Chapter 448

An absolute void where even the concepts of light, sound, and direction were completely castrated.

The entrance to the Sea of Destruction where even the system's vision and protective barrier were abruptly cut off.

As he stepped inside, a terrible pressure crushed his entire body, as if the entire universe was trying to scrub away the foreign substance named Kim Minwoo from the atomic level.

The chill digging into his lungs was like the breath of death freezing his soul.

The sea of void where all five senses were completely blocked.

However, in front of Kim Minwoo, who harbored the status of a Higher God, this darkness had no meaning at all.

Over the pitch-black empty air without a single ray of light, the blood-red magic silver threads draped in layers were revealed as blatantly as thick ropes hung in broad daylight.

The apostle of the Outer God, the Shadow Spider Hadronox, who had once injected deadly poison into the corpse of the Abyssal Lord to use it as a puppet. It was definitely the work of that cunning spider.

It had remodeled the entire entrance into a massive cobweb trap to chew up and swallow all the uninvited guests who would come looking for the legacy of the Sea of Destruction.

If a normal transcendent or ranker had unknowingly stepped foot inside, their entire body would have been chopped into a lump of meat by tens of thousands of layers of magic silver threads in a split second.

Wiiiiing...!

The magic power neural network carved into Kim Minwoo's forearm emitted a deep blue light.

A perfect synchronization without the slightest delay.

The quantum computational power of the mothership Mary waiting beyond the dimension projected the 3D topographical blueprint of the Sea of Destruction onto Kim Minwoo's retina in real-time.

The coordinates of the cobweb's core knots were plugged straight into the minds of the four Legion Commanders and thirty elite Dragon Tooth Soldiers lined up behind him.

'Vulcan, Merhen. Smash both core knots to pieces.'

[Keuhahahak! It is the Lord's command! Burn them all!]

[Yeah Minwoo. I will freeze them solid.]

Kwaaaaaaang...!

The moment the Grand Duke Amon-class black flame spewed from Vulcan's hands swallowed the cobweb's right core node whole.

On the opposite side, the absolute zero cold combining Merhen's Ice Domain and heavenly word forcibly froze the left node.

A ruinous hellfire fluctuating around tens of thousands of degrees Celsius.

And a cryogenic cold that stopped even molecular activity.

The two conflicting powers clashed in a split second.

As rapid thermal expansion and ultra-high-speed cooling repeated beyond physical limits, the blood-red cobwebs lost their tautness and began to spew bizarre rupturing sounds.

Pajik! Pajijik!

Kwagagagang...!

Eventually, the balance of magic power supporting the trap was smashed.

The cobwebs, triggering chain explosions while crumbling on their own, flowed backward and poured down mercilessly over the heads of the guys craftily ambushing in the darkness of the Sea of Destruction.

"Kieeeek?!"

In the darkness where the trap was forcibly demolished, formless shadow spiders, the direct creations of Hadronox, and terribly twisted hybrid monsters poured out from all directions screaming in panic.

The stealthy trap laid to capture prey had conversely been used against them as a massive booby trap that smashed their own ambush and swept up the remnants.

"Let's clean up."

Cheolkeok! Cheolgeureok!

As soon as Kim Minwoo's dry command fell, the thirty elite Cyber Dragon Tooth Soldiers lined up behind him simultaneously changed their forms, activating their innate trait, the formless skeleton.

As their joints reassembled in real-time, creepy rupturing sounds filled the Sea of Destruction.

"Kyaaaak!"

Thousands of shadow spiders that barely survived the trap explosion surged forward, flashing their hideous fangs.

The heavy leg strikes of the spiders, pressing and compressing space, poured down like heavy rain.

However, the dozen or so Dragon Tooth Soldiers that shot forward as the vanguard switched in real-time into heavy infantry holding heavy tower shields, perfectly deflecting the pressure of that ignorant mass down the slopes of their shields.

Kkang!

Jjeojeojeok!

Kang!

As the spiders' front legs slipped on the shield surfaces, their postures collapsed ungracefully.

That perfect split-second opening.

The Dragon Tooth Soldier assassination squad that had seeped into the shadows surged out like smoke.

For them, who shared the transcendent authority of the Blood Duke Olivia, there was no sound, no presence, and not even murderous intent.

Seugeok...!

Puk! Kwajik!

The Dragon Emperor daggers accurately gouged into the shadow spiders' vital points.

Ignoring the hard outer shells that could chew up even steel, they picked out only the guys' spines and magic power cores, pulverizing them as if slicing tofu.

The hybrid monsters were helplessly sliced down like a wheat field being harvested, in front of the perfect cogwheel coordination of the Dragon Tooth Soldiers who ignored physical limits and swapped classes in real-time.

Kim Minwoo leisurely admired the one-sided slaughterhouse with his hands behind his back and Hell Rhapsody resting on his shoulder.

'Are there any monsters worth using the stigma on?' The Ring of the Death Lord.

One of its abilities was exactly the Stigma of Death that could only be used three times a month.

A fraudulent authority that extorts a portion of the target's stats whole and makes them his own.

The shadow spiders being slaughtered before his eyes right now were by no means weak. If dragged to Earth's standard, each and every one was a monster worthy of coming out of an SS-rank gate.

But even so, mobs are mobs.

Embedding a precious stigma into this swarm of minnows was an obvious waste. And the cooldown from the previous use hadn't even fully refreshed yet.

'If possible, I'd like to pick a somewhat heavy guy to embed it into.'

Amidst the overwhelming and violent show of force of the Death Legion, the ambush squad of the Sea of Destruction was slaughtered without a trace in a mere 5 minutes.

"Let's go."

Leaving the pitch-black spider corpses strewn on the floor behind, the party took deep steps toward the true entrance of the Sea of Destruction where the trap was cleared.

Seuseuseuseu...

After the cleaning operation ended and the trap was cleanly cleared away, the party finally stepped foot into the true interior of the Sea of Destruction.

One step.

Another step.

With every footprint they took, the density of the air changed.

No, it felt like the thing called air itself was gradually disappearing.

A weightless sinking where they couldn't even tell if the soles of their feet were stepping on the floor or the empty air.

At first, it was up to the ankles.

Then the knees.

And the waist.

That deafening pressure trying to erase their very existence became increasingly heavier like rising water the deeper they went.

A faintness that felt like their egos would be torn into tens of thousands of pieces and evaporate crushed their shoulders.

Beyond that, an invisible hand persistently clung to them, trying to unravel their souls strand by strand.

[Keueuk... Master. This is a bit more than I thought...]

The shoulders of Vulcan, who was walking wrapped in black flame at the vanguard, trembled minutely. Even a guy with the status of Grand Duke Amon was clenching his molars.

[Minwoo. Merhen is also a bit... heavy.]

Even Merhen's Ice Domain wavered much blurrier than usual. The absolute zero cold was slowly being encroached upon by the void of the Sea of Destruction.

'Hold on.'

Light wrinkles formed on Kim Minwoo's forehead.

Uuuung...

The divine power drawn up from the status of a Higher God spread from Kim Minwoo's entire body like a calm ripple.

Invisible strands extended to the four Legion Commanders and thirty Dragon Tooth Soldiers respectively, supporting their existences.

A process of painting over the outlines of their floating egos layer by layer and tying them back down.

The trembling of the Legion Commanders died down.

However, the breathing of Kim Minwoo himself became much heavier.

"......This is much tougher than I thought."

Kim Minwoo narrowed his brow.

If it were a normal awakened or high-ranker, it was obvious that the moment they stepped foot inside, their brains would have burst and they would have lost their egos, becoming eternal lumps of meat or vegetables.

It was then.

Jiiiiiing...!

Riding the magic power neural network connected from beyond the dimension, the mothership Mary's dry voice echoed in his mind.

[Identified the fatal cognitive load applied to the Captain's soul. Mobilizing Megacorp's quantum AI cores capable of handling hundreds of billions of traffic volumes to full capacity to activate the ego protection protocol.]

At that moment, the noise of the void trying to scatter his ego began to cleanly disperse and be filtered in real-time.

Thanks to Mary's measures, the terrible pressure crushing his entire body faded significantly.

"Kkuuuu!"

Moreover, a reliable air purifier was sitting on his shoulder.

The Divine Beast Hayangi, boasting infinite appetite, bristled its downy feathers and opened its beak wide toward the aura of the Sea of Destruction wrapping around it. The guy's chaos attribute nibbled away at the pressure of the void crushing the surroundings like a vacuum cleaner, maintaining the radius around Kim Minwoo as a perfect safe zone.

Kim Minwoo lightly tapped Hayangi's beak with a tuk and smiled with a pishik.

However, there is naturally a limit to the quantum core's calculations and Hayangi's appetite. If the void prolonged, getting eaten away eventually was a matter of time.

"This is not a place to stay for long. Let's find it quickly and leave."

There was no need to wander in this pitch-black darkness to find the way.

As if by an instinctive attraction, the relics he was wearing on his body began to fluctuate.

Wiiiiing...!

The crown, heart, ring, and belt simultaneously spewed red light and pulsated violently. It was a clear resonance phenomenon where the legacies were calling out to their lost half.

"Over there."

Gripping Hell Rhapsody, Kim Minwoo crossed the darkness following the resonating waves.

How long had he walked.

In the middle of the perfectly void floor, two thick waves emitting a faint light finally entered Kim Minwoo's vision.

A black pearl swirling brilliantly as if harboring a galaxy. And right next to it, quietly laid to rest, was a pitch-black metal gauntlet engraved with a geometric bone pattern.

'One must be the pearl, the potential unsealing material...'

The legacy of the Death Lord seemed to be the glove.

"Finally found it. A double jackpot."

A deep sense of satisfaction spread across Kim Minwoo's mouth.

It was the very moment he reached out pleasantly, about to snatch the two jackpots at once.

Kugugugugugung...!

The entire floor of the Sea of Destruction, which had been dominated by perfect silence, began to twist bizarrely as if a massive continent was uplifting. In the lightless darkness, an overwhelming mass that seemed like a house-sized massive rocky mountain surging up whole solidly blocked Kim Minwoo's front.

"......Uh?"

Seureureung.

In the pitch-black darkness, a whopping twelve massive blood-red pupils simultaneously flashed open.

A primordial abyssal beast that had evolved while enduring eons in the void where even light and sound were perfectly castrated.

It was a massive predator without even a fixed form, possessing tens of thousands of tentacles and bizarrely torn maws tangled morbidly, swelling its size by swallowing the darkness of the Sea of Destruction itself.

The true master growing wildly at the bottom of the Sea of Destruction, compared to whom the Abyssal Lord he had hunted near the Inner Sea in the past wouldn't even dare to present its business card, finally revealed its terrible form.

[Keureureureureu...]

Even in the Sea of Destruction where the five senses were blocked, that creepy roar vibrated hideously, directly pounding the soul without passing through the eardrums.

The monster that perfectly blocked the party's path like a massive gatekeeper protecting the pearl and the legacy.

"Is that the gatekeeper protecting the legacy?"

It was just the right timing to use the stigma.

This is great.

Kim Minwoo's mouth corners curled up loosely.