Chapter 334

Some time earlier...

“Young Monarch! I have discovered information about other Apostles in the Apostle of Evolution’s memories!”

Beru made his report, recounting what he’d learned after consuming the Apostle of Evolution’s brain.

“There is another called the Apostle of Domination! He operates differently from the others we’ve encountered. While the Apostle of Paradise ruined ecosystems and the Apostle of Evolution experimented on humans, the Apostle of Domination secretly birthed an army of his own.”

“Birthed?” Suho asked.

“Yes. His ability allows him to create countless butterflies, all copies of himself who share a single consciousness and purpose. They seem to be a sort of collective intelligence that—”

“How many are there?”

“Well...”

The Apostle of Evolution hadn’t known the precise number of soldiers under the Apostle of Domination’s command. Each Apostle, loyal to a different Itarim, saw the others as rivals and kept their secrets well-guarded. The Apostle of Paradise, who had provided the Elvenwoods to the Apostle of Domination, was the only one who knew the location of his stronghold. But even he hadn’t grasped the full scale of the operation.

One thing, however, was certain. Even now, the Apostle of Domination’s soldiers were multiplying. Still, the Apostle of Evolution had taken precautions and gathered information about his counterpart’s power.

“Thankfully, he seems to have done some research on the Apostle of Domination’s abilities.”

Beru relayed everything the Apostle of Evolution had learned to Suho.

“His butterflies are his minions, but they are also copies of himself who share his mind. When the primary body dies, one of the remaining copies, the strongest among them, takes its place.”

“What? So he’s basically immortal? Because of their shared memories and consciousness?”

“Yes. The more butterflies he has, the harder it becomes to kill him. He’s like an unkillable cockroach.”

“Yeah, no kidding. So if I don’t wipe them all out at once, they’ll just keep multiplying and crawling out from some hole somewhere. Honestly, he should be called the Apostle of Proliferation, shouldn’t he?”

It was a particularly troublesome ability.

Suho took this information and began strategizing with Jinho and Jinchul. He decided to make use of the Tower of Tribulation, which was already being prepared.

“So you’re saying we’ll use the tower as bait? That means a truly massive marketing campaign,” Jinchul said.

“Right. In order to make them crawl out of hiding themselves, we’ll spray the shadow energy that they seem so on guard against all over the world. They won’t be able to miss it.”

All the followers of the Itarim that they’d encountered so far had all shown a guarded attitude toward the energy of the shadow. Once bitten, twice shy, as the saying went. Because these beings had experienced Jinwoo’s energy at least once in the outer universes, albeit from a distance, the Shadow Dungeon would be plenty effective in luring them in.

Still, there were many things to consider when preparing a trap. Jinchul’s expression turned somber.

“If he truly has that many under his command, we’ll have to take great care to ensure the safety of the civilian population,” he said.

If they came out of hiding all at once, there was no telling when or where the attack would begin. There were hunters all over the world, but it was impossible to constantly be on high alert for an ambush they couldn’t predict.

“That’s why the citizens must be trained to protect themselves. If each person has the strength to at least defend their own family, the associations of the various countries can deal with the rest.”

Jinchul’s thoughts drifted back to a miserable, haunting memory of a tragedy from long ago. The people of the world had refused to listen. Even simple instructions to avoid fighting and evacuate as far as possible fell on deaf ears. Back then, humanity had been ignorant, and that ignorance had made them bold and greedy. The result of that had been nothing but disaster and hopeless defeat. In hindsight, however, he knew that running away would not have changed things at all. Jinchul was certain of that.

“If it hadn’t been for Mr. Sung, every living creature on Earth would have been destroyed, no matter where they ran. Perhaps even the planet itself would have been lost.”

Humanity was impossibly weak amid the war between these great, powerful beings. And yet, it was that same frail species that had produced the Monarch of Shadows.

“He was an E-rank hunter. A young man called the “Weakest Hunter of All Mankind” was the one to put an end to all war.”

It was a legendary accomplishment that was hard to believe, even now. The feat had been so great that even the Rulers themselves had been stunned. That was why Jinchul had faith in his race. They were weak, yes, but they had the potential to be stronger.

“We can’t all be like him, of course, but if we could at least follow in his footsteps...” Jinchul said.

Suho smiled knowingly and summoned Harmakan. Instead of casting Mirage over an entire beach like Jarvier had done, he zeroed in on a single person—Jinchul. He extracted from Jinchul’s mind the most gripping trauma the man possessed.

They were memories of war, powerful and impossible to forget. Inside Jinchul’s head was the history of the entire universe, embedded by Jinwoo in burning clarity. That was how the tutorial of the Tower of Tribulation had been created.

“Did you know? At one point in Earth’s past, time was rewound multiple times, using the power of the Cup of Reincarnation, created by the Absolute Being.”

At one time, Earth had been a battlefield for the Rulers and the Monarchs. Its creatures had been driven to extinction again and again by unending war. In order to undo their meaningless deaths, the Rulers had used the Cup of Reincarnation to rewind time itself.

“That means...” Jinchul continued.

“You mean that in my father’s generation, the souls of all the humans living during that era have already died and come back to life many times over,” Suho finished, quickly following Jinchul’s train of thought.

He had already visited the Sea of the Afterlife, that dimension where dead souls wandered, and so his understanding came easily. Harmakan, the sorcerer and demonic spirit who manipulated souls as a specialty, understood the matter even more deeply.

“Their current bodies won’t remember it,” he said. “But those deaths are etched into their souls forever.”

Souls who had died repeatedly were truly enticing subjects of experimentation for a demonic spirit. However, he knew Suho would be very angry if he used them for simple entertainment. If he were to get what he wanted, he needed a suitable excuse. The Tower of Tribulation was a very good one. Harmakan’s proposal seemed to greatly please Ammut, the Monarch of Tribulation, as well. He bared his teeth in a broad grin.

“That means we can boost the difficulty of the trials as much as we want!” he said, letting out a deep, guttural laugh.

He could train weaker beings to the edge of their limits, but they would always return. That was the perfect form of entertainment for someone like Ammut. The Tower of Tribulation was eventually completed in a form that suited Harmakan’s preferences just as well.

Yet all the trials it offered were ultimately meant for humans, as it was a facility designed solely to train them. The system was designed so that any non-human being who crossed the dimensional wall through the game capsules would be diverted to a completely different destination—the void, the very heart of the nest teeming with Void Insects.

***

“Hahaha! So it was a trap after all!” the Apostle of Domination exclaimed, laughing like a madman.

The Void Insects attacked from every possible direction, far too many to count.

A trap!

He was a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. He had wondered at the possibility, and his fears had been justified. This was a carefully laid trap, meant precisely for him. But he’d considered this outcome from the very beginning, and truthfully, it didn’t matter.

“Hah! What do I care?”

“Unfortunately for you, I have infinite lives!”

His initial plan had been thwarted, but this was still a chance to satisfy his butterflies’ hunger. That, in his eyes, was a victory in itself.

“You think you can defeat me with numbers?”

“We’ll show you who the real prey is!”

Each one of his butterflies spread its wings, releasing a radiant, holy-looking light upon the swarming Void Insects as they closed in. Golden particles filled the air, pushing back against the darkness.

“Do you see this?” he asked. “This light is divine power granted to me by the great god I serve!”

“It’s a highly refined form of protection, far above the likes of Stardust or Star Fragments!”

Golden brilliance clashed with darkness in a fierce struggle. The Void Insects, who’d had a clear advantage at first, were finding it strangely difficult to devour the golden glow. The Apostle’s copies grinned.

“What? Are you confused?”

“Do you wonder about the source of my power?”

He fixed his smiling gaze on Arsha, a knowing glint in his eyes.

“Did you think these were the only butterflies I had?”

“You mean there are more?” Arsha said, her eyes glittering.

The Apostle of Domination mistook her expression for fear and arrogantly shoved the Void Insects back.

“Of course!”

“You really thought I would send my whole army after a single city?”

“The other cities are already under attack by my forces!” he proclaimed.

“And now that they know this place is a trap...”

“The others will not try to enter the Tower of Tribulation. They will attack the humans outside instead!”

“I may have been trapped, but my power is infinite. No one can stop me!”

The butterflies, united by a shared mind, echoed his declaration in unison. They weren’t bluffing, either. At that very moment, the skies above several cities near Russia were already darkening beneath waves of butterflies. Their wings stirred the air, casting golden light over the cityscape. A massive invasion had begun.

“This is a holy war! A grand crusade!”

“I will burn every soul here, offer them as tribute to my great god, and receive even more blessings in return!”

“For the Itarim!”

“For the Itarim!”

With those cries, the butterflies launched their assault on humanity, their malice unchecked.

At that very moment, however, a white-haired elderly man stood and stared up at the sky of one of those cities.

“What foul energy...” he said.

He gripped the hilts of the twin swords at his waist and cleaved into the swarm that filled his vision. His blades brimmed with condensed power. That single attack blew a massive hole through the horde. The butterflies reeled in shock at the sheer power of the man. It was China’s seven-star hunter, Liu Zhigang. A former National Level Hunter who had regained his former strength was here, and he was ready.

“There are a ton of them, but they seem weak. I’ve got this place covered,” he said, relaxed.

He began making calls. One by one, those he contacted answered.

“Cha Haein here.

I’ve got this end.”

There was a rumble of thunder over the line as she spoke.

“Sung Ilhwan.

I can handle this place on my own too,”

Ilhwan said, reporting from a different city.

“Suho here.

I’ve located the hiding place of the primary body.”

The moment those words left his lips, the ferocious assault of the butterflies came to an abrupt halt. They looked shocked by what they’d heard. Arsha, on the other hand, smiled cheerfully in the middle of a fierce, evenly matched battle.

“Oh, dear. Why do you look so surprised? Did you think these Void Insects were all I had?”

The World Tree stretched its roots across every dimension, and the Void Insects had nested deep inside the tree. There was nothing in the world they couldn’t track. If their target was an army as great as this, the job of finding their source wasn’t difficult at all.

“But really, why so flustered? Are you hiding something important over there?” Arsha asked.

The Apostle, unable to conceal his unease, gnashed his teeth and roared in fury.

“First, we kill these bugs...”

“Then we go back!”

Beru, who had simply been watching until now, tilted his head in confusion at their sudden shift in behavior. Had they never seen him in the outer universes?

“You want to run? Do you genuinely believe that you can leave this place alive?” he asked.

He supposed it was entirely possible there were plenty who didn’t know who he was.

“No one... has lived to tell the tale after running into me,” Beru muttered. With a swift motion, he seized the primary body of the Apostle of Domination, who had been flying at the center of the storm of butterflies and Void Insects, and ripped off his wings.

Escape was no longer an option.

Beru’s claws were merciless. The wings were torn to shreds, far beyond any hope of repair.

“You should be grateful to the Young Monarch. You won’t be dying for a while. Oh no. Not until every last one of your copies has been destroyed.”