Chapter 132: Miracle

[Translator – Aren]

I rolled around.

Even as I slammed into walls and bounced off pillars, I desperately tried to keep my wits about me so I wouldn’t get impaled on any of the exposed rebar. I remembered the old saying that even if a trigger drags you away, you’ll survive as long as you keep your head.

Of course, our ancestors conveniently kept quiet about the harsh reality that once a tiger had you in its maw, you were probably already doomed.

If I hadn’t had Heart-branch, Stage 2 [Physical Enhancement], and if there hadn’t been a corpse to serve as my cushion, if I’d simply slammed straight into the floor, I would’ve ended up as nothing more than a handful of flesh and blood. Because the backlash from my magic had definitely arrived.

-Splat.

A cough tried to burst out along with sharp throbbing pain. The kind of cough you couldn’t actually force out because you couldn't put any strength into your throat. The sweat and blood pooled inside my gas mask had become so disgusting that I couldn't endure this any longer.

The smell of raw rubber soaked in blood, the pain pressing down on my entire body, the bloody tears streaming down my right cheek.

With my right hand slick with blood and grease, I grabbed the chin strap of my gas mask and yanked it upward. I didn’t trust myself to fumble around trying to undo the strap, so I simply tore it off by force.

-Riiip!

As the chin strap tore off, the blood and sweat that had pooled inside of it poured out.

Only then did I start gasping for air.

Barely supporting myself with my left arm, I stayed face down and coughed again and again. They were wet coughs mixed with spit and phlegm. Through the pain squeezing my chest and squeezing my heart, I stared at the flickering, wavering world before me.

I definitely had only one working eye, yet the outlines of everything were splitting into two or three blurred images.

I caught sight of Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ face, covered in burns and cuneiform, and nearly vomited but forced it back down through sheer willpower.

-Cough, cough, cough……

As I coughed, I realized what was happening.

I‘d used [Cognitive Dissonance] to concentrate the backlash from [Cognitive Imposition] 100% into one eye, permanently sacrificing my right eye. So this had to be the backlash of [Cognitive Distortion] 100%. A crushing sense of loss and lingering attachment came rushing over me under the name of sorrow.

But at the same time, a certainty was taking root inside of me.

I’d already been prepared for all of this from the moment I learned that magic demanded pain as its price.

[Cognitive Dissonance] was never a power I could use freely. Push it too far and I had to be prepared for permanent blindness, and once one eye was permanently lost, every backlash would be concentrated into the last remaining eye. All I could do was substitute the loss of some other sense for the loss of that eye.

The backlash was certain.

If I lost my last remaining eye. I’d lose Eyes-branch magic.

That was probably why disciples existed.

A desperate attempt to spread out the pain somehow by using non-wizard trash like batteries.

But I’d also realized the fatal contradiction.

Human will was never actually strong.

Humans were insignificant creatures. They could never overcome pain, and they would always succumb to fear.

Terrified of the nothingness that followed death, they wandered in search of eternity, and because they refused to accept that power required a pierce, they were always scrambling to find some sort of loophole to exploit.

It was obvious what would happen if people like that used disciples.

Weak and obsessed with comfort, they’d become addicted to the easiest, most comfortable method and inevitably lose sight of their original intentions.

For a wizard to reach a higher realm, they need a resolve worthy of it.

Retrospection. Anyone could long for the past.

Grief. Anyone could regret the past.

Denial or Overcoming. Most people wanted to escape the past.

Resolve. Very few people could decide to change the world or themselves and keep that determination from fizzling out after three days or so.

Those who couldn’t offer their own suffering as sacrifices will see the power of their magic decline, even if they manage to reach a higher realm.

Only suffering.

Only the loss and pain felt while using magic can guarantee a wizard’s purity.

"Ahh, kuhugh…”

As I kept coughing, my senses gradually returned to me.

My hearing came back first, sharp and vivid.

The first floor of the collapsing hospital, where debris was slowly raining down, was already filled with screams, shouts, and gunfire.

That was when the backlash from Ears-branch magic quietly crept in.

Run, Lord, please die, save me, I have to run, fuck, that’s supposed to be human? Isn’t the world already fucked, you’re telling us to recover the fallen nuclear warhead? What the actual hell…

I was panting and trembling.

Footsteps drew closer, and amid the thunderous gunfire, I heard spent casings bouncing everywhere.

The sound of empty cans clattering together approached me as I lay there gasping for breath.

I didn’t even have the strength to raise my head, so I just clenched my fist. Whoever it was, if they attacked me, I’d definitely kill them. I held out through sheer spite and grit until deafening gunfire struck my ears.

-Ratatatata!!!!

When people die, they don't scream. They made choking, gasping sounds. It wasn’t until I heard someone suck in a sharp “Huk.” that I realized they hadn't been shooting at me. Silence fell for a moment.

Then the sound of breathing through gas masks came rushing over to me.

"Baek Jemin! Hey! Get a hold of yourself!”

It was Pastor Park Yohan.

The pastor glanced at the condition of the corpse underneath me and fell silent for a moment. Then, after a brief “Amen,” he shouted.

"Lee Sejun, you said Jemin was still alive, right? That magic’s still holding. Hurry, we need to get the others and get out of here!”

At that Lee Sejun, one of the most horrible human beings in the world, clicked his tongue and rummaged through his pocket.

"Jemin-ssi. You used the hell out of Heart-branch, Stage 2, didn’t you? Here, I’ll give you one of the energy bars I have. Eat it and get up.”

"D-doping…”

"Baek Jemin. You still say that in a situation like this?”

When I raised my head, both Pastor Park Yohan and Lee Sejun drew in a slight breath.

Because the moment they saw me, they should’ve realized what I’d sacrificed to use Eyes-branch, Stage 3 [Cognitive Imposition] 100%, and stop a 10-story hospital from collapsing all at once.

When I turned my head slightly, I could also see what Go Ryeoha had thrown.

Among the slowly sinking debris, a red-hot H-beam had been driven downward like a pillar at an angle of about 87 degrees. The spit where a human arm had been scraped along it, with only a little skin left behind, was particularly striking to me.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Explosions were still ringing out from the upper section of the hospital, about 7 stories high, which hadn’t completely come crashing down yet. Go Ryeoha and Father Kang Peter were still fighting.

-Ruuuumble...

It was an insane symphony of rebar slowly stretching and groaning. Even the faint sunlight filtering through gaps in the rubble was constantly being swallowed by concrete dust.

But I heard the explosion from Go Ryeoha’s fists as the tolling of bells.

And Father Kang Peter’s sinister laughter as the hymn of a choir.

I imagined every crack and rupture from the collapsing building as the majestic notes of an organ, and the sunlight barely filtering through the concrete dust as beams streaming through stained glass.

This was a temple covered in blood and stains instead of multicolored glass.

Just hearing the battle between the two wizards fighting somewhere above made emotions surge up from within me.

The young boy Baek Jemin had despaired when he realized the gap between himself and others.

He’d lower his head, thinking he’d never catch up to others even if he devoted his entire life to it.

But now, the unemployed bum Baek Jemin in his 30s felt his heart race even when he saw that same gap.

I rejoiced at the realization that I’d stepped into something so vast I could devote my whole life to it and still never see the end.

The adventurous spirit of a boy had finally awakened in me after decades.

I can climb higher.

This isn’t the end of what I can reach.

The road continues far, far beyond anything I can see.

Now, when I looked at the gulf between those two and me, I felt joy instead of despair.

Only then did my sense of loss fade, replaced by boundless pride boiling up inside of me.

I drew a cross over the eyelid of my right eye with my right hand, stained with blood and grease, as I wept bloody tears. There wasn’t any profound magical principle behind it.

I just wanted to show how proud I was.

I’d proven that I could sacrifice even half the world for magic.

My right eye was now a holy relic that would forever remind me of my purity and resolve toward magic and a glorious scar. It was a covenant with myself that neither non-wizards who whined about some pain and refused to learn magic nor the Seoul wizards who tried to dump their backlash onto disciples had dared to make.

For the covenant of I, Baek Jemin, was more important and held more weight than anything else in the world.

By constantly reminding myself of what I’d sacrificed for magic, I would preserve my resolve toward it.

Because I knew humans were endlessly weak, ugly, and insignificant creatures, I would preserve that resolve through everlasting pain and loss.

That was the dream and the humanity of Baek Jemin that I wanted to protect, even at the cost of my right eye.

As I steeled myself like that inwardly, Pastor Park Yohan and Lee Sejun’s expressions gradually changed into the looks of people watching a madman.

"Baek Jemin, are you actually smiling right now?”

"Pastor, I think Jemin-ssi’s gone mad.”

"Haah~. You common folk who don’t want to sacrifice anything for magic, just stop.”

Whatever else you could say about Father Kang Peter, when it came to magic, he was more Supreme Archmage-like than the Supreme Archmages themselves.

As a true Supreme Archmage, I felt the need to instill some of the great wizard’s spirit that the 66 Society probably possessed in my fellow Supreme Archmages. Of course, before that came looting Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, and before I could loot him, I needed an energy bar to calm my trembling arms and legs.

I held out my hand, and Lee Sejun, clicking his tongue, tossed me an energy bar.

"Cranberry flavor?”

"It’s refreshing."

"You look like you’d be an almond guy though…”

I tore open the wrapper and devoured the whole thing in one go.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes was dead, so there was plenty to get from him. But even if I raised my Ears-branch magic to a higher Stage, I’d probably just hear even more godawful bullshit all the time, so I wasn’t really interested in that. And if I tried to use it as radar, I already had too many roles I had to fulfill.

Considering every branch, though, the Eyes-branch really was damn good.

The problem was the terrifying price.

Was Father Kang Peter paying some sort of price as well? What was the price for Inverted Eyes-branch magic?

[Cognitive Revelation] looked like it was at least Stage 2, maybe Stage 3.

I drew my combat knife and properly harvested Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ remains.

Since I prioritized speed more than before, I cut everything off nice and quick. A few of the other useless parts got damaged a bit more than necessary. though. The pastor made a gagging noise at the sight.

"Hey, Baek Jemin. Ugh, fuck…you’re turning that guy into mush.”

"Pastor, that’s so damn unfair. Wouldn’t it be weirder if I were good at butchering people?”

It was unfair to have someone misinterpret proof that I’d been living an upright life.

Cutting out a tongue, eyeballs, and ears within a few seconds wasn’t actually that easy, but the pastor just didn’t appreciate that.

The adrenaline rush from looting was enough to make me even forget my arms and legs trembling.

But the main event was still awaiting me.

I couldn’t really interfere with Go Ryeoha and Father Kang Peter beating the shit out of each other up there anyway, so I might as well enjoy the thrill of farming loot.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ enchanted coat, the prayer beads wrapped around his left arm made with the Three True-Body Sarira, the Cuneiform Grimoire… Touching the cover seemed fine, so I turned it around every way I could before clicking my tongue.

"Shit, do we have to burn this thing again?”

"If it comes back even after benign bruins, sealing it might be better. Let’s take it for now.”

For Lee Sejun, that was a pretty reasonable suggestion, so I handed it to him.

"Agh! Why are you throwing it at me?!”

"Because I need to dope up.”

I called it doping, but I was thinking of passing the Eyes-branch, Stage 1 remains off to my sponsor, Anderson-ssi, some time soon.

I’d take the Tongue-branch, Stage 3 remains.

The Ears-branch had such a shitty backlash that I had no desire at all to raise it right now. Shin Nain alone was enough when it came to being subjected to the torture called hearing Lee Sejun’s horrifying inner thoughts 24/7 without a single break. While I was at it, I’d make that bastard run laps around the parade ground until he awakened Heart-branch magic, then bring him along as my human radar.

Knowing every kind of magic didn’t mean I could use every kind of magic at the same time at any point.

Human concentration and combat roles had their limits. To use the magic I relied on where it was most effective while spreading out the backlash, I needed fellow wizards of a decent level. If Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes had been moving with his officers, he would’ve crushed us unilaterally.

I took a deep breath, then handed the less useful remains to Lee Sejun first.

"Jemin-ssi?”

"I’m unlocking Tongue-branch, Stage 3. Cover me, and if it looks like the building’s coming down, get me out.”

"Why the hell are you doing that shit here instead of just getting out, Baek Jemin?”

If I’d had enough patience for that, I never would’ve thrown myself into Seoul and the fog just to learn magic in the first place.

-Splat!

I threw the tongue sporting a magic symbol onto the floor without hesitation and raised my foot.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

Your magic. Your knowledge.

I’ll make damn sure none of it goes to waste.

-Crunch!

The sensation of the tough root of the tongue being crushed shot up through the sole of my foot.

The irreverent whispers swelled into a roar until they filled my ears completely. My entire head flooded with meaningless words and sounds, while my vision rapidly blurred and began sinking into a hallucination.

I even wore a faint smile as the currents of knowledge surged over me, eagerly awaiting the moment when I could pull something from them.

Then I felt something was off.

This hallucination was strange.

When an Ears-branch wizard destroyed a wizard’s remains, more often than not they would see and hear that wizard’s memories in first person. Saying ‘More often than not’ sounded quite ridiculous actually. It was 100% of the time.

But…

Not this time.

-Drip.

Inside a subway station restroom where water droplets fell.

Amid brownish bloodstains stuck everywhere in the shapes of handprints, a man in a coat and baseball cap was carefully making his way forward with his back turned. As he went, he lit the candles placed here and there and some fixed in place by melted wax.

-Click.

His dress shoes stepped skilfully past fallen corpses as he illuminated the damp restroom with candlelight.

Only after Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes had lit all 7 large candles and all 28 melted candles did he shake out his hand and extinguish the match. The distinct smell of a struck match slightly dulled the putrid stench of rot and filth.

Then, as the candlelight gathered, it revealed a picture on the deepest inner wall of the restroom.

A picture formed by bloody handprints layered over each other and smeared together.

Only then did I realize that every corpse scattered around Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ feet was completely bleached white, as if every drop of blood had been drained from them.

At least dozens.

Maybe even over a hundred.

A single trickle of blood flowing from the pale corpses stacked tightly all the way up to the gap above the bathroom stall met the blood that had overflowed to paint the mural between the cracks in the tiles.

–Sssrrrk—.

When I heard the scratch of the match, my attention finally returned to the painting.

I think I understood then why, even though I knew it was a picture, my gaze kept drifting elsewhere, and why I hadn’t wanted to describe it in detail.

When Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes lit the tiny match, the image painted in blood became clearer. So vivid that it was impossible for me to look away.

The picture moved.

There was something there, drenched in blood.

That blood-drenched thing, something shaped like a human, picked up a constellation.

The Big Dipper.

The constellation that decides human life, death, and fate was caught in the grasp of that blood-drenched thing.

At that moment, a wind blew through the restroom.

By the time I blinked, the seven large candles had gone out.

"The fate of humanity has been sealed.”

A voice like metal scraping against metal echoed across the damp bathroom tiles.

"Humanity is far more insignificant and miserable than it believes itself to be. They are worthless creatures, and creatures fated to become worthless. Those who wish for God to exist shall be judged, and those who wish for God not to exist shall be denied. Those who thought anything without a price was a miracle, crush your own heads and die, crush your own heads and enjoy the emptiness of it. Miracles were always by our side, and yet…”

The remaining 28 candles began going out one by one as well.

The corpse-filled restroom was slowly growing dark.

And yet the blood-drenched thing painted on the wall only became more vivid and distinct, taking on an even more stark color, as if it were fluorescent.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

He stood completely still before the blood-drenched picture, then stretched out his hand, not caring that the flames had already spread to it. Touching the mural painted in blood with his burning hand, he spoke.

"Miracle, miracle!”

By the time all 28 candles had gone out, the only things left inside the restroom were the ominously glowing mural and the back of Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, engulfed in flames.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes crumpled to the floor, screaming and groaning like someone burning to death.

As he collapsed, he shouted.

"The three-thousand worlds, all creation! If extinguishing the sun of countless eons and burning immeasurable numbers of people to death could save even my family, then that would be a miracle!!!”

Even as he turned into a heap of black ash, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes kept writhing, smashing his head on the bathroom tiles.

-Bam. Bam. Bam…

Then he stopped moving altogether.

He’d smashed his own head open and died while still burning.

Even in the hallucination.

At that moment, I felt a gaze.

Inside the restroom where every candle had gone out, in this place where these pale corpses seemed to suck away all warmth, I could feel something watching me.

I stepped back, thinking it was the corpses, but it wasn’t.

The corpses’ eyelids were shut. I couldn’t even see their pupils. Then where? Within this hallucination, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ corpse had already burned completely. There was only one answer.

I’d simply refused to admit it and turned away.

I slowly turned my head, but there were nothing but corpses wherever I looked, so eventually I lowered it.

The gaze was boring straight into the crown of my head now.

The being that held humanity’s fate in its grasp.

Something I didn’t want to call a god looked at me.

*t*t*

I took in a deep breath.

I’m certain I nearly lost my mind.

That hallucination had been more devastating than every magic backlash I’d experienced so far, more devastating than all the pain I’d endured in every form until now. It felt as if tiny needles had pinched countless holes through my head, then hot air was gently blowing through those holes until my entire brain was thoroughly boiled.

The helplessness and despair of feeling my head cook while I was still alive and the horrifying sensation of the illusion that the control of this body had completely passed from me to someone else!

I couldn’t take it anymore and stomped down hard, really damn hard, on what had once been Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ head.

-Bang!

When I crushed it using Heart-branch, Stage 2 [Physical Enhancement], startled voices finally reached my ears.

"Bang Jemin, what the hell? You got possessed or something? Not that it’d exactly be anything new, but what’s gotten into you?”

"Jemin-ssi. Teabagging a corpse is a little much, don’t you think?”

-Bangbangbangbangbang...

Only after stomping it apart again and again did I realize.

My heart was burning insanely hot. The pentagram in my heart, [Mutation Immunity], had just activated.

Fuck me.

"Before we destroy any more remains to use them, let’s scan them with Eyes-branch magic or have Hamza inspect them first. Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes might’ve pulled some sort of trick.”

"What?"

"Fuck…It shows you some seriously fucked-up shit.”

I’d seen people struggle desperately while they were still alive, but this was my first time dealing with someone who’d pulled this kind of shit while fully expecting their remains to be destroyed.

The fact that it was possible as long as you prepared for it was even more chilling.

Everything had been fine until now. Do wizards closely connected to the 66 Society go through some kind of security procedure like this?

-Ptui.

I spat and looked around.

"How many minutes was I out?”

"10 seconds, dumbass. Baek Jemin, if you’ve got your head on straight, let’s go. Lee Sejun can carry the stuff. You’re not seriously gonna make the one-eyed guy do it, right?”

"Ugh. I’ll consider it welfare for the disabled."

Lee Sejun grumbled as he started to easily load things into the backpack.

He was almost at Hamza’s level when it came to packing. By the time I’d decided he was reasonably useful as a super porter, the pastor quietly came over and asked me something.

"Baek Jemin, can’t you shoot either?”

"I’m currently stopping the building from collapsing.”

If I were holding up an entire hospital with [Cognitive Imposition] 100%, I’d already done more than enough. Someone else could handle the shooting.

Even the pastor could only smack his lips faced with this impeccable logic.

That was how the pastor and Lee Sejun ended up changing their magazines and taking the lead. In return, I granted the two of them an exceptionally generous privilege.

"Just this once, I won't kill you for standing in front of me. Let’s go.”

"Ugh. Fuck.”

With the pastor’s resolute reply, our Supreme Archmage trio began our escape.

Though calling it an escape made it sound more dramatic than it really was.

Wherever the pastor, our lucky Dogma-type wizard, and Lee Sejun, the Heart-branch wizard, went, a path opened up. The pastor had clearly been through enough military training and hard drills by now that I almost thought he could shoot well even without relying on luck, while Lee Sejun could pretty much just body-check his way through anything in his way to clear a path.

Walking along the route the two of them had diligently opened, spent casings scattered everywhere, made my shoulders rise with pride for some reason.

So this was why important people liked making their underlings do all the work.

Above me, Go Ryeoha and Father Kang Peter were breathing the shit out of each other. In front of me, the pastor and Lee Sejun were dealing with the remnants of the Gangnam group. All around us, screams and anguished thoughts whose owners I couldn’t properly identify came pouring in.

Then I heard the sound of a babbling stream.

-Trickletrickletrickle…

I reacted faster than anyone else.

The characteristics of Ears-branch magic were [Fate] and [Detection].

The power to force my perception onto the world might have weakened after I lost one eye, but my ability to detect someone trying to fuck with me had improved dramatically.

As a result, I managed to stop one stupid attempt simply by throwing up my fist and arm.

-Thud!

I felt the sensation of digging into flesh. The full weight of a person traveled down my forearm. Even their blood ran along my arm.

When I glanced over, I saw a Seoul wizard thrashing with his throat impaled on my fingertips. He desperately clutched at the spreading wound with his own hands, trying to somehow hold it shut.

But his body was gradually going limp.

I hadn’t noticed him at all until just now, so judging by the way he suddenly appeared, he must have been concealing himself somehow.

Was he an Inverted Alteration-type Eyes-branch, Stage 1 wizard?

-Drip, drip, drip

Blood ran over the back of my hand, down my forearm, and eventually soaked into my poncho.

The combination of Heart-branch, Stage 2 [Physical Enhancement] and Ears-branch, Stage 1 [Mind Reading], strengthened by my absolute conviction that I was destined to become a Great Archmage, was beyond anything I’d expected. Identifying the threat fast, responding fast, and killing fast.

It was overwhelmingly effective precisely because it was so simple.

I twisted my fingertips and pulled them free, then took a step forward.

-Thud!

The corpse went flying and hit the floor.

"Lee Sejun. Go pull out the eyeballs.”

"Yes."

"Ahem. Baek Jemin, I told you to call it harvesting. A person’s vocabulary determines their conduct. Character is decided by these small, trivial things. You have to start by correcting that vulgar behavior of yours before you can become a warrior of the Lord…”

"Lee Sejun. Go recover the fallen soldier’s ocular globes.”

"Yep."

Lee Sejun had become strangely obedient, which made the cleanup a lot easier.

It didn’t take extraordinary power to kill someone.

As long as you could apply the necessary force to a vital point at the perfect moment, you could kill a person somehow. Human life was tenacious, but it wasn’t sturdy. Despite Father Kang Peter putting up such a fight, the resisting wizards of the 55 Unit and the Seoul wizards met gruesome ends.

And that was true even without our Supreme Archmage trio stepping in.

The Korean soldiers who still hadn't made it out of the hospital were fighting the remnants, shouting like rabid dogs determined to survive.

"Kill them all!”

"There’s no point in leaving them alive!”

Shouts that could have belonged either to the Seoul wizard or Korean soldiers overlapped as gunfire erupted everywhere in the building.

Support had begun from outside as well.

Some Seoul wizards blocking our path sometimes dropped dead one after another from bullets fired from somewhere outside. But quite a few of the Korean soldiers left inside the hospital were also dying from gunshots.

There was no way anyone had any mercy left to spare.

One soldier leaned against a wall, clutching his stomach riddled with holes and sobbing, while another dragged away the bodies of his fellow soldiers, at a complete loss for what to do.

"Uuuugh, hgk..."

"Medic! Medic!”

Then, at some point, the explosions coming from above stopped.

The three of us sensed it at the same time and quietly tensed as we kept moving.

We were just about to make it out of the collapsing hospital.

That was when something dropped in front of us.

-Thud!

A poncho with a rabbit brooch.

Go Ryeoha ripped off her gas mask, breathing roughly.

"Father Kang is going to leave. There’s no more point in staying here.”

"Ryeoha-ssi, what do you mean?”

It was an innocent question fitting for someone like the pastor, who had seen Father Kang Peter but still hadn't fully understood just how strong he was.

Lee Sejun, on the other hand, seemed to have sensed something and kept his mouth firmly shut.

And so, we barely managed to make it out of the collapsing hospital.

The area around the hospital was already filled with ambulances, every kind of evacuation vehicle, armored vehicles, and tanks. Everyone was busy with their operation, moving the wounded and suppressing the enemies still remaining here, but even then they couldn't help staring in one direction.

The 10-story hospital looked like it was collapsing after being blown up to anyone watching.

And yet it was descending unbelievably slowly, drifting down like a plastic bag swaying through water.

-Step.

I pushed past the other Supreme Archmages and walked forward.

I looked around with my one eye. Imagining what expressions the soldiers were making and what they must be feeling, I couldn’t keep the corners of my mouth from rising.

Then I spoke.

"10 minutes."

With my right hand, I stroked the eyelid covering my right eye, the eternal vow that symbolized my resolve, and smiled.

May 22nd, 2028, 3:01 PM.

"Get all the wounded and corpses out within 10 minutes. I’ll hold it until then.”

I had become the strongest Great Archmage outside Seoul without the shadow of a doubt