Chapter 311
Kwagagagak!
The insects were ground apart by the sand.
The fine grains rotating at high speed stripped away the insects’ hard shells in an instant, like industrial sandpaper.
Kreeee!
The unidentified insects shrieked as they tried to escape the Sand Tornado.
But the wall of sand was too dense and solid, leaving no opening at all.
Pakakang!
The insects burst apart amid showers of sparks.
Unlike their tough exteriors, the flesh inside was as fragile as a baby’s skin.
The grains of sand erased the insects’ innards from existence without leaving even a trace.
“Ah!”
Borin and the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit, who had rushed out moments later, abruptly stopped upon seeing the enormous Sand Tornado spinning before them.
“Zi… Zeon?”
“It’s the Sand Mage.”
Within Neo Seoul, Zeon was the only person capable of openly creating a tornado of sand like this.
Kwagagagak!
The Sand Tornado gradually began shrinking.
The number of insects trapped within it also rapidly decreased.
The tornado that had once towered dozens of meters high eventually shrank to barely three meters.
Bzzzzzz!
Yet the overwhelming pressure radiating from it never diminished in the slightest.
Borin and the members of the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit trembled.
Just looking at it made them feel as though they themselves would be shredded to pieces the instant they were caught inside.
Jjeeeong!
Then, as if it had all been an illusion, the Sand Tornado vanished.
“Hoo…”
Zeon let out a faint sigh as he returned the sand to his subspace.
That sight alone made Borin and the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit flinch once again.
‘Damn it! He carries sand around inside a subspace? Isn’t that cheating?’
‘How are we supposed to fight something like that?’
‘Just how large is his subspace……?’
The countless thoughts flashing through their minds complicated their emotions.
The fact that such a monstrously powerful being existed within the same city as them was deeply unsettling.
And this was only because they were inside Neo Seoul, where his power was restricted.
Just imagining the catastrophe that would occur if he unleashed his full power in the desert was terrifying.
It felt as though an ultra-class demonic beast had been invited into their district.
An S-rank monster capable of devastating everything simply by breathing.
To the awakened of the Northern District, Zeon possessed that level of overwhelming presence.
At that moment, Zeon finally broke the silence.
“What exactly are these things?”
“Ah! They appear to be chimera insects.”
Borin hurriedly answered.
“Chimera?”
“They’re insects that never existed naturally. Their shells are as hard as if they were coated in titanium, and they possess traits from all kinds of insects mixed together. They’re lifeforms that could never occur naturally.”
The insects raised within the factory’s secret area were also highly resistant to magic.
Fire magic couldn’t burn them, and wind magic only caused them to ride the airflow backward without taking any real damage.
The only type of magic that seemed likely to work effectively was lightning magic.
Their metallic shells were vulnerable to electricity.
Unfortunately, however, there wasn’t a single awakened in the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit capable of using lightning magic.
They could kill the insects one by one by stabbing or cutting them down with rapiers, but it was impossible to hunt down and eliminate tens of thousands individually.
That was why the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit had struggled so badly against the swarm.
But the truly terrifying part was something else entirely.
Their teeth and poisonous stingers.
Their blade-sharp teeth tore through the specially made coats worn by the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit as though they were paper.
The poisonous stingers on their tails were even more horrifying.
Several elves who had been struck by them lost their lives instantly.
There wasn’t even time to attempt treatment.
Because of that, Borin and the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit could only helplessly watch their precious comrades die.
If Zeon hadn’t appeared in time, countless people in the Northern District would have lost their lives to these unidentified insects.
Suddenly, Zeon reached down toward the floor.
In his hand was a writhing insect that had lost its wings.
He had intentionally left only one alive.
Kiiieee!
The insect screeched and tried to bite Zeon’s arm.
But its teeth couldn’t even scratch Zeon’s coat.
Zeon carefully examined the insect as it struggled frantically in his grasp.
“Grotesque.”
That was his first impression.
Even Zeon, who had encountered countless demonic beasts and insects, had never seen a creature like this before.
It possessed traits of dragonflies, spiders, scorpions, cicadas, and bees all mixed together.
Its temperament was vicious as well, attacking Zeon nonstop without a moment’s rest.
If Zeon’s grip had weakened even slightly, it would have escaped and attacked everyone inside the factory.
Zeon extended his other hand and grabbed the poisonous stinger on the insect’s tail.
The creature immediately began thrashing even more violently.
As though it had instinctively realized its fate.
Ppudeudeuk!
At that moment, Zeon ripped out the stinger.
Flesh, blood vessels, and internal organs came out attached to it.
Even after losing its stinger, the insect stubbornly refused to die.
Zeon looked at the internal organs hanging from the stinger.
Borin cautiously asked,
“Why are you examining its organs?”
“The internal structures of spiders, bees, and scorpions are all mixed together in here. Naturally too, without even the slightest sense of incompatibility.”
“Why does that matter?”
“This is Gu.”
“Gu? What’s that?”
“You dig an enormous pit no creature can escape from and throw countless insects into it. Naturally, you don’t feed them. Then, driven by hunger, they begin devouring one another.”
“Why would someone do something like that……?”
“The strong consume the weak, then the stronger consume the weaker still. If you continuously force stress and a sense of crisis onto them like that, eventually the survivors undergo rapid evolution. They absorb the traits of whatever they devour and become stronger themselves.”
“You’re saying they created chimeras naturally?”
Borin’s expression turned grave.
True to her sharp intellect, she had immediately grasped the terrifying implication hidden within Zeon’s words.
Looking at the insect still writhing violently, Zeon continued,
“Yes. Artificially created chimeras are flawed in many ways. It isn’t easy to fuse different traits and biological tissues together. More importantly, because their creators try to manipulate the traits according to their own desires, problems inevitably emerge in various areas. But naturally formed Gu are different. Since they evolve naturally, they don’t possess the flaws found in imperfect chimeras. The Gu here evolved into the perfect form for killing elves. Someone deliberately selected only creatures with those traits and threw them into the pit.”
“My god…”
Borin covered her mouth.
If Zeon was right, these insects were practically the natural predators of elves.
Not every elf living in the Northern District was as strong as Borin or the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit.
If these insects had been released into the district, countless elves would certainly have died.
Borin asked Zeon,
“Why would such horrific creatures be in the Northern District?”
“I think that’s something I should be asking instead. This is the Northern District, after all.”
“Haa… I think this must be Lady Eli’s doing.”
Faced with the worst possible conclusion, Borin tightly shut her eyes.
Though she was called the Spider Queen, Eli was still an elf.
Borin simply couldn’t understand why an elf would create such monstrous lifeforms against her own kind.
Fwoosh!
At that moment, pure white flames ignited in Zeon’s hand.
The flames instantly engulfed the insect.
Kiiieee!
The creature thrashed in agony as its entire body burned, but soon it turned into nothing more than a handful of ash.
Brushing off his palm, Zeon spoke.
“It seems the Five Venoms Clan has entered Neo Seoul.”
“The Five Venoms Clan?”
“They’re a clan that survived from ancient times. For over a thousand years, they lived thousands of kilometers southwest of Neo Seoul.”
It was the first time Borin and the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit had ever heard such a story, and they listened intently.
“The place they originally lived was a primeval forest overflowing with poisonous insects. In order to survive there, the Five Venoms Clan studied venomous insects and eventually mastered the art of controlling them freely. Over countless generations, they passed those secret techniques down to their descendants. For over a thousand years. Even after the Great Cataclysm, they stubbornly endured and preserved their bloodline.”
The world had collapsed, and demonic beasts had overrun the land, yet instead of declining, the Five Venoms Clan had flourished.
The insect-type demonic beasts that appeared in the desertified world were the perfect creatures for testing the clan’s secret arts.
The Five Venoms Clan gathered those insect-type demonic beasts, dug enormous pits, and threw them inside.
The insects evolved by devouring one another, and the clan bred the final survivors, controlling them like extensions of their own limbs.
At the height of the colony’s prosperity, entire populations of nearby lifeforms had nearly been wiped out.
The Gu controlled by the Five Venoms Clan back then closely resembled the insects Zeon had just exterminated.
That was why he had recognized them immediately.
After hearing Zeon’s explanation, Borin was horrified.
“I can’t believe such a clan exists. If they’ve entered Neo Seoul, then an even greater disaster is coming. We need to prepare countermeasures immediately.”
“There’s no need to rush.”
“What? Why not? You’re the one who said they’re dangerous. We have to act immediately.”
“They were exterminated.”
“…What?”
“I’m certain I killed them all. It seems one of them somehow survived.”
At Zeon’s quiet murmur, goosebumps spread across Borin’s entire body.
She had realized that the one who exterminated the Five Venoms Clan—a clan that had stubbornly endured for over a thousand years—was Zeon himself.
She didn’t know what had happened between them.
Nor did she particularly want to know.
What mattered was that Zeon was the one who had erased the Five Venoms Clan from the world.
If the creators of these grotesque insects truly were the Five Venoms Clan, then no one understood them better than Zeon.
Which meant he likely had a way to track down their surviving descendant.
Zeon spoke again.
“So they were kidnapping people to raise gu. Now the situation finally makes sense.”
“Then the corpses hanging inside the factory were being supplied regularly?”
“Yes. In order to breed the final Gothat survives the pit, fresh blood is required. Human flesh and blood, rich in nutrients, provide the ideal conditions for breeding gu.”
“Insane……”
“Now that we understand the situation, let’s go see Lady Serian before things spiral completely out of control……”
“Yes! I’ll guide you. Ah, but before that……”
Borin turned her cold gaze toward the elves and dwarves lying inside the factory.
They were the workers subdued by the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit.
As though resigned to their fate, they tightly shut their eyes.
Borin issued an order to the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit.
“Throw all of them into prison and have Olga interrogate them.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit answered in unison.
Fear filled the workers’ faces.
Interrogator Olga.
Though she was called an interrogator, she was in truth a torture specialist.
No one who fell into Olga’s hands had ever managed to keep their mouth shut.
Olga was a mad elf whose hobby and purpose in life was torture itself.
Not a single person handed over to Olga had ever come back alive.
Realizing the horrifying end awaiting them, the workers subdued by the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit fell into despair.
But the Blue Leaf Special Operations Unit showed them not even the slightest sympathy.
Borin spoke.
“Let’s go see Lady Serian now.”
“Very well.”
Quietly following behind her, Zeon thought to himself,
‘The lunatics are gathering in Neo Seoul.’
Hashim and his human-hunting subordinates.
And the surviving remnant of the Five Venoms Clan, whom he had believed completely exterminated.
Not a single one of them was sane.
The frightening thing about madmen was that they committed catastrophes ordinary people would never even dare imagine.
They didn’t care what consequences their actions caused, nor did they have any intention of cleaning up the aftermath.
If anything, they enjoyed watching situations spiral out of control.
The fact that such lunatics were gathering in Neo Seoul was anything but good news.
Especially since the one who had invited them in was Eli, the second-in-command of the Northern District.
If things went wrong, the situation could snowball beyond all control.
Normally, Zeon wanted nothing to do with Neo Seoul’s affairs.
But this time was different.
‘I’m not going to stand by while lunatics rampage however they please in my own front yard.’