Chapter 189
Meanwhile, at that same time...
Blood stained the grass in every direction.
Broken weapons lay scattered across the ground, their blades snapped apart.
But weapons weren't the only things strewn about.
Arms.
Legs.
Other pieces of bodies...
Scattered like shattered fragments.
Even severed heads with lifeless eyes like rotten fish.
The sight was nothing short of horrific.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrrrape.
At the center of it all...
A dark-skinned man crawled across the ground while clutching the stump of his brutally severed arm.
His breathing was ragged.
His vivid orange eyes gradually lost focus.
It was Heimdall.
"Cough...."
"H-How did you get here so quickly...?"
He struggled to steady himself beneath the shadow of a tree.
Then looked up.
Standing before him...
Her entire body covered in blood...
Was Kim Mihyeon.
Krk. Krk.
Behind her...
Tentacles dripped sticky acidic slime.
They writhed like beasts salivating at the sight of prey.
Mihyeon wiped the blood from her face with the back of her hand.
Her emotionless eyes looked down at him.
Heimdall coughed up dark blood and examined his condition.
Even through his fading vision...
He could clearly see the cross-section of his severed arm.
His right ankle hadn't been completely cut through either.
It hung loosely from his leg.
It was the worst possible situation.
No matter how hard he tried to heal himself...
Even if he attempted only basic first aid...
Nothing had worked since being struck by those tentacles.
His Rank kept leaking away like water from a broken jar.
He couldn't use it properly at all.
"...I never imagined you'd slaughter those two so brutally...."
"Cough, cough...."
"You must've reached this place through that rift you cut open in the air...."
But even as Heimdall slowly died...
That wasn't what he found most unbelievable.
"How..."
"How can you use Loki's transformation magic...?"
He replayed what had happened moments earlier.
She had appeared out of nowhere in an instant.
But her appearance...
Had unmistakably been Thor's.
That was why Heimdall had lowered his guard.
The other two Constellations had done the same.
The moment they'd been startled by the appearance of what they thought was Thor...
Those tentacles had struck them.
"Huff... huff...."
"Those tentacles..."
"So you've been absorbing the Rank of other Constellations with them...."
"Don't tell me you've even taken their abilities──"
CRUNCH!
Mihyeon said nothing.
A tentacle crushed Heimdall's throat.
Then...
It began devouring his corpse.
Soon...
Only unrecognizable chunks of flesh remained beneath the shadowed tree.
"..."
Mihyeon turned around.
As though sensing someone's presence...
She closed her eyes briefly.
Then fixed her gaze in one direction.
And whispered,
"Lee Suhyeok...."
...What?
Suhyeok couldn't hide his surprise.
System had just said it would build a new Tower here in the Underworld...
While Hades kept Suhyeok occupied.
Is that even possible?
Suhyeok already had a rough understanding of System's plan.
It wanted to regain control over the Tower...
Then use that authority to create its own ideal world.
To do that...
Suhyeok had assumed System's final goal was to recover the Rank it had lost after being defeated by the Tower in the past...
Weaken the Tower...
Then consume it.
But now...
System was talking about creating an entirely new Tower.
And in the Underworld of all places.
That shouldn't have been possible.
Hades clearly shared the same doubts.
The shock was obvious on his face.
"...What are you talking about?"
"Build a new Tower in the Underworld...?"
"Even if such a thing were possible..."
"Can you truly create a Tower in such a short amount of time?"
He was right.
The events Suhyeok was watching through Simulation had happened only yesterday.
Even if System began preparations immediately...
Building an entire Tower should have been impossible.
And even if it could be done...
There shouldn't have been enough time.
For a moment...
Suhyeok wondered if System intended to use the Rank Mihyeon was gathering.
But even if all of it were combined...
Creating a new Tower still seemed nearly impossible.
System merely shrugged.
As though it were nothing difficult.
"It's simple."
"As you already know..."
"The Underworld is a very special place even within the Tower."
"Just like any other floor..."
"It's recognized as an independent world."
System smiled.
"But there's one difference."
"Unlike every other floor..."
"The Tower doesn't possess governing authority over the Underworld."
"Not even the Heavenly Realm has that privilege."
Suhyeok immediately examined the Underworld more closely.
And indeed...
It felt different from the Heavenly Realm he'd seen before.
On the 10th floor...
Other Safe Zones...
And even the Heavenly Realm...
There had always been some mysterious current of Rank flowing through the world.
But here...
That flow was absent.
Instead...
A massive membrane-like energy covered the entire Underworld.
It felt strangely familiar.
That is....
Suhyeok instinctively realized it.
The fundamental nature of the power forming the Underworld...
Was identical to the energy contained within the Apostle's Final Authority.
Hades answered coldly.
As though he'd already known that fact.
"...I'm impressed you found out."
"Of course I did."
System smiled.
"That's what you gained when you betrayed the Primordial God."
"How could I not know?"
In the Primordial God's memories...
Hades had indeed been among the Constellations who betrayed him.
Suhyeok didn't know why he'd done it.
But...
It probably wasn't much different from now.
To protect the Underworld.
To protect those who followed him.
Maybe his guilt is connected to this too.
Betraying the Primordial God.
Handing Kim Mihyeon and Lee Seha's souls to System.
It was all part of a repeated chain of betrayal.
If Hades's weakness truly was guilt over what he'd done in the past...
