abcnovels
Chapter 227
Chapter 227:
Chapter 227
At the same time that Yu-hyun entered the secret laboratory’s mind world of Geladric, collectors were fighting hard to stop the runaway of the mind worlds in other places.
The state of national disaster was enough to make even the high-ranking collectors, who usually did not move much, show up on the scene.
And their actions impressed upon the people why they were called high-ranking collectors.
The mind world near Bukhansan National Park, where human footsteps rarely reached.
The collectors who rushed there after receiving the call could not close their mouths at the sight that unfolded before them.
“Hey. You’re here? You’re a bit late. I’ve already cleaned up everything here.”
A 30-something man in a sloppy outfit, high-ranking collector Im Gunwoo, waved his hand at the collectors who had just arrived on the scene.
Around him, giant insect-shaped phantasms that he had just knocked down were turning into text and scattering.
The fight must have been fierce, as the surroundings were a mess that resembled a ruin.
The trees were either uprooted or broken, and the ground was turned upside down as if it had been bombed.
Choi Yeri, who was standing next to Im Gunwoo, sighed.
“Is that what you say to your colleagues who came to the scene?”
“What’s wrong with that? I just told them they wasted their time.”
“Whatever.”
“Uh, excuse me…”
A middle-aged collector who had been looking around cautiously opened his mouth.
“Did you, did you clear everything here by yourself, Im Gunwoo collector?”
“Yeah. Why? Oh, do you think someone else helped me? No way. Of course I did it by myself.”
“Don’t brag. It’s disgusting.”
“Hey, why? I honestly worked hard.”
The middle-aged man smiled awkwardly at the bickering pair.
“Ha, haha. I see. Okay. Then we’ll go to support Seongbuk-gu.”
“Oh, Seongbuk-gu? You don’t have to go there.”
“Huh?”
At the man’s question, Im Gunwoo grinned and looked far away.
“The Martial God is there.”
“Gasp!”
“The Martial God?”
The collectors all let out a gasp of horror at the mention of the name Martial God from Im Gunwoo’s mouth.
The strongest among the high-ranking collectors in South Korea.
The number one in the Korean ranking, and the only one in the country with a grade 1 collector, Martial God Wi Joo-hyuk.
The fact that he had already gone to Seongbuk-gu meant that the runaway of the mind world there was tantamount to an apocalypse.
***
“…”
“…”
Jungneung-dong, Seongbuk-gu, adjacent to Bukhansan National Park.
The collectors who came to the scene could not open their mouths at the sight of the fire that burned as if to turn even the sky into ashes.
If they saw the person who walked out slowly from the center of that blazing hell, carrying a giant sword bigger than his body on his shoulder, anyone would have reacted like that.
Gulp.
‘That’s the number one collector in Korea.’
‘He went into and came out of a mind world that no one can access, almost bare-handed?’
It was more than respect. It was fear, wondering if he was even human.
The world of thought that erupted in Seongbuk-gu was a world of flames and magma.
Collectors without heat resistance couldn’t last five minutes inside, and ordinary people would get second-degree burns just by approaching it.
And to make matters worse, the world of thought was ‘eroding’, slowly leaking magma around it.
But Wi Juhyuk went in there alone and cleared it.
Wi Juhyuk, who had stabbed a giant sword nearly 2m long into the ground, quietly savored the night air of reality.
His angular face and body looked stiff, but his well-trained muscles stood out even over his tight-fitting clothes.
His neatly trimmed sideburns and beard, and his hair pushed back in a slick-back style made his impression even more intense.
But his calm eyes were filled with gloom, like a bowl.
‘Is there nothing here either?’
As everyone looked at him with awe, Wi Juhyuk thought that he couldn’t find it this time either, and slowly moved his steps.
It was time to go home.
***
Inside a dark and dingy underground laboratory.
Yu-hyun stood on top of the corpses of the solo numbering subjects and fixed his disheveled clothes.
The phantoms that were nightmares for mid-level collectors and could only be hunted by high-level collectors barely posed a challenge to Yu-hyun.
They turned into text and disappeared without even leaving corpses.
[The spirits admire your prowess.]
[The spirits ask you to keep doing this.]
[Current viewers: 12,045]
The spirits showered points on Yu-hyun as they admired his strength.
The number of viewers was slowly increasing, as more spirits flocked to hear the rumors.
The teller who survived from the second generation spirit of Paradise, Chulapantaka!
Even without advertising, the rumors had spread throughout the mixed world, elevating Yu-hyun’s name.
‘Then, I guess I’ve taken care of all the subjects. Shall I take down the remaining one?’
The clear condition of the world of thought [Geladric Secret Laboratory] was to subdue the boss-level phantom.
Yet, this dangerous world of thought remained uncleared not only because it was not bad for point farming, but also because of the increasing strength of the phantoms as they went deeper underground.
Especially, the solo numbering subjects were too daunting to fight, so the collectors who focused on protecting themselves didn’t bother to clear them.
‘But now that the world of thought has started to erode, I have no choice but to clear it as soon as possible.’
There was no more grace for humanity.
They had to make a choice eventually.
Whether to keep their position as collectors and fight in the world of thought. Or to stay put for their own safety.
Yu-hyun moved his steps toward the depths of the laboratory.
The inside was sturdy, but it was marked with sharp teeth and claws, and bloodstains.
They were all made by the subjects who ran amok.
‘It reminds me of old times.’
Yu-hyun knew the internal structure of the laboratory.
He easily found the stairs leading down.
‘In the early days of the apocalypse, Choi Doyoon hunted phantoms here.’
When the apocalypse just broke out, the existing worlds of thought disappeared.
And they became reality instead of worlds of thought.
Geladric Secret Laboratory was one of them.
A huge structure that had been buried in the ground broke through the earth and spat out countless subjects inside.
Back then, three colleagues including Choi Doyoon went inside and cleared it with great difficulty.
‘I can’t believe I’m here to clear this place by myself. It’s nostalgic.’
He was done with reminiscing about the past.
Yu-hyun arrived at the fourth floor, hidden below the third floor that everyone thought was the last.
“Uh-huh? Ohohohoho! What’s this? An unexpected guest!”
The alchemist Geladric, who had a hunched back and pus all over his body, found Yu-hyun and laughed exaggeratedly.
One of his eyes was bulging out, and he had almost no teeth left. His appearance was repulsive.
Yu-hyun didn’t answer, but drew his weapon.
Geladric saw that and narrowed his eyes, then laughed with a shrug.
“You’re a cheeky intruder! You don’t even greet me, but just draw your weapon! Good. Good. I was just wanting to make a new subject, and you came as a nice material. I’m glad!”
Geladric said that and slowly straightened his body. His baggy clothes couldn’t withstand the force of the muscles rising inside and started to tear.
Contrary to his weak appearance, he was the boss-level phantom of this world of thought.
The alchemist who had mass-produced countless subjects, and in the end, modified his own body to become a monster.
Subject 0 Geladric.
The moment he tried to reveal his power, Yu-hyun, who had been silent, opened his mouth.
“I have a question.”
“Uh-huh? What is it all of a sudden?”
“Why are the strong subjects numbered from 1 to 9, and the weaker ones have higher numbers? Usually, you number them in the order they were made. Doesn’t that mean the ones made later should be stronger?”
“That’s…”
It was absurd, but also accurate.
Geladric stuttered for a moment.
[The spirits agree with you.]
[The spirits wonder why the order is reversed.]
[Some spirits are shocked that they only realized it now.]
“Uh…”
Geladric hesitated what to say.
He knew Yu-hyun was right.
A moment of confusion led to carelessness.
And Yu-hyun didn’t miss that gap.
“Opening.”
“What’s that all of a sudden… Kyaaak!!”
A spear flew into Geladric’s chest as he was careless.
Green blood splattered as Geladric staggered back.
Phantoms that could think and had egos were easier to deal with if you shook their minds like this.
Geladric tried to pull out the spear stuck in his chest with his hand.
“How dare you, how dare youuuu! Do you think you can take me down with this little toy! You cowardly human!”
He was not unharmed by being attacked while transforming, but Geladric was not dead yet.
Even if his heart was pierced, he had several spare hearts in his body, and he could even survive if his brain was blown away. He had modified himself like that.
But Yu-hyun knew that too.
“Baekryeon.”
[Okay.]
Zzzzap!
As Geladric tried to pull out the spear, Baekryeon’s shape changed.
It became a form of countless thorns spreading outward from the part that penetrated Geladric’s body.
Kuhuk! Geladric couldn’t even scream properly.
He died without finishing his transformation from the countless thorn attacks that cut through his body.
Geladric’s fallen corpse turned into white text and scattered.
Yu-hyun retrieved Baekryeon.
“You shouldn’t show an opening when you transform.”
[You have cleared the world of thought Geladric’s Secret Laboratory.]
As the world of thought was cleared, the surrounding scenery turned into white letters and crumbled into pieces.
Yu-hyun was transported outside the world of thought surrounded by light.
“Huh, huh?”
“He came out! He really cleared the world of thought by himself!”
As Yu-hyun came out, the collectors who were waiting exclaimed in admiration.
Their eyes couldn’t leave Yu-hyun and the entrance of the world of thought behind him that disappeared with light.
The erosion that caused a huge metal structure to pierce through the ground also ended with the clear of the world of thought.
Everyone stood in their places, not knowing what to do. Only Kang Hye-rim approached Yu-hyun.
“Good job.”
“Thank you. You did well too. Wasn’t it hard running around?”
“What did I do? You did everything.”
She said that, but Kang Hye-rim also worked hard.
She didn’t get hurt or anything, but it wasn’t easy for anyone to hunt phantoms while moving at almost lightning speed with electricity all over her body.
“Still, you caught all of them without missing any.”
“That’s thanks to Sung Yu-chan’s support.”
Kang Hye-rim was able to hunt the phantoms without getting lost thanks to Sung Yu-chan’s guidance.
Sung Yu-chan analyzed the positions of the phantoms and Kang Hye-rim and told her the shortest route.
It was a remarkable achievement.
However, Sung Yu-chan was not in a position to thank Kang Hye-rim for her compliment.josei
Reacting in real time to Kang Hye-rim’s movements that were like flashes of light and telling her the locations of the phantoms was not something that could be done with ordinary concentration.
Sung Yu-chan was now half-fainted with his energy drained.
“What about the other worlds of thought that went berserk?”
“They said the other high-level collectors took care of them.”
“Who else are there among the other high-ranking collectors?”
“They say the God of War himself has moved.”
“That’s surprising.”
The God of War, Juhyuk Wi, rarely moved.
Even more so after he secured his position as the undisputed number one.
He was a man who had awakened right after the Day of Integration ten years ago and fought on the front lines.
But after that, he had no notable achievements or traces until the end of the world.
Yu-hyun thought that his change was just superficial.
If the number one moved, it would affect the other collectors as well.
But right now, what was important was not Juhyuk Wi or the runaway situation of the World of Ideas.
Ding. Ding.
The countless messages from the spirits that poured down.
Yu-hyun carefully looked at some of the specific messages among them.
‘As expected, I see a lot of spirits that I couldn’t see before. Especially from Great Sage Army.’
The spirits belonging to Great Sage Army, who had not shown much interest in Yu-hyun’s paintings before, also started to visit his library one by one.
Olympus from Greek mythology.
Asgard from Norse mythology.
Hermopolis from Egyptian mythology.
Rigveda from Indian mythology.
Hwaninje and Mabinogion from Korea and Celtic lands, and Anunnaki from Mesopotamia.
Famous spirits that he was familiar with even in his previous life showed off their names and watched Yu-hyun with curious eyes.
But there was one among them who sent him a particularly intense gaze.
[The Brat at the Edge of Greed shows interest in you.]
It was the most unwanted, pure evil and curiosity-filled interest.