly the same speed as Deiodeun.
Deiodeun walked eastward without rest.
Jeon quietly followed behind him.
After walking east for several days like that, an alien landscape appeared.
At first, he thought it was a hallucination or an optical illusion.
To that extent, the scenery before his eyes far surpassed Jeon’s expectations.
“My God! A forest!”
What he was looking at was clearly a massive forest.
An enormous forest was spread out in the middle of the desolate desert.
It was the first time he had seen a forest made of trees since the world had been ruined to this state.
Trees and forests exist inside Neo Seoul as well.
Because they are perfectly protected from the desert’s arid climate by a barrier. But the people of the slums cannot see that sight.
Because of the high wall dividing the slums and Neo Seoul.
Jeon too had only heard stories that trees and forests existed; this was the first time he had seen them directly.
Jeon’s steps gradually quickened, and eventually he overtook Deiodeun.
That was how much he wanted to see the trees up close.
But the closer he approached, the more Jeon felt the forest was strange.
Trees were definitely clustered to form a forest. But he couldn’t feel any green vitality whatsoever.
Not a single leaf was attached, and the trunks and branches had all turned black.
It was very different from the appearance of trees he had heard about as a child.
“These are trees?”
“They have been carbonized; only their forms remain. Their lives as trees ended long ago.”
Deiodeun gazed at the carbonized forest with cold, sunken eyes.
“People call this place the Black Forest.”
“People? Do people live here?”
“There are foolish ones who cannot let go of lingering attachments and continue living.”
Deiodeun spoke bluntly and sat down beneath a large tree.
Although only trunks and branches remained, they cast enough shade to block the sunlight.
Perhaps because it blocked the scorching sun, a cool energy was felt inside the Black Forest.
“Wow!”
Jeon involuntarily exclaimed at the chill that was almost frigid.
Because except for dungeons or underground places, he had never felt this much cold anywhere.
Jeon blankly looked up at the Black Forest.
The black trees covered the entire sky.
He felt regret at how nice it would have been if they were real, living trees instead of carbonized ones.
It was then.
Weeeng!
A faint sound reached Jeon’s ears.
It was the sound of something small flapping its wings.
Instinctively, Jeon erected a sand wall right in front of him.
Pop!
Immediately after, something flew in and struck the sand wall.
The object that struck the sand wall exploded on impact.
Fortunately, the explosion’s range wasn’t very wide, so Jeon took no damage.
Then Deiodeun spoke.
“Don’t go deep. The inner part of the Black Forest is bomb bee territory.”
“Bomb bees? You mean the bees explode?”
“That’s right. When intruders enter their territory, they hurl their own bodies to explode.”
Jeon looked at the ground.
The remains of bomb bees were scattered about.
Judging from the remains, he could deduce that their original size had been about that of a child’s fist.
“Is the inside all bomb bee territory?”
“That’s right. If you don’t cross that line, nothing will happen.”
“Could it be that people don’t live here because of the bomb bees?”
“You’re quite quick-witted. Exactly.”
“Couldn’t we just kill all the bomb bees?”
“If it were that easy, I would have dealt with it long ago. No matter how many bomb bees you kill, if the queen bee lives, they quickly breed and swarm again. So don’t think of wasting your strength needlessly, and rest here.”
“Yes!”
If Deiodeun was speaking to this extent, it seemed like no ordinary troublesome entity.
It felt like he was avoiding them not because he was scared, but because it was annoying.
Since it was none of his business anyway, Jeon also sat beneath a tree near Deiodeun.
Right now, he just wanted to forget all the headache-inducing matters and enjoy this scenery.
Jeon leaned his back against the carbonized tree and looked ahead.
Unlike the shaded Black Forest, the desert under the blazing sun was emitting intense heat.
Even for Jeon, crossing the desert bare-bodied would be madness.
‘I need to get a new robe… ah!’
Jeon suddenly remembered that he had spare robes in his subspace.
When he had gathered various items including bows from the elf village destroyed by Deiodeun, he had put robes in as well.
When he opened his subspace, the elves’ robes were visible.
Jeon draped the robe over his body.
Though not as much as a robe made from Sand Angler hide, the elves’ robes also blocked the heat to some degree.
‘I can just wear this robe for the time being.’
Deiodeun hated other races terribly, but he said nothing about Jeon using the elves’ belongings.
Deiodeun once again planted Keureion in front of him and conversed in a low voice.
Having seen it so often, Jeon took it in stride.
There was a time when he had wanted to know what kind of conversation Deiodeun was having and had strained his ears, but perhaps because sound waves were blocked, he couldn’t hear well.
From then on, he gave up on eavesdropping.
It was far more profitable to examine his newly obtained abilities in that time.
‘Thanks to Eksion, my dominion has been further strengthened.’
According to what he had checked outside, if he raised his dominion while operating Eksion, he could command the sand much more smoothly.
Before, he could barely command sand within a radius of about ten meters, but now it had expanded to several tens of meters.
If he kept growing like this, he felt he would eventually be able to command all sand within his field of vision.
‘I struggled because I had poor compatibility with golems. I won luckily this time, but I need to research more thoroughly.’
If it was true, as Deiodeun said, that the temple’s god had weakened after losing its godhood, then it was clear that Gigarein the Guardian was also far weaker than its original self.
If Gigarein had been normal, there was a high probability that Jeon would have been defeated even while using Eksion.
Jeon calmly reviewed his fight with Gigarein and identified its problems.
Looking back on battles like this was of great help to Jeon’s growth in skill.
‘Blink and Chain Lightning. Both were powerful. If I meet an Awakened who freely uses these two skills, the probability of me losing is high.’
The difference between golems and humans was precisely the flexibility of thought.
Golems only acted according to predetermined patterns, but humans could respond flexibly depending on the situation.
Currently, Jeon was specialized in anti-demonic beast combat.
Having only fought demonic beasts while following Deiodeun, his skills had developed in that direction.
If he was thinking of returning to Neo Seoul someday, it was right to develop his skills with anti-personnel combat in mind from now on.
Once he grasped the topic, his thoughts automatically branched out.
‘Hmm!’
Jeon sat down cross-legged and surrendered himself to his thoughts.
He didn’t even know how much time had passed.
When Jeon opened his eyes again, dawn was breaking far in the distance.
He had stayed up all night.
“Hoo!”
Jeon stood up from his spot and stamped both legs.
Having sat still all night, his whole body was stiff and sore.
“Hm?”
While he was loosening his stiff body, Jeon suddenly looked to the front.
It was because he had sensed the movement of a living being on the sand far away.
Wondering if it might be a bomb bee, he looked closely, but it was a completely different being.
‘A child?’
Far away, a girl who looked about twelve was lying flat on the sandy ground, looking at Jeon and Deiodeun.
Then Deiodeun opened his mouth.
“A mongrel of the Goya clan.”
“What?”
“A dirty mongrel born in the family of fools who cling to impossible things. She’s grown that much in the meantime. I should have killed her then.”
Deiodeun’s face as he looked at the girl was filled with deep contempt.
“This child is not a mongrel. She will surely become the future of this land.”
Then a middle-aged man appeared beside the girl with a calm voice.
On the middle-aged man’s back was hung a large bow and a quiver holding arrows. It was typical hunter attire.
Even at the middle-aged man’s sudden appearance, Deiodeun spoke bluntly without surprise.
“Your sophistry is the same as ever. Did she teach you that?”
“She died not long ago.”
The middle-aged man’s face was filled with sorrow as he answered. But the gaze with which Deiodeun looked at him remained cold as ever.
“Dead? It should have been by this hand.”
“You haven’t changed at all, Deiodeun. How long will you despise them and treat them like enemies? That this land became like this was never their will…”
“That is enough. Run your mouth any further, and I’ll kill you, your mongrel brat, and your entire clan.”
Deiodeun erupted with a terrifying killing intent.
Exposed to his killing intent, the girl sprang up and hid behind the middle-aged man.
At that moment, Jeon saw.
That the girl’s ears were shaped differently from ordinary people.
“An elf?”