Chapter 460 - 460 (1/2)
”Ah, yeah, we meet again.”
Su-hyeun froze up for a moment there, but he quickly calmed his pounding heart.
Suppose he hadn't already run into the illusion of the past Fafnir back in the Land of the Dead Gods. In that case, he might have ended up getting far too agitated at this moment.
Whatever the case might be, though, Su-hyeun regained his calm very quickly. And that's why he was able to come to a decision really quickly.
”Sorry, but I'm kind of busy right now.”
Snap—
Rumbleeeee—
Su-hyeun snapped his finger, causing the divine Flame to burn Fafnir's image created through the energy from the destroyed stele.
”So, stop messing around with clones like this and show up yourself if you want to fight me.”
”The reason you're busy is you're trying to stop the doorway to the Dark Realm from opening up?”
”That's right. The crappy mess you left here is huge and stinky.”
Pazzzzik—!
The ”clone” withstood even the divine Flame, so Su-hyeun gripped a Thunderbolt next. ”That's why you should keep your trap shut and—”
”If that's what you're worried about, fret not.”
”What? Why?” Su-hyeun furrowed his brow deeply and glared at Fafnir's gradually fading image. He was trying to figure out the meaning behind what the Predator said.
”Originally, I planned to take a little more time before invading you, but this should be enough of a preamble. I shall simply go with a smaller scale invasion and open the doorway right away.”
”You know, that doesn't really line up with what you said earlier about not fretting.”
”That's to be expected since no matter how much you struggle in vain, you cannot stop me. Besides, this is your fault as well.”
”My fault?”
”The doorway was designed to automatically open up when the number of the mediums decreased past a certain level for some reason. Although the doorway's size will become that much smaller, the end result of your world coming to an end again will not change much.”
”Aaah, is that so?”
Su-hyeun didn't need to listen anymore.
Flash—!
Rumbleeee—!
The Thunderbolt in Su-hyeun's hand flashed, and Fafnir's clone was sucked into the maelstrom of crimson-gold light before getting extinguished altogether.
”Thanks for the good info. It'll come in handy later.”
He didn't have a lot of time left.
Since the information came straight from Fafnir's mouth, Su-hyeun wasn't totally sure if he could trust it, but even then, the odds were good enough.
”First of all, finding out the location of the doorway takes priority.”
This fight wasn't simply against Fafnir. No, it was against a huge world called the Dark Realm, too.
It was a race against time as well.
”The scale of the doorway. If I want to find that out...”
Su-hyeun looked up.
Rather ill-fitting for the current crappy situation, the sky above was so pristine, blue, and utterly beautiful to behold.
Ba-dump—!
Su-hyeun's heart powerfully pounded away.
Why hadn't he thought about it before?
No, more than that, why hadn't he been conscious of it until now?
”The sky!”
The Godhood of Sky he now possessed was definitely not some sundry ability to strengthen the Thunderbolts and do nothing else.
Su-hyeun closed his eyes. When he did, it felt like his body was floating up.
And then, he became the sky itself.
”I can see it.”
It felt as if he was sitting by a desk and taking a look at the world through a globe, and as he looked down on the planet, the power of his Insight activated.
”Found it.”
There it was, in the middle of the vast, blue expanse of the Pacific.
Quite a large area there had become dyed in ”darkness.” The affected area seemed to be around one-third of the Pacific's entire surface area.
It was the doorway connecting to the world on the other side—to the place with a name literally meaning a world of darkness, the Dark Realm.
”It's already halfway open, isn't it?”
The color, for now, hadn't completely turned black yet. Technically speaking, it would be right between gray and black.
However, it seemed the color wouldn't need a lot of time before completely turning black.
”So, it was true.”
Honestly, Su-hyeun was inwardly hoping that Fafnir was just bluffing or trying to mislead him with false information. Unfortunately, neither of those seem to be the case.
Dudu, dudududu—
Ku-gugu—
Rocks strewn about on the seafloor were trembling. Then, the terrain itself began rumbling ominously.
”It has begun, huh?”
It began even sooner than he expected.
Just like what Fafnir said, the doorway was opening up.
[Earth Shrink Technique]
[Leap]
Su-hyeun activated both the Earth Shrink Technique and Leap at the same time. He stepped on the empty air several times and reached his destination, the center of the Pacific, in a matter of minutes.
His eyes soon caught the sight of the blackened ocean. There it was, the passageway connected to the Dark Realm as he saw just now.
”What on earth is going on here, Mister Su-hyeun?!”
Bzzzt, vrrrr—
Luslec's voice came to him almost at the same time as the phone tucked in his pocket began noisily ringing.
It seemed that both of his helpers had sensed what was happening here to some degree.
Su-hyeun reached inside his pocket to pull the phone out and answered it. He then spoke to both Luslec and Gordon Rohan at the same time, ”From this moment on, please make sure that not one person comes near the center of the Pacific. And also, please don't try to join me during the battle.”
”Has the doorway opened up already?!”
”I don't know what's going on here, but...Will you be okay?”
The two men's reactions contrasted each other. Luslec was stunned to learn that the doorway had opened up, while Gordon Rohan, seemingly having understood how grave the situation was, asked in a serious voice.
What a relief it was, though. If Gordon Rohan recklessly tried to come here, saying he wanted to fight alongside Su-hyeun, the latter would have had no choice but to send a summon to stop the American.
Gordon's role was to destroy the steles, and that was it.
”Yes, I'll be alright.”
Crunch—
Su-hyeun stopped talking, then crushed the phone and dropped it to the ocean below.
”It'll have to be alright.”
He no longer needed to receive calls or even make one.
Su-hyeun sucked in a deep breath. He stared at the vast ocean that was gradually getting darker in hue and enhanced the power of Insight.
”I wonder. If all of the steles were still intact, just how wide would this thing have been?”
Maybe a doorway so large that it exceeded the Pacific and covered the half of Earth might have opened up. Compared to that, this size wasn't all that special.
”Well, now...”
That's why doing this was also possible for him.