Chapter 474. s...o...b..lled by a Once-in-a-Lifetime Genius (4)
As soon as Evelyn received the authority to enter other Astral Worlds from the Abyss Queen, she immediately began to cross through them. Thanks to the Queen, Evelyn was able to observe the flow of the Astral Worlds to some degree, so she prioritized worlds that were beginning to crumble. The fact that a world was disappearing meant that the core that formed it had been eliminated. Although it was good that the medium had been defeated, this was a trap laid by the Abyss King in the first place. Evelyn needed to save them before they fell victim to it and could never get out.
Evelyn’s prediction was spot on. When she arrived, Gotaya’s world was on the verge of disappearing with Ru Amuh inside. Evelyn arrived by the skin of her teeth and quickly took Ru Amuh and the others to the next world. Although Emmanuel was discovered half-dead in Wraith’s world, they fortunately arrived in time to rescue him and his team. Like this, Evelyn managed to put out the hottest and most urgent fire, but there was no time to rest since they never knew when or where another fire would break out. Evelyn went straight to the next world. There, they succeeded in rescuing Yeriel and her team, who were on the verge of annihilation due to the collapse of the defense line against Gorgo. By that time, they had recovered a substantial size of the expeditionary force.
Of course, there were also many casualties from the battles taking place in their respective worlds. Emmanuel was seriously injured, to the point that it was impossible for him to continue fighting, and Yeriel had used up all the weapons she brought. Nevertheless, they were in a much better situation than when they were all separated.
‘It’s not bad.’ Of course, Evelyn didn’t think that they would be able to keep up this smooth progress. The Abyss King must have noticed the situation by now, and he would definitely try to implement a countermeasure. Before that, they needed to push this momentum as far as they could. Therefore, Evelyn moved to the next world without a break—and succeeded in saving even Seven Stars’ fourth team, who were fighting fiercely against the metal giant golem, ‘Taros,’ with Yunael taking the lead.
“Uh, uh?” Yunael was stunned to see her allies, led by Ru Amuh and Evelyn, come popping out of nowhere in droves.
“What, no—!” After hearing a brief explanation of what had happened, Yunael’s face turned red, and she shouted, “Then you should have gone to the other worlds first! Why did you come to me!” While Ru Amuh and Emmanuel had won their respective battles, Yunael alone had joined forces with the others before she could defeat the enemy on her own. As someone with very high self-esteem, Yunael’s pride was hurt.
“It’s because we were in a hurry. We needed to get through the different words as fast as possible. Of course, I know how talented and skilled our dear Yunael is, but it couldn’t be helped. We’re in the middle of a war.”
“Well…that’s true, but…” Yunael settled down a little when Evelyn, who knew her temper well, soothed her gently, but Yunael couldn’t hide her disappointment. “I could have really won…We were so close to winning…”
Giving her a sideways glance, Jin-Cheon suddenly shouted, “Geez! What a relief! We almost died. It’s such a relief! Thank you so much for coming here before it was too late. Hooray!” He shouted loudly as if he wanted the entire neighborhood to know. Yunael gritted her teeth while Jin-Cheon snickered at her, but she held back because as Evelyn said, they were in the middle of a war. With the surviving members in tow, Evelyn moved on to the next world—the sixth world.
When they reached the sixth world, what greeted Shalyh’s expeditionary forces was a huge sea of fire that burned the whole world. Amid the feast of fire was what seemed like a legendary serpent, and a girl sat on top of it receiving everyone’s cheers. From a glance, it seemed that Apoline had just knocked down one of the Seven Chasms, Basilisk. Swiping back her long, platinum hair and showing off, she opened her eyes wide when she saw the s.p.a.ce suddenly split, and a group of people rushed out. After hearing the whole story, she turned to Emmanuel with wide eyes. The man was still on Ru Amuh’s back while groaning in pain. Apoline’s lips curled into a bright smile.
“Aha, is that so? Well, you could have taken your time. I don’t know if you’ve all seen it, but my overwhelming firepower utterly crushed my enemy.” She wasn’t lying. With power awakened by Chi-Woo’s Power to Rule the World, she had burned all the forces of the Abyss, including the Basilisk, without leaving a trace.
“Come to think of it, isn’t flame magic Basilisk’s only weakness? Well, it was great that we saved time though!” Irritated by Apoline’s arrogance, Yunael gave her a sour reply. Although she had said it in a slightly roundabout way, Apoline was not stupid enough to miss that Yunael was basically saying, ‘Don’t get too c.o.c.ky when you got lucky and encountered an opponent who was naturally weak against your ability.’
Although it was true that Apoline was supposed to be in charge of defeating the basilisk when they were making plans beforehand, Apoline snorted and folded her arms with a smile. “Please don’t mention it. It was only natural as one of the Seven Starts. In that sense, I’m very proud of Emmanuel. He risked his own life to defeat Wraith so that we wouldn’t waste time.” Then she said nonchalantly, “Oh my. On second thought, all team leaders have knocked down one of the Abyss Chasms, right? No way, is there someone who didn’t…”
Yunael groaned. They went back and forth with their verbal spar until Jin-Cheon interjected like a weasel and teased, “Wow! This is so amazing! The fifth team leader burned the entire Abyss forces all alone, including one of the Seven Chasms? Our fourth team kept getting pushed back and was saved in the nick of time from certain death by the rescue team! Wow! How amazing! Wow!”
“…Hey.” This was the limit of Yunael’s patience. “You come here. Come here for a sec.”
“I don’t want to~”
Yunael huffed and puffed while striding towards Jin-Cheon, and Jin-Cheon hurriedly ran away. “Ohohoho.” Apoline laughed with a hand covering her mouth before she suddenly fell on her b.u.t.t. Surprised, she looked around and saw the basilisk gradually disappear along with the world. As Evelyn said, there was no time for them to play around.
* * *
Meanwhile, the Abyss King, who had hidden himself in the last of the nine Astral Worlds, slowly lifted his head. As Evelyn had predicted, he was receiving information about each world in real-time, and he was taken aback by how things had unfolded. There was a reason why the Abyss King had twisted the war situation so much. After continuously using the Abyss Queen’s powers at her expense, he had finally reached a conclusion. At present, there was no possible method for the Abyss to beat the League and humanity even if they mobilized an all-out effort, or to be more precise, it was the pair of brothers they couldn’t beat—Chi-Hyun and Chi-Woo.
When he first joined the coalition, he hadn’t thought of the League and humanity as a big deal. And even though significant time had pa.s.sed since then, when did the situation become so dire? The Abyss King identified the cause in the great war, which inflicted serious damage on not only the League, but also humanity. It was a known fact that those who survived the war had become stronger through the experience of the great war—because they had earned merits and upgraded their user information.
Thus, the Abyss King decided to take advantage of that and absorb their increased strength for himself. Since the power of the Abyss alone wasn’t enough, there was no other choice he could make. Of course, Chi-Hyun and Chi-Woo were completely excluded from the plan. He thought there was no need to take such great risks. If he had also sent them to an Astral World, he had no idea what would happen with them running wild inside. Thus, he used the Abyss Queen and Seven Chasms he had absorbed earlier as mediums to create the Astral World and brought in Shalyh’s expeditionary force.
Winning or losing was irrelevant; it would be good if the Abyss won, but it would be all right if they lost as well since he planned to melt all the divided Astral Worlds and absorb everything inside. Yeah, that had been his original plan, but something he couldn’t overlook happened. An existence that could freely cross through worlds suddenly showed up, and the woman was moving to a world that was still intact with those who should have melted along with the worlds they were trapped in. In other words, she was buying time. It was obvious who had made this happen.
—Seriously…even till the very end, you’re trying to hold me back.
The Abyss King smacked his lips, thinking the Abyss Queen should have just disappeared without a fuss. Of course, nothing would change in the end…but it was bothersome to leave the situation as it was. He didn’t like it. While he was organizing his thoughts, another world was sorted out, and another one of the Seven Chasms died. Moreover, it was before Evelyn’s group even got there. A glint appeared in his eyes as he watched the world in question.
—How interesting.
He murmured unconsciously.
—Interesting. Really interesting.
He contemplated for only a moment and soon made his decision. When he had used the Abyss Queen’s powers, thinking it would be the last time, or to be more precise, when he had observed the changes inside his body after using her power, he had already made his final decision. Having learned how he would die and meet his end, the Abyss King had long crossed the line of no return. There was no reason for him to hesitate anymore.
—I’m curious. Well, a chicken is not bad instead of a pheasant in an urgent situation…
He briefly muttered and rose to his feet.
* * *
Yunael and Apoline joined Shalyh’s expeditionary forces and moved on to the next world under Evelyn’s guidance. If there was a world in which victory was overwhelmingly won without much damage like Ru Amuh’s, there must also be a world where the opposite was the case. Evelyn’s group got to see their allies being nearly wiped out. There were very few survivors left, and even they were resisting desperately and quickly collapsing. Amid their desperate fight against Huk Cheong-Ram, Teresa, Du Eun-Hyang, and Umaru almost shed tears when they saw the rescue team arrive.
On the contrary, Huk-Cheong-Ram fell into a dilemma. It was hard enough to deal with Evelyn, who had recovered her powers as the Abyss Witch, but there was also Ru Amuh. And there were those he didn’t know, namely Yunael and Apoline. The two attacked him so aggressively that even Huk-Cheong-Ram found them too vicious, and he couldn’t endure their concerted attacks. In the end, Huk-Cheong-Ram was extinguished despite his resistance. It was a miserable and sad end for one of the Seven Chasms who once terrorized the entire Liber. After they defeated Huk-Cheong-Ram, Evelyn counted the remaining worlds.
Starting with Her Majesty the Abyss Queen’s world, they defeated Gotoya, Wraith, Gorgo, Taros, Basilisk, and Huk-Cheong-Ram. Now, the only Chasm left was Balim, and if they defeated Balim, the Abyss King would be waiting in the only remaining world. The Abyss Queen had told her that all she had to do was open a way to connect the pa.s.sages together, and the rest would fall into place as long as she played her role. Thus, if they defeated Balim, Evelyn would have fulfilled all her duties here. For now, they needed to first get out of this world, which was beginning to collapse while Huk Cheong-Ram disappeared like the previous ones. Evelyn brought everyone together and immediately opened the way to enter Balim’s world—no, she tried to.
“…Ah?”
“Lady Evelyn, what is the matter?” When Evelyn paused, Ru Amuh, who had been waiting quietly, approached immediately and asked. However, Evelyn didn’t reply. She simply stared at the air with a bewildered expression. She quickly waved her hand again in a hurry, but all she touched was empty air. The s.p.a.ce refused to open up as if something invisible was holding it together. When things began to go off rail, Yeriel slowly lifted one brow. Yunael and Apoline, who were in the middle of arguing who was the one who defeated Huk Cheong-Ram and who did a bad job, also turned to look at Evelyn.
After standing blankly for a moment, Evelyn opened her mouth and stammered a response.