Chapter 434 (1/2)
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KA-BOOOOM—!
Boom, ruuumble—
The booming noises of thunder after a blinding flash of lightning bolt crashed down, as well as the sounds of the ground being ripped apart by such a powerful lightning strike, came from far away.
The stupendously bright light coming from below created a small sun. Its location was where yet another Altar used to be.
The Emperor, who had been urgently making his way to the nearest Altar, had to stop and ask, “Just what kind of commotion is this?” The knights around him, who lost their swords earlier, all turned their heads in the direction of the raucous noises.
Those noises that came from the location where the blinding light flashed sounded quite ominous. Lightning struck from the heavens above and had created a massive pillar of light in that place.
“The kind of light that we can clearly witness despite such a great distance away…?”
The power that could be detected from that reddish-golden light was quite extraordinary. The explosion that happened there must have been equally out of this world since it produced a pillar of light of such a scale.
“Perhaps the gods are truly enraged now,” softly muttered the Emperor, but his words still stunned the nearby knights.
The gods were enraged?
Nothing was more terrifying than that to them. To these people, who lived their entire lives for a chance to earn the acknowledgment and salvation of their gods, the rage of the gods sounded far more shocking than being abandoned by their parents when they were still young kids.
“Kuk, keuh…”
But then, a knight suddenly collapsed without warning, bubbles gushing out of his mouth.
The Emperor’s head spun to take a look when a painful moan entered his hearing from somewhere nearby. It was the same story for the other knights who had been distracted by the pillar of light until then.
“F—fella, what’s gotten into you?”
“Y—your throat, why are you…?!”
“Is he trying to commit suicide?!”
Other knights stepped up one by one to stop their collapsed colleague, but that was when the sh*t hit the fan.
Splaaaatter—
“Kuwaaaah!”
Knights began attacking each other while swinging their broken swords. Some even tried to choke themselves or stabbed their blades into their abdomens.
Watching this scene unfold, the Emperor, could only mutter to himself, “Have the gods really forsaken us?”
Wriggle—
An inexplicable desire to fight, as well as thick murderous intent, suddenly began writhing inside the Emperor’s heart. These two things were now screaming at him, telling him to kill all the loyal retainers near him.
He raised his hand, and with some force…
Stab—!
He stabbed his own chest with that hand, but he wasn’t trying to kill himself.
“Be silent!”
He was trying to suppress the murderous urge wriggling deep within him, even if only by a little.
He might be over 100 years old, but his mental strength was still strong enough to pull this off. However, the real issue at the moment was everyone else except him.
“Indeed, the gods have abandoned us.”
He was certain of it now.
What was happening right now was definitely wrong; if the gods they worshiped really existed, if they were meant to save the denizens of this world, then a horrific spectacle unfolding before their eyes shouldn’t have been allowed to occur.
RUMBLE—!
Another lightning crashed down. Was that thunderclap the sign of the gods’ rage? The Emperor shifted his head and stared at the Altar not too far from where he was, the one he and his company were originally heading toward before this event began.
It was at that moment that the next event unfolded.
Flash—!
Ka-boooom—!
The lightning struck that very Altar, creating a blinding pillar of light. This would be the fifth one they had witnessed so far.
“The Altar, it’s…?”
The massive structure exploded to bits, its debris shooting up in the air only to be disintegrated by the lighting pillar and scattered away in the winds as nothing but dust.
The boiling murderous urge and the desire to fight in the Emperor’s heart calmed down by a little bit just then.
However, that wasn’t the last of the light pillar to appear.
Rumble, ka-boooooom—!
The number of these light pillars began increasing one by one. These lightning bolts crashing down from the heavens accurately landed on other Altars next.
“If a real god is out there, then…” The Emperor watched the Altars being destroyed and muttered softly, “I pray that you come to our aid.”
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One, two, three…!
Flash—!
Another spear flew out of Su-hyeun’s hand; accompanied by an eye-searing light, it flew toward a certain location, and soon, a loud thunderclap exploded from there. This noise arrived far later than the light, however.
Huff, pant—
That was already 46—the number of Thunderbolts he had fired by now after taking a careful aim.
Su-hyeun was currently focusing all of his being right now. Just one shot missing its mark would bring about a massive catastrophe.
After confirming the location of an Altar, he had to precisely aim at it before firing his spear. If a stray shot landed in a densely populated city by mistake, then in the blink of an eye, millions, no, tens of millions of people would lose their lives.
His control over the destructive power also had to be exact. Each Thunderbolt possessed immense power that was strong enough to obliterate the Altar with a single shot.
He couldn’t make it any more, or any less, powerful than that. If he made a mistake with that task, he could potentially fail to destroy the Altars or end up with a much larger range of destruction that could affect the nearby cities.
“Two more shots left.”
All 46 spears accurately hit their targets. There hadn’t been any collateral damage so far as he destroyed the Altars for good.
Now, only two more Altars remained. Su-hyeun raised his hand and then grasped a Thunderbolt floating up there and took aim in a certain direction.
One, two…
“Three.”
Paaaaaaang—
Flash—!
Ka-boooooom—!
A bright light flashed, followed by a loud thunderclap, to illuminate the land below.
A humongous pillar of light shot up into the air; due to the sheer size of the Altar, Su-hyeun could vividly see the spectacle taking place below even though he was so high up in the sky that he could take in the entirety of Pangaea with just one glance.
Fuu-woo—
He relied on the breathing technique to get a hold of his heavy panting. His hotly burning chest cooled down by a bit.
Now, only one shot remained.
“This isn’t something I want to repeat ever again, that’s for sure.”