100. Explanation Freak"s Explanation Time
I defeated Zekill, along with all the monsters he summoned forth.
It seemed that they didn"t carry any stats with them.
Other than the stats I"ve gained from Dark Lady and her underlings, there weren"t any stat gains after killing Zekill.
It was possible that what Zekill said about the demonic race was the truth, since if he was human, his stats would have been stolen by me.
I was able to obtain a lot of information from him before he perished.
Zekill was responsible for the portals that were created from 40 years ago and the new portals that formed after each year.
A ceasefire had been called between the demonic races.
During that time, Zekill had tried to gather even greater magical energy.
For that goal to come to fruition, he had used up all his magical energy to form portals.
It was likely that new magical energy couldn"t be made in the demonic realm due to its limited capacity.
You could say that it was already too saturated with magical energy.
The magical energy would only continue to circulate, so there was no way one could obtain new powers.
He infused magical energy of the demonic realm onto Earth so that he could increase his strength.
To Zekill, this was his secret storage of power.
Of course, that plan was stopped single-handedly by a single human in a very anticlimactic fashion.
After taking down Zekill, I wondered if all the portals and dungeons would disappear or not.
However, he said that the gate between dimensions that connected the demonic realm with Earth was already formed. Until all of the magical monsters are defeated so that the magical energy is completely removed, the portals would not disappear.
I also asked about the portal explosions in Incheon and Gapyeong since those weren"t planned by Zekill and Dark Lady.
Zekill was kind enough to give out two different theories.
First theory was that the dormant portals were disturbed due to all the high level portals in Korea being purposefully detonated.
The second theory was that another demonic race from the demon realm have infiltrated Earth.
In this situation where all of the 10 artificial portal explosions weren"t taken care of yet, 3 more explosions occurred in three separate locations.
It happened after I defeated three thousand monsters that protected Zekill.
I had a hunch that their magical energy they released had cause the portals to explode.
Hence, out of the two theories that Zekill proposed, the first one had a lot more weight to it.
Perhaps the reason why the portal explosions stopped after level 28 ones was that there wasn"t enough magical energy present on Earth.
Let"s say that the portals that pour out monsters were made by Zekill.
Then why did the Awakened come into existence.
Zekill said that he did not know.
All he could say was that the humans were exposed to the magical energy that was released on Earth, becoming this mutant known as the Awakened.
He told me that the special abilities and cla.s.ses had nothing to do with the demonic races.
His best guess was that a slow evolution that should have taken an eternity was suddenly hastened by the magical energy.
There was no such thing as cla.s.ses or special abilities for the demonic races.
However, a similar system existed. The demonic races were a.s.signed a rank from birth instead of earning one like the humans.
The higher the rank, the greater power and ability that the demon would receive.
With that power, the demons could become stronger by absorbing the magical energy from slain magical monsters.
One example was about the demon king that ruled over the demonic realm.
Zekill said that he had enough strength to unite the 4 demonic races into a single one if he just felt like doing so.
He was born in the midst of the war between the demonic races.
Countless demons had lost their lives, covering the battlefield with all their magical energies.
That was where the highest ranking demon king appeared.
Even though he was strong beyond compare, there was a reason why he suggested a peaceful resolution.
It was to store up power to invade beyond their homeland into this world.
The demonic king was already top of the food chain.
Simply put, he could use his absolute power to take all of the magical energies in the demonic realm for himself.
However, instead of choosing that path, he decided to grow the numbers of his subjects and set his sights on moving to a bigger world.
I thought his greed knew no end.
He wasn"t just satisfied with the demonic realm, but instead allowed his ambitions to grow further.
"Min-Cheol. What about Zekill? What happened to him?"
"He"s dead. Over there."
Where I pointed lay the the corpse of Zekill, gone cold.
There was purple blood that he spilled all over, as well as the three thousand corpses of monsters laying about.
Everyone here, including the commander himself, didn"t think much about the purple blood that was spilled.
They must"ve thought that it was the blood of the monsters that was spilled.
I decided to not reveal his ident.i.ty either.
Enough was enough.
There was no need for additional chaos with things such as demonic realm or demonic races to worry about.
I looked at Jong Ho and spoke.
"Have all the monsters nearby been taken care of?"
"Yes. We were on our way way here after checking that the portal in Gamman-Dong has been taken care of."
"Is that so. Thank you for your hard work. Is there still portals that haven"t been taken care of though?"
"Yeah. Since that leader you mentioned is at Gapyeong, we"re in a bind as we can"t approach him. There are a few other locations too that need to be taken care of."
"Hm. Where did the commander go? I can"t find him……"
"Ah. After he personally confirmed that the portal in Gamman-Dong was taken care of, he immediately headed for Yangpyeong."
"Yes, that"s right. Apparently the magician cla.s.ses that were deployed from the a.s.sociation are fighting against the monsters with their lives on the line. Even as he was heading here to Busan, I noticed that we was worrying about them the entire time."
Ho Jin explained the reasoning behind the commander"s absence here.
The commander was a well known hero of his people with just his righteousness.
On top of that, he was skilled at commanding his platoons and cared for his subordinates.
I was relieved after I heard their words.
It was because I thought the commander was done in by a monster.
"I thought something bad happened."
"Hey. Did you really think that something happened to him while we"re safe and sound?"
"That"s true."
"….."
While I was talking with Jong Ho and Ho Jin, Choi So-Hyeon was looking at us without a word, as well as the butchered corpses of monsters and Zekill.
It seemed that she was trying her best to hide an expression of shock.
She knew most rankers.
However, my name wasn"t spread nor was I given much coverage by the press.
If I put on my backpack, I would appear to be nothing more than just a regular high schooler.
It made sense that she was shocked.
The chaos wasn"t mopped up completely yet.
I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
I spoke to everyone present.
"I"ll be going to Gapyeong then."
"Is that so? We"ll contact the commander before moving out then."
Jong Ho playfully whispered into my ear.
"Hey. Are you going there to grab more stats?"
"Oho. I"m going there for world peace and for the safety of our citizens!"
"Pfft. I wonder why you"re going to Gapyeong of all places."
"That"s because there is where the last leader of the radical faction remains. Don"t doubt my patriotism!"
"My my. Either way, thank you for your hard work. Take care of yourself in Gapyeong."
"Yes. I"ll contact you once I"m done cleaning up the place."
"Yep."
I headed as fast as I could to to Gapyeong while in deep thought.
Soon, I would arrive in Gapyeong where Pierro would be waiting.
His subordinates would be there too, as well as the unregistered Awakened that served the radical faction, whom were gathered in Incheon before.
If I can take care of them, there shouldn"t be any more chaos.
The demon Zekill, who could control the demonic monsters, was dead already after all.
For a while longer, portals would continue to explode.
Just as Zekill said, the world would be filled to the brim with magical energy.
The 3 thousand monsters that he had summoned should have caused a ma.s.sive increase in the magical energy present on Earth.
But that should be temporary.
Just like how the portal explosions stopped at the level 28 portals, as long as the magical energy doesn"t increase, the explosions should stop.
I had no idea how high the levels of the new portals would go up to, but at least stability that we are used to should return.
Of course, that"s a.s.suming if Zekill"s secondary theory doesn"t come true.
It didn"t take long to arrive at Gapyeong.
It was to be expected, as a single step would fling me forward with the force of a rocket.
It was the same pattern as the company of Dark Lady.
All of them were stealthed, waiting for prey to arrive.
If they could avoid my Eye of Insight, they probably would have escaped with their lives.
That was impossible to even consider as possibility though.
There wasn"t even a need for introductions at this point.
I already had obtained all the information I needed from Zekill.
They were nothing more than mere stats to me.
Just stats, nothing more or less.
They were clueless as to the death of their leader, and were following his order to guard this place.
It was foolishness itself.
No one was deployed here though.
Not even the drones were to be found.
I didn"t bother even using stealth as I approached them.
Confirming my presence, the 500 of them quietly gripped tightly to their weapons.
"How cute."
Pretending as if I didn"t see them, I pulled the aggro of the monsters near the portal.
Looking at this, they must"ve thought that I"d lose my life to the monsters, since they didn"t make a single move after gripping their weapons tightly.
They must"ve thought so since the monsters were quite high leveled.
However, unlike what they expected, the reason why I was gathering them all was to annihilate everyone in one go.
Two birds, one stone.
All the monsters were heading in a single direction towards me.
Following the red dots that Eye of Insight revealed, I pulled quite a lot of monsters.
Absorbing their attacks with Mana Shield, I began to head towards where Pierro was.
Displaying their giant form, the monsters spewed acid as they followed me.
As if finding this amusing, they watched in silence.
Even though they did not make a sound, I could tell from their expressions.
It was then that I yelled towards them.
"Delivery!"
"……."
"……."
-CRASH!
Those that received my attack were revealed from their stealth.
In less than a second, the battlefield became chaos itself.
-BOOOM!
"AHHHHHH!"
"Formation! Keep the formation!"
"You can pay for the service with your lives!"
"You"re insane! R…. RUN!"
"I"m not sure who Pierro is. Just die together with them. It costs more for delivery if you have them done separately, right?"
-CRACK!
"I"ve been successfully paid with stats."
I had grown stronger to the point where this situation was completely different with the time I faced Joker.
I obtained the stats from Ghost and Dark Lady, as well as all of the Awakened that were a part of the radical faction.
I wanted to invade the demonic realm, dog realm, or whatever it was called right away and rip apart the demon king.
I had no idea how strong he was but still.
If there only was a way there to get there.
It was disappointing that the method Zekill used to get here wasn"t a skill or some power given through authority, but by chance.
The portals were formed by him, but the rift in dimensions wasn"t.
The monsters and the radical faction could be compared to two rabbits, both of which I took care of before leaving the scene.
Due to the intense flames, the live trees burned as if they were dry firewood.
"Adding in forest fire prevention Glacial Field as a bonus!"
Just like that, the headache that was the radical faction disappeared completely.
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