Chapter 623:
Chapter 623:
Chapter 623:
"Sophia. The divine eye has activated again. May I touch it?"
"Oh. It activated again? Yes, of course."
With Sophia's permission, Seong Jihan brought his hand to her forehead.
Then,
Flash...!
Light burst from there, and a scene played in Seong Jihan's mind.
'This is... the Tower where Dongbang Sak is, isn't it?'
Last time it showed a scene from Ark, but this time it was the top floor of the Tower.
Zing...
Seong Jihan focused on the vision shown by the divine eye.There,
[How could this be...]
Urd stood before Dongbang Sak with a dismayed expression.
Most of her body was in void form.
Swish...
As the void forming her body started to disappear on its own, she was in a state of panic.
And before her,
[Finally, I'll end this. Urd.]
Dongbang Sak, stroking his beard, was pointing the Taiji Sword at Urd.
Unlike usual, his sword was in a semi-transparent state.
It seemed he had somewhat implemented the Infinite Sword seen in 'Ark'.
[...Do you think I'll fall to such an incomplete sword? Black Administrator. Come out. I'll use the authority given to me.]
As her body was collapsing, she called for the Black Administrator, but,
Swish...
The void rippled briefly in the air, then,
Whoosh!
The purple mist quickly dispersed.
[This... Could it be. The void control authority...!]
As Urd's eyes widened at this,
Slash!
Dongbang Sak's sword struck her neck.
Thud. Plop...
Urd's head rolled on the floor.
Her extreme regeneration ability, which could restore her from even a single piece of flesh, didn't activate.
Urd's head just blinked its eyes on the floor.
And soon,
She slowly opened her mouth.
[The void control authority... You shouldn't be able to take it. Was it the Blue Administrator?]
[I don't know what you're talking about.]
[How unfortunate. I really wanted to make his ability mine...]
Swish...
As Urd's head disappeared, Dongbang Sak quietly said,
[She's completely annihilated. Finally, is she dead...]
If Dongbang Sak said she was completely annihilated after seeing it with his own eyes, it must really be the end.
'If you take away the void control authority, you can't even command the Black Administrator. Is this how you end up dying?'
This authority.
He must retrieve it from the server management device.
As Seong Jihan was thinking this while watching the scene shown by the divine eye,
Flash...!
Where Urd's vanished head had been, an eye of light suddenly appeared.
[I wondered why an alarm suddenly went off. The avatar died...? This is a first.]
A voice identical to Urd's was heard from there,
[This won't do. I'll have to force a shutdown.]
Beep!
As soon as those words ended,
The entire top floor of the Tower where Dongbang Sak was began to crack all at once.
[No...]
And before Dongbang Sak could respond, the world collapsed.
The vision shown by the divine eye ended there.
And,
[You must kill Urd's main body before her avatar...]
A woman's voice was heard lastly, allowing Seong Jihan to emerge from the vision shown by the divine eye.
'Ha. The main body before the avatar, huh.'
According to what the vision showed, even if he took away the void control authority and eliminate the avatar,
If the main body in Ark woke up and forcibly shut down the server, it would just lead to destruction.
'Well, yes. If they press the power button on that side, there's no answer...'
So leave the avatar on this side alone.
He needed to attack the main body in Ark first, was that it?
However,
'To target Urd in Ark, we'd have to overcome the Infinite Sword first.'
The Infinite Sword, which was the essence of Dongbang Sak's martial arts.
It was impossible to attack the main body in Ark until that was resolved.
Of course, the Infinite Sword didn't mobilize until the Red Administrator entered Hephaestus and messed with things.
'Come to think of it, did the sword that came to the southern sector return?'
As Seong Jihan thought this and removed his hand,
"Jihan. Is it over?"
Sophia asked, looking at Seong Jihan.
"Yes. I don't understand why the divine eye keeps manifesting on Sophia. It would be better if it connected directly to me."
"No, I'm fine with it! When else would I get to see Jihan?"
"Hmm. Still..."
Sophia's forehead wasn't a communication device.
It didn't seem right to keep exchanging messages from the divine eye like this.
As Seong Jihan was thinking this while looking at her forehead,
"It's really okay~ I'll come whenever you call. Oh, no. Should I just live here? There are many spare rooms, right?"
"...That's not necessary."
"Aw. That's too bad. But I don't feel the divine eye..."
She said with a smile while touching her forehead.
"Uh... What's this? Huh?"
"What's wrong?"
"Oh. I hear some kind of auditory hallucination when I touch my forehead... It's a language I've never heard before. But why do I feel like I understand what it's saying?"
Sophia tilted her head and,
"What does it say?"
"It says it will let us know when the sword returns to its original place?"
"It was sending messages directly until just now. I don't understand why it's telling us through Sophia now."
"It says it's... straining right now? This uses the least amount of light..."
Sophia just blinked, not understanding why light was coming from there.
But Seong Jihan could quickly grasp what it meant.
'It seems even the owner of the divine eye doesn't send messages for free.'
Communicating through Sophia must consume less White Light.
"Hmm... It looks like I'll have to rely on you a bit more. If you hear any messages, please let me know right away."
"Okay. I will."
Communication with the eye of light was definitely necessary right now.
Seong Jihan decided to entrust this to Sophia for the time being.
'Hmm... This gives me a short waiting period until re-entering Ark.'
Until the Infinite Sword retreated from the southern sector of Ark where he had set up base camp,
He should quietly gather White Light in the current world.
Seong Jihan checked how much White Light stat had accumulated.
'137... The growth rate is steep.'
Indeed, as the White Administrator said, with BattleTube covered in Tower videos, lately, White Light was coming in at almost 10 per day.
'At this rate, it will reach 200 in less than a week.'
When White Light reached 200, he could expand his light authority like before.
In the past, he only strengthened existing traits to become a lazy one.
But now the situation has changed.
'They clearly said Urd was targeting the Blue stat to break free from Ark's control...'
Even Seong Jihan, who possessed the Blue stat, didn't yet have a grasp on how to utilize it.
But he decided to intensively research this in the time remaining until White Light reached 200.
And 4 days later,
'...Hmm. It seems like something might work?'
As Seong Jihan was vaguely grasping a clue about the workings of Blue,
[Blue Administrator. The scoreboard tally is complete.]
'Already? Has it been a week since the broadcast ended?'
[Yes.]
The Red Administrator informed him that it was time to distribute the Red stat.
* * *
-Hah... These aliens are really amazing...
-What's with the 1 trillion views on the scoreboard? Is that number even possible?
-Isn't 1 trillion easy to reach? Even for humans, if you get 1 billion people to watch 1000 times each on infinite replay...
-I think views are counted once per day? BattleTube isn't that easy...
-Then where did that number come from??? The BattleNet races are on a different level, wow...
-Did you see the scoreboard? Not a single human. lol
After Seong Jihan announced he would give the Red stat to the top 100 in both upload count and views on the scoreboard,
Human viewers were indirectly experiencing the scale of alien players through his scoreboard.
There was an alien who achieved 1 trillion views within a week.
The top uploader had posted over 5 million videos in 7 days.
-Wait... There are only 600,000 seconds in a week, how did they upload 5 million?
-I guess they uploaded 10 per second. lol
-Didn't BattleTube's servers crash?
-Seong Jihan said we don't need to worry about that ??
-But the aliens' scale really is different... Doesn't BattleTube's system prevent macros?
-They must have some method, there's no way they manually uploaded one by one.
As people were expressing their awe at the aliens' records on the scoreboard,
"Hello everyone."
Seong Jihan turned on BattleTube after a week.
-Oh... He's here.
-Is today finally the day to distribute the Red stat???
-It was tough getting into the top 100 ??;
-How did you really get in? Did you use some bug?
-What bug... I just made the races I rule forcibly watch my BattleTube. lol
-Ah, I wondered why you made colonies instead of destroying planets... So this is how you use them.
As a player who made it into the top 100 chatted, questions flooded the chat for such players.
Seong Jihan watched the top 100 players boasting for a moment, then
"Today marks the end of the one-week tally."
He slowly began speaking.
"I will summon all players in the top 100 at once and grant them the Red stat."
Swish.
As he said this, Seong Jihan looked around.
The screen on BattleTube followed his gaze.
-Where is this?
-It's a complete hell of fire?
-You're giving us the Red stat... right?
The space where Seong Jihan stood was a hellscape filled with massive flames.
He gently stroked the red flames and continued speaking.
"This is a temporary space I prepared to distribute Red. I will grant the Red stat to everyone here at once, so players on the scoreboard, please respond to the summons."
-A temporarily prepared space...
-Is it safe to go there?
-I don't think I can go lol I feel like I'd be annihilated without even bones left.
-I guess you need to be able to survive there to get the stat.
-I had a feeling he wouldn't just hand it out freely. lol
Because the scenery shown on screen was so brutal, viewers thought this hell of fire was a filter to screen the players.
However,
"Ah. Even level 2 players can come here safely. It's just a space prepared to give out the Red stat all at once. Don't worry and come."
Seong Jihan assured them it only looked dangerous, but would not actually harm the players.
"Of course, if you're worried, you can give up. But your turn will pass to the next rank and won't come back, so keep that in mind."
With those final words, Seong Jihan began the summoning.
-Hmm... Then we can't wait to see if other players accept or not before responding.
-Don't you trust the Blue Administrator? He's caused the least trouble among administrators.
-True, he's relatively better among administrators.
-I'm accepting the summon... After how hard I worked for a week, of course I should get the Red stat reward!
Flash! Flash!
Players on the scoreboard began responding to the summons one by one.
-Oh... There's a Red Dragon.
-Is that a Fire Elemental King?
-Looks like fire-type players gave it their all for the Red stat. lol
Many of the players who appeared seemed related to the fire attribute, but,
-It's not only fire-types though?
-Yeah, uploading videos has nothing to do with using fire.
Some players worked hard aiming for the Red stat besides these.
'They all seem to be at least Constellation level.'
Well, you'd need to be at least Constellation rank to make the top 100.
Seong Jihan looked over the summoned players, then
Flash!
His eyes widened at the last being summoned.
'Huh? No, that's...'
The last entity to appear was a massive helmet emanating purple energy.
'...It's the Black Administrator?'
It was an entity he knew well.