847 Episode 45 Ten Evils (5)

A nicely stuffed head. The moment I saw her clean face that had been 'Preserved', I sighed.

"You were here, Kim Anna-ssi."

I originally didn't like Anna Croft that much. Maybe it was because I’m also a fragment of Kim Dokja, or maybe it was because I didn't feel attached to her while writing the main story. In any case, she was Yoo Joonghyuk's enemy.

However, while this 'side story' was going on, I got to see her a little bit again.

What am I thinking?

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I don't hate Anna Croft that much anymore.

"Kim Anna?"

When Yoo Joonghyuk hardened his expression and expressed his doubts, I smiled and answered.

"Oh, I’m late to tell you. There's someone else who entered the 'Time Fault' besides you and me."

"No way..."

"That's why I think I should use [Deceased Summoning]. If I delay any longer, this guy might really become a Disaster-level Fear somewhere."

"Are you out of your mind? You brought that woman into the Fear Realm?"

As expected, Yoo Joonghyuk objected.

That would make sense. The guy was stabbed in the back by Anna, tortured, dragged around as a slave, and suffered many other terrible things.

But.

I often think about that these days.

If someone like Kim Anna did that to him... In fact, wasn't Yoo Joonghyuk too naive or stupid?

"You want to ask if I'm in my right mind. Are we being picky right now? Have you forgotten who our enemy is?"

"..."

"When you're receiving help from the Ten Evils, what difference would it make if you side with a Prophet who hit you in the back of the head?"

A faint sense of bewilderment crossed Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes.

"If we want to see the end in the 41st Round anyway, we have to join hands with Anna."

"..."

"We need her help. With her, we can explore the path ahead even without the map inside the ark."

If we could just use the Prophet's [Past Sight] and [Future Sight], the difficulty of the future scenarios would be twice as easy. Of course, even if it were twice as easy, the clear probability would only increase from 1% to 2%, but that's still an increase.

Yoo Joonghyuk glared at me for a moment, then looked around with a fierce gaze.

"So you're saying that the woman's soul is somewhere here?"

"That's what I think."

Kim Anna is not stupid. If she can use [Future Sight], she would likely be using a special method like Yoo Joonghyuk to delay the possession.

"Are you going to take the Prophet's head?"

Common sense tells me that's right. [Deceased Summoning] takes thirty minutes, and the Blood Demon will wake up in about ten minutes. And he will come to this warehouse to make me a zombie.

Nevertheless, I persisted.

"No, I have to revive her here. If we hurry a little, it will be possible in twenty minutes."

"The Blood Demon will be here soon. It will be too late even if we leave with the head right now."

"Actually, it is already too late."

"What?"

I pointed to the entrance of the warehouse.

When did it start? The trap that Lee Dansu had released was reactivated, emitting a bright light. And it was much more powerful than before.

Lee Dansu groaned in surprise.

"Oh my. It's the Gimun Formation."

Gimun Formation. The secret technique used by the best martial artist in Joseon in the main story. It seemed that the Blood Demon, a martial artist, had laid a fairly classic trap to defend the warehouse.

"It was strange that the warehouse was opened so easily in the first place."

"Damn, no way."

"Did you think the Blood Demon would just hand over his treasures?"

Even if the Blood Demon lived to atone for his sister, his entire past is a past of evil.

He committed countless murders, piled up evil deeds, and repeatedly plundered in order to meet his sister again.

No matter how much you persuaded him, he would not just hand over the items he had collected with his eyes fixed on regressing.

Yoo Joonghyuk, who was carefully examining the formation, said.

"We can break through it with force. However, it will take about twenty or thirty minutes to open. The formation level is quite high."

Then the Ten Evils stood up.

"If we strike together, wouldn’t it be a little faster?"

"Everyone join in. We have to break it down right away."

"In a closed space, 'disappearing' is impossible—"

I said in a cheerful voice as I watched the Ten Evils tremble with anxiety.

"What are you all talking about? It's better. It means it's safer until that opens. Let's all rest comfortably here and start [Deceased Summoning]. Ye Hyunwoo-ssi, can you take out the Prophet's head?"

Then the Ten Evils looked at me as if I was crazy. Then, all of the Ten Evils' eyes turned to Yoo Joonghyuk. They looked as if they expected Yoo Joonghyuk to swing his spear and cut off my head at any moment. When Yoo Joonghyuk actually grabbed the spear of the Hwangcheon-wolguk, Kyung Sein gulped.

However, Yoo Joonghyuk stuck the spear in the ground and sat cross-legged on the floor.

"Revive Anna Croft."

A sigh escaped from the Ten Evils' mouths.

Yoo Joonghyuk's voice echoed in the warehouse that had become even more lonely.

"I will not dismantle the Gimun formation. It would be better to save my strength then open the door and deal with the guys coming down."

When Yoo Joonghyuk came out like that, the Ten Evils lost their momentum.

Well, it was the decision of the Supreme King, so who would dare to refuse?

Ye Hyunwoo reluctantly jumped into the air and came down with Anna's head.

"If everyone dies here, it's because of you."

"Aren't you all dead anyway except me?"

I received Anna's head.

The head was surprisingly well preserved, so there would be no problem performing [Deceased Summoning] right away.

"Hmm, is there a body that she can connect to?"

It seemed that the Blood Demon also knew Anna Croft's worth, as her body was also completely preserved.

Maybe he was thinking of making me an undead and using [Deceased Summoning] on Anna.

"Now, it's time to get up. Miss Kim Anna."

A moment later, a faint light appeared from Anna Croft's entire body, where her neck and torso were connected.

Yoo Joonghyuk muttered while watching the scene.

"Why do you call the Prophet by that name?"

"Isn't it friendly and nice?"

"It's better to keep your distance from the Prophet."

"Is that a lesson learned from your regressions?"

"…"

"You seem to believe that people don't change."

Yoo Joonghyuk's core values ​​were all formed in his 'early regressions'. The principle that some should be accepted as colleagues and some should not be.

In fact, Yoo Joonghyuk's core colleagues barely changed during his thousand-plus regressions in 'Ways of Survival'.

"But if you're sure that nothing changes, your regressions would be meaningless."

Yoo Joonghyuk frowned.

"If you have time to talk nonsense, it would be better to shorten the summoning time by even one minute."

"Yes. There are 15 minutes left."

"What are we going to do after the Prophet wakes up?"

"We should escape together."

"By then, we would have already been surrounded by the Blood Demon's subordinates. No matter how great the Prophet's abilities are, it would be difficult to find a way out of the closed room. Her [Future Sight] is a much more effective skill in open spaces."

I was a little surprised because I didn't know Yoo Joonghyuk would say such an accurate thing.

Wasn't he foolish enough to get taken advantage of by Kim Anna?

Then, was Yoo Joonghyuk really naive?

"You're right. But the Blood Demon won't be able to get down here in time. Seoul Station would have become a battlefield by now."

As soon as my question fell, a loud thud echoed. A loud noise echoed from the upper and lower floors at the same time.

Kang Ilhun jumped up from his seat.

"This."

Just before he came here, Kang Ilhun spread a 'rumor' at my command.

"Evil Sophist, did you really expect this?"

Another thud. There was a sound of something being torn and an eerie crash.

The Ten Evils rose from their seats one by one and grabbed their weapons.

An eerie current felt beyond the iron gate.

Everyone here could feel it. A powerful and distant force felt even beyond that Gimun formation.

Yoo Joonghyuk, who was holding onto the spear of the Hwangcheon-wolguk, growled.

"The Constellations have come."

The Blood Demon, who had woken up, touched his face. His cheeks were damp. He could no longer remember when he had last felt this way.

The 30 minutes were short. It was a fleeting dream. A dream with a predetermined ending. In that dream, instead of existing as the Blood Demon, he became the younger version of Yeom Baekho.

Yeom Baekho, who was carrying out the First Scenario. Yeom Baekho, who was conflicted about his younger sister in front of him.

Cheon Inho's dumplings reenacted that moment of 'choice' for him once again.

This time, he wanted to show that he could make a different choice. Even if all of this was an illusion, he wanted to prove that he was a human being who could make a different choice.

He wanted to say that the Ten Evils weren't the Ten Evils from the beginning. Cheon Inho's words were wrong.

However, what he actually said in the dream was just a plain apology, just as Cheon Inho had expected.

It was a story with a predetermined ending. Crying was useless. The items he had desperately collected and the skills he had trained didn't work in the dream.

In it, he was just a helpless child. A kid who had to kill his younger sister to live.

Wasn't it his own despicable self-hypnosis that had fallen for the sophistry of the Evil Sophist?

That was the end of the dream.

As Cheon Inho had said, he was not forgiven, and perhaps he would never be forgiven.

And all that was left for him was the sweet scent of dumplings lingering on the tip of his nose.

"You damn bastard."

The Blood Demon slowly got up from his seat. The promised 30 minutes had passed. Now it was time to go kill that bastard.

But.

Kukukukukuku.

There were those who had attacked his Seoul Station.

A colorful feast of ranks appeared beyond the collapsed ceiling.

A presence that makes even the weak kneel just with the appearance message.

One of the 12 gods of <Olympus>.

Athena, the successor of Zeus, was there.

That wasn't all.

Apollo, Artemis, and even Dionysus. Four of the 12 gods of <Olympus> descended.

Athena spoke in a voice filled with a sense of oppression that no living being dared to open their mouths.

The Blood Demon gritted his teeth and answered.

"Where did you hear such a rumor?"

It seemed that he had a rough idea of ​​how the situation was going. That damned Sophist was up to something else.

"…"

A brilliant light spread across Athena’s body. The radiance of justice that punishes all evildoers.

The Blood Demon’s face darkened.

Four of the twelve gods of <Olympus> had come, so even the leader of Murim, not just the Blood Demon, had to open the door.

But instead of opening the door, the Blood Demon glared at the hole in the ceiling.

"Kuhaha, kuahahaha…!"

And went wild.

Before Athena could even open her mouth, the Blood Demon asked in a maddened voice.

"Contract? You mean the contract where I collect the leftovers you eat? Yes. If that’s a contract, then it’s a contract."

"You broke the contract first. Have you forgotten your 'promise not to enter the underground?'"

"An exception. Then I will treat this as an 'exception' this time."

A strange current began to surge through the Blood Demon's body.

He knew well the power of the narrative-grade Constellations. However, he had not come to the 'Final Scenario' simply by luck.

"Damn Constellations."

He would not have done this under normal circumstances.

He knew that this was a clever trap set by the damned Evil Sophist.

Even so, the Blood Demon could not suppress the emotions that were suddenly welling up.

Perhaps this anger was caused by meeting his dead sister.

What has he become now that he has inherited that dream? Slowly opening his eyes, the Blood Demon's eyes were filled with deep, pitch-black darkness.

"Do you know why the world calls me the 'King of the Underground City'?"

Although he had never directly confronted a Giant Nebula, the Blood Demon had also been building up his strength to deal with the Constellations. After dismantling the dying Constellations and studying them, he reached a single understanding.

That was that the Constellations could not be defeated in that night sky.

That understanding soon became his story.

The darkness flowing from the Blood Demon spread like ink and filled the area in an instant. In the thick darkness, the power that the Constellations were emitting began to rapidly decline. Athena screamed in confusion.

And after a while.

The skeletons who had bowed their heads in front of the Constellations began to rise one by one and open their bright yellow eyes. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of eyes glared at the Constellations in the darkness.

"At least the most dignified beings in this underground city."

Beings who were thrown into the scenario by the Constellations' play and died miserably. Those who hated the Constellations more than anyone else—the deceaseds who returned from beyond death.

The King of the Deceaseds, who held his sword at the front of them, smiled and said.

"It's not a Constellation."

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