Chapter 116: Void energy (4)
A single knight riding a pure-white white horse.
Tall and imposing, with skin like white jade. Flowing silver hair. At first glance, one might think he was a beautiful woman—so handsome was he.
The most striking feature was his pointed ears, and Jin-young instantly deduced his identity.
An Elf—the race called exactly that.
“I never thought I’d see an Elf here. The atmosphere is quite different from what I know, though.”
Even in Renard, Elves existed, albeit in small numbers.
A race that respected nature and loved peace. All of them tall and beautiful, said to possess eternal youth.
But the white knight before him looked as though he scorned nature and despised peace.
The reason was none other than corruption by the Demon King.
『He seems to be in pain.』
The tentacles spoke as though peering beyond the white knight’s hostile gaze.
Ssssss…
A faint green poisonous aura slowly rose from the white knight’s body.
A powerful toxin that seemed capable of rotting skin and melting bones at the slightest touch.
Most Hunters would never have felt such power, but to Jin-young it was all too familiar.
“It’s the demonic energy the Demon King’s army scattered. Much more vicious.”
In Renard, places the Demon King’s army passed through didn’t simply become ruins.
They were better described as utterly decayed.
Animals, buildings—everything rotted and corroded, as though a plague itself had swept through.
The arrows of this white knight carried that power condensed within them.
『Let’s begin.』
“Alright.”
At the tentacle’s words, Jin-young nodded.
The white knight, immobilized by psychokinesis amplified through Cyclic energy.
Though he emitted a powerful aura of plague from his body, even that was suppressed by psychokinesis.
Because of this, the green poisonous aura pouring from him accumulated in thick, cloud-like layers without dispersing.
Jin-young finely adjusted his psychokinesis, controlling the poison so it could not escape.
At the same time, he touched the Void energy that enveloped the white knight like a mana barrier.
Crackle—!
Black sparks erupted from the energy barrier.
Like the black knight and red knight before him, the energy wrapping this one wasn’t particularly strong.
Still, it was sufficient as a sample.
Kwaaaaash—!
Jin-young’s psychokinesis instantly extracted the Void energy and compressed it into a spherical form.
Until now, he had been unable to absorb it due to incompatibility with black mana, but once converted into Void energy, that would change.
Shuuu—
Jin-young placed the Void energy sphere directly into his subspace.
Of course, he did not forget the artifact of the four knights—the ‘green bow’.
Tzzzz— Shoo!
It resisted fiercely, emitting tremendous toxicity, but in an instant it was dragged over and sucked into subspace like a goal scored.
The white knight, robbed of both weapon and energy right before his eyes, remained silent.
More precisely, he was in a state where he wanted to speak but could not.
It was only natural—his mind had been corrupted by the Demon King.
“Let’s hear your inner voice after a long time.”
Tzzzt—
Black portals formed around the white knight.
From five portals, tentacles shot out, rushing toward his body.
The thickly accumulated green poisonous aura greeted the tentacles first.
Pssss…
The tentacles melted under the extreme toxicity, but they regenerated instantly thanks to super-regeneration, repeating the cycle.
Five tentacles swiftly wrapped around the white knight’s body.
Bound by psychokinesis, he couldn’t even struggle.
Crack— Pushuuuuk—
The tentacles crushed the white horse’s bones and pierced through the back of the white knight’s head.
Unlike when he had cautiously breached the black knight’s mental barrier, this was swift and unhesitant work.
Pop!
The moment the tentacle touched and shattered the barrier, the demonic energy polluting the white knight’s mind was sucked out completely.
At the same time, every trace of black mana flowing through his body was absorbed without remainder.
『Haaah……!』
The white knight’s eyes widened as he gasped roughly.
The blackness that had stained his pupils faded, returning to a brilliant emerald hue.
But with the Demon King’s power that had sustained both body and mind suddenly gone, he would not last long.
Like the black knight and red knight, merely mentioning anything related to the Demon King would cause him to vanish.
The tentacles infused purified black mana into the white knight’s mental world to prevent his mind and body from collapsing.
『Where… am I… exactly…』
The white knight looked around.
The land contaminated by black Creep, the air thick with plague poison.
It didn’t take long for him to recall—this was similar to the scenery right before he lost consciousness.
“Name and place of origin.”
The white knight turned his head toward the voice.
And looking at Jin-young, he opened his mouth.
『Eorvinian. Lord Protector of the glorious Aldies. And you?』
“Chae Jin-young. Just an Earthling. I’m not particularly curious about who destroyed you. Just explain how those guys crossed dimensions.”
Jin-young had already obtained information from the black knight and red knight, so he had no interest in who had caused the destruction.
It was obviously the Demon King.
He had taken into account that carelessly mentioning that name might cause the one he had just barely saved to die.
What Jin-young wanted to know was how the Demon King’s army performed dimensional travel and the conditions for the Demon King’s descent.
The black knight’s mind had collapsed too quickly for him to learn anything, and in the red knight’s case, it had begun after disturbing the ruins of an ultra-ancient civilization.
Believing there couldn’t be only one method, he intended to collect as many cases as possible.
『How those guys crossed dimensions…?』
The white knight, Eorvinian, furrowed his brow.
He seemed not to even understand the question itself at first.
As Jin-young was about to add an explanation, Eorvinian finally seemed to recall something and continued.
『It began with a report that cracks had appeared in the guardians of dimensional boundaries.』
“Dimensional boundary?”
『There must be boundaries in this dimension as well. Do you not know?』
“…How could I possibly know that?”
Jin-young couldn’t comprehend it.
How could one locate a dimensional boundary somewhere in the endlessly vast universe where Earth was placed?
Even in Renard, there was no place he hadn’t been to, yet he had never heard or seen anything like that.
『It seems you haven’t reached that stage yet.』
“Explain in detail.”
Jin-young’s eyes sparkled at the new information he hadn’t obtained from the previous calamity knights.
When he had dominated the black knight’s mind, the tentacle’s technique hadn’t been very good, and the black knight’s mental strength had been weak.
The red knight had strong mental fortitude, but due to the hasty mistake with the Heavenly Thunder Sword Technique, he had rapidly collapsed.
But now there were no interferences, and the white knight’s mental strength was also strong.
Eorvinian glanced around and spoke.
『Looking at these traces, it seems the ‘virtual dimensional gate’ has already been opened, and soon the ‘multidimensional passage’ will open as well.』
“Multidimensional passage?”
Jin-young was hearing ‘virtual dimensional gate’ for the first time as well, but from the context, he thought it was similar to dungeon gates.
After all, Creep only flowed out from dungeon gates.
『It is a passageway that connects multiple dimensions to one another. The dimensional boundary is a kind of fortress wall. Of course, even I do not know which dimension connects to which, or how. Since we do not know whether the other side will propose peace or declare war, we stationed border guards at the boundary.』
Jin-young rested his chin on his hand and organized his thoughts.
The first thing that came to mind was the ‘Second Great Cataclysm’ that Prophet Michelle had spoken of.
A disaster-grade dungeon is created, and upon failure to clear it, a gate outburst of an unprecedented scale occurs.
Immediately afterward, a crack appears in the empty air, and something enormous reveals itself.
Michelle had dared to peek into the future where the Demon King descends, only for one of her eyes to burst.
She had sensed something wrong in that instant and stopped her foresight just in time—otherwise, she would have lost her life.
Even though it wasn’t reality, surviving after facing the Demon King was fortunate in itself.
Whether due to aftereffects from confronting the Demon King or not, parts of her foresight were fragmented and cut off.
He thought those missing pieces probably concerned connections to other dimensions like Renard, or matters related to dimensional boundaries.
While Jin-young was lost in thought, Eorvinian continued.
『Then one day, a border guard rushed in urgently. The dimensional boundary had been invaded. We were always prepared, so we could immediately launch a counterattack… but as you can see, we suffered a crushing defeat and ended up like this.』
Having experienced the Demon King’s army himself, Jin-young understood.
In Renard too, until Jin-young stepped in, they hadn’t even been able to mount a proper counterattack and had been turned into a wasteland.
“You don’t know the conditions for the multidimensional passage to open?”
『I don’t know precisely… but there are suspicious entities. Heretics who believe not in our main god, but in profane and erroneous beings. Those bastards definitely…』
Eorvinian’s mouth suddenly shut mid-sentence.
Thinking it was over, Jin-young prepared to let him pass peacefully.
Then, his mouth opened again.
『I can feel it. His voice…』
“…?”
Jin-young furrowed his brow.
Sssss…
Eorvinian’s body began to scatter like grains of sand.
Looking at Jin-young, he spoke one last time.
『Thank you for freeing me from that thing. Our main god will one day repay you. Take good care of that bow…』
Srrrr…
Eorvinian completely vanished. In his place, only a Manastone remained alone.
“…….”
Jin-young used psychokinesis to pull the Manastone over and silently absorbed it.
The tentacle sucked up all the black mana embedded in the Manastone and then said.
『This should be sufficient. Will you absorb the remaining blue knight as well?』
“No. First, let’s convert it to Void energy. And I need to meet Michelle.”
Jin-young opened a portal to leave but paused and looked back.
Kwaaaaang—
A loud explosion rang out from nearby.
With the white knight’s death, the Creep and toxic fog cleared away, revealing the figures of two people in combat.
***
Puhwaak—
Spitting dark red blood, Nia was pushed backward.
She wiped the blood from her mouth and glared at Dolsae.
Due to the bizarre power that came from the unidentified bead, her black mana was completely sealed at the source.
Emitting mana wasn’t a problem, but whenever she clashed with Dolsae—who had swallowed the bead—her black mana simply vanished.
“Huh? The Creep is disappearing too. Isn’t this starting to get disadvantageous for you?”
Regaining his confidence, Dolsae provoked Nia.
Just moments ago, he had thought he was going to die like this.
However, a white storm had flown in from somewhere and struck Nia, and the situation was slowly turning around.
For some reason, she couldn’t keep up with the pure-white mana.
Of course, Dolsae—who had suffered serious injuries—was struggling just to move his body.
The method he chose at that moment was none other than swallowing the white bead.
“Just what kind of monster is he…?”
Nia had thought that the moment Dolsae swallowed the bead, he would explode and die.
The mana emitted by the bead clashed with his own mana, causing a backlash, and he even showed preliminary signs of mana overload.
It was a common occurrence among high-ranking GODS believers who accepted more black mana than their bodies could handle.
But Dolsae endured.
Paaat—
Dolsae charged forward, emitting pure-white light from his body.
Nia gritted her teeth and tried to activate her afterimage ability.
However, due to the pure-white mana dominating the surroundings, her ability failed to activate properly.
Kwaaaaang!
Nia was sent flying by a direct punch.
White teeth scattered through the air.
Dolsae reached into his jacket and pulled out two axes.
Shwaaaak—
Holy power wrapped around the axe blades.
He slammed them down onto Nia’s floating arms.
Puhwaaaak—
Her two arms flew off powerlessly.
“Kuugh…”
Even as she groaned, she tried to activate her final resort hidden within her body.
The ‘mana amplifier’ given to high-ranking executives of GODS.
She believed that if she used it, she could at least buy enough time to escape.
She rapidly circulated the black mana inside her body, right on the verge of crushing the mana amplifier—
Kwaak!
Dolsae’s axe struck her forehead first.
Nia died with her eyes wide open.
“Huff… huff…”
Having exerted all his strength in such a short time, Dolsae looked considerably exhausted as well.
Swallowing the bead had placed a heavy burden on his mana, and his injuries were severe.
He was in a state where fainting wouldn’t have been strange, yet he stood proudly on both legs.
At that moment.
Pop—
A black bead-like object popped out from the dead Nia’s mouth.
Dolsae squeezed out the last of his strength, preparing for the next attack, but—
Shuuu—
The bead flew in an unexpected direction and landed in the hand of a familiar man.
His junior agent, Psycho.
“Sunbae. Did you really eat that thing?”
“…….”
Dolsae, too drained to speak, simply nodded.
“I never imagined you’d eat it. Even Yoon Soo-ho didn’t go that far.”
Psycho clicked his tongue and muttered to himself.
“Anyway, it’s fortunate you held out. At this level, you’ll make an excellent meat shi— I mean, tanker. Let’s head back now.”
Tzzzt—
A portal to return home opened in front of Dolsae.
***
A small portal formed above the Creep.
Tzzzz—
The spatial crack, which had seemed like a simple portal at first, began to grow larger and larger.
Beyond it stretched a landscape similar to rural Europe, yet unmistakably alien.
A man whose body was covered in red scales stood before it, gazing appreciatively through the portal.
This was no virtually created dungeon—it was a genuine dimensional gate leading to another real dimension.
It had finally succeeded in opening.
“With this, we’ve taken one step closer to the final stage.”
Prophet Edgar Malone murmured with a satisfied expression.
At that moment, a grotesque scream came from behind.
『Curse… you… Hate… you……』
The fallen blue knight glared at Edgar and spat out words of curse.
Edgar smirked, picked up a massive scythe, and approached.
“You lot are no longer useful. Now that the real calamity begins, we’ll sweep away all the foolish unbelievers.”
Swoosh!
The gleaming blade of the blue knight’s artifact—the great scythe—sliced through his neck in one clean stroke.
The decapitated blue knight scattered like sand in the wind, slowly vanishing.
Edgar slung the scythe over his shoulder and spat as if disgusted.
“Next is the false prophet’s turn.”
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