Chapter 391. Birth (6)
“……What did you say?”
“Didn’t you hear? I said I want to hear why they call you ‘Star Eater’.”
Alon kept silent for a moment.
He did not expect to hear that title in a situation like this.
“What… does that mean?”
The question slipped out unintentionally, and Karan frowned for just a moment.
“Well—if you don’t want to say, it doesn’t matter. I just asked out of curiosity.”
Karan leaned back.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to say it, but that he really didn’t know.
Alon swallowed those words and asked Karan:
“…Why are you doing something like this?”
“Something like this?”
“Yes.”
Karan let out an amused, almost mocking laugh.
“What exactly do you mean by ‘something like this’? Why I didn’t call that person’s subordinates here and decided to wage this war of attrition? Or are you referring to why I want to kill that rat? Or perhaps—”
*Smirk—*
“why I killed that piece of meat that was down there?”
Alon looked directly into Karan’s eyes.
Eyes partially consumed by madness, a gaze that seemed to observe the entire world from above.
He faced that uncomfortable and disturbing glint.
“Everything.”
“Everything? My, you are very eager to know. But well, it’s not like I can’t tell you.”
Karan replied lightly.
“First, I killed that piece of meat to offer it as a sacrifice to Him. Among the common humans surrounding me, he was the most worthy to be offered.”
“…Even if he was your father, you say?”
“Father, huh.”
Karan repeated that word several times as if savoring it, and then nodded.
“Yes, he was. But that doesn’t matter. From the beginning, he never had the ability to distinguish what is important.”
“……What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. He wasn’t someone capable of distinguishing what really matters. I only offered a useless person. This kingdom should be ruled by someone more suitable. For example, Him.”
With a twisted smile, stretching from ear to ear, Karan spoke.
And Alon understood something clearly.
‘…His words are full of contradictions.’
At first glance, they might pass unnoticed, but if listened to carefully, nothing made sense.
He didn’t even seem to be answering Alon’s question.
Everything he spat out…
was pure resentment towards Karmaxes III.
A resentment full of contradictions.
Even so, Alon could easily deduce why Karan had ended up like this.
‘Unlike the original world, it seems the III chose Karsem as his successor instead of Karan.’
In Psychedelia, the one who becomes king is Karan.
It was natural.
Karan wasn’t brilliant, but compared to the disastrous Karsem, he was tens or hundreds of times a better option.
But now the situation was different.
A reformed Karsem had become a much more valuable being than Karan.
Alon was about to delve deeper into his thoughts when he suddenly stopped his mind by instinct and looked at Karan.
“And why do you want to kill Karan?”
“No reason. Just because it bothers me to see him. Nothing more.”
“I heard you wanted to use him as a sacrifice.”
“It seems that rat talked too much.”
Karan shrugged with indifference.
“But he is still a type of human venerated among humans, so I thought of offering him.”
“Even if he is your blood?”
“Don’t make me repeat it. I already said that doesn’t matter. Well, the last question?”
“You don’t need to answer it. It’s surely for faith.”
“……Hm?”
A glimmer of interest appeared on Karan’s face.
“Is that not so?”
“No, you guessed it. You really do have something. Not for nothing do they call you the Wise God before the Great Ones descend.”
Karan smiled in an amused way, and Alon opened his mouth.
“You still don’t have enough strength to control your power, right? Rather, even though you have manifested it, you don’t have enough to handle it.”
Immediately, the smile vanished from Karan’s face.
Alon, seeing that reaction, continued.
“That is why you want to plunge this city into terror as soon as possible to obtain faith. Instead of obtaining it naturally, you prefer to control it quickly with fear.”
“What, am I right?”
Karan let out a dry laugh.
“…I more or less suspected it, but you know even more than I imagined.”
Karan muttered.
But in reality, Alon didn’t know that much about the Divine Bloods.
His words were, in essence, a pure bluff.
Karan, without realizing he was being deceived, answered immediately.
“But it makes no sense anymore. He will soon take this city.”
With a twisted smile, Karan stomped the ground with his foot.
*Wooooong—!*
Numerous magic circles erupted around him.
“What? Did you think I would stay here doing nothing while you talked?”
Alon, somewhat surprised, looked down. Karan’s smile became viler.
“That is—”
“It’s a summoning circle. In a short while, His creatures will burst forth relentlessly into this kingdom. Thanks for making me waste time.”
“Don’t look at me like that. Did you really think I was going to calmly answer your questions?”
*BOOOOM! RUMBLE!*
The castle began to shake, on the verge of collapsing.
“You will die soon, so I’ll say it in advance: goodbye.”
A mocking whisper was heard.
Alon asked:
“By doing all this, what do you gain?”
“What do I gain? It’s obvious! To become His apostle and rule this world.”
Alon, listening to that answer full of fanatical glee, couldn’t help but let out an incredulous laugh.
He had intuited it, but now the idea fit perfectly in his mind.
He understood what it was that he had misunderstood.
That is why—
“Two things. I will tell you what you don’t know.”
Among the magic circles that shone brighter and brighter, Alon spoke with absolute calm.
“First: the entity you are trying to manifest is already manifested. It only used your envy to accumulate ‘faith’ more comfortably.”
“……What?”
“In short: you were used.”
“What are you—”
His brow furrowed.
Karan tried to say something.
But Alon did not stop.
“And second.”
He formed a seal.
“—You are not the only one buying time.”
Behind Alon, as if he had been waiting, Blackie appeared.
Hand Ice Seal (Suminin)
Sixth Link (육결)
Six ice seals were formed.
“Haa, fuck—”
Atop a tower overlooking the castle of Colony, a man sighed with a curse.
It was Akaron, the third Babayaga of Colony, also called the Ghost Flame.
‘I’m really fucked, aren’t I?’
Akaron looked inside the tower.
Eight soldiers passed out.
He hadn’t killed them, but it would take a whole day for them to wake up.
Akaron scratched his head in frustration.
Naturally, this disaster inside the tower wasn’t something he wanted to do.
He had only done it because of the secret meeting at dawn.
Secretly summoned by Golden Flash Seolrang, the strongest of the current Babayagas.
There, Akaron was forced to learn a truth he didn’t want to know.
Karmaxes III had been assassinated.
And the First Prince, Karan, had allied himself with those monsters attacking Colony.
“Why are you sighing so much? Did you finish the job?”
While Akaron sighed, a voice sounded behind him. Without needing to look, he already knew who it was.
“Don’t worry, I’m already done with everything.”
Akaron turned around without changing his expression.
At the entrance stood a middle-aged man.
Another Babayaga.
Kazan, known as “The Gallows.”
“If you finished, why didn’t you go to the coliseum? Did you forget the plan?”
Kazan scolded him.
Akaron frowned.
“Forget it? If I hadn’t remembered it, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Hmph. Well, that’s true.”
“And you? Did you finish everything?”
“Yes. I knocked out all the soldiers from towers 1 to 8 and sent them to the coliseum. The outer wall is covered by Golden Flash, so there will be no problem.”
“And the citizens?”
“Most are already in the coliseum.”
Akaron let out a sort of laugh-scoff-sigh.
“Impressive. From dawn until the afternoon, moving the soldiers without them noticing anything. How the hell did you plan this?”
“It wasn’t Golden Flash… I think it was her vice-director… no, her secretary.”
They.
Or rather, they and the other A-ranks were moving throughout Colony for a reason.
The plan.
The strategy presented by Karan, along with Lime, Golden Flash’s secretary: gather the citizens in the coliseum to protect them when the battle broke out.
That was why the Babayagas and the combatants had moved since dawn so as not to arouse suspicion among the soldiers.
“Bah—if that’s the case, we could have all fled together—”
“If you open the outer wall, the news will reach the castle. It wouldn’t be logical.”
“Hah—do you think that’s what’s important now?”
“……You don’t like it.”
“Do you? Staying here after the castle betrayed us?”
“Then leave.”
Akaron fell silent.
Kazan was right: since he learned of the First Prince’s betrayal, Akaron only wanted to flee.
But he couldn’t.
For a single reason.
Just one.
‘If you flee, I will kill you myself.’
Golden Flash said it while smiling.
And she absolutely fulfilled everything she said.
And she was stronger than everyone present combined.
Akaron knew that very well.
“I’m not here because I don’t want to flee. You want to flee too.”
“Yes.”
“……What if we escape together now?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It wouldn’t be an honorable death.”
“…Now you’re one of those who care about honor?”
Akaron looked at him incredulously.
Kazan shook his head.
“Dying with honor…”
“Mhm.”
“or dying like a dog, having your skull crushed by the hands of that crazy woman.”
“…The first sounds better.”
“Right?”
Akaron sighed deeply.
“But… honestly, will this turn out okay?”
“What thing now?”
Kazan frowned while lifting an unconscious soldier.
Akaron insisted:
“I mean, even if that guy Alon or whatever his name is has come… can he really handle those monstrous things?”
“……They say he is stronger than Golden Flash, so he’ll be able to do something.”
“But think about it. Today more than a hundred monsters will appear, right? Even if he is stronger than Golden Flash, that’s not enough!”
Akaron frowned even more.
“In my opinion, this is stupidity. Even if he is stronger than Golden Flash and even if he is a god or whatever, if those damn monsters invade in a pack—!?”
He couldn’t finish.
A repugnant energy surged from the castle.
And it didn’t end there.
*KWAAAAAAAANG!!!!*
A huge explosion erupted in the castle.
Both instantly looked over there.
And then—
“Fuck.”
“…Damn it.”
The two cursed at the same time.
Because what fell from the sky after the castle’s explosion…
“We are fucked.”
“Haa…”
were absurd amounts of unique/special/anomalous creatures.
“Ah, fuck…”
Repugnant monsters, like a mixture of spider and carnivorous beast.
Eight or more legs emitting crunching sounds as they flailed in the air, eyes and mouths like spiders moving grotesquely, and poison dripping from every leg as they filled the sky of Colony.
“…I should have died in a more dignified way.”
“I’m thinking that too.”
They were too many.
Akaron, who was about to take a stance to fight, let himself drop and smiled with resignation. Kazan also dropped the soldiers and closed his eyes, as if accepting his fate.
And just when they were preparing for the end—
“…Hm?”
“Mhm?”
Both felt something strange.
The creatures should have already fallen and caused chaos.
But there was still no noise.
A suspicious silence.
Akaron looked at the sky cautiously.
And he saw…
A tree.
A tree so large that it covered the entire area around the castle of Colony.
Thousands of creatures trapped in it like fruits.
Black branches tearing the sky into thousands of fragments.
A gigantic Shadow Tree.
And it was deployed like a fortress over their heads.
