novel
| ← Ch.241 | Ch.243 → |
At the end of the long and humid hallway was a door.
It was a large door made of metal.
Creak, clunk!
When he pulled on the door handle, it opened easily.
The first thing that he heard once he opened the door was the sound of crying.
"Sobbbbbb..."
Chopin was resting his head against the wall while crying with one arm missing.
Behind his back was the magic square drawn on the ground, and the light that decorated the magic square gave off a strange energy.
"Where did that monster come from? My plan was sound. It was perfect... before that bastard appeared that is..."
Chopin cried and talked to himself without realizing that Min Sung had already entered his 'real' research lab.
The way he cried was very contrasting with his fancy outfit.
"Hey, " called Min Sung.
In response, he looked behind him with tears all over his face.
Chopin looked at him with a bloated face and hazy sight.
They met eyes for a moment, and Chopin burst into laughter.
"Haha. Haha. Hahahaha! Hahahahahahaha!"
His laughter filled the research lab.
He laughed like a crazy person.
His own state, his appearance, and the way he was being looked at.
He laughed and cried at the fact that his hopes and dreams turned into his worst nightmare.
What sounded like laughter at first started to turn into something strange.
"Beatrice... Beatrice is like this. I forgot..."
He continued with a haggard look on his face.
"Beatrice is a place where you can enjoy your power, but once you lost that power, you end up losing everything."
Chopin leaned on the wall and snickered at Min Sung.
"I didn't know I'd end up like this. Snicker, I never even imagined it. I've fought countless times already, but this is the first time I was so close to death."
"Stop your useless chatter and tell me why you ran here."
Min Sung stared at Chopin with piercing eyes.
He smiled.
He smiled like a ghost.
Chopin pointed at his right shoulder, which was now missing an arm.
He stopped the bleeding through treatment, but it still looked horrid.
"Now that I can no longer hold a sword, I might as well be dead, and I know... that I can't get away from a monster like you."
"So you wanted to die here? Is that what you're trying to say?"
"That too. But there's another reason, and you've probably been curious about it."
Min Sung stared at him while taking out his Gungnir.
Chopin looked horrible, but his eyes were filled with much emotion.
And Min Sung knew what emotion that was.
He was hiding something.
Something precious.
He didn't think it was a trap.
But it wasn't something useless either.
After all, the emotion in his eyes was telling him just that.
"I don't know what this is... But I advise that you forget about trying any funny business with me."
"You think?"
Chopin laughed.
When a human being was pushed to the edge of a cliff, it was easy to lose one's dignity in such a way.
It was difficult to stay rational when a person was standing on the edge of a cliff with the person who could kill him standing right in front of him.
And that phenomenon could have been something similar to a defense mechanism.
It was natural.
Just as Min Sung began to pass the magic square with his Gungnir.
Chopin's face broke out into a smile.
At the same time, the magic square flashed with a gold light.
Every single line of the magic square was filled with gold light.
The gold light coming from the magic square looked so vibrant that it almost looked like a fancy clock.
From on top of that magic square, Min Sung stared at Chopin with unimpressed eyes.
Chopin's eyes were filled with disappointment and surprise.
"That's not the reaction I was hoping for."
Chopin's eyes drained of amusement, and his tone became sharp.
Right before Min Sung began to walk toward him again.
Chopin opened his mouth.
"I did something to the magic square while you were looking for me."
Chopin continued with a grin.
"It's a time bomb, " explained Chopin with twinkling eyes.
Just from that one remark alone, Min Sung could understand what was about to happen.
When he saw Min Sung glancing down at the magic square beneath his feet, Chopin's smile grew even bigger.
"That's right! That's the face I wanted to see!"
As soon as Chopin finished, Min Sung laughed bitterly.
"Are you happy?"
Min Sung looked up at Chopin and continued.
"I said, are you happy?"
Chopin's face stiffened up with mixed emotions, but he quickly got himself under control.
"Don't laugh at me. The power of this magic square is beyond your imagination. It's powerful enough to make everything around it in a 500 kilometer-radius into ashes. Not even you can survive it. We'll die together."
A number appeared in the magic square.
And the number was counting down.
It appeared to be counting down to the explosion.
"How do you feel? You didn't see this coming, did you? You probably didn't expect to die here. Hahaha!"
Chopin laughed loudly, but Min Sung smiled.
"I was wondering why you were so weak, so this is what you spent your energy on. That's also why you were lingering on the outskirts of the inner continent. You're nothing..."
Min Sung sighed.
"... But a small fry."
Chopin stared at Min Sung blankly.
"I was hoping to increase my reputation by a lot since I'm in the inner continent, but this is a disappointment."
Chopin began to tremble.
"... What's wrong with you? I told you. Didn't you hear me? You're going to die now!"
Min Sung looked down.
30 seconds remained.
Min Sung looked back up at Chopin.
"Watch to see why you're a small fry, " said Min Sung while glowing due to the gold light.
Chopin scoffed.
"... Stop acting arrogant. You and your entire party, and all the Beatrice natives here will go to their afterlife. All because of me! All because of Chopin's power!"
Chopin screamed at the top of his lungs.
"That's what you think."
Min Sung began to unleash his magic power.
Roarrrrrrr!
The research lab shook as if the ground was about to split in half.
That was simply the result of Min Sung's unleashing of his magic power.
Chopin gulped and stepped back in response.
Once Chopin was backed against a wall, he stared at Min Sung with utter fear.
"... No way. There's no way."
Chopin almost teared up in disbelief.
... 5 seconds, 4 seconds, 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second.
Right as the golden light filled the entire room, an Aura exploded out of the magic square.
At the same time, Min Sung stabbed the magic square with his Gungnir.
Kaboom!
The extreme sensation strong enough to rip Chopin apart swallowed him whole.
The shutter was nothing he had sensed before, and it was all formed from Min Sung's power.
"T-there's no way..."
Boommmmm!
An explosive sound made his ears beep, but it wasn't because of an impact.
The sound that followed was something that Chopin couldn't believe with his own eyes.
Zappppppppp!
The magic power from Min Sung's sword was swallowing up the Aura from the magic square.
It almost looked as if a devil was ridiculing the magic square for being too weak as it swallowed it whole.
Chopin jolted his eyes wide open and trembled while staring at Min Sung.
Roarrrrrrr!
Chopin lost sensation in his legs and plopped down on the spot.
The amount of Aura that was put into that magic square was equivalent to 50 magicians forming a square.
And that man with the black hair was swallowing up all of it on his own.
"... This is impossible."
Chopin breathed heavily and grabbed the left side of his chest.
Chopin's eyes were tearing up.
It wasn't from fear, disappointment, rage, or desire to kill.
It was out of awe.
As the gold light from the magic square died down, the candles went out, and darkness took over.
It remained silent for a while.
Kaboommmmmmmmm!
Thunder and lightning then flowed out of Gungnir, and along with the ground splitting in half, the entire research lab turned white.
As a result of the light, Min Sung almost looked like the god of lightning in Chopin's eyes.
The deafening noises died down, and silence fell once more.
Chopin still had a hard time breathing, and Min Sung slowly took out his Gungnir from the magic square.
Crack!
The magic square cracked as Gungnir came out of the ground.
Since Gungnir absorbed all of the power from the magic square, it was glowing with gold light.
And it soon lit up its surroundings in gold.
Min Sung glanced at his own sword, which was wriggling from the power.
Due to the transformation, his '+9 Gungnir' transformed into 'Gungnir S'.
Min Sung knew instantly that his abilities and specifications changed as a result.
| ← Ch. 241 | Ch. 243 → |