Chapter 162
Suhyeok couldn't keep his expression completely under control.
Even though Ruzian had warned him about it before...
Hearing it directly was still shocking.
Lee Seha had killed a Constellation.
Not just any Constellation either.
Loki.
A being of high Rank.
How the hell...?
Now that Suhyeok had become a Constellation himself, he could sense the Rank of other Constellations even from afar.
More precisely...
He could perceive their very existence.
And that was exactly why Lee Seha's words were so difficult to believe.
...He's definitely not lying about killing Loki.
Then why can I still sense Loki's Rank somewhere?
Suhyeok remained silent and considered every possibility.
Maybe Lee Seha was using the word kill in some unusual sense.
Maybe death meant something different to him.
...No.
That's not it.
Lie Detection isn't that unreliable.
Then Loki really was dead.
But if so...
How?
Of course, killing a Constellation wasn't completely impossible.
Suhyeok himself had extinguished Icarus in the Underworld.
And even aside from that...
The current Suhyeok was capable of killing Constellations if he truly wanted to.
The problem was what came after.
This wasn't simply about killing one Constellation.
Killing Loki meant provoking Asgard itself.
The moment Loki died...
A war unlike anything before would inevitably begin.
And the Tower would be devastated by the aftermath.
Naturally, Lee Seha should've become Asgard's first target.
They would hunt him until he died.
Why would he take that kind of risk just to kill Loki?
There has to be something else....
"Looks like you've got a lot on your mind."
Suhyeok flinched.
"I get it."
Lee Seha smiled as though he could see straight through him.
"You can feel it too, can't you?"
"You know Loki definitely exists somewhere..."
"But you also know I'm telling the truth when I say I killed him."
"That'd confuse anyone."
He tilted his head playfully.
"Then here's a question."
"How did I deal with the consequences after killing Loki?"
"No..."
"How am I standing here in front of you right now?"
"..."
"Hmm."
"You're as quiet as ever."
Lee Seha sighed dramatically.
"Fine."
"I'll just give you the answer."
He grinned.
"I guess you could call it..."
"Using one enemy to destroy another."
That was a simple strategy.
Instead of directly attacking your enemy...
You made your enemies fight each other until they destroyed themselves.
"Don't tell me...."
Only then did Suhyeok understand.
Lee Seha had redirected suspicion over Loki's death toward another faction.
"Asgard and Olympus."
Lee Seha's smile widened.
"A war between those two factions."
"Now here's another question."
"What happens to Paradise, caught in the middle?"
Suhyeok looked coldly at Lee Seha, who was waiting eagerly for his answer.
"Paradise won't be able to avoid the war either."
"Why?"
"Because you'll make sure of it."
Suhyeok's voice was flat.
"Constellations have no place in the Tower you and the System want to create."
"There's no reason you'd leave Paradise alone."
Lee Seha's pupils widened slightly.
Then...
"Kuh..."
"Kuhahahahaha!"
"As expected of Lee Suhyeok."
"Sharp as always."
He nodded enthusiastically.
"That's right."
"Of course I did the same thing to Paradise."
"Well, not exactly the same."
"I turned them into the common enemy."
A common enemy.
In other words...
Lee Seha had likely spread distorted information to each faction, making Paradise seem connected to Loki's death.
From Olympus's perspective...
Paradise would become the faction that framed them, while Asgard was already their enemy.
From Asgard's perspective...
Paradise would be an enemy that had secretly cooperated with Olympus to attack them.
"Haa..."
Lee Seha stretched his shoulders.
"Feels good finally saying all of this out loud."
"Keeping everything bottled up really doesn't suit me."
"Isn't this what martial artists call qi deviation or something?"
"Haha."
Then...
He suddenly slung an arm around Suhyeok's shoulders.
And started talking about old memories.
"Ah."
"Remember that?"
"Mihyeon used to bottle up all her worries too."
"She kept everything inside so much that we worried she'd seriously break down."
"So sometimes you and I would sit there and listen to her."
The subject had completely changed.
"Oh, what about this one?"
"Remember when Mihyeon got angry at you and told you to be nicer to everyone?"
"Man, you should've seen your own face back then."
"You looked so confused."
"Kukuk."
It was like looking at someone else.
No.
Like looking at the Lee Seha from before the regression.
...What is this?
Something about him felt subtly different.
There was a strange sense of wrongness.
Suhyeok remembered their previous encounter.
Back then...
Lee Seha had seemed like someone deliberately acting out emotions.
Now...
It was the exact opposite.
What had happened to him?
Suhyeok examined his Traits again.
[Trait Plunder is available for this target.]
[Trait - Lee Seha]
Devour (S)
Storm Sword (S)
Oath of the End (S)
Loki's Transformation (S)
There was one Trait he'd never seen before the regression.
And it hadn't existed even during their previous encounter.
Devour.
There was also Oath of the End.
[Condition: Kill the Dragon of the End.]
...Just as Ruzian said.
This is connected to the Dragon of the End.
It couldn't be a one-sided restriction.
It was likely a mutually agreed contract.
Lee Seha must've offered some condition of his own as well.
Most likely...
Borrowing the Dragon of the End's power.
The Oath of the End Trait was probably proof of that agreement.
Even so...
That didn't explain Lee Seha's current state.
Suhyeok still didn't know what exactly was bound within the oath.
But the oath itself didn't account for this personality shift.
Loki's Transformation proves he really did kill Loki and steal the Trait.
Then maybe Devour is what made that possible....
Suhyeok suddenly froze.
...Could Devour be the reason he's like this?
It wasn't impossible.
Unlike Trait Plunder, Devour came with a brutal condition.
Trait Plunder allowed Suhyeok to take Traits after meeting specific requirements.
Devour, however...
Required Lee Seha to kill the target...
And then directly consume the target's body.
And the one he devoured was Loki.
Maybe taking a Constellation's Trait through Devour caused something to leak into him.
Something that changed his personality.
Lee Seha had been talking nonstop.
Then he glanced at Suhyeok...
Removed his arm from Suhyeok's shoulders...
And stepped away.
