D.I.O - CH 310

The Masters, who had been nervously watching the monstrously large Tan, groaned at the sudden change of their surroundings.

“The crater’s gone! No, wait, I can’t even see the rocky ridge that was just raised by the earthquake… No, more importantly, what are these buildings? Weren’t all the buildings near the Magic Tower razed? The tactical system and my smartphone are also not working!”

“Something… something has changed. Could it be that we’ve switched locations? But this place still looks like Korea…”

The sky had suddenly turned gray, and, in a flash, numerous buildings appeared out of nowhere. The Masters who were originally from abroad didn’t know the local geography, so they weren’t aware of where they were, but the Korean Masters were able to recognize the identity of the newly appeared buildings.

“This is Cheonan City, before it was razed,” Arc murmured.

Miho asked Arc in a low voice, “… The place where the Legion and Grotesque forces ran amok?”

“Yeah. However, it’s not as simple as stating that the surrounding buildings have been restored. Something feels off…”

Everyone around Arc made various subtle expressions after hearing her calm explanation.

‘Who the hell is this girl?’

‘I don’t know her identity, but thanks to her, I was able to survive…’

‘If it was Merlin, I would have understood, but there’s another user who can use an ultimate magic spell?’

Arc received the others’ questioning gazes, but unfortunately, there wasn’t time to answer any of their questions.

“Grr…”

“Kyak!”

From the ground, from the walls, from the sky, and from inside the buildings…. the growls of beasts echoed. The facial expressions of the Masters changed when they felt a rush of demonic qi.

“What the hell? Aren’t those demons?”

“I think it’s more appropriate to state that they’re demonic beasts… Everyone, be careful! These things are strong!”

Unlike the Heaven above the Heavens, who were recognized for their skills, Bruce Wayne, who was the de-facto leader of the lesser skilled Masters, shouted out. He shouted because he noticed that the strength of the newly revealed monsters easily exceeded that of the average Master level user in their party.

However…

“Kyak!”

“Grr!”

“Screech!”

All the shadow demonic beasts that initially appeared while exuding fearsome demonic qi soon disappeared as they went back into their shadow forms.

“What? What happened?”

“They’ve hidden themselves through some form of shadow camouflage! Keep your guards up…”

“Don’t be silly, just get together, you idiots.”

The Masters’ eyes gathered at the origin of the irritated voice. Cruze, who had spoken out, was carrying a huge sniper rifle. Even though she was the weakest amongst the Heaven above the Heavens, her skillset and power were considerable and demanded respect, so the murmuring amongst the Masters died down as they regained their cool.

Internally ruing his inevitable position of having to play second fiddle to Cruze, Bruce Wayne, who had commanded the Masters up until now, asked, “Do you know about these things?”

“How would I know? But no matter how great these monsters are…”

Cruze smiled and looked up at the sky. Tan, or Leviathan, wasn’t moving, but it still exuded a tremendous presence and aura.

“Naturally, they’re not going to rear their heads in front of that monstrous beast.”

“That means… at the very least… we can assume that it wasn’t Leviathan that changed locations, right?”

“You’re pretty smart, aren’t you?”

Cruze nodded and looked around. The number of Masters was dreadfully small, as they had reduced in number considerably.

“We took on many casualties. Moreover, there are a lot of people who weren’t able to make it here… The only able-bodied Masters are Hanma, Jeros, and Aung Nina. Of course, that’s not counting your party.”

Cruze frowned after hearing Bruce Wayne’s words.

“What about Adol? I saw that he was injured, but…”

“I was able to confirm that he logged out. He’s lost part of his soul, so he’s as good as dead.”

“Oh, it’s too bad that he’s gone…”

With a nervous expression, Cruze bit her fingernails, then, she turned around without a word. Bruce Wayne furrowed his eyebrows, but, since he had interacted with Cruze for a considerable amount of time in DIO, he cleared his thoughts and started taking care of the other Masters.

“Do you need a tanker? Even though I’m not a defensive expert, I think I can block things fairly well.”

Lancelot, who had been silently following Cruze as if he were her bodyguard, offered his help with a puzzled expression. He had a fighting style that focused exclusively on attacks, but his singular attack style was why he was good at countering enemy attacks and [offsetting] them. Although they had been put in peril repeatedly, Tan’s attacks had been blocked by Lancelot up to now, so Lancelot was wondering why Cruze was seeking Adol, a veteran shield tanker.

Right then, Cruze spoke some unexpected words.

“Hey.”

“What?”

“… Can you sit this one out?”

Lancelot hesitated after hearing Cruze’s words. When he turned his head, he saw Cruze avoiding his gaze.

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

“I… I don’t feel good about this one. You should go into the tower and come out with Merlin… Whoa?!”

Bam.

Cruze grabbed her forehead and groaned after sustaining a quick but fierce blow to her head. She was capable of countering any type of surprise attacks, but no matter how talented she was, the level of martial arts ability that Lancelot had developed so far wasn’t easy to counter, especially from such close proximity.

And towards Cruze, who was taken aback by the blow, Lancelot spoke out.

“Your words just now…”

Lancelot continued speaking in a low voice.

“… is greatly insulting to me.”

“…”

Cruze gritted his teeth at Lancelot’s tone of voice, which was drastically different from normal. Of course, she knew what he was saying. She knew how Lancelot got to this point; she was gifted with her genius, but Lancelot had nothing.

He had cultivated his skill single-mindedly for hundreds of years.

Such a thing was simple to state, ‘hundreds of years’, but if anyone seriously considered the implications and extent of that time span, it’s easy to see how improbable such a feat would be for any normal human being.

Even if one repeatedly studied every night for five years to take a single exam, the stress one received would be beyond anyone’s imagination. If one joined the military as a medic, two years would seem like an eternity.

Hence, was it possible for an ordinary human mind, which would never have experienced hundreds of years, to be able to cope with such a long span of time, never mind cultivating throughout that entire time?

“Still.”

Nonetheless.

“Can you retreat this one time?”

“…”

This time, Lancelot hesitated. Cruze had never shown such consideration and a soft side before.

As he held her shoulders with both his hands and looked at her face-to-face, he saw a frowning young red-headed girl looking back.

“… What’s the matter?”

“I have a bad feeling. That monster… I don’t feel good.”

“Is it your intuition?”

Lancelot knew from experience that, with her fearsome talents, Cruze was incomprehensibly endowed with great intuition. Moreover, the hit rate of her intuition was very high.

Cruze slightly hesitated before responding.

“That damned bastard was strong before, but I feel that things have gotten worse. We can’t resist…”

“Lea Schmidt. Byun Miri. Cruze.”

Lancelot cut Cruze off and spoke lightly. He called her by all her names, her German name, her Korean name, and her DIO ID.

“Uh, yeah.”

When he saw her hesitate, Lancelot, Byun Dongsoo, spoke clearly.

“I won’t stop.”

[Resolution], which enabled his endless effort and endeavor, wasn’t something that Lancelot put away whenever it was convenient to do so, like putting something away in one’s pocket when one was at a disadvantage and then taking it out later when it was convenient.

“Even if the end is total destruction and annihilation… I won’t stop.”

If Lancelot stopped even once, he’d never be able to go again.

And because he knew this quality about himself all too well… he wasn’t planning on stopping. He’d rather die running than stop before reaching the finish line, or whatever goal he was satisfied with.

“…”

Cruze was lost for words as she peered into Lancelot’s brightly shining eyes. She saw an unbreakable determination in his eyes. She had been born with talent, but she never had the [preparation] and training mindset to match it.

As she gritted her teeth and remained quiet, the Masters suddenly began to stir.

“Merlin?”

“It’s Merlin! He’s finally come out!”

Merlin looked up at the gigantic body of Tan with a calm expression. Before anyone knew it, Arc and Miho, who were always with him, and their three pets, were flying towards him. Youngmin, the dimensional-shifter, also approached and stood by Merlin’s side.

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“Merlin! Did things go well?”

“Yeah. Oh, but rather than that…”

Merlin threw something towards Miho. Miho caught the item and made a blank expression.

“… A Soulstone?”

“It’s the last slave contractor left in DIO.”

Hearing Merlin’s incomprehensible words, Miho frowned with confusion.

“What are you talking about? I’m still around, no?”

Miho was an NPC who lost all her memories and was suppressed by DIO… which was proof that she was a slave contractor. Ordinary contractors weren’t subjected to such sanctions, and above all, she herself recalled the memory of her previous life as Heavenly Flower, a nine-tailed fox who was also called the Witch of Desolate Nation.

“No.”

But even so, Merlin shook his head.

“That’s the last one.”

“What are you talking…”

“Operate Divine Weapon. Olympos.”

Ignoring Miho’s bewilderment and reciting his Divine Weapon activation phrase, Merlin brought out a large longbow that looked like it was made of jewels. It had a completely different appearance from before, as it now looked like some sort of masterpiece that was carved out of jewels.

Creak!

As soon as he pulled the bow’s line, the bow seemed to protest, and in turn, a great amount of potential qi energy was created. The gathered Masters were surprised by Merlin’s sudden appearance and subsequent action.

“Are you planning on striking first?”

“Hey, calm down! There’s no way an attack like that would work against such a monster right now…”

However, the Masters who shouted and protested took a step back in an instant.

This was because they saw a red ruby floating above Merlin’s shoulder.

Whoosh.

Magic power whipped around Merlin. That was all. However, that simple movement of magic power conveyed a thousand words and caused everyone to instantly shut their mouths. Even after seeing Tan’s extraordinary true body…

Merlin wasn’t just gathering magic power.

He was exuding a tremendous power, as if [one world was being converged into one point].

“No, no, wait a minute… what is this?”

“Sparks… sparks… can this be…”

Even though they were at the lower end, the pets, who had experienced the wider universe as members of the Noblesse, shuddered with surprise. And the ruby, which was exuding such a terrifying power…

Whoosh!

The ruby turned into an arrow of flame and was tautly strung to Olympus’s bow line.

“Howling spell.”

Merlin let go of the arrow.

“Apollon.”