Chapter 284
Although Zeon knew nothing about Kurayan, he had at least heard the term “World Tree” from the elves before.
The gigantic tree that supported the world of Kurayan.
The source of all life, the being the elves called Mother.
But he had also heard that the World Tree had completely disappeared along with the destruction of Kurayan.
“This really is a seed of the World Tree? I can’t feel anything from it.”
—Beei!
“It lost its power? And it can be revived? How?”
—Ppiii!
“You have to nurture it?”
The calf whale nodded while holding the World Tree seed in its mouth.
Zeon could feel the calf’s anxiety.
It was worried Zeon, the owner of the seed, might not permit it.
With a faint chuckle, Zeon stroked the calf whale’s head.
“Go ahead.”
—Ppiiiiii!
“I mean it. Hurry and nurture it.”
—Beeeii!
The calf whale circled joyfully around Zeon’s body.
Claire had no idea why the calf whale was flying around Zeon.
She was too far away to hear their conversation.
At that moment, the calf swallowed the World Tree seed whole.
Hwaaaahk!
An intense light burst from the calf whale’s entire body after swallowing the World Tree seed.
A moment later, the light faded and the calf revealed itself once more.
Its appearance had not changed much outwardly.
Its size was the same, and its gentle eyes remained unchanged.
But the density of the mana it emitted was completely different.
Before, it had felt as light as cotton candy.
Now, it felt as heavy as compressed steel.
The calf whale swam around Zeon with far more energetic movements.
—Ppiiiiii!
“It’ll take time for it to bloom? How long?”
—Beei!
“You don’t know either. That’s fine. I don’t care how long it takes.”
At Zeon’s words, the calf seemed reassured and happily flapped its fins.
Zeon watched the sight with a smile before suddenly speaking as if something had just occurred to him.
“Gaia!”
—Be?
“Your name. I’ll call you Gaia. What do you think?”
The calf whale nodded as though it liked the name.
And just like that, the calf whale’s name became Gaia.
After enjoying Zeon’s touch for a while longer, Gaia cried out again.
—Ppi!
“You want to rest? Where, inside my subspace?”
—Ppiii!
“You can live in there?”
—Be!
With a soft cry, Gaia suddenly disappeared.
“My god!”
Zeon stared at his right arm.
After taking out the World Tree seed, Gaia had immediately closed the subspace.
Meaning it had remained closed the entire time.
Yet Gaia had freely entered the sealed subspace on its own.
And that wasn’t the only change.
The ownership of the subspace was changing.
Originally, the subspace had been enchanted into the Gauntlet of Superheat. Without the gauntlet, it could not be opened.
But now, the ownership of the subspace was shifting from the Gauntlet of Superheat to Zeon himself.
He had no idea how such a thing was possible, but now Zeon could open the subspace without the gauntlet.
He had become the true master of the subspace.
Its size had also expanded to an unbelievable degree.
The subspace, which Kaylie had already enlarged more than tenfold, had expanded by another factor of ten.
It was now large enough to fit several Moby Dicks at once with room to spare.
Apparently, Gaia had worked some sort of magic.
Shaking his head, Zeon muttered,
“This is insane.”
He had prided himself on no longer being surprised by ordinary things, but ever since meeting Moby Dick and Gaia, one shocking event after another had kept happening.
Zeon gave up trying to understand the situation any further.
Even now, he could feel Gaia resting peacefully inside the subspace.
That alone was enough.
Turning around, Zeon looked toward Pabilsa and Kaylie.
The two of them were touching the fully restored Arkelon while shedding hot tears.
Arkelon gazed at them as though it had never been dying in the first place.
This journey had been undertaken to save Arkelon.
Even with Zeon’s help, they had not thought the chances were high. But now that Arkelon had miraculously survived, their minds had gone blank from sheer disbelief.
Zeon’s gaze shifted toward Claire.
Claire stood frozen with terror, not knowing what to do.
It was too late to run away, and she could not undo what she had done.
Now that she had lost Lee Jeongho—the one protecting her—she was completely helpless.
If there had at least been a demonic beast nearby she could tame, it might have given her some comfort, but Zeon had annihilated them all.
Trembling uncontrollably, Claire could only watch as Zeon approached her.
“I-I’m sorry. But I had no choice. They ordered me to do it.”
“Why obey them?”
“If I don’t, how am I supposed to survive in Neo Seoul? If you want to live in Neo Seoul, you have no choice but to obey his commands.”
“You were the one who forcibly molted the Queen Ghost Dragonfly and stole its wings, weren’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
Claire’s eyes widened in shock.
“Was that Jin Geumho’s order too?”
“Yes.”
“What was he planning to use the Queen Ghost Dragonfly’s wings for? And what does he want Moby Dick’s heart for?”
“I don’t know. But something called Heavenly Punishment…”
Puh-eok!
The instant she mentioned the words “Heavenly Punishment,” Claire’s head snapped backward as though she had been shot.
An explosion had occurred inside her head.
Sticky blood poured from her eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.
“I…”
Claire stared at Zeon with an expression of utter disbelief before collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
Zeon looked down at her face with a hardened expression.
“Did they place some kind of curse on her without her even knowing?”
Even Zeon could not tell exactly what mechanism had caused the explosion inside Claire’s head.
What was certain was that the explosion had occurred the moment she spoke the words “Heavenly Punishment.”
That meant Heavenly Punishment was some kind of trigger phrase.
“Heavenly Punishment…”
Zeon lightly shook his head, casting aside his thoughts.
There was no way to uncover the truth from a mere phrase alone.
Zeon looked around.
Moby Dick had vanished without a trace, and Arkelon had evolved even further.
Originally a B-rank demonic beast, it had now become A-rank.
The majesty of an A-rank Arkelon was overwhelming.
Especially with the horn protruding from its forehead and the massive spikes jutting from its shell, it looked far more fearsome than before.
Around Arkelon lay the corpses of the demonic beasts that had gathered in pursuit of Moby Dick.
The bodies of the Gray Ogre, Crimson Drake, and Giant Spider were all visible.
But what caught Zeon’s attention was not the corpses themselves.
It was the black shadow stealthily approaching them.
The wriggling way it crawled made it resemble a leech.
Apparently trying to avoid Zeon’s gaze, it flattened itself low against the ground and moved secretly.
But it could not deceive Zeon’s senses.
“So you survived after all.”
Zeon walked toward the writhing black shadow.
The shadow, which had been trying to secretly connect itself to the Gray Ogre’s corpse, trembled violently in surprise.
The black mass rippled like a wave, and suddenly a human face emerged from it.
“Pantsy!”
The shocked face belonged to Pantsy.
Just before being annihilated by Zeon’s Sand Gehenna, Pantsy had attempted to fuse with the black sea anemone’s core.
If he was going to die, he intended to drag it down with him.
But his desperate attempt had produced an unexpected result.
He had fused with the black sea anemone, Bessie.
Thanks to that, he had barely survived the explosion.
However, Bessie had lost all its power, leaving only its core behind.
At this rate, they would merely become prey for another demonic beast.
That was why Pantsy had taken a gamble.
He intended to absorb the corpses of the A-rank beasts Zeon had slaughtered.
If he secretly absorbed all three A-rank demonic beasts, he would undoubtedly become even more powerful than before.
But his stealthy attempt had immediately been exposed by Zeon.
Pantsy hurriedly cried out,
“W-wait! Spare me. If you let me live, I’ll swear loyalty to you.”
“I’m not desperate enough to need the loyalty of a demonic beast.”
Fwoosh!
The moment Pantsy tried to recoil, a pure white flame blossomed before Zeon.
A flame created by the Gauntlet of Superheat.
The white fire was so dry that it felt cold instead of hot.
The moment Pantsy saw it, his face turned pale white.
“D-don’t do this. I only wanted to survive—”
“If that was the case, you should’ve hidden quietly.”
Zeon replied coldly and flicked his finger.
At once, the white flame moved like a living creature and attached itself to Pantsy.
The tiny flame, barely the size of a palm, expanded hundreds of times the instant it touched his body.
“KRAAAAGH!”
Pantsy’s horrific scream echoed from within the flames.
He rolled desperately across the ground, trying to extinguish the fire consuming him, but it was useless.
The flames Zeon created were no ordinary fire.
“Hellfire.”
Into the white flames, Zeon had concentrated all the authority contained within the Gauntlet of Superheat.
It was truly the fire of hell.
Because Pantsy had fused with Bessie, his vitality had become incredibly strong.
And that only intensified his suffering.
An ordinary human would have died instantly upon being struck by Hellfire, but because of Bessie, Pantsy was forced to endure the agony of being slowly burned away for far longer.
Only after his body had been completely erased did his suffering finally end.
Not even a speck of ash remained.
Only after confirming Pantsy had been utterly annihilated did Zeon quietly let out a sigh.
“Hoo…”
Truthfully, killing Pantsy had not been difficult at all.
He was so weak that Zeon could have killed him anytime he wished, which meant sparing him would not have mattered.
But people like that always came back as future trouble if left alive.
It was better for one’s peace of mind to eliminate them completely while the chance existed.
Zeon finally searched through the corpses of the demonic beasts.
He would not even glance twice at ordinary magic stones harvested from lesser beasts.
But magic stones from A-rank or B-rank beasts were different.
The Gray Ogre, Crimson Drake, and Giant Spider were not creatures one encountered easily.
The magic stones extracted from them were certain to be equally special.
Fortunately, all three possessed large magic stones.
Among them, the one that caught Zeon’s attention most was the Crimson Drake’s magic stone.
The Crimson Drake was a flame-attribute beast, just like the Red Dragon Eye embedded in the Gauntlet of Superheat.
Of course, it could not compare to an actual dragon, but it still belonged to the same lineage.
Perhaps because of that, the Crimson Drake’s magic stone also emitted a deep crimson color.
“So it contains the fire attribute.”
Magic stones containing attributes were already quite rare.
An A-rank magic stone was rarer still.
If sold in Neo Seoul, it would fetch an enormous sum.
“I’ll decide what to do with this later depending on the situation.”
At that moment—
Gaia suddenly popped out of the subspace without warning.
—Ppii!
Gaia stared intently at the magic stone in Zeon’s hand.
The sight was so adorable that Zeon unconsciously smiled.
“What? Do you want to eat it?”
—Be!
Gaia cried out as though confirming it.
Gaia had inherited four elemental attributes from its mother.
To Gaia, magic stones infused with demonic beast attributes were incredibly precious food.
Knowing that, Zeon tossed the Crimson Drake’s magic stone to Gaia without hesitation.
Like a puppy catching a treat, Gaia snapped the magic stone up happily and immediately returned to the subspace.
Even though he had just handed over an incredibly valuable magic stone, Zeon did not feel the slightest regret.
After collecting the remaining magic stones and even the Gray Ogre’s club, Zeon smiled.
It was finally time to return.
And conveniently, an excellent mount was waiting right before him.
Zeon immediately climbed onto Arkelon.
“Let’s go.”
“Where should I take you?”
“To Neo Seoul.”
“We’ll escort you there with the utmost safety, honored guest!”
Pabilsa replied with a grin.