Chapter 308

Even while speaking with Hashim, Zeon had been carefully observing the awakened members of the Helbrin Mercenary Company with sharp eyes.

Among them, one person in particular had caught his attention—

Alton.

Though he tried to appear calm, in Zeon’s eyes he looked as tense as a sniper just before pulling the trigger.

The very moment Zeon focused on Alton, the explosion occurred.

And in that instant, Zeon realized it.

Alton was the one responsible for the explosion that had occurred when Zeon and Brielle entered the desert survivor village.

That was why Zeon eliminated him first.

In some ways, Alton was even more dangerous than Hashim.

“You bastard!”

“Die!”

The awakened ones, enraged by Alton’s death, attacked Zeon with murderous fury in their eyes.

These were men who had lived without fearing anything in the world, only to be cornered for the first time in their lives because of Zeon.

They had already been driven out across the desert, and when Zeon pursued them even into the sewers, they too had become desperate.

Even a cornered rat would bite a cat.

And these weren’t rats—

they were awakened ones.

Awakened ones tempered through hunting humans.

Especially butchers who were more skilled at killing people than anyone else.

And now those men were attacking Zeon in a frenzy.

The martial-type awakened ones engaged him in close combat, while the few magic-type awakened ones unleashed various offensive skills.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The collision between Zeon and the Helbrin Mercenary Company shook the underground sewers so violently it felt as though the entire place might collapse.

As expected from people who had fought together for a long time, the Helbrin Mercenary Company’s teamwork was impeccable.

The martial-type awakened ones attacked Zeon’s vital points simultaneously, making defense difficult through constant interference, while the magic-type awakened ones supported them with precise bombardments.

There were not many raiding parties even in Neo Seoul capable of coordinating attacks this precisely.

That was how astonishing their teamwork was.

Such movements could only be born from countless battles and experiences.

Many awakened ones had lost their lives to this combined assault.

Some of them had even been far higher-ranked than the Helbrin mercenaries themselves.

“He’s human too!”

“Fuck! We can kill him!”

“Uwooooh!”

The faces of the Helbrin attackers assaulting Zeon were filled with madness.

An ordinary person would have been terrified by the sight.

But Zeon’s reaction differed completely from what they expected.

“Tch.”

Zeon clicked his tongue, his eyes colder and heavier than ever before.

True madness was not something like this.

Openly displaying emotions and trying to intimidate others was nothing more than child’s play.

A cold mind.

Sharp reason.

Burning rage.

That was the true madness Zeon had mastered.

Srrrk!

A black subspace opened behind Zeon’s back.

The awakened members of the Helbrin Mercenary Company were startled by the massive amount of sand pouring out from it.

“What the hell?”

“Why is there sand…?”

GRAAAANG!

At that moment, the pile of sand gathered beneath Zeon’s feet began spinning at terrifying speed.

The fine grains of sand rotated violently, grinding away everything in their path.

The turbans on their heads and the deshadas draped over their bodies were the first to be shredded into powder and vanish.

Then their skin began to peel away.

“Fuck!”

“Kyaaaagh!”

The awakened ones screamed as their entire bodies were torn apart alive.

Even resisting with aura was useless.

Sand particles burrowed through torn flesh, ripping apart skin and muscle alike.

In an instant, a human body was dismantled and reduced into particles smaller than grains of sand before disappearing from the world.

“What… what is this…?”

Jetoya , who had arrived behind Zeon together with Brielle, widened his eyes in shock.

Naturally, there was not much sand in the underground sewers.

Sand washed down from the surface had accumulated here and there, but nowhere near enough to fill an entire living space like this.

He didn’t even have time to wonder where all the sand had suddenly come from.

Because a far more shocking sight was unfolding before his eyes.

The surface invaders who had massacred his crew were being ground apart by sand.

At this point, even the screams had nearly vanished.

Most of them had already had their vocal cords shredded.

“Aaaagh!”

“You demon bastard!”

A few awakened ones with exceptionally tough bodies and strong defenses broke through the sand and attempted a counterattack.

More than half of their armor had already been ground away, and even their exposed skin had nearly been flayed off, yet they endured the agony and swung their weapons.

But the miracle of their attacks reaching Zeon never happened.

Thunk!

Sand humans suddenly appeared before them and took the attacks instead.

“Fuck!”

“What is this?!”

For the awakened ones who had already exhausted most of their strength breaking through the Sand Mixer, the appearance of the Sand Soldiers was like a bolt from the blue.

The Sand Soldiers, taking the awakened ones’ attacks head-on, simply pushed forward.

“N-no!”

“Fuck!”

Overpowered by the Sand Soldiers’ brute strength, the awakened ones were shoved back into the Sand Mixer once more.

Waiting for them inside were ultra-high-speed rotating sand particles.

“Kyaaaagh!”

“S-save me…!”

The awakened ones were ground apart together with the Sand Soldiers.

Jetoya ’s body trembled violently as he watched the scene to the very end.

“W-what is this? Is that man controlling sand? How can a human possibly…?”

“That’s right! Zeon is a sand mage. The only sand mage in Neo Seoul—no, on all of Earth.”

“A sand mage?”

“Yeah! The ruler of sand. That’s who Zeon is.”

Brielle’s eyes were filled with pride as she looked at Zeon.

At first, she had formed a soul contract with Zeon simply to survive.

But now, she respected him more than anyone else.

Because she had watched his journey closer than anyone.

With power like his, he could easily dream of becoming the ruler of Neo Seoul—

yet Zeon possessed no ambition to reign over others.

Some people might say that someone with such immense power lacked responsibility.

But Brielle didn’t think so.

Because she understood better than anyone how difficult it was for someone with overwhelming power to continue living while maintaining balance.

Right before her eyes, people were being turned into bloody sand and disappearing—

yet Brielle felt not even the slightest sympathy.

She had personally witnessed the atrocities committed by the Helbrin Mercenary Company on the way here.

Above all, they were the ones who had kidnapped her.

Had it not been for them, Brielle’s life would never have changed so dramatically.

In the end, being rescued by Zeon had transformed her life for the better, but the memories of surviving in the sewers while making drugs still tormented her from time to time.

‘Human hunters like them disappearing would honestly make the world a better place.’

At that moment, the sand particles filling the underground space gradually dispersed.

Zeon was retrieving them back into his subspace.

Once he collected all the sand into the subspace, the hazy view became clear once more.

“Whoa…”

Jetoya  unconsciously let out a gasp of amazement.

The sight before him was too clean.

Just moments ago, the underground chamber had been filled with awakened members of the Helbrin Mercenary Company—

and now every single one of them was gone.

As though they had been erased from the world itself.

If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Jetoya  never would have believed it possible.

That such power could belong to a human being—

it was unbelievable.

But he had no choice except to believe it.

After all, he had witnessed it himself.

Yet Zeon’s expression did not look particularly good.

Noticing this, Brielle carefully asked,

“What’s wrong, Zeon?”

“He escaped again…”

“Who escaped?”

“I think the captain got away.”

“Seriously?”

Brielle’s eyes widened in shock.

This was a sealed space.

Other than the area blocked by Zeon, there were no exits at all.

The idea that Hashim had escaped from such a place was hard to believe.

“I think he had some kind of spatial movement item.”

“Spatial movement?”

“His presence suddenly vanished.”

Like a candle being snuffed out, the presences of Hashim and one other person disappeared from Zeon’s senses in an instant.

There was no way an awakened one at Hashim’s level would have been ground apart by the sand before his subordinates.

“If he had an item like that, shouldn’t he have used it the first time he got chased?”

“There were probably restrictions. Maybe on the number of uses, the number of people it could transport, or the distance. That’s probably why he saved it for the final moment.”

“That does make sense.”

Brielle nodded.

Other than Zeon’s explanation, there was no way to explain how Hashim and another awakened one had vanished.

When humanity crossed over from Kurayan to Earth, many magical technologies and skills were lost.

Spatial movement techniques disappeared during that time as well.

According to what they had heard in the High Elf village, Kurayan once possessed items capable of enabling ultra-long-distance travel in an instant.

But even in Kurayan, such items had been extremely rare, and most were only for short-range movement.

Even those were so valuable that ordinary people could never obtain them, and only a tiny number of people knew how to create them.

That was why the knowledge had been completely lost when Kurayan was destroyed.

“Hoo…”

Zeon let out a low sigh.

He regretted not finishing Hashim off when he had the chance.

Zeon knew very well that people like Hashim had to be killed thoroughly, or they would inevitably become future trouble.

“Now that I know he has a spatial movement item, I won’t let him escape next time.”

He had only been caught off guard because he hadn’t known.

If he got fooled again after learning about it, it would simply prove he was an idiot.

And Zeon had no intention of becoming an idiot.

Brielle asked,

“What are we going to do now? Keep chasing him?”

“It’s already too late for pursuit. We don’t even know where he went.”

“That’s true.”

“For now, we should clean up this place first.”

The only people Zeon had ground apart with the Sand Mixer were the awakened members of the Helbrin Mercenary Company.

The sewer residents were still alive.

“Ugh…”

“Is he really human?”

The residents stared at Zeon with fearful eyes.

The Helbrin Mercenary Company, who had appeared out of nowhere and massacred people, had been terrifying enough—

but Zeon, who had disposed of them so effortlessly, was even more frightening.

Some of the residents trembled so badly that they didn’t even realize they had wet themselves.

Only then did Zeon quietly observe the residents.

Their appearance was utterly miserable.

And not merely because they had suffered a massacre at the hands of the Helbrin Mercenary Company.

Everything about them, from head to toe, was pitiful.

Their hair was greasy and matted to the point that it was impossible to guess when they had last washed it, and their skin was covered in sores from being unable to bathe for so long.

Their eyes had deteriorated so badly that even the slightest exposure to light caused pus to stream down them.

Their bodies were as thin as dried firewood, and even their fingernails and toenails had grown long, making them resemble primitive cavemen or apes.

It was hard to believe that beneath a hyper-advanced city like Neo Seoul, there were people living lives worse than animals.

“How can this…”

Brielle covered her mouth with both hands.

She too had lived underground for quite a long time, so she had believed she understood the reality of life below the surface.

But only now did she realize how mistaken she had been.

What she had experienced and witnessed was merely the tip of the iceberg.

The Croker gang, who had forced Brielle to manufacture drugs, occupied the upper levels of the vast underground ecosystem.

Because of that, she had never once had the chance to encounter the people living at the absolute bottom of the underground world.

Brielle had thought she herself lived the most miserable life possible.

But that had been a huge misunderstanding.

These people—

they were the ones desperately struggling to survive at the very lowest depths beneath the colossal city known as Neo Seoul.

Walking toward them, Jetoya  spoke.

“Now you understand, right? Why we need a mana generator.”

“I do.”

Zeon nodded.

This was exactly why he had never wanted to learn the underground’s circumstances in too much detail.

Because once he learned about people like these, he would have no choice but to help them.

The world was vast, and pitiful people were as numerous as grains of sand.

But Zeon could not save every miserable person he encountered.

He believed there had to be limits to how much one intervened in the world.

However, once things became this directly connected to him, it was different.

“Brielle.”

“Yeah?”

“It looks like you’ll have to make the mana generator after all.”

“I will.”

Modern civilization began with electricity.

And Zeon was now trying to hand the seeds of civilization to the dark underground world.