Chapter 189. The Hunter and the Trap (6)
An unknown space.
Six statues surround the remaining one, exchanging various stories in a language beyond the five senses.
The Taoist in the hat and I were frozen, unable to move a muscle.
“……”
It's a strange feeling.
Just a mont ago, we were engaged in a battle where every second counted, and now it's as if we're sitting opposite each other at a tea table, blankly staring at each other.
I don't think it usually took this long to seal the power of one Sacred Relic….
- Ah, master. My apologies.
Just as I was thinking that, Kkumteuli waved a tentacle at , asking for my understanding.
- Since we're welcoming the youngest, I thought that if we coordinated various parts in advance, we could quickly supplent the factory's manpower… no, godpower, and distribute the work.
- Om nyom!
- That's right. Aren't these days when ti is like gold? The flow of ti here is different from reality, so if we finish the preliminary discussions sufficiently and return, we should be able to continue the factory's operation without delay.
Well, if that's the case.
It seems they're planning to take care of the mana stone factory's work all at once.
As Kkumteuli said, while we're here, the flow of ti outside is stopped, so it would be better to save even a little ti.
After all, we don't have much ti.
‘Assuming this operation ends successfully and all situations unfold ideally…. At most, three months? No, will I be able to buy about two months?’
Two to three months.
That's about how much ti I can buy under the assumption that I secure two Sacred Relics in this operation.
After annihilating the enemy's vanguard.
And that the Lur remnants being pursued by the main body of the Eastern Empire flee with sufficient persistence.
“……”
If that's the case, I should also save as much ti as possible.
Having made my decision, I looked around.
I can't turn my head.
Here, it feels as if ti has frozen, so I can't even roll my eyes, let alone twitch a fingertip.
But perhaps because the level of my spells has increased, or because I have more Sacred Relics.
It is possible to look around simply by changing the direction of my consciousness.
Of course, even if I look around, there's not much to see in this world of nothingness, like an endless outer space.
“……”
Well, honestly, I don't even know that.
Whether this world is filled with darkness, existence, emptiness, chaos, nothingness, or sothingness.
One thing I do know is that this isn't the only ti I've visited this space for a 'breach of the Sacred Relic's contract.'
During the subjugation of the Plague City in the underground of the Imperial Capital.
That day when seven plague bombs exploded.
When the emperor evacuated a little over a hundred of the Empire's seven thousand elite troops to Wolfskrig.
The space I passed through then was this very place.
‘The emperor called this place sothing like a battlefield of the gods.’
The emperor said that the power he received was to step onto that battlefield.
However, he added that perhaps due to his own lack of ability, he couldn't do anything more than that and just used it as a ans of escape.
‘Since he only collected two Sacred Relics, it's possible that his power hasn't fully blood yet.’
Both [Warrior's Insight] and [Warrior's Binding] have undergone upgrades.
It's highly likely that the 'power to enter an unknown space' that the emperor had is also the sa.
If this operation succeeds smoothly and I obtain eight Sacred Relics, I might find out.
Anyway, the powers of the Warrior that have been revealed so far are [Insight], [Binding], and [Power to Enter an Unknown Space], three in total.
By the ti my thoughts reached that point, my body, which had been floating in the void, suddenly turned downwards, and sothing ca into my view.
‘Hmm?’
Far away.
No, down there.
A silhouette is visible.
It was the mont when the concept of direction was created in this space that I had thought had no up or down until now.
‘Ground?’
What spread out below was the ground.
Red wastelands, green plains, mountain ranges rising like rough curves, a calm sea, and cities dotted like scattered ink.
‘Uh…?’
It was definitely a sight I was seeing for the first ti.
But the shape of the continent in the center gave a sense of déjà vu, as if I had seen it several tis before.
That's right.
That was a map.
The 'Strategy Screen' of Warlord Conquest, which overlooks a vast territory from above at a glance.
The map of this entire world, which can only be partially contained even if you zoom out the strategy screen as much as possible by scrolling.
‘No, is it the real world, not a map?’
It's too far to see properly.
But the sense of distance tells .
That is either the real world of Warlord Conquest.
Or a map modeled after it in a one-to-one scale without reduction.
So right now, I'm simply floating high in the sky, beyond the distance I can perceive by turning my consciousness.
Along with the giant statues and the Taoist in the hat.
- His main job should be transportation. Even though there's the conveyor belt the master installed, it doesn't reach every corner of the subspace.
- Wasn't there a cart? If not, we could just attach wheels to several large boxes and have him pull them.
- Woof woof…!
- Ahem, how dare you express an opinion while your seniors are speaking? Do you, want to carry it on your back without a cart?
- Tick-tock-tock…!
The shock hasn't completely subsided, but the labor-managent negotiation is already coming to an end.
In this case, is it a labor-labor negotiation, not a labor-managent one?
- Alright. Let's do that. Master, prepare to return.
The mont Kkumteuli said that, my body, which had been facing downwards, reversed and faced the statues and the Taoist in the hat.
- 'Dog that Swallows the Moon,' you have broken the rule that you must not use your power to directly harm a Sacred Relic wielder.
- As a penalty, the 'Domain of Sacrifice' that you bestowed upon the Sacred Relic will be sealed until the next world cos.
The thought-form that spread out from the 'Naless Tentacle' echoed throughout the space.
- Whine……!
The choker-like necklace that the dog-headed statue was wearing around its neck shatters into pieces and scatters into the outer space.
- See you soon, youngest.
Kkumteuli laughed.
The darkness recedes.
The light returns.
Ti slowly begins to flow, and the five senses and the sixth sense return.
In a sensation like waking from a sleep, I perceive my surroundings with my returned five senses.
Wasteland. Kalisto city. City walls. The skeleton soldiers on top of them. The vanguard of the Eastern Empire approaching from the horizon. The ground, neatly gouged out in a spherical shape as if erased with an eraser. The two people in the pit. and the Taoist in the hat.
“You…!”
The Taoist in the hat staggered and shouted.
There are only two of us at the bottom of the gouged-out pit.
The escorts who followed him and the clone in the form of Count Ash have been annihilated.
They were devoured by the 'Domain of Sacrifice' that the Taoist in the hat had unfolded.
Because only the Sacred Relic wielder themselves is immune to the power of the Sacred Relic.
It doesn't matter.
There are no witnesses anyway.
“Kugh…!”
The Taoist in the hat staggers, yet begins to form hand seals.
Slow.
Perhaps because he took quite a hit as the master of the Sacred Relic, he can't form the hand seals as quickly and accurately as before.
[[Inevitable Disaster] is deployed.]
[[Scream of the Flesh] is deployed.]
[[Anomaly of Corroded Ti] is deployed.]
[[Rakkash’s Eight Senses of Death] is deployed.]
I layer on all sorts of curses learned from the high priest of the Weird Priesthood.
[[Guillotine of the Soul] is deployed.]
[[Exploding Skull] is deployed.]
With necromancy, I scatter the Taoist arts he barely managed to cast, and thrust my sword into his defenseless bosom.
[[Shadow Strike] is deployed.]
Heart.
Head.
And dantian.
The most fatal weaknesses of the Eastern Empire's hero are pierced by the sword in succession, and the final blow sends his head flying, ending the battle that lasted but a mont.
The Taoist in the hat, his head gone, knelt down.
I picked up the dog-headed statue he dropped, tossed it into the subspace, and climbed out of the pit.
‘It's the newbie!’
‘Tick-tock! Tick-tock-tock!’
‘Welco. You heard everything you need to do earlier, right?’
‘Woof woof…!’
[Achievent unlocked! You have defeated a high-level Taoist by destroying all three of his dantian points!]
[Fixed Trait….]
I ignore the cheers coming from the subspace and the notification window that suddenly decorates one side of my vision, and watch the wasteland.
Far away, on the horizon.
The vanguard of the Eastern Empire is approaching.
Not at a very fast speed.
But I can feel it.
An ominous energy is beginning to stir in the center of their formation.
‘Eyeball.’
‘Understood!’
I imdiately moved through space into the city.
The Princess of Blood, who had escaped earlier, approached.
“Your Majesty, those guys…!”
“Yes. The second Outer God. The one we saw that day. The Empire's artillery and engineers have all evacuated safely, right?”
The Princess of Blood nodded her head.
Now, all that's left in the city are , Hebrun, and a small number of undead troops.
“We move according to the plan.”
The second operation is simple.
“Avoid the storm.”
We run.
***
The day the expeditionary force of the Eastern Empire and the Lur Legion clashed.
After the Vampire Duke's skeleton vulture-drone swarm fell like autumn leaves to the howling of the 'Dog that Swallows the Moon,' the scene I saw after barely regaining my vision was a fresh shock to personally.
‘Until the early stages of the battle, Lur had been doing quite well.’
Perhaps it was fitting for a civilization that had once conquered the world and gathered eight Sacred Relics to wage a battle of incarnations.
Against the incarnation of the 'Dog that Swallows the Moon,' the Lur Legion summoned the incarnation of another Outer God.
A giant human figure with eight arms and legs.
A being that sat cross-legged in four directions, levitating in the air and pouring out powerful spell bombardnts from its palms.
‘The Light that Enchants the Soul.’
The Sacred Relic that Chincharina had.
The Lur Legion had plundered it when they destroyed Indika and were using it.
‘Nevertheless, the Lur Legion was defeated.’
The cause of defeat was not the difference in troop numbers.
Nor was it the armant or the proficiency of the heroes.
Although both armies were on the wasteland that day, in reality, it was at most the vanguard that directly clashed with the Lur Legion.
As if they had to save their main force for a later day, the Eastern Empire faced the Lur Legion with only about 30,000 vanguard troops.
The only reason they were able to crush the Lur Legion, which was more than five tis their number, was for one reason only.
‘Outer Gods.’
The Outer Gods descended by the Eastern Empire's vanguard were more nurous than the Lur's main force.
‘The Eastern Empire's vanguard first summons one Outer God to test the waters, and if it seems difficult, they summon another one to attack.’
Perhaps it's because unlike the 'Dog that Swallows the Moon,' which can be descended in a simplified manner, the incarnation of 'Winter that Freezes Sumr,' which descended later, requires a significant amount of resources for the descent ritual.
Anyway, thanks to scouting the battlefield that day, I was able to find out two things.
One is the tactic of the vanguard that operates two Outer Gods.
The other is that even an Outer God's incarnate body is not completely invincible.
‘In the process of the Lur Legion fighting for their lives, when they poured all sorts of high-level spells and the gunpowder plundered from Indika, the Outer God's incarnate body also took damage.’
Of course, the winner of that day's battle was the Eastern Empire.
However, the conditions are different now.
First, their main force is not here.
And we also have the upper hand in firepower.
‘That day, the reason Lur was defeated despite having damaged 'Winter that Freezes Sumr' was because they lacked firepower.’
After all, it was just human spells, and human-made explosives.
At most, enough to blow away an army of a few thousand.
But what if it's firepower capable of blowing away a whole city, a huge trading city infused with dwarven and imperial architecture at that?
Of course, to do it with the Empire's pure power, I would have to pour in the forces I've been saving for the final battle, but they say humans are animals that use tools.
And those tools are ultimately products of nature.
‘It's about ti.’
I glanced back.
Because I had been moving through space repeatedly to escape, the distance from the city had already grown considerably.
A huge snowstorm is already raging over the city.
Under the scorching southern sun, the city walls and buildings are breaking and freezing.
The handful of undead troops on the city walls are instantly ground to dust.
That is the incarnate body of 'Winter that Freezes Sumr,' which wiped out Lur's 200,000-strong army that day.
And the next mont.
─────
A light that exploded in the middle of the city filled my entire vision.
Coincidentally, it was through the emperor's clone in the strategy conference room of the Imperial Capital.
The roar of the Dwarf King, who had heard the full details of the operation, could be heard.
‘Y-you blew that up! You an you blew that up! The amount of Dragon's Breath buried in the entirety of Kalisto would be more than enough to rebuild our Everlasting Mountains Hold!’
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