Chapter 31

"P-please… spare me."

The last survivor pleaded with Deioden.

Her name was Aislin.

An awakened mage, her specialty was wind-element magic.

In Neo Seoul, she had lived like nobility.

As an A-rank awakened, arrogance had come naturally to her.

Being treated like royalty by everyone had become such a habit that she herself believed she was noble.

It had been entirely her own decision to join this raid.

Within the leadership of Neo Seoul, Deioden was a kind of taboo.

Everyone kept their mouths tightly shut, as if even speaking his name was forbidden. That only fueled her resentment.

'So you're really that great? You're nothing more than a relic of a bygone era.'

She had wanted to prove it.

That the awakened of the modern age were far superior.

More precisely, she wanted to prove how exceptional she herself was.

That was why she joined the raid against Deioden.

And now, she was bitterly regretting that decision.

Her face was a mess of tears and snot, and she had even wet herself.

Deioden was terrifying.

No—he was horrifying.

It felt as though he was showing the very limit of how strong a human could become.

Without even properly using a single skill, he had slaughtered every awakened who attacked him.

He beat them to death with his fists, and cleaved them apart with that massive greatsword.

Humans were cut down like scarecrows, blood spraying like fountains—Aislin had lost her senses at the sight.

As a mage-type awakened, she had almost never fought up close against beasts or humans.

All she ever had to do was cast the occasional spell from a safe distance.

Because of that, this was her first time witnessing such a gruesome scene firsthand.

Covered in blood and flesh, Deioden no longer looked human at all.

Everyone else was dead.

She was the only one still alive.

Aislin hurriedly dropped to her knees and begged.

"I—I was wrong. Please, spare me."

She didn't even dare think of resisting.

Deioden looked down at her with a pitiful expression.

"Spare you?"

"Yes! If you let me live, I'll do anything."

"Anything?"

"Yes! Anything!"

"Then kill yourself."

"…What?"

"I have no use for you. So die on your own."

"I can't do that. Please, just let me live."

"Seeing that they sent you, I understand well enough how the mayor views me. Message received."

"…What?"

At that moment, Deioden swung Crayon.

A thin line of blood appeared across Aislin's neck as confusion spread across her face. Then, with a dull thud, her head separated from her body and rolled across the ground.

"Hmph!"

With a scoff, Deioden approached Zeon.

Zeon's face was deeply contorted.

He had seen many deaths while following Deioden.

Among them were elves who looked almost identical to humans. But they were not human.

That distinction had served as a psychological barrier that protected his mind.

But not this time.

Though they were enemies, countless humans now lay scattered as mangled corpses.

There was no way he could remain unaffected.

Deioden spoke.

"Lift your head."

"Yes!"

Zeon raised his head.

"Look."

"Yes!"

Zeon looked at the corpses spread all around.

"That is the worth of humans living in this era."

"..."

"They strut around arrogantly because they're awakened, but in the end, they're nothing more than tools for someone else. Once their use is over, they're discarded like this."

"Are you saying they were disposed of?"

"Jin Geumho has always been skilled in scheming."

"Who is Jin Geumho?"

"The mayor of Neo Seoul."

Caught off guard, Zeon's eyes widened.

"Jin Geumho is a former bureaucrat, highly skilled in politics. By sending them to me, he not only delivered a message but also dealt with some troublesome elements."

"You're saying they were troublemakers in Neo Seoul?"

"Awakened are a double-edged sword. Those who obey are fine weapons, but those who don't become threats. So, from time to time, they create events like this to keep the numbers in check."

"Then what's the message?"

"That I shouldn't ever think about returning to Neo Seoul. Not that I had any intention of going back anyway. Heh…!"

Deioden laughed, as if greatly amused.

It had been decades since he left Neo Seoul.

Not once had he returned.

To those living in the former Republic of Korea and its neighboring regions, Neo Seoul was like the final wall.

The last bastion protecting humanity from magical beasts—a fortress of ultimate strength.

But to Deioden, it held no meaning.

Rather than growing old and dying peacefully within a safe fortress, he would burn everything away in that harsh desert and vanish without a trace.

That was the journey he had chosen.

"Now that you've decided to follow me, scenes like this will continue to unfold before you. If your resolve weakens and you make a mess of yourself with tears and snot, I'll cut you down myself."

"Who said my resolve would weaken? It's just… my first time seeing something like this, so it feels unsettling."

"You must not even feel that unease. That is the only way you'll survive in this hellish world."

"…Understood."

Zeon replied with a stiff expression.

It was advice that sounded like a threat, coming from a man who had survived in the desert for over a hundred years.

It was unpleasant to hear—but every word carried weight.

After engraving Deioden's words into his heart, Zeon cautiously asked,

"…That aside, would it be alright if I took something?"

"What do you mean?"

Zeon answered not with words, but by looking at the corpses of the awakened.

They were the ones mobilized to capture Deioden.

Most of them had been high-ranking awakened.

That meant there was a high chance the items they carried were valuable.

Deioden smirked.

"You're like a hyena."

"In the desert, everything is valuable, isn't it? You have to take what you can when you can."

"Do as you please."

"Thank you."

Zeon immediately began searching through the awakened's bodies for anything useful.

He felt no shame in doing so.

He had done far worse back in the slums.

For him, rummaging through corpses to survive was only natural.

After searching for a while, Zeon's face twisted slightly.

'Damn old bastard!'

Setting aside the fact that not a single body was intact, he couldn't find any usable armor.

Because Deioden had destroyed them along with everything else.

All he managed to salvage were a few weapons, along with food and water from a buggy, and a large backpack.

It seemed they had hunted quite a few magical beasts on their way here.

Inside the backpack were numerous magic stones extracted from those beasts.

Zeon stuffed all of them into his subspace and then asked,

"What should we do with this vehicle? It still looks usable."

"It will break down soon enough anyway. Leave it."

Desert sand eats away at machines.

It might last for a while, but without proper maintenance, it would soon wear down, corrode, and fail.

Abandoning it was the wiser choice.

"Then let's go."

The two resumed walking.

A sandstorm swept over the place they left behind.

The desert sand quickly buried the corpses and the vehicle without leaving a trace.

＊＊＊

Whoooosh!

Fierce winds scattered sand through the air.

The sandstorms had been growing stronger for some time now.

The winds were so intense that an ordinary person wouldn't even be able to open their eyes.

Only because Zeon and Deioden were far from ordinary could they endure it—anyone else would have long since lost their way and collapsed.

Zeon found it strange.

The desert might be unpredictable, but for sandstorms to rage nonstop for days like this was far from natural.

He asked Deioden,

"Am I imagining things? It feels like the sandstorms are getting stronger."

"You're not imagining it. They'll only grow worse."

"Even more than this?"

"Yes."

Deioden's answer left Zeon feeling overwhelmed.

Even for him, awakened as a sand mage, the storm was burdensome.

Deioden spoke again.

"The place we are passing through now used to be the sea."

"The sea? You mean that place larger than land, filled with saltwater?"

"That's right. More precisely, you could call it the Pacific Ocean."

"The Pacific Ocean?"

Hearing the term for the first time, Zeon's eyes widened.

Though unfamiliar, the word itself carried a sense of vastness.

"Can you believe it? A sea so large it could hold all the land in the world, with depths exceeding ten thousand meters… all of it evaporated and replaced with sand."

Deioden bent down and scooped up a handful of sand.

It slipped through his fingers almost immediately.

As he watched the sand he couldn't hold onto, his eyes filled with anger.

He still remembered vividly—

The endless blue ocean.

The seagulls flying above it, and the powerful leaps of dolphins breaking the surface.

The brilliance of a time that would never return.

Even after a hundred years, those memories had not faded. If anything, they had only grown clearer.

Perhaps that was why his rage and madness only deepened with time.

Zeon silently watched Deioden, who burned with anger.

It had already been two months since they killed the awakened who had attacked them.

For those two months, they had continued walking east.

During that time, Deioden had not spoken a single word about his past.

And yet, somehow, Zeon felt like he could understand him.

Zeon had been born after the world had already changed, so he simply accepted it as it was.

But for someone like Deioden, whose memories of the past remained vivid, the present world must feel like hell.

That was why Zeon could understand his eccentricity—and even his madness.

Of course, that didn't mean he felt sympathy for him.

Deioden was still a damned old man, and Zeon found himself being tempered by his harshness day by day.

Just then—

Zeon's senses picked up a subtle presence approaching them.

Rumble…!

The vibration came from beneath his feet.

Zeon silently fixed his gaze forward.

Fifty meters. Thirty. Ten…

The creature had hidden itself deep within the sand and approached right beneath him.

At that moment, Zeon muttered,

"Sand Mixer."

Instantly, the sand beneath his feet began to spin at terrifying speed.

Centered around where Zeon stood, it churned like a giant blender.

KRRRRR!

As the sand rotated, a grinding sound echoed like gears turning.

Kiiiieee!

A shriek burst from beneath the sand.

The creature that had approached in stealth was now trapped and being ground apart.

Its tough outer shell wore down, and the sand that burrowed inside finely shredded its flesh.

Experiencing such pain for the first time, it writhed desperately, trying to escape.

But the vortex of sand Zeon created held it like an iron wall, crushing it relentlessly.

The sand beneath Zeon's feet gradually turned red.

Blood flowing from the creature dyed the surrounding desert crimson.

Deioden watched the scene in silence.

The magical beast being crushed beneath Zeon was a Sandworm—one of the terrors of the desert.

It was feared by all for its ability to hide beneath the sand and approach silently.

Yet now, it was being ground to death without even putting up a proper fight.

'What a ridiculously overpowered ability.'

While traveling with Deioden, Zeon's talent was fully blossoming.

Though his level was still low and the raw power not yet perfect, his application and versatility of skills were unmatched.

Compared to Deioden at the same age, Zeon was far stronger.

It was an almost unbelievable achievement.

BOOM!

A massive explosion erupted from beneath the sand.

At last, the Sandworm's enormous body burst apart, meeting a gruesome end.

Deioden's eyes gleamed.

'At this level… it should be about time to begin.'