Reincarnator

I am saddened.

At how strong we are.

And yet, we cannot avoid our annihilation.

Where are the saviors who left to save us?

………………………………….

"Huh… It ended already?"

Kiriel mumbled after she'd reached the place where Hansoo had been, looking at the scene before her eyes.

—rumble—

The red clouds that had seeped out from Hansoo's body were literally melting down the entire area.

Starting from the Quirae and even affecting the metal walls of the city.

The germs duplicated over and over again and were devouring everything as far as the eye could see.

—rumble—

The 4th-level Quirae that Hansoo personally had to smash apart with his hammer were also melting down as well.

His strength was unlike anything it had been before.

"Kyah…Kuhuk!"

Kiriel gulped at the scene; the Quirae were screaming as they melted down.

'…Where did he obtainsomething like this?'

She knew that she was quite strong.

And her skills were quite powerful as well.

When one transcended, their skill limits would rise significantly, allowing the transcendent to use them in many more versatile ways than before.

Like being able to tune a machine in whatever way you wanted.

Which meant that the abilities of the user were more important than the skill itself.

'Or so I thought, but… this is on a different level.'

As if to prove that skills had their own differences, the red cloud was creating a sea of blood.

Kiriel whistled at this but soon smiled.

'Right, he should at least be this strong.'

If not, there was no point in him going up ahead, right?

This was merely one of the many rewards that Hansoo deserved.

—rumble—

While Kiriel thought about various things, the vast field of red clouds started to shrink back as if they had finished their meal.

—whooosh!—

The storm of clouds rapidly sucked back into Hansoo's body, and Kiriel found something to her surprise.

'…There's still something alive?'

Although most of its body had melted down already, it still maintained its shape, unlike the other Quirae that had completely melted down.

Kiriel quickly moved towards Hansoo as she stared at the bright blue creature.

—tatatak—

She looked at the bright blue creature with curiosity but soon lost interest.

'It's already dead.'

Although it had maintained its basic form, that was apparently the limit—the grotesque creature in front of her had long been dead.

At that moment, she heard Hansoo's voice.

"Good job."

"It's nothing. It seems that life is a lot more thrilling staying alongside you."

Hansoo smiled at her joking words.

Her energetic atmosphere was good to see.

He then looked at Enbi Arin, who seemed to have more vigor on her face, and he sighed in relief.

'You've held on well.'

There was a sea of crystals around her now.

If they picked all of them up and fed them to Enbi Arin, she would easily rise up to a 3-Star and heal.

A very clean result.

But there were a few things they needed to deal with.

First, the Kalkuroun Fleet above them.

Although the fleet couldn't do anything at this exact moment because of the Mimir, they would fire down strikes the moment they could.

And second.

'…The thing providing Mimir with the energy.'

Hansoo looked into the abyss where a blue light was seeping out in the distance.

They had been able to transfer one Dragon God Soldier after combining the energy output from all three Fusion Reactors inside the Main Research Center.

Of course, the combined output had lasted a short moment, but this proved something.

That even a small-scale Quantum Transmission required enough energy to run three cities.

But surprisingly, something unbelievable had occurred in Aokan.

The Quantum Transmission had almost transferred hundreds of thousands of entities.

Through almost a million kilometers of space.

It was not something Aokan's Fusion Reactor could handle.

He could clearly see the countless tubes transferring energy into the depths of the abyss.

'Hmm. What to do?'

Hansoo pondered for a moment and then spoke to Kiriel.

"Is it possible to read the memory of this thing?"

He pointed at the dead 5th-level Quirae's corpse.

Kiriel quickly nodded and activated her ability on the corpse.

—oooooong—

Her Psychometry, which had further enhanced after breaching another wall, quickly began to read through the memories.

But despite her enhanced ability, Kiriel's expression didn't look very encouraging.

Kiriel shook her head as she said:

"There isn't much."

It seemed that she couldn't read the memories of the entity that the Quirae had eaten—she could only read the Quirae's memories from its birth.

Just how it had been born in the abyss and had come down here through the abyss.

Of course, she didn't return empty-handed.

"I've at least found out where the thing this Quirae ate had come from."

"Where?"

Kiriel pointed towards the bright blue abyss in the distance.

And Hansoo tightly grasped the hammer in his hand.

'I guess I must go down.'

He didn't know what he'd find below.

Even though the Quirae had eaten it, its original strength would not be weak.

But Kiriel shook her head as she looked at Hansoo.

"You won't have to fight."

"…?"

Kiriel shrugged her shoulders at Hansoo's confused expression.

"The things those Quirae ate weren't alive."

Corpse after corpse after corpse.

None of them had been alive.

They were all dead and dried up.

"…I don't know what happened."

Kiriel mumbled as she thought back to the memories of that Quirae, and of the area below those depths.

………………………………………

—whoooosh!—

Hansoo thought back to Kiriel's last words as he dropped into the depths.

She just had to collect the crystals on the ground, so it wasn't hard to do.

Hansoo accepted Kiriel's suggestion.

Looking at the surrounding walls, it seemed that something had dug through these depths.

As he fell, he thought:

'…This isn't natural.'

An artificial hole.

And it was clear who had done this.

'Melchizedek.'

Although Nelkipa boasted a powerful defense, as long as it wasn't a life-threatening attack there was no resistance.

It wouldn't care much about a small hole in its skin.

Although it got harder to dig through as one went deeper, digging something like this was a piece of cake for Melchizedek.

—whooosh!—

Falling through the bright blue hole, Hansoo started to control his speed when he saw the ground quickly approaching him from beneath.

—kakakakaka!—

Hansoo held onto a tube along the walls, causing him to quickly slow down, and then proceeded to land.

As he looked up, a blinding blue light surrounded him.

It was a level of brightness that could easily blind a normal human being.

But of course, it wasn't enough to disrupt Hansoo's sight.

—squirm—

His pupils altered as they quickly readjusted to the light level before his eyes.

Hansoo quickly looked around, and then found the source of the light.

—ooooooong—

A 200-meter radius or so—a very tiny space.

The floor of this space was made up of a transparent material.

And past the transparent floor, a blue sphere pulsed as if it could explode at any moment.

No, it was more like a blue sun.

The giant sphere was so huge that he could clearly see its details despite the distance between them.

It seemed to be right in the center of Nelkipa's body.

The transparent floor absorbed the energy radiating out from the sphere and was sending it over to a crystal located in the center.

And the tubes above him were connected to that crystal.

'…Amazing.'

Although the crystal wasn't directly connected to the sphere and was only absorbing the energy indirectly, it was more than enough to transfer out all the entities within Aokan.

—tonk—tonk—

Hansoo tapped the floor and then frowned.

'Unbreakable.'

Maybe he might have been able to if he used all his strength, but the thickness and sturdiness behind it weren't so simple.

And he didn't feel like he should break it anyway.

The small floor beneath his feet was only a small part of a huge glass structure.

Melchizedek probably hadn't broken it because it knew this as well.

'If it were possible, Melchizedek would've done it a long time ago.'

If it had been able to directly harness the energy below the glass floor and control it, there was no reason for it to fly all the way to Angkara.

Angkara would've easily turned into a sea of flames if it just fired a strike using this energy.

But this was well beyond what Melchizedek could control.

Hansoo then turned away from the transparent glass sphere surrounding the miniature blue sun and looked around.

And realized what Kiriel had been talking about.

'…They're all dead.'

Corpses that had been chewed apart by the Quirae's larvae.

But it would have been painful.

These corpses didn't seem like they had died from the Quirae.

It seemed like they'd been dead for a very long time.

And he could see dried-up, yet familiar, sets of armor surrounding the corpses.

Hundreds.

'The blue armor…'

Hansoo was shocked as he looked at the hundreds of blue armor that had dried up from the lack of an energy supply.

Melchizedek had picked one up—that was fine.

But then why wasn't his armor all dried up like those things and was still maintaining its functionality?

At that moment—

—booooom!—

—a loud sound occurred above the hole he'd fallen down from.

A sound that he could hear despite being multiple kilometers underground.

'What the hell is going on now?'

Hansoo looked up.

*Ekdud's Notes: The first few lines of this chapter are the original owners of the blue armor. The buried natives. In case anybody was confused