Episode 213
Chapter 69: The Secret of Island No. 32 in the Cheongsae Archipelago (3)
Lightning storms darkened the sky, converging toward Yulian.
Even through the pouring rain, a faint electric charge lingered in the air, and amid the howling winds slicing across the island, blue flames crackled relentlessly.
“…All this lightning is from him? What the hell is going on?”
Jin looked up at the sky, shaking his head without realizing it.
Until just moments ago, Yulian had been a nuisance to Jin—someone to keep an eye on. But now, he’d become something far beyond what Jin could handle.
“I gave him a good beating, and suddenly he just snapped. Looks like your sword destabilized him. You know what it’s like when spiritual energy goes haywire, right? It’s similar to that, except it’s like a god partially descending into the contractor’s body.”
“Hah, that’s seriously messed up. No way to run, huh?”
“You want me to fly through that lightning storm? Might as well just tell me to die.”
“Sorry, I had to ask.”
Vwoom, vwooom—!
Sigmund resonated once again with Gram’s tomb. Unlike before, Jin could now feel Yulian’s power influencing Sigmund as well.
‘It’s like the sword itself is angry…’
It wasn’t just a feeling.
A strange sensation, one only the wielder of Sigmund could perceive, flowed through the sword’s spirit and into Jin’s mind.
Even if someone told Jin that objects could express emotions, he probably wouldn’t have believed it. But every time Sigmund’s blade trembled, Jin could feel that emotion growing clearer.
(My brother I want to kill, Feitel.)
It took less than three seconds before that voice echoed in his mind.
The voice of Gram, the Thunder God—the lingering remnant of his consciousness trapped within Sigmund.
(Dare you think to descend in my tomb?)
Jin could hear Gram’s voice, but Gram could not hear Jin. Sigmund was not Gram himself, but a sword forged by sealing his power.
So the voice was nothing more than an empty soliloquy. It made no demands of Jin, only endlessly vented its fury toward Feitel.
Still, even as a remnant, Gram was once a god who overshadowed countless others.
The rage in his lingering consciousness swelled like a snowball, gathering into the patterns glowing on Sigmund’s blade, crystallizing into pure electric energy.
Tsuzuzuk, tsuzuk—!
Sigmund blazed with blue fire.
The energy far surpassed the electric charge Jin himself possessed.
Gram’s residual wrath amplified the sword’s power, causing Sigmund’s energy to erupt temporarily.
“Kid!”
Murakan gasped, pointing at Sigmund. He’d noticed the change too.
“Are you going berserk? Or is that some kind of divine warrior technique?”
“No time to explain. Raise the shield!”
The lightning hanging in the sky looked ready to strike at any moment. The electric charge being absorbed by Yulian had transformed into a massive thunderstorm.
“Hey, Kuzan Marius. Looks like you didn’t expect things to get this bad. What now? Keep going with what you were doing, or take care of your own first?”
Jin pointed Sigmund at Beris, who was completely unconscious, twitching intermittently.
If this kept up, the moment the lightning started pouring down, she wouldn’t survive.
Kuzan gritted his teeth, still struggling to shake off his confusion.
If Jin was truly the one who killed Taimun, then even if Beris died, he’d have to settle things with Jin. But if Jin was lying, and Joshua was the real culprit, and they’d been deceived all along…
As Kuzan hesitated, a crack of thunder struck.
Kwaazuk—!
A bolt of lightning slammed into the ground—not where Jin, Murakan, Kuzan, and Beris stood, but nearby.
Before the first flash faded, another followed. Lightning struck randomly, ravaging not only Island No. 32 in the Cheongsae Archipelago but also the distant shoreline and sea.
One bolt struck Beris.
Kuzan reflexively moved toward her as the lightning began, but Yulian’s lightning was too fast to block or slash away.
Pachang…!
Two bolts collided with a sharp, glass-shattering sound.
Jin had unleashed a lightning strike of his own, intercepting the bolt aimed at Beris.
“Ugh…!”
“We’ll talk details later, but don’t think for a second you can forget this debt.”
Jin struck the ground beside Beris with lightning. The recoil sent her body flying upward, and Kuzan caught her as he charged forward.
“And if you don’t want to die a miserable death, get your act together right now. I don’t think I have the luxury to worry about you anymore.”
Jin decided to put Kuzan and Beris out of his mind until the fight was over.
He had no desire to go out of his way to protect them. His attempt at conversation was only because Joshua’s nonsense rubbed him the wrong way—not because he felt sorry for them.
‘If they can’t dodge the lightning and die, then that’s their fate. It’d be better if they survive and spill some info on Joshua, though.’
Or if he had to kill them, he wanted to do it himself. Even if it meant misunderstandings because of Joshua, he wouldn’t forget how close they came to getting wiped out in Delki.
Turning away, Jin ran toward Murakan. Kuzan struggled to dodge lightning while holding Beris.
“Murakan!”
“Man, I never thought I’d see a divine warrior go berserk. Luckily, the descent isn’t complete, so it’s not hopeless.”
“Tell me what to do. I’ll do my best to follow.”
Amid the cracking earth and relentless lightning, the safest place was inside Murakan’s spiritual energy shield.
“Spiritual energy release. Remember that technique you showed in the Storm Cellar?”
“Of course.”
The one that absorbed the shadows of everything around it.
“I’m going to modify that to forcibly break his divine warrior state. You buy me time. That means protect me.”
“For how long?”
“Ten minutes. And I’ll need some of your spiritual energy.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Maybe. But it won’t be easy. The lightning that’s been striking isn’t really an attack. It’s just the power surge from his divine warrior transformation.”
As Murakan said, Yulian wasn’t attacking them directly. He was manifesting as pure natural electric energy—‘thunder qi’ itself.
Jjeojeojeojuk—!
Suddenly, a crack appeared in the sky covered by the thunderstorm.
A dimensional portal had opened.
From it emerged a massive, glowing bow, shimmering with electric energy—the true form of the Thunder Bow Harmila.
The bow shrank until it fit perfectly in Yulian’s hand.
“That’s the real Harmila.”
As if a god were preparing to deliver divine punishment, a long, sharp bolt of lightning shot from the storm and wrapped around the bowstring.
The descent was complete.
[So I can feel the power of my foolish brother.]
Yulian’s gaze bore down on Sigmund.
Though incomplete, it was still a divine descent. Jin felt his breath tighten just from the intensity of that stare.
‘But compared to Father or the divine warrior brothers, it’s nothing special.’
It was the divine warrior Ban who had taken the life of Gram, the Thunder God.
(Insect of a man…!)
Sigmund’s voice rose again. Jin slipped out of Murakan’s shield and readied himself.
At the same moment, Yulian drew back the bowstring.
Chiiiiit, shwaak!
The moment the lightning bolt left the string, Jin instinctively felt that if Gram’s lingering consciousness hadn’t awakened Sigmund, he wouldn’t have been able to block it.
The sharp blue streak split the center of the lightning bolt.
Squeak—! Fzzt!
Though he blocked only a single bolt, the unfamiliar electric energy was unlike anything Sigmund had before, and Jin felt his whole body tear apart.
‘Not bad.’
If this was the kind of impact he could take at once, ten minutes would be no problem.
‘The problem is, there’s no way his power is only this much.’
Still, Jin was newly reminded of Sigmund’s awakened might. If he handled it well, he might be able to damage Yulian before Murakan finished releasing his spiritual energy.
Behind him, Murakan’s spiritual energy release was unfolding. Hundreds of large and small spirals of energy swirled around his shield, drawing in Jin’s own energy.
[Heh heh heh, how amusing. So arrogant, yet now you’re nothing but a bug, shackled and toyed with.]
Jin poured his electric energy into Sigmund. Even a little of the Aura of the Mind’s Eye mixed in, and the electric charge flared like oil on fire.
If he lost focus for even a moment, the sword spirit might break free and lash out wildly. In other words, Sigmund was on the verge of going berserk.
That was the difference between Jin and Yulian.
Yulian had lost control of power beyond his limits and gone berserk, becoming a divine warrior. Jin wielded Sigmund fully under his own will.
[How is it, insect? Do you like your brother’s power?]
“If you’re not that insect, you wouldn’t even be able to descend, yet you’re all mouth. Shouldn’t a god have a little more dignity?”
He could win.
For some reason, his instincts were telling him this. Jin no longer felt tense; he met Yulian’s gaze steadily.
“Heh heh, for a lowly bug, you sure act like you’re some ancient Lord of the Underworld. No idea how you got that sword, but…”
Jin smirked and shrugged off his soaked coat. Then, as he loosened his black armor, the radiant white Core of Light gleamed into view.
He was deliberately showing off his confidence—to buy time.
Murakan had said ten minutes. Though Jin had a gut feeling he could break through Paytel’s clumsy avatar, it was safer to prepare for Murakan’s full spiritual release first.
“What? That’s… from the Lords of the Underworld?”
Though Paytel’s expression was hidden behind his mental veil, Jin caught a flicker of fear in his eyes the moment he saw the Core of Light. Until now, Paytel had mistaken Jin’s mental energy for the power of Sigmund alone.
“This sword was given to me by the one who killed your brother. The Twin Blades of the Lord of War—ever heard of them?”
The moment Jin spoke the name, Paytel stumbled backward as if gripped by pure terror—just like any human or beast would.
“Gah! Ugh… ugh!”
Then, something unexpected happened.
Because Yulian was Paytel’s avatar, he shared every sensation and feeling Paytel experienced. Trapped inside Paytel’s mind, Yulian was absorbing the emotions and sensations flooding his consciousness.
And the fear Paytel just felt toward the Twin Blades was beyond what Yulian’s will could handle.
His mind nearly shattered under the weight of that terror, causing a crack in the bond linking him to Paytel.
Jin didn’t fully understand the process, but it was clear the enemy was shaken. No further calculation was needed to seize the attack opportunity.
The immense mental energy contained within Sigmund began to surge forth.
In an instant, that power coalesced into a massive blade of energy, swallowing the air itself as it surged toward Paytel.