CH 268

Gi-Gyu quickly fled in panic; moments later, Belphegor’s mace was stuck in his original spot.

This weapon looked very familiar.

“Is that a part of Satan’s body?” Gi-Gyu whispered. The mace’s shape and aura were alarmingly similar to the one used to make Lou’s body.

Gi-Gyu was baffled. Belphegor’s mace had blocked his last attack, and hell king clones now surrounded him.

And that wasn’t the last of the shocking events.

Gi-Gyu’s eyes widened as he whispered, “T-the sync… I can’t sense anyone.”

He could still sense Lou, who was in his hand—Haures, who had been sent to the Tower—and Rohan, but Gi-Gyu couldn't sense any of his Egos in Eden.

‘I think my connection to Eden has been severed.’ 

Gi-Gyu found his strength leaving his body. While trying to hold on to it, he tried his level best to understand the situation.

“How did this happen?”

Nothing could explain this. Gi-Gyu and his creatures had anticipated an attack, but how could they have anticipated a broken sync?

“It has finally begun.” Paimon smiled at Gi-Gyu. “Don’t worry… This is just the beginning.”

Paimon opened his arms as if he were conducting an orchestra.

Dun dun dun dun.

The Belphegor that had blocked Gi-Gyu, the rest of the Belphegors, and Leviathan all began moving. Gi-Gyu took a battle stance to face the oncoming attack.

But… nobody attacked him.

“What?” Gi-Gyu muttered.

Instead…

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

All the Belphegors exploded successively.

The explosion released a prodigious amount of sorcerous magic, which filled the space and suffocated Gi-Gyu.

-This is bad.

Even Lou seemed to be struggling with the amount of energy around him. Dozens of Belphegors had exploded to create a sorcerous energy shield, and Paimon sent it to Gi-Gyu with a creepy smile.

***

A seemingly infinite amount of sorcerous energy tried to drown Gi-Gyu. It was so overwhelming that he wondered if this was how it felt to be in hell. As this evil energy weighed down on Gi-Gyu, his form distorted.

His body transformed into something grotesque as if he had suffered an implosion. Gi-Gyu looked like uncooked dough.

And this was all thanks to the sorcerous energy weighing down on him. Gi-Gyu tried his best to control the power suffocating him.

However, that sorcerous energy attack wasn’t really an attack. All the vile energy was actually trying to invade Gi-Gyu’s body.

“Even though you have Lucifer with you, you’ll find it hard to resist.”

Gi-Gyu heard Paimon chirp.

“Paimon…” Gi-Gyu whispered as he tried to restrain the sorcerous energy.

As for Lou, he remained quiet because he was the one doing all the heavy lifting. Uniting with Jupiter had saturated Gi-Gyu’s shell, so he couldn’t help Lou. This was also why it took him so long to gain Bodhidharma’s power after they had synced.

The most surprising thing was that Gi-Gyu’s shell was growing. It was probably because Jupiter, also called Adam by some, possessed a shell of near-infinite volume. However, the expansion process was slow, so his shell wasn’t big enough at the moment to accept all this sorcerous energy.

If he tried to do it nonetheless, then…

‘I could die.’ Gi-Gyu shivered, aware his body and shell couldn’t endure such a thing.

It was the kind of cruel trap Gi-Gyu could have never anticipated. His expectations had been simple: Get attacked by the enemy head-on and then defeat them with brute force.

But he had been wrong.

In a way, Gi-Gyu was like a massive computer server. He could handle magic, sorcerous energy, Chaos, and God's power. Any energies he couldn’t deal with could be saved inside his shell for later use.

This was his greatest weapon. But, Paimon was now using that against him.

And…

‘I can’t believe he’s using the cloned hell kings for this purpose.’ 

Regardless of the quality of their construction, all cloned hell kings held an unbelievable amount of sorcerous energy. So, when the amalgamation of all the energy tried to invade Gi-Gyu, he froze like an overloaded server.

Gi-Gyu had never expected a trap like this.

The amalgamated energy surrounded Gi-Gyu and raised him into the air. The sorcerous energy, in the form of dark orbs, covered Gi-Gyu one layer after another.

“Do you really think… you can kill me so easily?” Gi-Gyu muttered angrily.

Lou was taking care of most of the sorcerous energy, but absorbing just a minuscule amount made Gi-Gyu numb.

Just as he had said, this trap couldn’t and wouldn’t kill Gi-Gyu. The sorcerous energy trying to invade his body also protected Gi-Gyu like a barrier. Of course, if he failed to absorb it, he would explode.

“I can do this…” Slowly, Gi-Gyu stabilized his psyche. Thanks to Jupiter, Gi-Gyu’s shell was growing even as he spoke. It would take a long time, but it wouldn’t be impossible.

This was as if…

Gi-Gyu abruptly realized that Paimon was only doing this to trap him. And now that his sync to Eden was severed…

“So you finally figured it out.” Paimon sounded cruel. “Our goal wasn’t you from the very beginning.”

Gi-Gyu’s face crumpled in anger. His body was slowly but successfully absorbing the sorcerous energy, but the extreme change in his emotion disturbed the process.

Gi-Gyu had finally realized Paimon’s ultimate goal.

“Eden!”

“That’s right!” Paimon yelled gleefully.

Gi-Gyu felt like he could hear Paimon clapping. He bit his lips until they bled.

Paimon explained, “A similar barrier has surrounded Eden too! Your connections to your creatures are probably gone by now. And even if you manage to regain them…”

Gi-Gyu heard Paimon laugh. He was right. Even if the sync returned, Gi-Gyu couldn’t accept his creatures’ full powers. At the moment, Gi-Gyu was barely surviving while controlling the sorcerous energy. It was all he could do right now.

“Hahahaha!” Paimon laughed like a lunatic. “The place you call Eden will be destroyed and turn into a pile of ashes!”

Gi-Gyu said, “Bas…tard!”

They would destroy Eden and his Egos, which would weaken him.

They wanted to destroy Gi-Gyu’s power source.

But…

“And what do you think will change even if you absorb all this sorcerous energy?” Paimon viciously spewed, “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Khoff.” Gi-Gyu coughed up blood.

Lou sounded tired as he whispered,

-He’s right… You must not absorb this energy.

Gi-Gyu could finally feel it. He didn’t know what, but something about Belphegor’s sorcerous energy was different.

Being able to absorb God’s power had made Gi-Gyu confident that he could absorb all kinds of energies. He had even been hoping to find different types of energies to absorb.

“Hahahaha! To save your creatures and the world, you must swallow this poison! If you don’t, then…”

Gi-Gyu felt like he could see Paimon’s eyes through the black orbs surrounding him.

Madness filled Paimon’s eyes as it added, “You can enjoy your time inside until we learn to control you.”

Gi-Gyu bit his lips even harder, his blood tasting more bitter than usual.

***

The Eden creatures slowly figured out what was happening.

Hwang Chae-Il announced, “It might be impossible to regain the power we lost due to the severed sync.”

Their enemies hadn’t attacked Eden just yet. Hwang Chae-Il had tried to pierce the mysterious barrier but failed miserably.

It was a powerful sorcerous energy barrier. If given enough time, Hwang Chae-Il knew he could pierce it, but…

“There is no time.” Hwang Chae-Il said to the group. He was right. The barrier had already surrounded them, and their sync to their master was gone. It meant that their enemies were in the early stages of their infiltration process.

Hwang Chae-Il watched the monitors, which were filled with static. The barrier had temporarily paralyzed the Sephiroth Tree. Unfortunately, this meant that they couldn’t locate their enemy.

Hwang Chae-Il quickly decided, "We must gather all our forces to the Sephiroth Tree to protect it and evacuate the non-players.”

In this situation, they needed to combine forces. Acting alone could bring them further danger.

“Miss El, could you take care of this task?” Hwang Chae-Il requested.

“Of course.” El quickly left the room, followed by three angels. Their job was to evacuate the players and their families who were here because they trusted Gi-Gyu to protect them. Many already lived inside Brunheart’s gate, but because it was difficult to move back and forth between the gate and the outside world, there were still quite a few non-players living inside Eden.

Hwang Chae-Il continued to assess the situation and ordered, “A fight between our undead and the enemy forces must be avoided at all costs.”

Normally, Eden’s undead, as the name suggested, returned after death. This was how Eden’s undead army was maintained and developed. But now that their sync to Gi-Gyu was gone, there was no way of knowing what would happen.

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Hwang Chae-Il acted as if he had anticipated this. He organized everything expertly.

“He’s pretty good.” Soo-Jung seemed impressed by Hwang Chae-Il. “What should we do then?”

So far, Hwang Chae-Il had given jobs to Eden’s foot soldiers and Gi-Gyu’s creatures. But they weren't the only beings inside Eden. There were also Soo-Jung, Baal, Choi Chang-Yong, and several other players who had decided to become Gi-Gyu’s allies.

Dun dun dun dun dun!

Eden shook as if there was an earthquake. It seemed their enemy was finally making its move.

“Will you fight them for us?” asked Hwang Chae-Il.

No one was speaking of it out loud, but everyone could feel it. The severed sync had weakened all the Egos because they shared their powers through their special connection. Now that they were all on their own, they couldn’t fight like before.

This alone would put them at a great disadvantage.

“Of course. Don’t you guys agree?” Soo-Jung smiled beautifully.

Choi Chang-Yong answered first as he unsheathed his sword. “Fine, I’ll go get ready.”

“Hmm…” When Choi Chang-Yong and the other players left, Soo-Jung tilted her head. She no longer had the enthusiastic and confident look she had a moment ago.

Turning toward Hwang Chae-Il, she asked, “Give me a rundown of our forces.”

Hwang Chae-Il, who had been working apace to reboot the Sephiroth Tree, paused.

He didn’t say a word, and Old Man Hwang kept quiet as well.

Even though she wasn’t given an answer, she nodded. “That’s enough.”

After she left the room, she turned around toward Baal.

“Did you feel that?” Baal asked her. He looked agitated. Baal had to return to the control tower, while Soo-Jung planned on joining the fight. After all, no one here was better at dealing with sorcerous energy than Baal, so he had to deal with the sorcerous energy barrier.

“Are you serious? How can you ask me that? Everyone pretended not to notice, but I’m sure they all felt it,” Soo-Jung replied nonchalantly. “This will be dangerous. Baal, you just need to focus on breaking this barrier for now. I’m certain my pupil isn’t just sitting around while all this is happening. If he could, he would have been here by now. I’m guessing he has a problem of his own.”

Soo-Jung turned around and walked away. Watching her leave, Baal noticed that her hands were shaking.

And…

Baal realized that his hands were trembling as well.