Chapter 688

Abyss's enormous body shook violently.

Zeon had launched a mass attack using a pillar of sand.

As though it had been struck by a gigantic hammer, Abyss staggered, unable to regain its senses.

It was an attack that had barely succeeded after breaking through the Destruction Rays.

Zeon had no intention of letting this opportunity slip away.

He raised his hand toward the sky and muttered,

“Diamond Spear.”

KWAHHHH!

The Authority of Sand and the Authority of Fire merged together, creating diamond spears in midair.

Each Diamond Spear was over ten meters long.

And there were dozens of them.

—KWOOOAR!

As though sensing impending doom, Abyss roared and fired its Destruction Rays.

The tens of thousands of baby Abysses that still remained also flew toward Zeon at terrifying speed.

But Zeon paid them no mind and immediately drove the Diamond Spears down toward Abyss.

Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!

Dozens of Diamond Spears fell like meteors at terrifying speed.

Pakang! Kwang!

Several of the Diamond Spears exploded after being struck by Abyss's Destruction Rays.

But most of them pierced straight through Abyss's force field and embedded themselves in its body.

Puh! Puh! Puh!

Accompanied by sickening sounds of flesh being torn apart, the Diamond Spears pierced through Abyss's massive body.

Experiencing such pain for the first time, Abyss screamed and writhed.

Its ten eyes fired Destruction Rays wildly, while the baby Abysses slammed into Zeon and exploded as though seeking vengeance for their mother.

KWAKWAKWAKWANG!

Even amid the tremendous explosions, Zeon remained unharmed.

He had protected himself by creating a wall of sand.

Although the chain explosions destroyed the sand wall, restoring it was no problem for Zeon.

As quickly as the explosions eroded it, the sand wall was restored in an instant.

Thanks to that, Zeon remained safe even within the chain of explosions.

Through the explosions, Zeon looked toward the staggering Abyss.

It was suffering terribly, its enormous body skewered by the Diamond Spears like meat on a skewer.

This was the perfect opportunity to kill it.

If he let it escape, it would once again command the monsters and attack Neo Seoul.

He had to eliminate Abyss before it could flee.

“Let's go!”

Zeon launched himself toward Abyss.

Thud!

Landing atop Abyss's back, Zeon unleashed a Sand Tornado.

KWAHHHH!

The tornado of sand engulfed Abyss and spun violently.

But this alone was not enough to kill Abyss, an SS-rank monster.

So Zeon infused the Sand Tornado with the Authority of Fire.

The scorching grains of sand instantly tore through Abyss's force field and even stripped away its hide.

—KWOOOAR!

Abyss struggled desperately, trying to escape the Sand Tornado.

But its efforts came to nothing.

Because Zeon, standing atop its back, exerted even greater control.

The Sand Tornado assaulted Abyss with even greater ferocity.

Like a fish trapped inside a bowl, Abyss could not escape the Sand Tornado.

Now it was time for the finishing blow.

Zeon created another Diamond Spear in midair.

It was a colossal Diamond Spear over thirty meters long.

Shuuu!

The Diamond Spear fell toward Abyss's crown.

Sensing the danger, Abyss fired a Destruction Ray.

But the Destruction Ray struck the surface of the Diamond Spear and was helplessly deflected elsewhere.

Abyss's ten eyes widened.

The Diamond Spear rapidly filled its vision.

Thud!

That was Abyss's final reaction in life.

The gigantic Diamond Spear mercilessly pierced straight through Abyss's head.

No matter how powerful a monster was, it could not survive with a hole through its brain.

Abyss was no exception.

Like a fish skewered by a harpoon, Abyss remained impaled upon the Diamond Spear as it plummeted toward the ground.

The moment Abyss died, the baby Abysses attempted to flee.

But Zeon had no intention of letting even a single one escape.

If even one survived, it would eventually grow into another disaster like its mother and bring calamity upon Neo Seoul.

“Chaat!”

Zeon stirred up another storm using the scorching sand that had yet to cool.

The baby Abysses exploded the moment they collided with the superheated sandstorm.

KWAKWAKWAKWANG!

The baby Abysses detonated in a chain of explosions.

Not a single one escaped through the sandstorm.

Every last one exploded and perished.

“Haa...”

Only then did Zeon let out a quiet sigh as he descended to where Abyss had fallen.

The gigantic body, over a hundred meters long, lay deeply embedded in the sand, twitching.

Perhaps it had not completely died yet.

One of its eyes slowly moved to look at Zeon.

Zeon met Abyss's gaze without looking away.

He bore Abyss no personal hatred.

But for humanity and Neo Seoul to survive, Abyss had to die.

Because of that, Zeon felt not the slightest regret over what he had done.

At last, the light faded from Abyss's eye.

“Hoo...”

Only then did the tension leave him.

He leaned back against Abyss's enormous body and sat down.

Even now, a fierce battle continued in Neo Seoul.

Despite Abyss's death, the monsters had not fled.

Instead, they had gone completely berserk.

The monsters that had already entered human territory had reached the peak of their destructive instinct.

It was impossible for them to suppress it.

Because of that, the awakened continued their desperate struggle to hold them back.

Zeon looked up at the sky.

“Is it still too soon for it to settle into orbit?”

He had been told it would take time.

He had also been told that it might fail to settle into orbit and fall back to Earth.

Even so, Zeon never considered failure.

The Jin Geumho he knew would somehow guide the Divine Judgement safely into orbit.

It was then—

Flash!

A single beam of light descended from space.

The beam struck directly above the head of a B-rank Cyclops that was rampaging through the slums.

Puff!

The Cyclops instantly turned to ash and crumbled away.

The awakened who had been desperately fighting the Cyclops merely blinked blankly.

They could not comprehend why the Cyclops had suddenly vanished.

“What was that?”

“Why all of a sudden?”

Only after the ashes scattered into the wind did they have the presence of mind to look around.

At that moment, more beams of light began raining down from the sky.

Flash! Flash!

Each time a beam flashed, another B-rank or higher monster rampaging through the slums was erased.

Confronted with such an unbelievable sight, the awakened battling the monsters stared in stunned disbelief.

Their eyes turned toward the sky.

From unimaginably high above, countless beams of light were pouring down like rain.

The beams avoided the awakened with perfect precision and struck directly atop the monsters' heads.

Everyone knew that B-rank and higher monsters possessed force fields.

Unless a skill possessed overwhelming destructive power, piercing that force field and striking the monster itself was no easy task.

That was precisely why the awakened had struggled so much.

Yet the beams descending from the sky pierced through those force fields with absurd ease and erased the monsters from existence.

It was a sight unlike anything they had ever witnessed.

The enormous monsters that had been destroying the slums so savagely simply disappeared beneath the beams of light.

It was utterly surreal.

One of the beams also descended upon the head of the giant gorilla that had been locked in battle with Seong Hoyeon and Grain.

KWAANG!

Unlike the other monsters, which vanished instantly without even making a sound, the S-rank giant gorilla's force field endured the beam from the sky.

But it merely endured.

It had not blocked it completely.

The proof was that the giant gorilla staggered like a drunken man.

The focus had vanished from its eyes, as though it had suffered an overwhelming shock.

Its force field had disappeared, and steam rose from its entire body.

It was completely defenseless.

Seong Hoyeon and Grain did not let such a perfect opportunity slip away.

“Chaaat!”

“Hraaat!”

With powerful shouts, the two unleashed their strongest skills.

Gravity increased dozens of times over in an instant, crushing the giant gorilla.

At the same moment, Seong Hoyeon's greatsword drove into the motionless giant gorilla's eye.

The greatsword pierced all the way into its brain before releasing an overwhelming burst of aura.

Crunch!

The giant gorilla's brain crumbled like tofu.

No matter how powerful an S-rank monster was, it could not continue moving after its brain had been destroyed.

Thud!

The giant gorilla toppled backward like a felled tree.

It never moved again.

It was completely dead.

“Haaah!”

“Huff! Huff!”

Only then did Seong Hoyeon and Grain gasp for breath.

The two of them looked up at the sky.

“It's the Mayor.”

“The Divine Judgement is delivering divine judgement.”

They knew exactly what the beam that had struck the giant gorilla at the crucial moment was.

It was a beam fired by the Divine Judgement.

The Mana Engine, created from the heart of Moby Dick—the mother of Gaia—and the lens crafted from a dragon's retina combined to produce a Destruction Ray of truly catastrophic power.

On top of that, the byproducts of countless S-rank monsters amplified the Destruction Ray's power severalfold.

Even an S-rank monster had its force field pierced and was left staggering by the beam.

B-rank monsters were burned or melted away without leaving a trace.

Even A-rank monsters were left on the brink of death.

Its destructive power was truly terrifying.

In every sense of the words, divine judgement was descending upon the monsters.

Bang! Puff!

The rain of light pouring from the heavens was a disaster for the monsters.

The beams skillfully avoided the awakened and landed precisely atop the monsters' heads.

There was no predicting them.

There was no blocking them.

The moment a monster noticed the beam was the moment it died.

Hundreds of monsters vanished in an instant.

Every one of them was a high-ranking monster of B-rank or above.

At this point, even the C-rank and lower monsters sensed the danger and looked toward the sky.

They realized that those terrifying beams could descend upon them at any moment.

No matter how irrational they had become, watching monsters vanish beside them filled them with overwhelming fear.

—KWOOOAR!

—UWOOOK!

The monsters shrieked as they fled in every direction.

They abandoned the main streets and hid within the alleys.

Their instinct for survival told them that hiding in the alleys gave them a better chance of living than remaining out in the open.

Pshuk! Pshushuk!

The beams of light continued raining down upon them.

Every single beam erased exactly one monster.

Within moments, dozens of monsters hiding in the alleys disappeared from the world.

Even so, countless monsters still remained.

As overwhelming as the Divine Judgement's power was, killing them one by one like this offered no telling when it would finally end.

It was then—

—The Divine Judgement will now switch to area bombardment. All awakened, seek cover immediately.

The twin sisters relayed Seo Taeran's command through wide-area telepathy.

If the previous bombardment had been precision strikes meant to eliminate B-rank and higher monsters, then the area bombardment was indiscriminate fire intended to wipe out the C-rank and lower monsters.

The energy that had previously been concentrated into a single beam would now be divided into dozens of beams and fired simultaneously.

Naturally, each beam was less powerful.

Its accuracy also declined accordingly, meaning the awakened themselves could be injured.

But if they wanted to drive the monsters out of the slum alleys, they had to accept the risk.

“Damn it!”

“Everyone, take cover!”

The awakened hurriedly sought cover and hid themselves.

Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!

At that moment, dozens of beams of light fell from the sky all at once.

Neo Seoul was illuminated in brilliant light as countless monsters were vaporized.