Chapter 53
“Kreeeh! How goes the retreat?” Tutobure asked.
“Krrrk. About half-complete.”
“None of our kind used the quies os, correct?”
“Krrrk! None!”
“Good. Hasten the retreat,” Tutobure ordered his subordinates.
He gathered the bottom-of-the-barrel humans for the Edu attack to use them as a one-off and have them use the quies os, prohibited items under the World Law. Even Tutobure, a goblin High Ranker and the leader of the infamous Clan Trophy, would think twice about blatantly breaking the World Law. Hence, he set things up so that only the humans would use them. It was the same as burying one’s head in the sand, but enough to avoid the consequences.
That aside... It’s the World Ranker Lee Kang-San!
Kang-San was examining the collapsed Remy Martin. Tutobure stared at Kang-San, his red eyes filled with fighting spirit and desire.
“Kerek! A World Ranker, huh? If I kill him, I’ll be on the same level as Abyete!”
Kang-San helped Remy stand up and said, “You’re alive, at least.”
“How... are you here?”
“I got information about the attack through the Network. Well, it was more like a notification.”
“Information?”
“The Network ID of the one who sent me the information was Vivienne. Seeing that, I had to come.”
“What?! Kurgh! Cough! Cough!” Remy shouted in surprise but coughed up blood.
“Don’t push yourself, my friend.”
Kang-San pounded on Remy’s back and looked back at a handsome young man staring at them with a smile. His skin was so pale that his blood vessels were visible, and his eyes were heterochromatic—one eye was black and the other was green. Most of all, two sharp black horns protruded from his temples under his hair.
“I’ll leave my friend with you, Opukia,” Kang-San said.
“Hmm? Does that mean I can play with him?”
“Of course not. Give him some basic treatment. I have to deal with this battlefield.”
“That’s not a problem, but allow me to ask a question first. You called that man a friend. What is a friend?”
Kang-San shrugged and answered, “I doubt I can make a demon understand the concept of friendship. I consider you my friend, too. Thank you for opening this warp gate. You helped me get here from the fourth zone.”
Opukia clapped his hands together and said, “I see. A friend refers to someone useful to you.”
“No, not necessarily. It’s—”
Tutobure charged at Kang-San before he could finish his explanation.
“Kreeek! Lee Kang-San! I’ll have your head as a trophy too!”
Kang-San turned to Tutobure apathetically and said, “So, you must be the famous piece-of-shit goblin who goes around trafficking people in the second zone.”
Black Tortoise, Kang-San’s D Weapon, swung its white snake tail like a whip in response to an attack aimed at its master. Tutobure was smashed into the ground by the white snake before he realized it.
“Kreeeh!”
“Kang-Il. I’ll deal with this, so go and help the newbies. The attackers used quies os.”
Grrrng.
Hiss.
The head and tail of the Black Tortoise, named Lee Kang-Il, replied simultaneously. It then flew across the sky like a space battleship toward where the Chaos were rampaging.
Tutobure got back on his feet, shook off the dirt, and shouted, “Kreeek! I would expect nothing less from janateel, the strongest metal in the Mirror World! It can even withstand a World Ranker’s attack!”
The rust that had spread from the steel spear earlier had also disappeared, giving Tutobure certainty that he had been seeing things.
“Kreeeh! Bring back that tortoise! I’ll rip open its shell and devour it along with your flesh!”
“Kang-Il is a bit of a neat freak, so he doesn’t eat filthy goblin meat. I’ll just kill you and feed you to the Black Dogs,” Kang-San said, leisurely approaching Tutobure.
Tutobure frowned and shouted in rage, “Call back that tortoise now! Kreeek! That thing is your weapon, isn’t it?! Face me at your best and I will do the same!”
Kang-San smirked. “Know your place, goblin. This will be over in a flash, so say your last words now if you have any.”
“Kreeeh! A mere human dares to disrespect me?!” Tutobure shouted as he squeezed out all of his mana and Sorcery Force.
[Activating Race Skill: Contact Sorcery - Overlord’s Fist Fivefold.]
Dark green mana enveloped Tutobure’s fist—much larger and brighter than when used against Remy.
Kang-San grabbed the dual swords on his waistband and mumbled, “You’re just a wandering goblin who has given up on reaching the center. I will allow you to feel the gap between you and me.”
He unsheathed the dual swords, a one-of-a-kind artifact in the Mirror World. It also possessed S-rank potential and reached that potential through Karma investments.
[Dual Dragon Swords (Artifact)
Rank: S(8)
Description: The dual longswords of Admiral Yi Sun-Sin, Joseon’s legendary martial artist. They contain his historical accomplishments, his soul, and have inherited his cherished wishes. Five of the sacred hero’s feats are unlocked.
Skills: 5]
The S-rank Dual Dragon Swords filled the surroundings with mana of another level.
[Activating Artifact Skill: Sword Poem.]
The inscriptions on the Dual Dragon Swords shone, starting from the first line.
I swear to heaven with the sword, the mountains and rivers tremble.
Edu—no, the entire Capital shook under the emperor’s pressure.
“K-kreeeh!” The immense pressure instantly overwhelmed Tutobure.
He thought, I-I can’t win!
The gap between them was like heaven and earth. He had already foreseen his defeat, but couldn’t retreat because he would die as soon as he showed his back to Kang-San.
“Kraaah! Die!”
Tutobure further condensed the skill around his fists to chase away his fears.
[Overlord’s Fist Sixfold]
[Overlord’s Fist Sevenfold]
[Insufficient mana.]
[Insufficient Sorcery Force.]
Tutobure swung his fists with all his might, knowing he would die if this attack did not kill his enemy.
“You have formidable resolve, yet you’ve strayed from the right path. You have my sympathies,” Kang-San said.
The second line of the inscription on the sword shone.
One sweep, all is shattered, the mountains and rivers stained with blood.
Countless blood-red rays of light were formed once Kang-San swung the Dual Dragon Swords. The tsunami of blood leveled the battlefield. A mere lifeform was powerless before a natural disaster; the power infused in Tutobure’s skill, Overlord’s Fist, was destroyed like stepping on a potato chip. He had turned his body to the same properties as janateel, but the blood-red rays turned him into a rag.
“Kreeeh!” Tutobure screamed.
It had been years since he had felt such pain as a High Ranker. The several seconds felt like hours as the blood-red rays of light disappeared.
“K-kergh.”
The bloodied Tutobure collapsed. His right arm was gone, and his left eye had burst. His intestines were protruding from his abdomen, and he couldn’t even stand because his bones were broken throughout his body. However, what surprised him the most was that the blood-red rays of light had only fallen on the area fifty meters around him.
“Krrrk... you... controlled... all that?”
“Of course I did. I would have destroyed this entire area if I had gone all out. I don’t like to kill my kind.”
That wasn’t his full power?! Tutobure thought in shock.
Kang-San had not used the tortoise with a white snake for a tail either—he had only swung his swords once.
T-this is... the power of a World Ranker!
The gap was so wide that Tutobure felt ashamed about how high of a horse he had been on just because he was a High Ranker.
“Kreeeh! The boss was defeated!”
“H-he’s a monster! Kreeek! Run!”
“Hurry! Run to the warp gate!”
The goblins and the human traitors who witnessed Tutobure’s defeat quickly retreated to the rainbow warp gate. One of the goblins grabbed the ragged Tutobure and also ran away.
“It’s futile,” Kang-San remarked as he raised the Dual Dragon Swords again. The entire Edu was in his attack range; there was nowhere to run. “I’ll wipe you all out along with the warp gate.”
The swords’ inscriptions shone again.
Just then, someone said, “No... Kang-San. Don’t kill him.”
It was Remy who had partially recovered thanks to Opukia.
“What do you mean?” Kang-San asked.
“If you kill him, there will be conflict with the goblins. There will be issues with... the third zone that we barely stabilized.”
“Hah, do you think I care about that, Remy? We have more than enough justification.”
A war between goblins and humans would result in the demise of both. Abyete knew this and would withdraw to an extent if it came to that. Most of all, humans were more than justified in waging war since they were attacked first.
However, Remy shook his head and said, “There will be conflict if you kill him, but there will be profit if you spare him.”
“Profit?”
“Yes. We can pressure Humilitas if the attacker is alive. In other words, we can pressure them to hand over the perpetrator.”
“No way Abyete would willingly hand over his kind.”
“Of course not. He has the goblins’ public opinion to worry about, after all. That’s why we can use that to demand cooperation instead. The reclamation of the fourth zone is at a standstill, is it not?”
Kang-San finally nodded in understanding. They could use a half-dead goblin to put pressure on Humilitas.
“Hehe. He’s quite a clever human, Kang-San. I can see why he is your friend. He’s useful,” Opukia added.
Kang-San sheathed the Dual Dragon Swords and stared at the fleeing goblins and human traitors; among them was a blond man with green eyes, Miroslav—no, Seong-Hwi.
***
Seong-Tae was fighting a Menti, an insectoid Invasive Chaos, on the battlefield of conjurers and transformers. He smashed his fist covered in the Fiery Gloves into the Menti’s stomach.
Greeeh!
The Bone Menti, which looked like a praying mantis, screeched and collapsed.
“Huff! Huff! Hwa-Yeon! Rin!” Seong-Tae called.
“I’m still alive, so help the others!” Hwa-Yeon answered as she swung her spear to break the Chaos monsters’ os.
“I’m okay too! I still have mana to spare!” Ha Rin, whose nose and ears were those of her Yorkshire Terrier Chocho, replied as she evaded the Chaos monsters’ attacks. “That aside, have you seen Shaya?”
Seong-Tae shook his head. “I haven’t. It’s too hectic around here.”
Rin sniffed around, using her enhanced sense of smell. Her brain distinguished the scents she picked up: blood, dirt, sweat, burnt corpses, and clean snow, which one would expect to smell in the Himalayas.
“Over there!” Rin shouted, turning in the direction of the scent.
Nurrrgh!
A Flesh Body charged at Shaya Singh Rai while her back was to it.
“No! Shaya!” Rin called to warn Shaya.
However, her warning was unfounded because the Flesh Body’s head suddenly burst as if an invisible man had smashed it.
Shaya turned around and asked, “Rin unnie! What’s wrong?”
After undergoing Partial Beastification with her snow leopard D Weapon, Hugh, she had its white ears, its thick, long tail, and sharp claws on her right hand.
“Oh, uhh... watch your back!”
“Thanks, unnie!” Shaya replied and slashed a Flesh Body’s head off with her claws.
The newbies were flustered by the sudden appearance of Chaos monsters through the quies os but had now regained their composure and were hunting consistently. They were also much more relieved because the goblins and human traitors had retreated, allowing them to focus only on the Chaos.
Just then, hail fell from the sky like machine gun fire. Blocks of ice the size of fists fell only on the Chaos, instantly melting them like ice cream.
Guuurh!
Whine!
“W-what was that?”
“What just happened?”
The newbies looked up at the sky in confusion.
“Is that... a turtle?” Seong-Tae mumbled dumbfoundedly as he stared at the tortoise flying in the sky.
“There’s a snake too,” Hwa-Yeon added as she approached Seong-Tae.
Rin shouted, “That’s the Black Tortoise!”
“Black Tortoise? One of the Four Symbols?”
“Yes! We learned about them from Marie! Some humans with animal transformation D Weapons use mythical or even divine beasts!”
Seong-Tae’s eyes widened, and he muttered, “Wait! I’ve heard about them too. The one with the Black Tortoise as a D Weapon is... human ranking number one, Lee Kang-San?”
“We’re saved!”
The news spread like wildfire, and the bloodied newbies cheered.
“W-we survived!”
“Fuck! It’s finally over!”
“Humans win, you motherfucking goblins!”
Grrrng.
Hiss.
The Black Tortoise’s echoing cries from above sounded the humans’ victory.