Chapter 408
“Sister, I’m okay now...”
Crack-
“Hey, wait... I’m sorr—agh!”
Jake groaned in pain as Aria’s embrace grew tighter, turning into a crushing hug. The sight of them—of the siblings returning to their usual selves as soon as the emotional reunion ended—made Se-Hoon smirk.
So she gets embarrassed over such things, huh...
Overwhelmed with emotion, Aria had instinctively hugged Jake. But once she calmed and realized what she had done, she was too flustered to do anything else.
It was such a clumsy reaction that Se-Hoon chuckled internally. Seeing her act like that would have been unthinkable before he regressed.
Taking the chance, Se-Hoon observed them in closer detail, and after a moment, he nodded to himself.
Neither of them seems to have any pressing issues.
Jake had his synesthetic mindscape absorbed by the Sword of Destruction, and Aria had momentarily awakened as the Destroyer of Light. Both were catastrophic events that could have resulted in significant changes to their constitutions and synesthetic mindscapes.
Thankfully, though, neither showed any lingering signs of damage.
The timing was in my favor, but... it just turned out the Stellar Radiance Blade was more effective than I thought.
The Stellar Radiance Blade, crafted using the bonds and extracted soul fragments of Aria and Jake’s soul, wasn’t a proper weapon. It was more akin to a crude fusion of their synesthetic mindscapes.
However, that imperfection had ended up working out in their favor. When the Sword of Destruction’s synesthetic mindscape collapsed, the Stellar Radiance Blade instantly took in both of theirs, shielding them from the Harbinger of Destruction’s power.
My only concern is whether the Stellar Radiance Blade unintentionally influenced them... but that shouldn’t be a major issue, regardless.
The merging of Aria and Jake’s synesthetic mindscapes meant that, at least in connection to the Stellar Radiance Blade, they shared their thoughts as if they were one person. Because of that, if the sword had influenced them, it would more likely be in a way that reinforced that conjoined synesthetic mindscape—and thus both of theirs—rather than harming it.
Done checking their condition, Se-Hoon began wrapping up the organization of his thoughts when a notification message suddenly appeared before his eyes.
[‘Celestial Infinity Blade: Golden Origin’ has been upgraded to ‘Celestial Infinity Blade: Stellar Radiance’.]
Wait... did it somehow affect me too?
Se-Hoon raised an eye in surprise. The transformation of his skill was unexpected. But then, when he considered that Golden Origin was a technique derived from the Myers family’s sword aura, it was no longer that strange that the Stellar Radiance Blade had influenced it.
Still, if he had his way, he would have liked to analyze it further, but there were more pressing matters to attend to.
Wrapping up his thoughts, he looked at the siblings. “Rest up while I tie up some loose ends. Also, Aria, please stop tormenting the poor guy.”
“Got it... ugh...”
“...”
Leaving behind Jake, who had turned pale, and Aria, who was still too embarrassed to lift her head, Se-Hoon rushed over to where Jason was.
“Hmm... Shouldn’t we freeze this part too?”
“That part doesn’t seem urgent.”
“You’re making my head spin, so can you keep it down?”
Luize, Sung-Ha, and Amir were murmuring amongst themselves around the bloodied Jason. From a distance, they looked like a group of lunatics playing around and freezing an injured man.
In truth, though, they were performing emergency treatment on him.
“How’s his condition?”
“Ah, Brother.”
Amir quickly stepped aside upon spotting Se-Hoon, revealing Jason’s wounds, which he had frozen over.
“We found out that healing magic won’t work on him at all, so I froze his wounds as a stopgap. I have no idea what kind of injury this even is...”
“You did well.”
While Jason’s injuries appeared ordinary, they were actually deep wounds carved directly into his synesthetic mindscape. The wounds Jason had suffered—which resisted healing, left permanent scars, and even led to the collapse of the synesthetic mindscape itself—were collectively known as the Mark of Destruction, created by a Harbinger of Destruction’s power.
Still as persistent as ever, huh...
Se-Hoon grimaced as memories of heroes who had died without receiving proper treatment resurfaced.
If he weren’t a Perfect One, he’d be dead already.
On top of his brutally gashed body that made him lose an extreme amount of blood, Jason’s synesthetic mindscape had been corroded by nearly thirty percent. With such injuries, anyone else would have died long ago, if they hadn’t died mentally already.
Yet, Jason was still awake and sitting there, albeit looking exhausted.
“Jason, can you hear me?”
Jason slightly lifted his head. Then, sounding completely worn out, he replied, “...Yeah.”
“I’m going to start the treatment now. Stay still.”
Seeing Jason simply nod, Se-Hoon immediately channeled his mana into the Hero’s Ring.
Woong-
A golden light shot out from the ring, rising into the sky. Moments later, a pillar of light descended, engulfing Se-Hoon entirely.
He then assessed it briefly, the power supplied by the Tower of Heroes, before directing it toward Jason.
Whoosh-
At first, the power resisted like it wasn’t something that could be given away. But when Se-Hoon pushed on, forcefully injecting it into Jason, it started flowing naturally from then on.
Swish-
Like magic, Jason’s damaged synesthetic mindscape began recovering and his wounds started closing up. It was almost like Jason was being recharged.
Just as I thought...
Se-Hoon’s eyes gleamed. Until just now, he had been uncertain about the true nature of the energy supplied by the Hero’s Ring. But upon seeing it heal Jason, Se-Hoon was now convinced of its origin.
It is the power of the Golden Ring.
In other words, the source of both the Towers of Heroes and the Perfect Ones supplied the power of the Hero’s Ring.
This complicates things...
Questions swirling in his mind, Se-Hoon cut off the power.
“Ugh...”
An overwhelming sense of emptiness rushed in, replacing the omnipotent sensation he had just been experiencing. Thankfully, the pain wasn’t significant—nowhere near what he felt when using the powers of the Perfect Ones to their limit.
Rather, the bigger problem was the emptiness. Unlike before, when using the power had only made him slightly lethargic, he felt an almost addictive craving for the power again.
I should be careful about handing this power out...
Perhaps the feeling that continued to linger was why the Hero’s Ring had strict usage conditions in the first place—a built-in safeguard against overuse. Wanting to clear his mind, Se-Hoon accelerated his blood flow with Soul Honing to force clarity.
Once done, he turned back to Jason, who had now fully recovered.
“How do you feel?”
“...Amazing,” Jason muttered in genuine admiration.
He had expected only surface-level healing at best. Yet, when he inspected his body, he found out Se-Hoon had restored even his synesthetic mindscape.
“Like this, I can even say that I’m fully healed.”
“Then... do you think you can still fight?”
The three onlookers watching from the side instantly exchanged uneasy glances at those words. Sure, the treatment had gone well, but throwing someone who had been on the brink of death right back into battle?
“Are we going to end up like that, too...?”
“It’d be weirder if we didn’t.”
“What a miserable fate...”
Overhearing the mutters of the three that were talking among themselves, Se-Hoon narrowed his eyes and shot them a sharp glare.
In the meantime, Jason had finished his assessment of his own body and gave a small nod.
“There shouldn’t be any issues.”
“In that case...”
Giving Jason instructions on what to do next, Se-Hoon then turned his attention to the depths of the planet, where he had left things unattended in a hurry.
Whoosh!
He arrived in an instant. Having confirmed there were no traps to fear, there was no longer anything stopping him from teleporting straight there.
And the first thing he saw was Terra, bound tightly by the Beads of Omniscience.
“You saw how he just tied you up and left in a rush, right? That guy’s even colder than I am in some ways.”
“S...Shut up...”
Terra shook her head, seemingly unable to bear listening.
However, upon sensing her discomfort, the Beads of Omniscience—the Seeker’s consciousness—just took the chance to coax her. “You really think he’s going to free you? If anything, he’ll exploit you even more than I did,” she whispered in a smooth voice.
“The Seeker’s successor would never...!”
“Agh, you’re so damn frustrating. Do you think an opportunity like this will come again? If you don’t escape now—”
“And if she doesn’t?”
The Seeker shut up in an instant before letting out an awkward chuckle a few tense seconds later.
“Haha... Y-You know I was just joking, right?”
“Answer. What’s going to happen if she doesn’t escape now?”
“Uh, well...That is...”
“What’s going to happen?”
Se-Hoon repeated the question for a third time, his tone making it clear he wouldn’t let this slide.
Knowing that as well, the Seeker finally answered with a deep sigh. “You’ll be worked to the bone like a slave... tortured endlessly under the guise of ‘experimental reasons’...”
“Hmm.”
Nodding as if he agreed, Se-Hoon grabbed the Beads of Omniscience.
“That’s not entirely wrong.”
Crack!
“AGHHH!”
Casually breaking a few of the beads to teach the Seeker a lesson, he then picked up the rest.
To the side, Terra, though freed, trembled violently.
W-Was what she said actually true?
She had been taking everything the Seeker said as a lie since it was once a part of her original’s body. But just then, something about Se-Hoon had felt off to her.
He seemed so ruthless, treating even sentient objects as nothing more than mere tools. And as one of those herself... a terror different from her original self’s made Terra stiffen with anxiety.
“What happened to the administrator privileges?” Se-Hoon asked, having done a scan of their surroundings.
“H-Huh?”
“Oh, you know how I forcibly shut everything down earlier before leaving? Just checking if that caused any issues.”
“Oh, that.... Well...”—Terra quickly checked her status—“it was recognized as an emergency override, so it went through just fine. It appears using part of the original body helped.”
“I see. That’s a relief.”
Se-Hoon let out a small breath. When the Sword of Destruction suddenly awakened, he had been ready to abandon Terra if necessary. But thanks to the Beads of Omniscience, everything had worked out.
“H-Hey, that was all thanks to me—”
Crack!
“Agh!”
Not allowing the Seeker to get full of herself, Se-Hoon silenced her with another strike before glancing at Terra.
“Any issues with your body?”
“My body?”
Terra tensed up.
The abrupt question made her scared she had unintentionally become a burden. If her original body were standing before her, Terra just knew she would have been scolded harshly and completely rebuilt from scratch.
Traumatized, she made sure to give her answer carefully. “I’ve disconnected from all external links and run a self-diagnostic test, but... I still... can’t be completely sure...”
“Hmm...”
Feeling Se-Hoon staring at her in silence, Terra shivered.
“Well, I guess that’s fine for now. I’ll check myself later.”
“T-Thank you!”
Se-Hoon’s leniency deeply moved her. She had almost ruined everything, yet he was letting it slide.
To think I almost doubted someone so generous. I'm never talking to my original self again.
Cursing the Seeker in her mind, she reaffirmed her loyalty.
But little did she know, Se-Hoon had cast her a sideways glance, thinking, I’ll have to restructure her psyche completely later.
The time he left her alone with the Seeker was unsettling, and there was also the chance she had been tampered with by Tuner.
With Terra’s fate solidified, Se-Hoon extended his hand.
“Now, transfer the privileges back to me.”
“Ah, okay!”
Terra promptly began transferring the administrator privileges, and unlike the previous time, the process was completed without issue.
Woong-
Seeing a faint circular emblem appear on his left palm, Se-Hoon infused it with mana, and a semi-transparent sphere materialized in the air.
So, this lets me control the planet’s power...
It looked so simple, and yet, it could do terrifying things.
It took but one glance to know it wasn’t something to use lightly. When the right moment came, however, he would need to wield it properly to reap the benefits in full.
“First things first...”
He tapped the semi-transparent sphere lightly with his right hand. A blink later, dozens of red dots dotted the surface.
And as he scanned them, Se-Hoon smirked.
“Time to play whack-a-mole.”
***
The moment the Sword of Destruction was confirmed to be gone, the forward base of the Demon Force had sprung into action.
“Pack up the important data first!”
“They could arrive at any moment! Move faster!”
While Watcher’s engineers hurriedly stuffed items into void pockets, Caden headed toward the black Void Space Gate with his direct subordinates to escape.
Do we really have to be in such a rush?
Though he was obediently following Tuner’s warning, Caden couldn’t shake the feeling that they were panicking too much.
I can’t believe we’re giving up on the Harbinger Shard this easily...
No matter what, he thought they should at least try to retrieve it. But then, on second thought, he cast that idea aside.
Never mind. No point in being reckless. We’ve gained enough here.
The Sword of Destruction had been destroyed, the Silent Volcano had collapsed, and the enemy had seized the Seeker’s legacy. Worse, the enemy had suffered almost no casualties, making it a devastating defeat.
However, from the perspective of Offering, they hadn’t lost much at all. If anything, the blueprints they gained from the Sword of Destruction marked a major breakthrough for them.
Next, we’ll work with the Doppelganger and—
Caden looked up, his thoughts pausing.
Even deep underground, he could feel the intense heat radiating from above. Instinctively, he grabbed the pendant around his neck—a piece of spatial equipment—and leaped into the black Void Space Gate.
BOOM-!
The sound of a deafening explosion followed as the space around him warped.
Turning around in the gate, Caden’s face twisted in shock.
That power just now... was it Ryu Eun-Ha?
He had lost sight of her during the battle, but still, to think she had tracked them down.... Had he been even a second later, he might have been caught.
I should regroup at another lab first...
Just as he was about to teleport to Offering’s underground research facility, however, a chilling realization struck him.
“When the time comes... abandon everything... if you want to survive.”
Hm... Why did he say that...?
Why had Tuner said that Se-Hoon gaining control of the planetary control system was the worst-case scenario?
A terrifying possibility crept into his mind. Instead of another underground lab, he redirected himself to MT Industries’ surface lab.
Once there, he instantly accessed the communication device to check the situation—and was left speechless by what he found out.
“All the labs were decimated...?”
Every single research facility Offering had hidden within the planet’s underground had been completely wiped out.