Chapter 47. Madness 100 (2)
Delaira collapsed at Jooheon’s words.
“No...”
“The Twelve Executors...”
“I was supposed to take one of those seats...!”
She muttered like she had lost her mind.
Jooheon narrowed his eyes at the phrase.
“You know anything about my daughter?”
“My daughter?”
“I don’t know...!”
“That’s something only the Executors would know...”
Jooheon casually looked down at the Majesty Heart in his hand, then at the two rings he had torn from Delaira’s neck.
Persephone.
Demeter.
Then he lightly shook Hades’s staff.
The black energy pressing down on the earth receded like the tide.
[Hades Territory (Underworld Transformation) deactivated.]
The heavy darkness covering the city lifted.
What remained underneath was devastating.
Delaira’s plague facilities had been dismantled by Jooheon and reduced to piles of scrap.
The land had lost its vitality and dried into brittle soil.
“Good.”
Jooheon looked around.
“Time for repairs.”
He slipped the <Ring of Demeter> he had stolen from Delaira onto his finger.
A message appeared immediately.
[Contract established with Divine-Grade Artifact ‘Demeter,’ whose owner has been lost.]
[Warning: Demeter Artifact is currently locked in ‘Winter Mode.’]
[Persephone’s Artifact is required to activate ‘Summer Mode.’]
Jooheon chuckled and held up Persephone’s Artifact in his other hand.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Right here.”
[Artifact Resonance: Demeter × Persephone.]
[‘Eternal Summer’ activated!]
The instant the message appeared, dazzling golden and silver waves crossed beneath Jooheon’s feet and spread throughout the city.
Life rushed back into the dead earth.
Green vines sprouted over the rubble of collapsed buildings, lifting bricks and rebuilding walls.
The withered roadside trees burst into enormous leaves as though decades of growth had happened overnight.
The land where Delaira had once cultivated poison and disease...
Was being rebuilt into one of the most fertile paradises imaginable.
“Ah...”
“Ahhh...”
Delaira lay on the ground, moaning as though she had gone insane.
For decades, she had watched Betrayne’s every move.
She had infected tens of thousands.
Gathered essence.
Worked endlessly.
And still had never reached this level.
[Summer Mode: Bloom of All Things.]
Jooheon had manifested perfect abundance in only a few seconds.
As though denying Delaira’s entire life.
“No...”
“That isn’t my flower...”
“That isn’t the world I made!”
“Of course not.”
Jooheon looked down at her.
“I used yours as rotten fertilizer.”
He smiled.
“Your overdue rent is settled now.”
“So move out.”
“A-Aaaaaah!”
Delaira screamed as she watched the world she had painstakingly built become Seo Jooheon’s personal garden.
Her Authority.
Her honor.
Her future.
Everything had been stolen from her.
Jooheon stood among the blooming flowers with Hades’s staff planted beside him.
Then he saw Majesty Yoo Jaeha and Cynthia running toward them.
He smiled wickedly.
“Cleanup’s finished.”
He jerked his chin toward Delaira.
“The recyclable item is a little large, but just dispose of it somehow.”
Cynthia stared down at a flower petal that landed on her palm.
She looked stunned.
“This...”
“Is this really my city?”
Jooheon pointed at Delaira.
“Yeah.”
“Your city.”
“And that’s your garbage.”
Majesty Jaeha, however, was shocked for an entirely different reason.
“Hey, rookie.”
“What the hell did you pull out?”
“Isn’t that a heart?”
His eyes were fixed on the object in Jooheon’s hand.
Jooheon remained perfectly calm.
“Oh.”
“It just came out somehow.”
Somehow?
What kind of nonsense was that?
But something else was even more shocking.
“...You pulled out her heart and she’s still alive?”
Jaeha looked toward Delaira, who was gagging and trembling on the ground.
Although if she can’t use Artifacts anymore, she might as well be dead...
Jooheon casually said:
“Maybe a Majesty Heart isn’t a physical organ that kills you the moment it’s removed?”
“Are you joking?”
Jaeha stared at him.
“You die if it gets pulled out.”
“If you didn’t, why the hell would I have put that sucker in as your substitute?”
So this was something only Jooheon could do.
Delaira desperately clung to him.
“Give it back...!”
“Give it to me!”
“The Twelve Executors...”
“My seat was already promised!”
“They said they’d make me one of the Executors!”
Jooheon raised an eyebrow and gestured for Rope to tie her up.
“You’ve been saying ‘Twelve Executors’ over and over.”
He looked at Jaeha.
“Are they strong?”
The familiar title instantly hardened Majesty Jaeha’s expression.
He clearly didn’t want to talk about them.
But—
“Disgustingly strong.”
“They’re monsters who manipulate other Majesties like toys.”
Jooheon scoffed.
“Can’t be that impressive.”
“No.”
Jaeha frowned.
“Every one of them possesses a Chief God-level Artifact.”
“They’re a group made entirely of irregular monsters, even by Majesty standards.”
Jooheon’s eyes lit up.
“Oh?”
“There are twelve bastards carrying Chief God-level Artifacts?”
He grinned.
“Sounds worth robbing.”
Madness gleamed in his eyes.
Jaeha stared at him in horror.
“Hey!”
“This isn’t ‘worth robbing’!”
“You’re going to lose your life!”
“What about Betrayne?”
Jooheon’s voice suddenly turned cold.
It was obvious he was still furious about hearing that Betrayne had taken his daughter to turn her into an Artifact.
Cynthia answered instead.
“He didn’t just design this city.”
“He designed and built cities across countless worldlines.”
At last, the scattered information inside Jooheon’s mind connected into one line.
Betrayne had designed this city.
