Chapter 118: Disaster-grade Dungeon(1)
“Kuugh… Just who the hell are you…?”
Veroniel tried to regenerate his shattered knee bones and stand up again.
But far from standing, the moment the bones regenerated, they crumbled once more.
Crack-crack-crack—
“Kh… Damn it!”
Veroniel and the angels were trapped in an endless cycle of excruciating pain.
A few quick-witted and highly adaptable angels, including Regael, had already given up resisting long ago.
But Veroniel was a Throne-class angel, ranked third in the hierarchy.
His pride was far too great to submit like this.
“Still haven’t come to your senses. You do know where you are, right?”
Jin-young looked down at Veroniel, who was screaming and resisting, and spoke.
He had planned to moderately break their spirits in order to form a temporary alliance with the angels and use them.
But if they came out like this, he had no choice.
At that moment, Veroniel spoke while blood dripped from his mouth.
“From what I’ve learned, it will take decades more for Gehenna’s barrier to be lifted.”
“Oh, really?”
Jin-young didn’t know where he had heard that, but he didn’t put much trust in it.
The words of Galomah, the supposed chancellor of Gehenna, felt far more sincere.
The determination to take Nine City soon.
He would clearly find some loophole to escape the barrier.
His clone had already proven that.
“In other words, even if we turn Nine City into ruins, Gehenna won’t be able to help.”
Jin-young quickly scanned the angels.
There were roughly forty of them.
All of them were similar in strength to Regael, whom he had met before, or slightly weaker.
Veroniel, as a Throne-class, was particularly strong, but this number alone was insufficient to breach Nine City’s solid defenses.
It could be dismissed as mere bluffing.
But Jin-young inferred another possibility from the confidence in his voice.
“You must have called in reinforcements.”
Veroniel’s expression stiffened for a moment at Jin-young’s words.
But soon he smirked and said,
“Yes. They should be arriving any moment now.”
The moment his words ended,
Tzzzt—
Circular magic circles engraved with golden characters appeared in midair and began spinning.
The magic circles soon transformed into massive golden portals.
Shaaaa—
Dozens of angels descended from the center of the portals amid pure white light.
What started as dozens of reinforcements quickly swelled, surpassing a thousand in no time.
There were some weaker angels, but most were on par with or stronger than Regael.
There were even quite a few stronger than the Veroniel right in front of him.
“They really brought them.”
Jin-young marveled as he watched the angelic legion descending upon Hell.
Seeing this, Veroniel soon wore an arrogant expression and said,
“Now it’s your turn to kneel.”
Soon, an angel lightly landed beside Veroniel.
Folding three pairs of wings, she gracefully extended her slender arm to the side.
Her gentle hand lightly stroked Veroniel’s head.
“You’ve worked hard, child.”
“Thank you, Anariel-nim.”
The gaze of the Dominion-class Archangel Anariel soon turned toward Jin-young.
“So you are the human acting as proxy for the Lord of the Abyss.”
Her solemn voice tickled Jin-young’s ears. Upon closer inspection, he could sense it subtly trying to infiltrate his mind.
“Starting with no manners right from the first meeting.”
“What…?”
Anariel, faced with the unexpected response, looked more bewildered than angry.
The other angels, including Veroniel, expressed outrage on her behalf.
“How dare you show such disrespect to the great Guardian Commander of Heaven, Anariel-nim!”
“Kill that profane and insolent human right now!”
“Anariel-nim, please grant permission to take his life!”
Jin-young began to grow fed up with the angels’ squawking voices.
Some even released their humanoid forms, reverting to their true appearances and preparing to attack.
Tskwa-kwa-kwa-kwa—
Wheels spinning madly while spewing white flames.
They were Throne-class angels directly under the Dominion.
They seemed ready to charge at Jin-young while unleashing holy fire at any moment.
“Let’s first make it clear who’s in charge here.”
Jin-young said, slowly raising his right hand.
At that hand gesture, the angels moved in perfect unison with excitement.
“Wait…”
Anariel, sensing something ominous, tried to order them to stop, but it was already too late.
Kwatzzt!
Jin-young released psionic energy mixed with Cyclic energy all at once.
“Die—”
“……?”
As if hit with simultaneous silence magic, the thousand angels shut their mouths in an instant.
“Bow down.”
Crackle— Kwa-kwa-kwaang!
All the angels except Anariel had their heads slammed into the ground simultaneously.
Seeing the angels subdued without a sound, Anariel’s expression twisted grotesquely.
Anger, irritation, bewilderment, shock, fear, and more.
A complex mix of emotions surged through her.
Having witnessed this absurd scene firsthand, she tried to comprehend what had just happened.
In that moment, a single memory flashed through her mind.
“You… could it be… a Psionic Successor…?”
“Now we can finally have a proper conversation.”
A rare being who knew about psionics had appeared.
Considering that only the Void Church’s leader and high-ranking entities like Dominion-class angels knew about it, it was clearly shrouded in secrecy.
More than that, what intrigued him was why only high-ranking beings knew.
Was there some tremendous secret hidden behind it?
“…I heard that they were nearly exterminated in almost every dimension.”
“Exterminated? Psionic Successors?”
Jin-young furrowed his brow at Anariel’s words.
“I only heard it secondhand; I don’t know the details.”
“…….”
Jin-young peered into her mind and saw no obvious lies.
If so, what had happened to the Psionic Successor the Void Church leader had mentioned?
Back then, he had heard the Successor was in Gehenna, but given how long ago it was, the person might already be dead.
‘Then Renard…’
Above all, Jin-young had trained in psionic energy in Renard.
He even had a master.
Shortly after transferring to Renard, when he had been in danger, a benefactor had saved him.
And upon discovering his talent for psionic energy, that master had taught him psychokinesis.
One of the reasons Jin-young sought Renard was to find that master.
Since he had returned to the past, he believed the master would still be alive.
If he met him again, he wanted to ask properly about the things he had once brushed off casually.
Especially about the Demon King.
While Jin-young was lost in thought, Anariel’s voice reached him.
“I apologize on behalf of my subordinates for the disrespect shown to you.”
She offered an apology to save face in the moment, but Jin-young didn’t bother pressing the issue.
It was enough that an angel one rank above Veroniel had humbled herself.
“Yeah. Next time, don’t sneakily try to infiltrate my mind. And keep better control of your subordinates. How can the leader fail to rein them in properly?”
“…It is all due to my own inadequacy. I will strive harder.”
Anariel felt a surge of anger for a moment but barely suppressed it and replied.
“But is this all the angelic forces you have?”
Jin-young scanned the thousand angels with their heads buried in the ground and asked.
“Of course not. The available forces of our Golden Heaven Tribe alone are more than double what you see here. And if we gather all the angels of Heaven, including the Blue Heaven Tribe and others, we can reach up to ten times this number.”
“Just a little over ten thousand, huh. Anyway, they’ll be around the same level as these guys. That’s still way too weak to face Gehenna.”
Stung by the remark, Anariel quickly added,
“If the Archangel who represents all angels descends, even you would be shocked.”
“Archangel? You mean the strongest among the Seraphim, the first rank? How many are there?”
Jin-young had received a brief explanation about the angels from Vritra, so it wasn’t hard to understand.
Her face flushed red at him referring to the Archangel like some schoolyard gang leader, but she couldn’t afford to attack, so she continued.
“Before the Fifth Holy War, there were three, but now there is only one.”
“Just one?”
“Just one? The one who wields Cyclic energy is an existence on a completely different level from us.”
Anariel finally exploded and raised her voice.
Jin-young, looking as if he didn’t understand why she was getting angry, raised his right hand.
Then he released Cyclic energy and formed it into a sphere.
“So you’re saying an angel who handles this thing.”
Shssss…
“Ah, no……!”
Anariel jumped in shock at the sight. It was the most intense reaction she had shown so far.
It was genuine Cyclic energy, not holy power.
“A human… wielding Cyclic energy…?”
Having lived for hundreds of years, this was a sight she had never seen before, so she couldn’t close her mouth.
Soon after, he released Void energy from his left hand as well, forming another sphere in the same way.
Kwatzztztzt—
“…….”
“How about it? You should have a rough idea of my power by now. If you still don’t want an alliance after this, there’s nothing I can do.”
Anariel, seeing the even more intensely rotating Void energy sphere, no longer had the energy left to be surprised.
A human handling three different energies simultaneously.
She even thought he could no longer be called human.
If they formed an alliance with such an extraordinary being, the long-cherished fall of Gehenna might actually become possible.
But she couldn’t decide this alone.
After five successive Holy Wars, all the angels of Heaven had reached the peak of stress and exhaustion.
“…This is not something I can decide by myself. And if we fail to recover the Holy Grail, the chances of another Holy War are very low.”
“Holy Grail?”
“It is the most important sacred relic to us. If we recover only the Holy Grail, we can maximize synergy with the Holy Spear.”
Jin-young recalled the Holy Grail that Choi Hee-yeon and Yoon Soo-ho had obtained in the dungeon.
Of course, since it was found in a dungeon, it should be considered a replica rather than the genuine article.
That meant the real one was still somewhere in Hell.
The artifact the angels were desperately searching for was likely that Holy Grail.
“If they can’t find it even after searching all over Hell, doesn’t that mean it’s in Gehenna?”
“If that’s the case, it would be a huge problem. Not just any problem…….”
Anariel’s expression was darker than ever.
If the Holy Grail was truly in Gehenna, recovering it would be considered impossible, and they would be at a severe disadvantage in the future war.
They would no longer be the ones attacking Hell but defending Heaven instead.
“Ah, what’s your name?”
Only now, after dozens of minutes of meeting, did Jin-young start with introductions.
Anariel looked as if to say why ask that now, but she answered anyway.
“Anariel…….”
“Right, Anariel. Go back to Heaven, hold a meeting, and once a decision is made, gather every possible force. Prepare for a desperate last stand. I’ll somehow find a way to get the Holy Grail.”
“The Holy Grail……?”
“This will be your last Holy War.”
***
“Is this all the sacred relics you found?”
“Seems like it. We didn’t get much, so we’re probably just going to get chewed out.”
Jacob and Dmitri were discussing the results of their thorough search through the underground temple ruins in Nine City and the outskirts of the city.
White orbs containing holy power, swords, spears, and so on. They had found a variety, but the quantity was small and the quality low.
The only somewhat useful item was a red cloak.
And though not a sacred relic, there was also a suspicious broken staff giving off an odd aura.
Dmitri examined the dark, blackened piece of staff with a voice full of doubt.
“But is this really some kind of artifact? If you just leave it on the ground, it looks like a snapped wooden stick.”
“Have you lost your senses along with your black mana? There’s a faint but definite demonic energy.”
Jacob snatched the broken staff from Dmitri’s hand and held it up to Anu’s nose.
“Woof woof.”
Anu sniffed it and began licking it.
“You must feel it too. The lingering trace of power left here.”
“Woof!”
Anu barked loudly in response to Jacob’s words.
While Dmitri tilted his head in confusion,
Tzzzt—
A portal opened, and Chae Jin-young appeared.
“Is the task I assigned finished?”
“This is everything.”
Jacob showed the results laid out on the ground.
Chae Jin-young frowned upon seeing them.
His gaze shifted to the broken staff in Jacob’s hand.
Shuu—
Another broken staff piece was summoned into Chae Jin-young’s hand.
It appeared to be the upper part of the artifact.
Jacob, as if entranced, handed over the lower part to Chae Jin-young.
When the broken ends were matched, they fit together perfectly like a puzzle.
“Can it be restored?”
At Chae Jin-young’s question, the tentacle released Void energy.
Tzzzz—
『It won’t be perfect, but it should be possible.』
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