Chapter 158
The Wings of Evolution flashed repeatedly as Seong-Hwi appeared and disappeared in midair. He landed on the roof of a building from which he could observe the pillar of light.
What is that? he wondered.
There was a statue of an angel with ten pairs of wings on a field of dirt, similar to the result of the iron thief taking all the metal from an area. Thousands of angels stood guard around the statue, and one of them was a first-grade angel with nine pairs of wings.
The statue itself was protected by a dome-shaped barrier made of chains created by Holy Force. The statue emitted a giant pillar of light, which grew more vivid over time.
[Activation of Divinus Iter in progress.]
[Naphal: 56% complete.]
They’re preparing something? I don’t know what naphal is, but this enormous Holy Force... I’m sure it’s a skill on par with Grand Magic!
Seong-Hwi looked around a wider area and noticed several clans of various races surrounding the angels, voicing their complaints.
“Hey! How will you take responsibility for our damages?”
“I couldn’t care less what happens to Ferrum, but the artisans we’ve hired are all dead!”
Sarazza, a Balrog of the demon race and a member of Clan Affligo, was the most vocal of them.
He shouted, “Everything you goddamn angels do is so sneaky! How dare you disrespect the demons?!”
He held a fiery whip in his right hand and the Evening Star, which the artisan Nour had made during the artisan exam, in his left. He also wore the Earth Barbuta, a helmet which the artisan Totoma had made.
The first-grade angel folded their nine pairs of wings and said, “The mouth is the source of all evil. Do not run it so carelessly, nameless demon. I am Raziel, the Angel of Secrets, and the first-grade angel of Orbis’s fifth legion. If you wish to make me take responsibility, you should at least bring your master.”
Raziel’s eyes were closed, and he held a book in his right hand. Although he wasn’t an archangel, he was as powerful as an upper Spare Ranker.
Sarazza gritted his teeth from Raziel’s arrogance and shouted, “Screw you! You don’t have to tell me, Lord Allocen is already on his way! Let’s see if you can keep up that arrogant attitude before him!”
War Hero, Allocen, one of the three leaders of Clan Affligo, was an upper Ranker, twentieth in the demon ranking.
“You may call anyone you’d like. They will be annihilated nevertheless. This place will soon become a sanctuary,” Raziel said as he turned to stare proudly with closed eyes at the statue, emitting a pillar of light.
“Hmm... Is it true that the Second Lord will descend here? In that case...” mumbled Kirasosa, the assault captain of Clan Dragon Teeth. His pupils, inside his horned bone helmet, repeatedly dilated and constricted. He announced, “Raziel. We of Dragon Teeth have no intention of going against you. We will leave the city, so let us go.”
Sarazza angrily shouted, “You coward! You aren’t even thinking of fighting back?!”
“Hmph, we of Clan Dragon Teeth are in the middle of an important mission. We cannot afford to be held up here,” Kirasosa replied.
Just then, Raziel answered, “Denied. The almighty God of Heaven will make all judgments.”
“Even if it incurs Lord Spartoi’s rage?”
Spartoi, the Banished One, was Clan Dragon Teeth’s West Commander.
“It matters not,” Raziel said.
Kirasosa felt around the outside of his pocket and clicked his tongue, thinking, This will delay our plans.
“What will you do, high elf?” Raziel asked as he turned to look at a group of about thirty elves with his closed eyes.
The leader of the group, a beautiful elf with turquoise hair and eyes, fiddled with the Divinity of Scilla, the bow made by the artisan Elfanya, and answered, “Sefirot will maintain neutrality as always. I swear it in the name of Lilicia, the eldest daughter of the sixteenth house.”
“That is a relief,” Raziel remarked.
He thought, That high elf is the only Spare Ranker here. It would be troubling if she were to interfere.
He smiled benevolently. Now that he had obtained a clear answer from the high elf he had been most wary of, all that remained was to wait.
“This is insane. They’re way out of my league,” Seong-Hwi said to himself, frowning as he observed the situation.
He had been given a reality check from the high of becoming a Single-S.
Dragons, demons, angels, and even a high elf! Is this a get-together of superior races or something?
He would have had trouble with just the angels, but the place was bustling with other superior races. He would undoubtedly die if he were to rush in. Just then, his heightened senses noticed a tiny presence flying his way.
“Hm?”
He waited patiently as he gripped the handle of the Zanaka Karambit. A fairy suddenly appeared before him. She was only as big as a child’s head, had four wings, and bright purple eyes.
“Huh? You’re...” Seong-Hwi trailed off.
“I knew it was you, Sir Second Knight!”
“Merope?”
She was Merope, the fairy with the Warp Gate skill who had helped with the escape from Clan Trophy.
***
Merope guided Seong-Hwi as she chatted, “No one believed me when I said I saw you!”
The battle was ongoing throughout Ferrum. Merope led Seong-Hwi into an alley where around a hundred fairies were flying around peacefully and beautifully, unlike the war breaking out everywhere else.
“Yo. It’s been a while, my friend,” said a man sitting on a wooden box, surrounded by fairies, as he waved his golden right hand.
He was a large, bald, white man with a black scorpion tattoo that stretched from his left ear to the crown of his head, and a right arm that looked like a gauntlet.
“Yeah, it’s been a while, Gilder Roy. But why are you here?” Seong-Hwi asked.
He and Gilder Roy, from Toronto, had cleared the dungeon, Forgotten Fairy’s Hideout, together, and were fellow escapees from Clan Trophy.
He continued, “Weren’t you headed to Mushua?”
“The Vindicta Resistance has business here,” Gilder replied as he nodded and stared at the bustling fairies.
“Kyaaah! It’s true! That mark belongs to the Second Knight!”
“Right? I saw him earlier, and he has wings like us! Five pairs, no less!”
“Really? That’s amazing!”
Merope and the other fairies flew around as they giggled and glanced at Seong-Hwi. He had instantly gained their favor once they saw the mark of the Second Knight on his forehead with their Fairy Eyes.
“Are they members of the Vindicta Resistance?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“Yeah. Despite how they look, they’re strong. Well, they weren’t of much use on this mission,” Gilder remarked.
“You’re too harsh, First Knight!”
“Sparkling Baldy!”
“Bad octopus!”
The fairies complained as they flew around Gilder.
“What mission?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“You saw the dragons in the central plaza, right?” Gilder asked back.
“Yeah. They said they were from Clan Dragon Teeth.”
“Exactly.”
Members of Clan Dragon Teeth were inferior dragons made from a dragon’s teeth. They were usually active in the outer zones and mostly did errands for the superior dragons.
“They’re in the middle of transporting something. We infiltrated Ferrum to take it, but we didn’t expect a war to break out,” Gilder remarked.
“What is it?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“Well, I’m sure it’s okay to tell you. It’s a Cintamani. In other words, a Drago Heart.”
Seong-Hwi’s eyes widened.
Gilder continued, “You know about the heated battle between Gula’s Cadaver and Biphatogenes’s Nivalis in the fourth zone, right? It came from that battle. It’s the Dragon Heart of Selfinus Canhel, ninety-second in the dragon ranking.”
“So, that’s why they’re so desperate to leave the city,” Seong-Hwi mumbled as he recalled the scene he had seen on the roof.
The dragon, who seemed to be the leader of the Dragon Teeth group, had been trying to negotiate with the first-grade angel. He had likely been caught in the battle while he was on a mission to transport the Dragon Heart.
“What are you going to do with the Dragon Heart once you get it? Only dragons can use it,” Seong-Hwi said.
Gilder nodded and replied, “You’re right. We’re not trying to use it. We’re just trying to prevent them from using it. The Dragon Heart of the dead Selfinus Canhel was granted to the West Commander of Clan Dragon Teeth, Spartoi.”
“Spartoi...”
“He has been harassing the resistance in Mushua. If he obtains the Dragon Heart... it will prove troublesome.”
Seong-Hwi nodded. He had heard the name Spartoi before.
He was a hot topic in my past life because he became a Ranker despite being an inferior dragon. I see it was because of the Dragon Heart, he thought.
Gilder sighed and continued, “Huuu, we were waiting for the right opportunity to take it from them, but as you know... a war has broken out. Are those damn angels insane?”
Seong-Hwi agreed with Gilder and asked, “So, what will you do now?”
“What do you mean? We have to run. Don’t you see that pillar of light?”
“Do you know what that is?”
Gilder nodded and replied, “Do you remember when I told you that the angels have much influence in Mushua despite it being a free city? That skill activates from time to time. It’s Divinus Iter, or the Path of God. It’s the preparation phase of naphal, or the advent.”
“Preparation phase?”
“Yeah. Also, the fact that the statue has ten pairs of wings and the one preparing the naphal is a first-grade angel means... this place will soon become Hell. Worst-case scenario, the God of Heaven, Creo, will descend on Ferrum.”
Seong-Hwi’s eyes widened in shock, and he wondered, The God of Heaven, Creo? The Second Lord? Why would that monster come here? For what?
The scene of the blazing Capital from his past life flashed before his eyes. He could see the Third Lord, who had decimated the Capital by himself just to obtain the Destiny Stone, the humans’ Race Stone.
Is there... a Race Stone in Ferrum?!
Gilder advised the shocked Seong-Hwi, “You should run away, too. If Creo descends, Ferrum will undoubtedly fall.”
“Is there... a way to stop it?” Seong-Hwi asked.
Gilder swept his bald head and replied, “Breaking that angel statue will cancel the Divinus Iter, and there will be no advent, but that’s impossible. Not only will it be difficult to break through their defenses, but the statue itself is protected by a powerful barrier.”
Seong-Hwi continued to think, Ferrum will be obliterated if someone like the Second Lord descends on the city, which will make all the effort I had put into getting this far, worthless. There has to be... something I can do!
He squeezed his brain cells for a solution, and his heart beat rapidly to pump blood quickly.
Gilder silently watched Seong-Hwi deep in thought and wondered, What is this son of a bitch thinking now?
His friendship with Seong-Hwi was short, but he knew how amazing Seong-Hwi was.
From his aura... he might be as strong as me now.
However, no matter how powerful Seong-Hwi had become, he couldn’t stop the advent. Even if he somehow broke through the angels’ perimeter, the barrier protecting the statue was unbreakable.
“Huuu. Seong-Hwi, I know you’re full of surprises, but you should give up on—”
“Can you help me, Gilder?” Seong-Hwi interrupted.
Gilder was about to talk him down, but noticed Seong-Hwi's sparkling eyes as if he had found a solution.
“What? Are you trying to shove me into my deathbed?” Gilder asked.
“No, I’ll be the one risking my life. You just have to fulfill your original objective.”
“My objective? The Dragon Heart?”
“Yeah, that’s all I ask. I’ll take care of the rest,” Seong-Hwi said as he grabbed a white and pink capsule from his pocket—his last ayahuasca.
***
Sarazza of Clan Affligo repeatedly smashed the ground with the Evening Star as he walked along the streets of Ferrum.
He shouted, “Damn that sleepy pasty pigeon! First-grade angel? More like yawn-grade angel! Fuck you and your damn naphal!”
His subordinate behind him said, “Please calm down, Sir Sarazza. The War Hero will put that damn angel in his place—Argh!”
Sarazza turned around and beat the subordinate, shouting, “You idiot! I was obviously bluffing! Lord Allocen would never come to the outer zones!”
“T-then...”
“No one’s coming! For fuck’s sake...”
Sarazza fumed, his anger remaining. His anger was partly from his natural hatred for angels, but also because nothing would have changed even if Allocen had come.
Those crazy angels have done it this time. They’re blatantly breaking the Sēmen’s laws. I suppose they have nothing to fear if the Second Lord himself were to descend.
Two first-grade angels were already in Ferrum, and one of them was in battle against Bafor.
“Dammit! I can’t believe how powerless I am in a situation like this! This is beyond humiliating!” Sarazza complained as he gritted his teeth. Just then, a human with black hair and eyes approached him. He shouted, “Who are you? Who do you think you are to get in my way? Do you want to die?!”
“Would you like to one-up the angels?” the human asked.
“What?”
“I have a plan. If you help me, I promise to show you the angels’ devastated faces,” Seong-Hwi said, his smile even more demonic than Sarazza's.