A brief laugh escaped me, but given the gravity of the situation, the mood quickly sank. The clan members seemed to be examining the Memoria Stone clutched tightly in the woman’s hand.
With information so scarce, I strained to catch every movement of her figure. She hurried along, clutching the stone close, occasionally flinching or curling into herself, eyes darting anxiously in every direction. Her trembling told a single truth:
Something had gone terribly wrong in the city.
No—something must have happened. Considering the current circumstances, it wasn’t hard to guess what that might be.
Suddenly, the woman’s frantic sprint came to an abrupt halt. Had she reached her destination?
“Nani? It means ‘What?’ or ‘What is it?’ She must have seen something.”
Before I knew it, Jinsu-hyun had quietly stepped back, and in her place, Jegal Haesol spoke up. I wished she’d taken the lead sooner.
Anyway, Haesol was right. The woman stood frozen for a few seconds, then collapsed weakly to the ground. A voice, trembling with fear, escaped her lips.
“Naze… doushite… Why… why…?”
The overlapping voices echoed quietly through the space, as if witnessing something unbelievable.
“What could she have seen to react like that?”
At that moment, someone muttered, and the woman, who had been sitting dazed, suddenly snapped her head around. She pushed herself up and took off running again, as if fleeing from some unseen pursuer.
After a while, exhausted, she staggered and slumped against a statue at an angle. She glanced left and right, then pulled out the Memoria Stone. So the place where she had collapsed earlier was the plaza in front of the temple. Could it be that she deliberately erased some traces?
Before I could finish that thought, a pitiful grunt reached my ears. The woman punched the temple floor several times, then took out the Memoria Stone and tapped it repeatedly with her palm, as if burying it. Her hands kept moving like that until the image began to ripple violently, becoming transparent.
That was the end of the footage. Soon after, the woman’s figure vanished completely.
When the light faded, I walked forward in a trance and bent down. Where she had last been, there were still a dozen or so stones scattered on the ground. But now, a crack had appeared in the floor.
She must have been in a hurry, but she’d painstakingly patched it up. Given how old the building was, it wasn’t surprising.
I pressed gently, and the floor split open easily. I slipped my hand inside and felt around the hollow pit until my fingers hit something hard and stone-like. I gripped it tightly and slowly straightened up. I’d found it—the Memoria Stone.
“Is that all?”
Ahn-hyun muttered belatedly, his voice tinged with disappointment. But I didn’t see it that way.
“Now it’s starting to make sense. This ‘summoning mark’ was a message left for us.”
A few quick-witted clan members seemed to have caught on already. The message this woman left was invaluable intelligence in the current crisis.
Thanks to it, we gained two key pieces of information. First, against all odds, the southern continent and the demons had succeeded—at least partially—in seizing control of the Warp Gates. Second, the eastern continent knew we were coming to rescue this city and had taken some kind of action.
“Unbelievable,” Heo Jun-young muttered, scratching his chin and shaking his head. “No way the Warp Gates would fall unless the attackers were complete idiots…”
“Or the defenders were inexperienced, or the enemy was overwhelmingly powerful. Maybe both. Still, it’s a relief there was at least one smart user on their side,” Go Yeon-ju said, licking her lips as she looked at me.
“Suhyun, what will you do now?”
“Wait. We have no choice but to wait.”
I answered without hesitation. Go Yeon-ju nodded, though some still looked uncertain.
The implication was clear: if the Warp Gates in the first city to be invaded had fallen, then by now most of the eastern continent was likely in the hands of the coalition forces. That was the worst-case scenario I had cautiously anticipated.
But thankfully, the eastern continent hadn’t just sat idly by. As Go Yeon-ju said, at least one clever user had acted swiftly to respond.
With thirteen cities under attack, there had to be some last bastions barely holding out. No fool would leave all Warp Gate connections intact. They would have severed every link. So all we had to do was find those cities.
Or rather, we didn’t even need to find them. Once we activated the Warp Gate in this city, they’d know. The moment the enemy tried to restore a connection, we’d be there. That’s why waiting was our only option.
“But how would they even know from their side…?”
“Are you kidding? Don’t you know Warp Gates aren’t one-way?”
When Lee Yoo-jung scolded her, Cha Hee-young finally gasped in realization. If Yoo-jung understood, then most of us probably did too.
Thinking that, I spoke up immediately.
“I’m sending out a new status update. Effective immediately, all personnel will cease investigations and assemble at the Warp Gate.”
No need for long explanations—those two sentences were enough. The mages quickly pulled out their communication crystals and infused them with magic. As I heard voices flowing in from all directions, I headed toward the Warp Gate.
The battlefield was just ahead.
As Kim Su-hyun had predicted, most of the eastern continent had fallen to the southern continent and the demons.
More precisely, the invasion reached the eastern continent about three weeks ago. They arrived ahead of the northern continent, but the coalition forces knew they had to capture the east as quickly as possible. From the first strike, they unleashed the overwhelming power of Thanatos, bombarding the enemy relentlessly. Taking advantage of the chaos, they surged into the city like a tidal wave.
Though the eastern continent was the weakest and least experienced of the four, they hadn’t just sat back and taken it.
One of the eastern commanders, Akino, sensed things were going wrong as soon as the first attack failed. He ordered trusted subordinates to secure the Warp Gates in cities where the northern forces were expected to arrive. Meanwhile, he rushed to the Warp Gate himself to evacuate users.
But evacuating everyone was impossible. The coalition forces pressed forward like a tidal wave, and Akino barely managed to slip through the portal. Once inside the main city, he severed the connection immediately.
Some might call it cruel, but it was a necessary choice. A moment’s delay would have meant the enemy pouring in.
The coalition regretted losing the connection to the heavily fortified main city but moved quickly. The demons spread indiscriminately through connected cities, capturing users, while the southern continent’s forces moved from smaller cities to the main city, launching a rapid advance.
As a result, the last stronghold of the eastern continent was now a living hell.
“Here they come! Again!”
With a scream, thousands of spells lit up the air, streaking toward the city.
Mages and priests on the walls shouted incantations, casting defensive magic, but it was useless.
Moments later, hundreds, then thousands of attack spells filled the sky, arcing sharply before descending all at once. In the blink of an eye, they tore through the white magical barrier like paper, crashing down like a tidal wave.
Screeeech!
What the eastern users saw next was a chaotic storm of dazzling, multicolored lights.
Flash!
It was like a nuclear blast. The explosion’s force was beyond what any individual could withstand. Vision blurred, ears rang. All that remained was the faint sound of crumbling ruins as everyone instinctively crouched and buried their heads.
When the blinding light finally faded…
“…”
Akino, barely able to stand, wore an expression of indescribable despair. The once-solid fortress walls were gone, reduced to dust in an instant.
“Grrk, grrrk!”
“Ughhh! Aaaah!”
There was no time to be stunned. Horrific screams erupted everywhere—survivors caught in the blast zone, many grievously wounded and soon to die.
Waaaahhh!
Thundering footsteps and battle cries followed. The chaotic atmosphere on the walls shifted slowly to despair and resignation. With the walls down, an invasion was inevitable.
Akino snapped back to reality. Though the situation was dire, he refused to give up. Wiping soot from his mouth, he shouted with determination:
“Priests, tend to the wounded! And the rest—?”
But—
“The others…”
Looking around, Akino’s voice faltered.
He couldn’t continue. Despite the urgency to repair and defend the walls…
‘They’re gone.’
No other users remained. Only comrades groaning in pain, slowly dying.
Realizing this, Akino’s arms fell limply to his sides.
“Ugh…”
A bitter sigh escaped my lips. It was inevitable. We had thrown every last ounce of strength into our desperate defense, yet the city walls had fallen in less than a day since the battle began.
“There’s… no one left to defend…”
Even as I thought this, the enemy’s war cries grew louder, closing in fast. Eventually, Akino seemed to give up, collapsing heavily onto the ground.
How did it come to this?
Why are we suffering like this?
A storm of negative emotions swirled chaotically in my mind. The more I felt them, the more the sharp, clear light in my eyes dimmed, as if all hope was fading away. Then, suddenly—
“Akino!”
Someone came running from afar, grabbing Akino’s shoulder and shaking him.
“They’re here! They’ve arrived! Spes City—”
Why the urgency?
The man took a deep breath and shouted out in one breath,
“This isn’t the time to sit down! The connection with Spes has been activated!”
“Spes…?”
At that moment—
“Yes! The reinforcements from the Northern Continent have arrived!”
A fierce spark ignited in Akino’s once lifeless eyes.
Just as we had given up everything and the city was on the brink of falling—
At last, the Northern Continent had come.
---------------------------= Author’s Note =---------------------------
Made it safe before 2:00 AM today! Hehe.
Honestly, I was debating whether to include red bean paste or thick syrup yesterday. I wasn’t sure if many people would get the reference… but surprisingly, quite a few did. Haha.
Ah, of course, I don’t know anything about it. (?)
By the way, tomorrow is Buddha’s Birthday.
I pray, I pray. For those readers who tease me as Royumi, may unexpected work come up at your office or school tomorrow, forcing you to have a normal day. And for those who think of me as Royujin, may you enjoy a peaceful holiday… huh?
Ah, never mind. (lol)