Chapter 973
Episode 241: Rescue (Part 2)
At that moment, Jin sat cross-legged facing Luna in the training hall of the Tikan Palace.
“Try seeing with the eye of the mind, sister,” Jin said playfully.
A vein popped on Luna’s forehead.
“Huh? What did you say?”
“This isn’t the time to get angry, sister. If you look with the eye of the mind, you’ll find the answer.”
“You little brat. I never thought you’d repay me like this for all the careful third-eye training I gave you back when you were a cadet.”
Jin chuckled, clearly pleased with Luna’s reaction.
The reason the two were in the training hall was simple.
—(P.S.: Luna could use a harsh defeat at least once. You, the youngest, should help her with that.)
This was the message in the letter Kan had brought. Siron had instructed Jin to help Luna experience a ‘harsh defeat.’
But with war possibly breaking out at any moment, they couldn’t really cross swords for real. Instead, they sparred through meditation.
Both were Changsung-level or close to it, so even this method produced effects similar to actual combat, but it still left something to be desired.
“It feels like if I could just break through some thin, transparent wall, I could reach it too… but I guess I’d have to cross some life-or-death threshold. No matter how deeply I meditate, it’s hard to recreate the tension of a real battle.”
Every Changsung who had witnessed or experienced that moment firsthand shared the same trait.
Both Ron and Jin had reached Changsung by overcoming desperate crises.
“Sister, I think it’s better not to obsess too much over that sense of crisis. Ron and I reached Changsung through crises, but I’ve heard that Father and the half-brothers didn’t. And from what I see, you resemble them more than Ron or me.”
“But Father and the four royal brothers must have faced such crises many times. Come to think of it, I’ve hardly ever experienced a real crisis in my life.”
She had never truly felt her life was in danger.
It was true. Luna had lived as a top predator with no natural enemies. Usually, even such beings eventually face a massive wall and realize how vast the world is—but Luna had never even had that.
Even those stronger than her nearby—like Siron—felt like distant figures she might someday reach. The same went for her youngest brother right in front of her.
At least in the Black Sea, she had faced some life-or-death moments, but even then, Siron and the former Black Knights were always by her side. That was the first time she’d been protected by others.
“Before I went on the Black Sea expedition with Father, I hardly ever felt any real danger. Even in the Black Sea, though the situation was bad, it always felt like something I could overcome. During the war with the Jinma Realm until recently, there wasn’t a single truly dangerous moment.”
“Hmm, that’s true.”
“Do you know what I think was the biggest crisis in my life? The day I saved you from Andrei Ziphl, youngest. I pushed myself a bit too hard cutting through the demon stone, and in the end, I needed your help.”
Jin recalled that day for a moment.
“…Now that you mention it, I don’t think it was much of a crisis for you. You would have survived just fine even without my help.”
“Right. Though I probably would have been a bit hurt without you.”
That was why Siron said Luna needed a harsh defeat. Reaching Changsung without defeat was only possible for someone like Elona, who possessed a godlike power.
Elona had no other title; she was called Changsung simply because she had become closer to a god embodying the will of the sun god.
“Definitely… for you to reach Changsung, sister, you need that kind of experience. Walking the razor’s edge between life and death.”
But they couldn’t really spar for real, nor could they deliberately send Luna alone into enemy territory to put her in danger.
“How about first trying to fully understand the limits on the red energy’s usage? Training to control the red power can be done without a sparring partner.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too. If anything, the red energy’s rampage is the closest thing to a crisis… Ugh, but even that isn’t completely uncontrollable. Damn, it’s frustrating!”
Just as Luna shouted, Ameris arrived at the training hall.
“Such spoiled complaints, Luna.”
“Ameris-nim. Haha… I suppose that’s true.”
“Don’t be so impatient. Even after losing much of my old power, I don’t rush. You should learn from that.”
“I will, Ameris-nim. But what brings you here?”
“I came because there’s something I need to tell Jin. Luna, don’t waste your energy—listen up.”
“Ameris-nim, what is it?”
“It seems some powerful beings are fighting near the Demon Wall right now.”
“What?”
“Underground? Could there still be remnants of the Earth Lords in the Jinma Realm? That can’t be.”
Ameris shook her head.
“No, it’s not that. The battle is happening in the middle layer, not the deep underground. At first, I wasn’t sure, but it became clear just a moment ago.”
Though most of the senses that once spread across the surface and underground had faded, the battle raging in the middle layer, Meisil, was still strong enough for Ameris to detect.
“…Then it must be the Red-Eyed Tribe.”
“I think so too, Jin. But as I keep focusing on the situation, it doesn’t seem to be only the Red-Eyed Tribe’s energy. Whether it’s Ziphl’s champion, Kinzello, or someone else, I don’t know.”
“We need to go see for ourselves. Find out what the enemies are up to.”
“Right. It could be a great opportunity—or a danger. Let’s leave the surface to Murakan for now and go together.”
Jin immediately informed the commanders and headed to the Red Owl. Ameris continued to focus on sensing near the Demon Wall, pinpointing the location. Valeria listened to Ameris’s explanation and found the coordinates.
“According to Ameris’s description, the coordinates point to an uninhabited island in the northern sea of the Lutero Federation.”
An uninhabited island in the northern sea of the Lutero Federation. It had been used as a hideout by the royal family before their fall.
Beneath the island were ancient underground passages used by the Qingming Tribe, through which the royal family had hidden from the great powers of the mortal world.
“The Lutero Federation… that’s a sensitive matter. If the youngest and I go there and get tangled up with others, it could spark a war.”
“It’s fine, sister. It’s unlikely any troops are stationed on this island.”
“If there are, we just eliminate them?”
“Exactly. If there are troops, it means the island is one of Ziphl’s secret bases, which isn’t bad either. But I think it’s probably abandoned. It’s far from the main areas Ziphl directly controls.”
“True. Let’s go, youngest.”
Jin, Luna, and Ameris boarded the Red Owl, which swiftly dropped them on the uninhabited island in the northern Lutero Federation.
As expected, the island looked truly abandoned. No sign of any troops.
But the three could detect a faint scent of blood drifting across the island—only someone with highly developed senses like theirs could perceive it.
“Huh, what’s this?”
Following the blood scent, they found a cave decorated in the Bimant style.
“So this was the royal family’s hideout…”
“Abandoned? The blood scent is coming from this room. Could these be the corpses of the ancient royal tribe?”
When Luna opened a sealed door on the wall, the preserved bodies of Qingming Tribe members appeared.
The cave was equipped with several devices and mechanisms unfamiliar to Jin and Luna, but Ameris immediately recognized them as ancient artifacts.
“Luna, these are Qingming Tribe corpses. Ah, seeing these brings back some memories. Jin, these devices open the passages used by the Qingming Tribe. And as soon as we arrived, the battle’s intensity increased.”
Now Jin and Luna could feel the violent tremors rising from the underground middle layer.
“I’ll operate the devices here. You two go ahead.”
Ameris touched a statue in the cave’s center. Ancient inscriptions on it shifted under her hands.
“Understood, Ameris-nim.”
Standing on the circular ancient script on the floor, the devices resonated, opening a blue portal beneath the inscriptions. Jin and Luna were drawn in as if falling.
They soon arrived near Meisil.
Normally, they would have appeared inside the Meisil fortress, but the Red-Eyed Tribe’s airborne fortresses emitted psychic waves that interfered with spatial jumps.
Still, even from a distance, the state of Meisil was clear at a glance.
The sky was filled with red and blue lightning.
“The red lightning is from the Red-Eyed Tribe’s airborne fortresses and ships, and the blue lightning…”
Jin shifted his gaze to find the source of the blue lightning. Though he had never seen him before, he immediately recognized who it was—he was fighting an airborne fortress behind them.
“Luke… the ancient warrior of the Myeongwang clan. The High Priest of the Sun God’s cult that Ayula warned us about. It has to be him.”
“So it really is that guy. But there’s another one using blue psychic energy—who’s that?”
Eliot.
He was battered and bruised all over, barely holding on under the barrage from Pibil’s attacks. He looked like he could collapse any second, yet Luke seemed completely unfazed and showed no intention of helping him.
“Well, since the Myeong clan is trying to kill him, he’s definitely their enemy. And Luke doesn’t seem to care at all, so I doubt he’s an ally of the Sun God’s cult either.”
“In that case, we should rescue this guy first and hear what he has to say.”
“I agree, sister. Let’s go.”