Chapter 159 – Why Are You Going In

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Translated by Pratt

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Alex Caesar did not doubt his own victory in the slightest.

Even if Drek Karax was a terrifying necromancer, in essence he was still a magician.

Before he could even complete a spell, one only had to close in at point-blank range and slash him apart with a sword or an axe or anything else, beating him to pieces no matter what.

Of course, would Drek Karax not know his own weakness?

He would absolutely try not to allow that distance.

Measures had been prepared for that as well.

Items created by the genius grand magic engineer Vincent Moretti.

He would ignore magic attacks with the pendant of absolute defense and rush in at high speed; with a duration of twenty seconds, that was plenty of time.

And then the totem of complete restraint.

Within a certain range, it could turn that bastard into a scarecrow for one minute.

So that he could not escape with Blink or Fly.

He had already tested it before.

He had even made others wear it and observed whether it activated smoothly, and had personally verified it with his whole body.

Tatatatatat!

The elite awakened of the Imperial Army charged without hesitation.

Kukukukukung!

And the mechanized units, tanks, helicopters, and armored vehicles followed behind at intervals.

He felt reassured.

A battle he could not lose even if he wanted to.

Wiiiiiiing!

The filming drones in the sky would vividly capture the glorious scene of this victory.

Himself standing tall as Europe’s savior, the world’s messiah,

and not those damned yellow monkeys.

Emperor Caesar entered Moscow’s Red Square.

The city center had been reduced to a mess by the bombardment.

An undead demonic-beast group was arranged in formation to greet the Imperial Army.

Their numbers had been reduced greatly by the bombardment.

A number they could handle.

And in the center of the square, floating in midair, was the bizarre-looking necromancer.

“Drek Karax!!!”

“Keu-keu-keu, crafty bastard, you’re still pretending to be an awakened.”

“Shut up! Filthy undead!”

“I have been waiting. Come quickly, and I shall rebirth you as my loyal subordinate.”

Dududududududuk!

Kwa-kwaang! Kwa-kwa-kwaang!

The awakened elite Imperial Army and the elite undead demonic-beast units collided.

Jiiiing! Jjiing!

Seogeok, seogeogeok!

Kwaak! Kwajijik!

A chaotic melee was breaking out everywhere.

Drek Karax, too, had a hidden move.

The Emperor of Europe, a man he had to clash with at least once.

Moscow city was full of demonic qi.

The grudges and souls left behind by humans and demonic beasts that had died.

Using them as offerings, he would turn this place into the land of hell.

Hell Marsh of Corruption.

The black-magic spell of a Deus Lich that turned even those who had not been dead into undead in the end.

‘Come in.’

The Emperor charged forward fiercely.

Swinging a sword thickly covered in mana blade.

By taking the lead himself, and receiving support from Imperial Army masters behind him, he punched through the formation of elite undead demonic beasts in a wedge shape.

It was almost within arm’s reach.

‘I’ve reached it.’

Swiik,

Drek Karax descended to the ground and planted the staff he held into it.

Kwak!

Uuuuuuuung,

seuseut, seuseut, seuseut…,

the floor of the square was turning black, becoming sticky and soft, and the feet standing on it sank puuk, puk-puk into the ground.

To the point that it was hard even to walk.

And even more than that,

ssuuuuk!

from the bottom of the marsh, bony skeletal hands rose up and grabbed the calves of the Imperial soldiers passing above, dragging them down.

“Uwaak!”

“D-damn it!”

“Protect His Majesty!”

“Keoeok…”

The masters endured, but the weaker experts gradually turned into undead.

The Emperor too faltered due to the interference of the hellish marsh.

‘Just a little more.’

Would he have failed to anticipate even this level of obstacle?

It would soon enter range.

He forced his feet to move and walked forward.

The attacks of the elite undead demonic beasts became more and more fierce, and there was the sticky swamp and the hands grabbing his ankles.

Uuuuuung,

pasak, paseuseuk, pasasak!

Over the Emperor’s whole body there appeared a spiky aura-protective barrier, jutting out like thorns.

He kept advancing tenaciously.

The thorn barrier crushed the hands coming out of the marsh.

He took one step forward,

tseupit!

and the mana blade split apart a charging elite undead demonic beast in a single stroke.

Seogeogeogeok!

One more step.

Drek Karax did not stay still either.

A wide-area black-magic curse attack descended upon the entire Imperial Army.

Tseutseutseutseu…,

“Corrupt! Decay! Rot and fall apart!”

A festival of every sort of curse.

The Emperor resisted by raising his aura.

One more step, and one more, and one more…,

and only when he had come to the point where he was so weakened that he could not lift a foot,

‘Now.’

Jiiiing!

At last, the pendant of absolute defense activated.

Pashut!

Tuuung!

The curse spells were knocked away,

perfect defensive effect.

As expected, it was a masterpiece made by the genius grand magic engineer Vincent.

Drek Karax flinched in surprise.

Alex Caesar gave a grim smile.

“It’s over.”

Before that bastard cast Blink,

spat!

swaek!

he closed in and took from his pocket a rectangular block of silver-colored metal, pressed it, and threw it forward.

Tuk!

Suuuuuuuung!

The tremendous flow of mana emitted by the totem.

Hwaaaaaaaak!

Together with a blindingly bright light.

Papapapapat!

It tightly bound the bodies of everyone at the scene.

The Imperial Army, the undead demonic beasts, and Drek Karax too,

but then?

“Keuhk!”

What was this?

The Emperor could not believe it.

He had confirmed that the restraint worked.

‘Why me too?’

He, too, could not move his body.

The mana of his whole body was being sucked into the totem.

It felt like his whole body was being broken apart piece by piece.

‘W-what in the world?’

Was it not an item that immobilized only the enemy in front of him, excluding the caster?

Vincent had explained it that way, and when they tested it directly, it had been confirmed.

He had never heard of or experienced an effect like this.

Drek Karax also wore a baffled expression.

His black demonic qi was flowing into the metal totem.

He could not even resist.

Restraint?

As if a Deus Lich would be affected by such a trivial spell.

But at the moment, he had ended up completely caught.

What kind of item was that?

“Y-you, wh-what did you do?”

And then,

between Alex Caesar and Drek Karax,

jjaeaeaeang!

there appeared something like an oval mirror a little taller than a human.

The surface of the mirror rippled like water.

“…Huh?”

“A-a mirror?”

What was that?

Why was a giant mirror suddenly appearing?

At that instant!

Suuuuuuuk!

A person’s leg pushed its way out through the mirror’s surface.

“What is that…”

“…”

He came all the way out.

It was a person.

A middle-aged man wearing a splendid crown on his head and magnificent garments.

Alex Caesar recognized him the moment he saw him.

Because it was himself.

More precisely, it was the same soul,

Trillian Lancer, Sword Kaiser and Emperor of the Avalan Empire of another world.

“T-Trillian?”

“Alex…, why are you here?”

But then,

chijijijik, chijik! chijijijik!

chains of lightning came and went between the two.

“What?”

“Ah…”

Seureureureuk!

The two bodies began to be pulled toward each other.

The distance was far too close.

Alex Caesar snapped to his senses.

It was ominous.

If identical souls stuck together?

Could it be this?

“Vincent Moretti!!! You bastard, I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you dead!!!”

Chijijik!

Before they could escape, the two bodies, the same souls, merged into one.

* * *

Thirty minutes before the battle of Red Square broke out.

Tae-ju slowly folded up the camping chair and put it into the Infinite Space.

At last, the carpet bombardment of the Imperial Army stopped.

Before he knew it, Moscow had gone quiet.

A faint cheering could be heard from far away.

‘The ground troops are entering.’

It was the natural order of things.

The war could not be ended with bombardment alone.

The ground troops were the last step.

‘Shall I start heading in too?’

The Great Sage Equal to Heaven clones that had been playing with him had all disappeared too.

‘I should at least do some simple preparation.’

Tae-ju took out a protection talisman from the Infinite Space and attached it to his chest.

The talisman treasure of Immortal Danzhu that blocked a fatal attack once a day and maintained invincibility for thirty seconds.

With this, there was no need to worry even about a nuke.

‘And the invisibility talisman too.’

If he appeared in the middle of the battlefield for no reason, it could lead to misunderstanding.

After all, for the chairman of a pharmaceutical company from a faraway foreign nation to show up at the site of an ongoing battle was strange no matter who saw it.

Swaeaeaeak!

Tae-ju’s Ten-Thousand-Li Flying Sword shot toward Moscow.

He arrived at Red Square in an instant.

‘Oh!’

It had just begun.

It seemed the concentrated bombardment had worked.

The number of undead demonic beasts was very small.

And then he got to see the main actors of the war with his own eyes.

Emperor Alex Caesar and the necromancer Drek Karax.

The fierce battle unfolding between the two.

‘They’re definitely impressive.’

As for Drek Karax, he was a soul linker, so that was one thing, but Alex Caesar was supposedly nothing more than an awakened…

‘Hm?’

Seeing the Emperor’s face gave him a strange feeling.

Invisible, Tae-ju moved the Ten-Thousand-Li Flying Sword down close to the square.

‘The Emperor…’

The awakening mark appearing on Alex Caesar’s face.

It was clearly fake.

‘He wasn’t an awakened?’

And yet, if he possessed such powerful qi…

‘…Alex Caesar was a soul linker too.’

There was no doubt he had been hiding it.

Just how many soul linkers were there on Earth?

That was when it happened.

Jjiiing,

together with a huge flow of mana, a strange mirror appeared between Alex and Drek, who were in the middle of battle.

At the same time, one person came out from inside it.

Chijijijik, chijijijik!

Chains of lightning went back and forth between Alex and the unknown man.

‘This is bad!’

The chain lightning.

He had experienced it before.

When he had first met Tang Gun-ak in the Immortal Realm,

Alex and the being that came out of the mirror matched in both appearance and the atmosphere they gave off.

If so?

“Vincent Moretti!!! You bastard…”

Pajijijijijiji…,

the chain lightning pulled them toward each other.

The two merged in the blink of an eye.

“Crazy!”

The unification of identical souls.

The merged body swelled up for an instant.

It shone like a light bulb.

“Kkeuuuuu…”

And then,

kwa-kwang! kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang!

a tremendous explosion occurred.

A terrifying shockwave swept through Moscow.

Chwarararararak!

The awakened of the European Imperial Army were annihilated after being caught in the shockwave.

The tanks, helicopters, and armored vehicles that had been entering slowly from behind as well.

Every building in the city center also turned to powder and collapsed.

The undead were the same.

Even Drek Karax.

Nothing at all could maintain its original form.

Would Tae-ju be any different?

The powerful shockwave came surging over him.

However,

wiing! wiiiiing.

A protective barrier was generated over his body through the activation of the protection talisman.

In Moscow, now turned into perfectly flat ground, the only person left alive was Tae-ju.

* * *

At Mega Roma in the European Empire.

At the Royal Crystal Engineering Research Institute.

The entire sequence of what happened in Moscow had been vividly transmitted by the filming drones.

Of course, the video transmission had been cut off when the drones were destroyed by the explosion.

Still, he had observed everything up to just before that.

Vincent Moretti let out a faint laugh.

‘The experiment succeeded.’

A gate had been created.

The possibility had been confirmed.

A direct connection between dimension and dimension.

And the result that appeared when two identical souls merged.

‘Our hypothesis was correct.’

Vincent himself was also a soul linker.

From the moment he had experienced the first link, he had been curious.

Even if indirectly, soul and soul could meet.

Then what about actual bodies?

What about world and world?

Could matter and matter also meet?

For example, the possibility that objects or people from another world could cross back and forth here and there.

The thoughts of Jacques Deluan, the grand magic engineer from another world who was the same soul as him, had been no different.

So whenever their souls linked, they had discussed and researched that topic together.

Dimensional connection also occurred through the medium of the soul.

That was why Trillian Lancer, Alex Caesar’s identical soul, had appeared in that place.

But the side effects when soul and soul merged.

And, in addition, the way to stably maintain a dimensional gate.

There were still many tasks left to solve.

‘Well, it’s only a matter of time.’

Vincent Moretti gave Daniel an order.

“Did you finish the wrap-up?”

“Yes.”

“The aircraft is ready, right?”

“Yes.”

“Ready to expose it too?”

“Yes.”

“Once we arrive in Africa and get settled, scatter it immediately.”

Soon, soul linkage would no longer be a secret.

And then, even without trying hard to search for them, soul linkers would naturally reveal themselves here and there.

Because an awl in your pocket cannot be hidden.

* * *

Tae-ju stood alone in Moscow, or rather in the place that had been Moscow, with a vacant expression.

It had simply become flat ground.

It was the same as saying an entire city had vanished.

It was a result he had never expected.

‘They were definitely identical souls.’

Because it was the exact same phenomenon he had experienced in the Immortal Realm.

The difference was that in the Immortal Realm, he and Tang Gun-ak had avoided the merging phenomenon because the immortals had stopped them, whereas Emperor Alex had not.

An explosion and shockwave on such an enormous scale that the protection talisman had activated.

It was hardly different from a nuclear explosion.

If he and Tang Gun-ak had merged in the Immortal Realm?

It was dreadful even to imagine.

Who had done that, and for what purpose?

It surely was not something Emperor Alex Caesar had done of his own accord.

There was a clue, at least.

The name he had shouted just before everything blew up.

‘Vincent Moretti.’

He needed to find out.

First by going back to Samhan.

Tae-ju was about to take out the Ten-Thousand-Li Flying Sword.

At that exact moment!

Uuuuuuuuuuuuu…,

the sticky aura of black demonic qi that could be felt at the scene.

And along with it,

tutuk, tuk-tuk, tuk! tuk! tuk!

matter gathering together in midair.

Looking closely, they were fragments of bone.

‘Hm?’

Powder gathering into fragments, the fragments clustering into bones, and the bones joining together to form…

‘Ha?’

Would you look at this?

‘He lived?’

Even after that tremendous explosion?

The body of Drek Karax, the Deus Lich, was beginning to reconstruct itself.

The head was completed, then the upper body and arms, then the lower body and legs.

Flesh was clothed over the bones as well.

He looked almost the same as he had before dying.

Drek Karax’s mouth slowly opened.

“…That idiot, without even anticipating such a result!”

He had survived.

Through the immortal authority possessed by the god of the undead, the Deus Lich.

In any case, the war was over.

The black demonic qi he had left was gone because he had had to revive himself in a new body, but all he had to do was start again.

Now that even the Emperor was dead, if he was only careful of Kim Tae-ju…

But then?

Spat!

“Huh!”

He was startled.

“…Y-you?”

One human had appeared before him before he knew it.

If he killed him, he would just come back to life again.

And he could not keep squatting here forever.

‘Should I take him home and slowly try killing him?’

That was a problem too.

How was he supposed to take him?

If they had to ride together on the Ten-Thousand-Li Flying Sword, it would be an enormous hassle.

‘If only I could just put him into the Infinite Space…’

That was when it happened.

Seuseut!

Drek Karax vanished.

“Huh?”

He went in.

Why are you going in?

It was certain.

That bastard was inside the Infinite Space.

That place where living life-forms could not enter.

He had confirmed it just a few days ago.

If it was a living animal, not even a tiny mosquito would work.

‘Is it because he died once?’

Or because he’s undead?

‘Then I can take him out too…’

Seuseut!

He appeared again.

“You bastard!!! What did you do to me!!!”

What else, I was trying putting you in and taking you out.

Seuseut!

Put him in again.

Seuseut, take him out,

“H-how dare you…”

Seuseut,

this is fun.

One thing was certain: the Infinite Space was recognizing this bastard as an object.

‘I wonder if he’ll go into the shared storage too.’

That, he could test directly.