Entering the Demonic Zone (1)
"It would have been better if we could have delayed a little longer."
The deepest part of the demonic zone. If you only heard the na, you'd think of a place filled with darkness.
However, the place where Damian was standing was filled with golden radiance.
"There's nothing we can do about it. Circumstances are never perfect."
Amazingly, the source of the golden light was a gigantic heart.
It was a heart created by gathering the lives of countless humans, fusing divine art and the technology the demons had developed so far.
Along with that, a portion of the Demon King's remains had been combined to forge this massive heart.
This heart was the core of the demonic zone, and the sum of all their plans.
"If you wish, we can proceed right now."
Sebin spoke cautiously to Damian, who was gazing at the heart.
While other parts might be lacking, the heart was complete.
This ant that the basic premise of the plan was now in place.
"Of course, in an incomplete form."
"That's unavoidable. If we wanted to proceed in the best possible state, we would need at least another month."
They had managed to buy so ti, but delaying an additional month was impossible.
Park Jung-woo had already entered the demonic zone.
In the end, although it was unsatisfactory, they had to accept a bit of imperfection.
"Don't you think wishes are truly selfish things?"
"Pardon?"
"I an, to a god, a wish is nothing more than an annoying wail."
Prayers aid at a transcendent being like a god usually convey vague desires.
The god observes such wishes and accepts them graciously.
"If it were Estella, she'd probably agree with this."
Damian had never t Estella in person.
During the Demon King subjugation war, Damian had been a boy, shivering and hiding on his own.
But he knew.
She tried to side with the demons, and sought vengeance on all humanity through her wish.
"In a different way, but in the end, we are making Estella's dream co true."
Divine art—this was the twisted wish of Estella.
Even after her death, it was a fragnt that lingered in the world—her lingering regret and resentnt.
It should have dissolved into nothingness in the world, but humans foolishly gathered those fragnts and perfected them as divine art.
Her power was born of wishes.
As long as humans honored her and yearned for her, her power would forever remain in the world.
"You're not the only one trying to use the world for your own ends, Park Jung-woo."
If he couldn't be stopped, then in the end, they would have to use him instead.
Thinking that way, Damian turned away from the heart.
***
The monsters of the demonic zone are strong.
In ordinary dungeons, what they would call an A-rank monster would usually be considered the ruler of that dungeon.
Only in S-rank gates or dungeons would such monsters occasionally appear, and even just the appearance of an S-rank monster would an disaster for the area.
However, in the demonic zone, even the lowest were A-rank monsters.
It was a place where ordinary hunters didn't even dare set foot.
If monsters were to pour out of the demonic zone, it ant a national crisis, possibly threatening a nation's very existence.
That was why, in the past, no one had doubted the difficulty of attacking the demonic zone.
"It's a relief that, at least, the monsters of the demonic zone don't seem to co out of it."
Hojun clicked his tongue as he looked down upon the monster they had just defeated.
An ogre, its re size exceeding three ters.
Unless one was an A-rank awakener, it was said you couldn't even pierce its hide.
"There are more monsters than before. I never imagined I would see a 'herd' of ogres, of all things."
Ogres were originally monsters that acted alone.
There was no such thing as a herd, and their individual strength alone qualified them as A-rank monsters.
"How many monsters appeared at once just now?"
"Twelve."
"That's a number even a regular S-rank awakener would struggle to withstand."
Kian responded to Hojun, clicking his tongue as well.
It was his first ti entering the demonic zone, which made the impact even greater.
Had Jung-woo not prepared him in advance about the demonic zone, he might have been flustered.
'Is this really an ecosystem that was once conquered?'
Judging by the quantity and quality of monsters they had defeated, even S-rank dungeons or gates would have been easily overwheld.
If these monsters had escaped from the demonic zone, neither Germany nor Austria could have even dread of stopping them.
"But isn't it strange~? It's like the monsters already know our location. Isn't that odd?"
"Y-yes, it is."
Shin Ah-yeon dusted off the dirt from her body and turned to Dmitri.
Dmitri replied with a smile, but couldn't hide his trembling pupils.
'There's no way we can stop them with just monsters.'
It had been seven hours since they entered the demonic zone.
During that ti, Dmitri continuously called monsters to their location.
Waves of disaster-class A-rank monsters collapsed aninglessly before their group.
'Are these really S-rank beings like ?'
He was starting to doubt why he had even been selected.
Especially the S-rank hunters from Korea whom Jung-woo had brought from the very beginning—they felt abnormal.
It wasn't just a matter of being strong or weak; there was sothing special about them.
"The monsters aren't really important. The real threat hasn't shown itself yet."
Jung-woo said this as he extracted a magic stone from the ogre's corpse.
'It's not so tainted by demonic energy.'
By checking the state of the magic stone, one could tell how long a monster had lived in this land.
If they'd lived long, the magic stones of monsters in the demonic zone should have been filled with demonic energy.
'Ultimate magic stone.'
The ultimate magic stone, only obtainable in the demonic zone, was produced this way.
When a monster that had survived a long ti here died, its magic stone turned into an ultimate magic stone.
'Maybe that's why these monsters are weaker than expected.'
If this A-rank ogre had been empowered by demonic energy, it would have been much stronger.
A perfect example would be the troll Shin Ah-yeon faced in the 'Dungeon Exploration'.
Strengthened by demonic energy, that troll had been much more formidable, so these ogres should have mutated in the sa way.
"Wow, that's the first ti I've seen soone pull out a magic stone with their bare hands."
Just then, Alencia approached and spoke to Jung-woo.
She was filming Jung-woo with a special cara in her hand.
The cara was even more suited for special environnts than the one Pyo Ji-yeol had previously used, and its price was enough to easily elicit cries of shock.
"~or so they say."
"... It's not difficult, once you're used to it."
Jung-woo spoke to the viewers watching through Alencia's cara.
There were two main formats for broadcasting the invasion of the demonic zone.
One was Alencia's live feed, the other was a sowhat edited version for network TV.
The network broadcast would be aired with about a one-day delay after filming.
It would be adapted more to suit the general audience's tastes.
The live video, on the other hand, was raw.
Since showing monster killing could be quite graphic, only adults were allowed to watch.
'Wow, over a million watching live.'
Through an electric signal connected to a broadcast vehicle waiting in a nearby city, Alencia was able to check the current view count and chat activity.
Even though nothing that dramatic had happened, the live audience count surpassing one million was surprising.
'Or maybe not. This is the first ever public broadcast in the demonic zone, and it's global, so maybe that's too little?'
The number of viewers was increasing rapidly in real ti.
If it ever ca to a fight against the demons, even Alencia couldn't guess how high the viewership would climb.
"Manager, could you please explain to the audience how the demonic zone raid works?"
Perhaps because the viewers were watching, Alencia addressed Jung-woo formally, as she had practiced.
Jung-woo smiled wryly at her and answered calmly.
"Think of the demonic zone as similar to, but different from, a regular dungeon or gate. In dungeons, erasing the 'core' clears the dungeon, but the demonic zone is different. As so of you know, you have to kill the king of the demonic zone."
The king of the demonic zone.
The one who maintains and rules it—a monster who expands its territory.
"The king's core is not a typical magic stone. It's a demon's heart. A very powerful demon's, at that."
The demon's heart.
For those present, this was now familiar, but it was new to the viewing audience.
【The heart of a demon? Then are all the demonic zones worldwide tied to demons?】
【Haven't demonic zones been around for a long ti?】
【They've been around for decades, at least.】
【So that ans demons have been around in this world since then too?】
What Jung-woo just said sounded odd if it was true.
The existence of demons had only been discovered recently, and the world believed they were split into two groups.
Those who sided with Jin Su-hyuk (the 'good' demons), and those who were hostile to humanity (the 'evil' demons).
So then, which side was responsible for the creation of the demonic zones?
【Either way, doesn't that an the demonic zones have been left alone all this ti?】
【That's true.】
【But we don't know if Park Jung-woo is telling the truth.】
【He's a returnee. He ca from a world ruled by demons. He should know.】
The fact that Jung-woo was a returnee had already been verified many tis.
Naturally, his statents now carried much more weight.
"Originally, the demonic zone we're currently raiding, Sichelmond, had its heart destroyed in the past. In theory, that should have made the demonic zone disappear... but, as you can see, it's still here."
Even if corrupted earth wasn't cleansed right away, there should have been no more monsters.
But the demonic zone remained.
"In this case, we have to consider two possibilities. Either the entity the old raid team destroyed wasn't the real king..."
Jung-woo raised two fingers.
"... Or there was sothing else that could serve as king."
Even if you killed the king of the demonic zone, the corrupted area didn't magically go 'pop' and cleanse itself.
At the ti, there was nothing special to confirm, and people simply hoped ti would fix things.
And this is the result.
The demonic zone hadn't disappeared and was still producing monsters.
"So our task is simple. Find the king of the demonic zone—or whatever is serving in its place—possibly at the core, and destroy it."
Why did they choose to raid Sichelmond, the zone that had supposedly been conquered in the past?
Jung-woo was answering just that.
It wasn't really conquered, and there was always sothing odd about it.
【Wow, chills.】
【Is this for real?? Then what was that announcent from Germany about the demonic zone being cleansed?】
Alencia watched the real-ti viewers jump at Jung-woo's statents.
From the original one million, the live audience had now almost doubled to two million.
That showed just how shocking Jung-woo's explanation was.
"We'll have to see for ourselves what's actually inside this demonic zone."
Jung-woo said, gazing toward the heart of the demonic zone.
Toward sothing that, unlike a typical king, hadn't budged.
"Let's get moving."
With that, Jung-woo beckoned to the others.
He wanted to ask Alencia to scout out the heart of the labyrinth right away, but didn't know what dangers awaited here, so it wasn't possible yet.
'There's no way for Alencia to recharge her strength here, so even less so.'
Alencia's greatest power worked in the city.
In the demonic zone, she couldn't use her full strength.
'The fact that the monsters' magic stones aren't corrupted by demonic energy is proof they were recently summoned.'
Untainted magic stones were evidence enough.
The demons were constantly summoning monsters into the demonic zone to slow them down.
'Whatever those fiends have in mind...'
For now, all they could do was move forward.
To uncover what exactly awaited in the heart of this demonic zone.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
38 chapters left.
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