Chapter 318

“GaaAAAaahhHHHhh!” Dopper screamed, struggling to maintain his exemplar form after taking a direct hit from Seong-Hwi’s Reformo.

His face, which had been turning into black jelly, returned to its former state of Squama.

“Huff! Damn you! How did you use Reformo?!” Dopper gritted his teeth, glaring at the man wearing a bizarre wooden mask.

He was fortunate that his opponent’s caliber had not been high enough to strip his exemplar form completely. If he had been, over a decade’s worth of effort would have gone down the drain.

That was undoubtedly the Cosmos! But I should be the only Bachtasha-rank Chaos among the mimics! Dopper thought.

As he continued to ponder questions that he couldn’t answer, he heard murmurs from the merfolk below him.

“He’s not... Lord Squama?”

“He’s an impostor! A goddamn Chaos monster!”

“How dare you trick us?! In the form of Lord Squama, no less!”

“That Chaos monster must have been the one who hid his subordinates in our midst!”

The merfolk were enraged after realizing Dopper’s lies. The guilt they felt from suspecting Natantes and Carcharocles after being tricked by the false Squama’s appearance and whispers of hope had converted into rage.

“Dammit!” Squama shouted, realizing the plan had failed, and looked beside him.

Vipera Anguis and Rahab were also panicking. Vipera, who always maintained her composure, disheveled her black hair with her twitching, brass-colored hands.

“INSPECTOR!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE JUST DONE?! YOU DARE EXPEL PATALA FROM THE SēMEN?! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?! DO YOU SERIOUSLY NOT KNOW THE REPERCUSSIONS THIS WILL HAVE ON THE MIRROR WORLD?!” she screamed.

Rahab also glared at Seong-Hwi with blazing red eyes and shouted, “Bastard! Did you just expel Aquilo? Don’t you know that my clan is under Echion’s banner?!”

“I couldn’t give less of a shit. The Sēmen will deal with it,” Seong-Hwi replied as he smiled coldly.

You gave me this sword for me to use, didn’t you, Grandis? Since I cut out the rot from the Sēmen, you can deal with the rest, he thought.

Of course, the rot he had just cut out was extremely large. It was clear that this expulsion would send colossal waves throughout the Mirror World.

What matters to me is Underground, not the Sēmen. Now, then... What to do now?

He had used his right to expel and succeeded in besting his opponents’ ploy, but the inferiority in combat prowess was unchanged.

“O-ohohohohoho! You must have forgotten we are in Gurzes, isolated from the rest of the Mirror World!” Vipera said, having quickly assessed the situation.

She erased her panic and smiled again, thinking, Even if the Sēmen mobilizes their forces, it will take them a while to get here.

She rapidly organized her thoughts and flicked her snake tongue.

As long as we massacre all the witnesses before that, Grandis will have nothing on us!

Her eyes shone with a merciless light, and her vertical slit pupils narrowed further.

“Kill them all! For Nagaroka!” she shouted as she released all the Snake’s Dens slithering around her body.

The snakes grew giant in an instant and opened their cave-like mouths. The forces of Patala swarmed out of the mouths like rainfall.

“Hiss—!”

“It’s time for war!”

“Hiss! Since we’ve been authorized to slaughter, release the venom!”

“Kyahaha! Time for a fish hunt!”

The merfolk of various tribes, ganoid and placoid scales alike, who had been killing each other just moments ago, joined together and pointed their weapons at the nagas. A common enemy miraculously turned mortal enemies into friends.

“It’s an invasion!”

“Nagas! Do you seriously think you’re a match for us merfolk in the water?!”

“Kill the invaders!”

“Protect Gurzes!”

Natantes pointed his White Tail Fin at the Snake’s Dens vomiting out nagas and shouted thunderously, “Hear me, Illhveli! Show them the power of the evil whales!”

Sverdvalur, Skeljungur, Lyngbakur, Nauthveli, Raudkembingur, and Hrossvalur shot toward the Snake’s Dens like torpedoes.

“Dammit! What the hell is going on?!”

“How should I know?! But one thing’s for sure!”

“That... they’re... invaders!”

“That means we just have to tear those snakes apart, right, brothers?”

The six snake sisters, Vasuki, Takshaka, Ashwasena, Kurma, Kulika, and Manasvin, appeared before the Illhveli. Sagara was nowhere in sight.

“Sisters! Protect the Snake’s Dens!”

“Hiss! Let us hold a memorial service for Sister Ananta!”

“Our opponents are the cowards of the blue ring! They’re no match for us!”

The flow of the battlefield had changed yet again. First, it was a battle between generals, then a brawl, and now it was an all-out war.

***

“Natantes! We must face those three!” Carcharocles shouted, clashing his skin teeth together as he glared at the three individuals above them.

Natantes replied, “Of course, but—”

“No buts! No one but us can!”

They were against Rahab the Storm Dragon, Vipera Anguis the Nagaraja, and Squama the ultimate merfolk.

All members of the Ten Lords and Fiends, or close to it! Natantes thought.

Even one of them could wipe out an entire inferior race, and there were three of them. The situation couldn’t be worse.

“Oi! Cheon Seong-Hwi, was it? What is your next plan?” Carcharocles shouted at Seong-Hwi, perceiving him as the cornerstone of this battlefield.

The next plan? There’s no such thing, Seong-Hwi thought.

He simply glanced at Carcharocles without answering him. No, to be more exact, he did not know either. There was nothing he could do against three of those monsters.

The greatest of military strategies is the Thirty-Six Strategems.

There were excellent strategems among the first thirty-five: to kill with a borrowed knife, make a sound in the east, then strike in the west, hide a knife behind a smile, lure the tiger down the mountain, slough off the cicada’s golden shell, and many more.

However, if none of them worked against the enemy, only one strategem remained. The thirty-sixth strategem: if all else fails, retreat. It was pointless to engage in a battle where one’s defeat was obvious.

Tsk, it’s unfortunate, but... I can’t just charge into my death, Seong-Hwi thought.

He was certain that he would experience yet another explosive growth if he devoured even one of those three monsters, but that would only be the case if he were alive for it.

Don’t resent me for being a coward. No matter what anyone says, I fulfilled my mission of ending the civil war.

His deal with Grandis had been to arbitrate the civil war occurring at Gurzes, not to risk his life fighting monsters.

[00:15:20]

[00:15:19]

[00:15:18]

...

At the very least, I will use the Underfish I have standing by in the east to give the bastards a good one, Seong-Hwi thought, checking the remaining time on his Chaos Mana conversion as he assessed the right time to run away.

Just then, explosive mana surged from the sea floor, and a giant tree grew. Its sharp branches extended like lightning, killing masses of nagas. The cloud of blood from the massacre resembled red flowers on the tree.

“This is...” Seong-Hwi trailed off, his eyes widening.

He had seen something familiar before. It closely resembled the skill that Floriana, the elf consul, had used during the angels’ invasion of Ferrum. However, the tree Floriana had grown was a foliage plant grown in a vase, compared to this giant tree that seemed to have endured a millennium in the wild.

“Such immense Nature Force! Who could it be?!” Seong-Hwi mumbled.

His question was soon answered. The center of the giant tree opened, and a man walked out from inside. His pale skin carried a golden sheen, and he had golden hair and eyes. A shabby bow made by coiling an old tree was slung over his shoulder, and he had a smoking pipe in his mouth. Anyone could tell he was an elf from his pointy ears.

“Well, this is useless underwater,” the man said, throwing away his smoking pipe as he looked around the battlefield.

He scanned Natantes and Carcharocles, then his gaze stopped on Seong-Hwi.

“A seed, huh?” the male elf mumbled. He then shifted his gaze to their opponents: Rahab, Dopper, and Vipera Anguis. “Scaly bastards. The kind I dislike the most.”

“You’re... the Fallen Hod!” Vipera shouted, shocked by seeing the man.

He was Lapsus, the Fallen Tree, the Seventh Fiend, thirteenth in the world ranking.

“How many times must I tell you not to call me that, Regnator’s bitch?” Lapsus said, smiling mockingly. “My name is Lapsus. Maybe you’ll understand if I shoot an arrow through your ears.”

“Why are you here?!”

“A slithery bitch with no legs is here, so why can’t I?”

Vipera’s eyes shook with anger from hearing Lapsus’s mockery. “Why do you keep meddling in my business?! I know it was you who killed the Snake’s Den I sent to the Capital before!” she shouted.

“Oh, so you know. Good for you. Well, what are you going to do about it?”

Vipera’s rage overflowed from Lapsus’s continued mockery. She shouted, “YOU ARROGANT PRICK! I SEE YOU WANT TO DIE AT MY HANDS!”

Her black eyes began to fill with pink Charm Force, and a black star rose above Gurzes. It was Ouroboros, Vipera Anguis’s star, a snake with black scales, endlessly rotating with its tail in its mouth.

“I’d like to see you try,” Lapsus remarked, his golden eyes overflowing with his emerald Nature Force, not to lose to Vipera.

A single green leaf appeared in the sky, golden letters engraved on it. It was Zohar, Lapsus’s star, also known as the Book of Splendor. The two alpha stars that rose above Gurzes began a contest of strength.

***

“What is... going on?” Seong-Hwi mumbled, staring at the sky above Gurzes, which had split into two.

“The Seventh Fiend? Cheon Seong-Hwi! Is this also part of your plan?” Natantes asked.

“Of course,” Seong-Hwi reflexively answered.

“Magnificent! Gahaha! You have connections to the Seventh Fiend?! What an unbelievable human!” Carcharocles laughed heartily, fully believing Seong-Hwi’s claim. “So, what is next in your plan?”

I said there’s no such thing! Seong-Hwi shouted inwardly.

An unbelievable variable had been added to the battlefield when he was about to execute the thirty-sixth strategem. He didn’t understand what was going on at all. Just then, he heard a voice that would answer all of his questions.

“What are you doing, just standing there blankly?”

Bubbles gathered before Seong-Hwi, taking the form of a woman in an elegant dress and heels, wearing a beautiful tiara over her wavy hair.

“Master Elementum?!” Seong-Hwi called.

“This is not like you, Seong-Hwi,” Elementum remarked.

“What are you doing here? What about Together?”

Elementum had taken on the role of protecting Together alongside Bafor. Together was massive because it was the fusion of six cities. Hence, they needed both Elementum and Bafor to cover enough ground. However, one of them had come to Gurzes.

Elementum smiled, her eyes shining with the various elements, and replied, “Bafor has finally made up his mind.”

“What do you... No, forget that. What is Lapsus doing here?” Seong-Hwi asked.

“Ozenta recruited him.”

“Ozenta...” Seong-Hwi trailed off, recalling the scrawny, bald, old elf with age spots all over him.

That means Lapsus is on our side! Even Master Elementum is here! If I play this right, it might work! he thought as his eyes shone, the cogs in his head turning as he made various calculations.

“This place is nice. It reminds me of when I was Ellaim,” Elementum said, smiling with satisfaction that they were underwater.

Just then, Seong-Hwi finished his calculations. He smiled as he thought, We have a chance!

If one were to survive in the Mirror World, they needed to do whatever it took to bite off whatever the enemy found precious and make it their own.

Scrap the thirty-sixth stratagem! The eighteenth strategem is the way to go in this situation!

As soon as he came up with a solution, Seong-Hwi excitedly shouted at Natantes and Carcharocles, “Everything is going according to plan! Let us each take on one enemy!”

“Ohhh! As I’d thought! We will take that impostor!” Natantes shouted.

“Gahahaha! Sounds good! I will show him the power of the Ghost Tooth!”

“Understood! Then Master Elementum and I will carve some lizard steak! Let’s go, Master Elementum!”

Elementum stared in silence at Seong-Hwi’s eyes behind the wooden mask, filled with bloodlust, madness, and ambition.

“You haven’t changed at all,” she mumbled.

***

Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief.