Chapter 396. By Thy Name I Command Thee (3)

When the ray of falling light penetrated the gate in a straight line, the light of the world blinked off and on.

━━━━━━━━━━!

Then with a tremendous roar, a spectacular explosion swept away everything in the area like a nuclear weapon. It wasn’t just the target area. The sight of the entire gate shaking and crumbling down in the aftermath of the shot was astounding to say the least.

It was over. Bael and the Abyss King shared the same thought as they saw the gate collapse in one blow. Waves of air currents spread out from the bombing site in the shape of a ring. The light that colored the world changed, and for a moment, it felt as if they were transported to a strange space where no sound could be heard. Time crawled until all the frantic shouts and clamor ceased, and a calm stillness returned. The world also recovered its original color.

Hooooooooowl… A desolate gust swept past the wilderness with nothing left. Having been swept away and slammed into the ground, Chi-Woo’s body twitched. He opened his eyes reflexively and spat out the breath he had been holding.

‘I’m…alive…?’ This was his first thought as soon as he opened his eyes. His mind went blank, and he was nauseous. It felt like he was going to vomit at any moment. Chi-Woo struggled to raise his body and finally tilted his head back. However, as soon as he looked up, he sank back down.

“What…” He was so shocked that he couldn’t even speak properly. It was empty. There was no other way to describe it. The gate which had stood firm despite the Demon Empire’s waves of offense had been destroyed completely in an instant. Of course, there were still some parts left, but it was safe to say that almost all of the structure had disappeared. The colossal walls were nowhere to be found, and only a few cracked pieces remained. It could hardly be called a fence, let alone a gate. It felt like he was looking at an ancient site built thousands of years ago that hadn’t been properly managed.

“Ha…” Chi-Woo let out a hollow laugh. “Ha…ha…” Then a question suddenly popped into his head. The beam shot by the Sky Castle had been aiming at him; he should have died for sure after being directly hit by this level of destructive power. However, he was still alive—even more so, he was in a relatively normal condition. What happened? On second thought, Chi-Woo thought he had heard a familiar cry at the last moment. Without thinking, he looked around.

Soon, his eyes widened when they landed on a familiar face among the countless people and beings scattered everywhere. The woman lying prone on the ground in a slightly deformed form was none other than Alice Ho Lactea.

“Alice…” Chi-Woo hurried towards her, but stopped after taking a few steps. From her right shoulder to her right thigh—half of her body was completely gone. It looked as if an ice cream scoop had been carved into her. However, surprisingly, there was no bright, red blood coming out of her body. What flowed out of her instead was a white light that seemed to be divinity in liquid form.

Chi-Woo felt it intuitively that it had been her. She was the one who had cried out to him at the last moment. He didn’t know exactly how she did it, but Alice had risked her life to save him. Chi-Woo staggered towards her with his mouth wide open. With Alice at his feet, his legs gave out, and he fell on his knees. Surprisingly, Alice wasn’t dead yet. She was gasping and breathing hard. Her veil had been torn in half, and Chi-Woo’s eyes met with the one eye that was revealed. Her eye, which had originally been like a calm, still lake, was blurry.

“Al…Alic…”

When Chi-Woo couldn’t even bear to say her name, Alice slightly opened her mouth. “It’s…all…right…” Her voice sounded strained as if it was going to disappear at any moment, “Fortunately…there’s…still…one…left…so…nuna…will be all..rig….ht…” She spoke in pauses and then groaned in pain. “But more…import…antly…the gat…e…” Even while groaning, she moved her remaining arm and desperately tried to lift it.

Chi-Woo put his ear close to her because he heard her mumbling something. After hearing “arm…” in a quiet voice, Chi-Woo carefully raised her arm. Alice, who barely managed to extend her index finger, moved it in a circle. “Re…” She spoke with a barely audible voice. “Re…re…re…re…re…”

Chi-Woo blinked at Alice as she twirled her index finger and repeated herself. He had lifted her arm at her request, but couldn’t understand her following actions. Then a huge shadow began to cast around Chi-Woo while he was on his knees. When he lifted his chin instinctively, his eyes widened in complete shock. Where the pieces of bricks too embarrassing to even be called a fence had been, the gate returned to its original glory and was in the process of being rebuilt. It was being quickly rebuilt from the bottom.

“…Gress.” As soon as she finished, the last gate, which had disappeared, reappeared in its original state. The Demon Empire and the Abyss clearly witnessed this ridiculous sight, including Bael, who was about to shout an order for the entire army to advance, and the Abyss King, who was going to seize this opportunity to take the next step and end the war. Everyone faltered and stared at the bizarre phenomenon that went beyond imagination.

“What the hell happened?” Bael’s calm tone cracked and showed a slight irritation.

“This is…beyond my expectations.” The Abyss King also rubbed his chin and smacked his lips. They had thought they could finish everything before night fell. By afternoon, they would definitely get through this post with the Sky Castle’s power; a gate of this level could be blasted in one shot by the Sernitas who had been constantly charging their power on their way here. Their thoughts really did come true, but they had not predicted this unexpected variable.

The Abyss and Demon Empire had purposely driven the war into a numbers game to provide as many nutrients as possible, and they even accelerated the time it would take the Sernitas to complete charging their particle beam. However, with this turn of events, everything they had done to this point was rendered meaningless. Thanks to Alice’s ability, the enemy coalition’s first ploy returned to square one. They needed to start all over again.

As for the Sernitas…

–Confirming new energy generation.

–Speculating information in the space-time retrograde category.

–Wishing to collect more relevant specimens to obtain more detailed and accurate analysis.

The Sernitas were discussing among themselves the phenomenon that had just occurred. They had been beaten once since they weren’t aware that their enemy possessed such an ability, but now they could speculate what type of ability it was and prepare for it. The Sernitas were not a group that could be beaten in the same way more than once with the immeasurable amount of information that they’d collected throughout the universe.

–Deactivating Light Particle Beam.

–Performing a new charging operation.

–0%…

* * *

The siege continued afterward as the Demon Empire and Abyss, which had briefly withdrawn, soon rushed out. Humanity and the Cassiubia League had lost their senses facing the Sky Castle’s destructive power, but under Ismile’s command, they reorganized and returned to the heat of battle. Everything proceeded in the same way as before. Their enemies continued to attack like flowing water, and the defending side had to block and hold out until the sun in the middle of the sky began to wither and fall. In the end, the offensive finally came to a halt when dusk fell.

Besides everything that had happened, it could be said that they had accomplished their goal and endured well since their last gate hadn’t fallen. However, no one among the humanity and Cassiubia League was laughing. It felt like they’d been fighting for about ten days, but it’d only been a day; that was how fierce the battle had been. While the enemies were stepping back for the moment, humanity and the Cassiubia League began to recover by cooking food, getting some sleep, and treating injuries. Groans and moans could be heard everywhere.

The atmosphere was grave. The morale that Chi-Woo had worked hard to lift crashed to the bottom once again. If the Sky Castle hadn’t made the attack in the middle of the battle, the atmosphere in the camp would’ve been somewhat alright. However, everyone became speechless after witnessing the enormous power displayed by the Sky Castle. Although they had managed to get through the hurdle thanks to Alice’s sacrifice, would they be able to prevent the same attack next time? Even if one was to ask 100 random people the question, all 100 of them would give a skeptical answer. It was the same for Chi-Woo, but he forced himself to not show it.

It was late at night. Given he had fought the hardest today, Chi-Woo should be resting even a little, but instead, he was pacing around the temporary barracks. Waiting anxiously, Chi-Woo rushed over as soon as Ismile came out of the barracks. “Mr. Ismile!”

Walking out with a slightly fatigued expression, Ismile looked back at Chi-Woo. “What?”

“How is Ms. Alice…”

Ismile let out a long sigh at Chi-Woo’s worried question. “Ah…don’t worry about her too much. Although I can’t say it’s going smoothly, she’s recovering little by little.”

“Is it true that it’s not life-threatening?”

When Chi-Woo asked again, Ismile looked surprised. “What? You don’t know anything?”

“Sorry?”

“Ho Lactea is your mother’s family. If you think about it, you’re also…” Seeing Chi-Woo’s bewildered reaction, Ismile stopped talking and realized his mistake. He stared at Chi-Woo with incredulous eyes. “No, seriously? For real?”

When Chi-Woo continued to blink silently, Ismile smacked his forehead with his hand so hard that it made a loud slapping sound. “Don’t tell me…ah, **! I should really control this blabbering mouth of mine. I didn’t tell you on purpose, okay? Is Big Choi going to kill me if he finds out later? No, if the Sernitas kills Big Choi for me…” Ismile murmured and shook violently for a while before his shoulders drooped. Soon after, he continued in a defeated tone, “Ho Lacteas are descendants of a god.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that but…”

“Those who have a god’s blood flowing in them don’t die easily because they’re born with an immortal destiny.”

“But…”

“Of course, they’re distant descendants, and in the case of Alice, she’s not descended from a direct line.” Ismile shrugged and continued, “Anyway, as a result of the founder of the family passing through 12 trials, the Ho Lacteas are born with as many as 12 lives. Well, I think she used up most of them today though.”

Although Chi-Woo was hearing this for the first time, he thought he could now understand at least one part of what Alice told him. When she said it was okay because she still had one left, she meant the number of lives she had.

“Anyway, I heard that Alice has quite a high concentration of godly blood among those not in the direct line. Of course, it’s incomparable to Elrich, but she wouldn’t die as long as she has a life left.”

Chi-Woo nodded. Although he had a hard time understanding some parts of Ismile’s words, it was fortunate that Alice was not going to die. However, his discomfort did not completely disappear because Ismile didn’t say that she would be getting up and moving anytime soon. It seemed like she had received a fatal injury and would take a while to recover.

“More importantly…” Ismile changed the subject as if this wasn’t an important matter and continued, “With this, they made their plan clear.”

Chi-Woo could guess what he was going to say.

“The Sky Castle wasn’t just there to remove the sanctuary’s effects.”

“…”

“The Sernitas planned to build their territory on the ground from the beginning to prepare for the attack we saw earlier.” The Sernitas sucked up only the dead. It was difficult to tell if they were unable to use living creatures as of yet, but it was clear that under the current circumstances, they needed to go through a certain process and fulfill specific conditions to make this special attack. Killing living beings was probably one part of the process.

“It’s a checkmate,” Ismile said clearly. “We have no choice but to fight since the enemies are gathered here. But the more we fight, the stronger we’re making our enemies.”

Chi-Woo nodded silently. He wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say. It was a ridiculously difficult dilemma. The more they fought, the more powerful their enemy’s weapon became. On the other hand, they had no choice but to continue fighting.

In the end, he clutched his head and muttered, “If it were Chi-Hyun…” He knew he was being weak, but he couldn’t help but think what his brother would have done if he were here.

“Even he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about that attack—no, if it were him, he would have destroyed the Sky Castle before it could make the shot,” Ismile said flatly and closed his mouth. Judging by his long silence, it didn’t seem like he had a concrete plan to deal with this situation either. He sighed for a long time, scratched his head, and finally opened his mouth.

“Let’s first…”

Bam! Before Ismile could even finish talking, the sound of explosion rang from above the wall, followed by loud battle cries.

Both Ismile’s and Chi-Woo’s expressions turned sour. Their enemies had attacked again.

“…Damn it,” Ismile cursed and turned around right away. Chi-Woo was about to quickly follow him, but was stopped. “Choi Chi-Woo.”

Chi-Woo was a bit surprised because it was the very first time Ismile called him by his name properly.

“Find a way,” Ismile continued with his back to Chi-Woo. “Find a solution at all costs. Do something about the Sky Castle, or if you can’t, find a way to prevent its next attack.”

Chi-Woo wanted to retort, ‘What the hell do you want me to do?’ But he swallowed the words because he was the one who had said he wanted to fight this battle.

“That shot will definitely come again.”

Chi-Woo shared the same opinion as Ismile. It was obvious by how their enemies continued to attack without rest. The shot that blew the whole gate would come again soon. Until then, they needed to devise an effective solution to counter it.

“Keep this in mind. If you can’t come up with a solution until I see a harbinger of the next attack…I’ll order everyone to retreat without hesitation.” With these last words, Ismile hurried to the gate.

Left alone, Chi-Woo closed his eyes tightly and clenched his fists. “…”