Chapter 424

Chapter 424
## Chapter 424

Masquerade (2)

Transcendent.

An entity that had gone beyond the boundaries of their natural state, their identity shaped by the immense karma they had gathered over time.

Be it via grueling physical labor, mental fortitude, perfection of mystic arts, or the ultimate refinement of a craft…

…the crucial element lay in overcoming their own constraints, shattering the established laws, and carving out an independent path.

Their capabilities went far beyond standard talents, verging on the territory of godly rule, granting them total dominance over anyone who had failed to step past that boundary.

A Transcendent.

A figure who had demonstrated their supreme worth, a paragon resting at the summit of existence, prepared to take the final step toward divinity.

“Ugh! Malpi! Hurry up…!”

“Huu, Ahn, can you stand?”

“…Not exactly, but I refuse to… throw in the towel. I won’t allow them to succeed.”

“Excellent. You haven’t lost your fighting spirit.”

“Malpi… Ahn…!”

Yet, as is true for all things under heaven,

…even among those who had climbed to such an elevated state, a pecking order remained.

When opposing convictions collided, only the mightier force remained standing.

Not every transcendent occupied the same tier.

“Jose! How are you holding up? Can you give me another thirty seconds?”

“…Stop doubting my resolve. I can persist for at least sixty.”

“Is that so? Then stretch it to a minute.”

“Just… try to wrap this up swiftly. I can take the hits, but I might end up short an arm or a leg.”

Having broken through their natural caps, they had entered a… boundless marathon, a rivalry devoid of regulations or safety nets.

Certain entities were already miles ahead, individuals who had… altered their own forms, augmenting their traits through advanced science and sorcery, and there were… hazards and pitfalls at every turn.

“Huu…”

Ahn, certain that she had at least… crossed the starting line, inhaled deeply.

And as the breath left her lips, she redirected the currents of chakra circulating through her form.

‘…Oracle isn’t my concern right now. My focus must be on keeping people alive and stalling for time. Right up until Malpi breaks the spatial seal and unlocks a path out.’

Fury had consumed her upon discovering that the President had been… swapped out… but she had since brought her emotions under control.

When all was said and done, retaliation required being… alive to enact it.

Retreating to construct a superior strategy made far more sense than wagering everything on a hopeless engagement.

‘…On the bright side, this territory belongs to Malpi. Even with the egress blocked, the remaining systems function perfectly. Breaking through won’t be simple for them.’

The massive deficit in raw capability meant she stood zero chance in an open brawl.

Consequently, she dedicated herself to throwing the warzone into disarray, shifting the terrain, setting up pitfalls and blockades, and making it impossible for them to engage her cleanly.

Furthermore, another… positive variable was that Ken, their… savior, was actively contesting the Executioner, the premier combatant of the Heaven’s Turn Society.

He was hanging on by a thread, but…

Swish—!

Boom!

Ken, enveloped in pitch-black embers, was sent flying, impacting the structural masonry as the Executioner’s caudal appendage, resembling a blazing scourge, whipped into him.

[“Your resilience is noteworthy. This is… turning into… amusement.”]

“Ugh!”

Ken, pulling himself from the debris, rotated his head to clear his blurry thoughts.

A foreign, massive energy was rushing through his circulatory system, yet the fiend, the Executioner, continued to dominate the exchange.

Had it not been for 「Thought Transference」, which forced a rapid spike in his attunement with this freshly claimed power, he would have collapsed long ago.

‘…If I could just wield this energy with actual precision!’

His survival was purely a consequence of his adversary being… fascinated by his performance.

But that curiosity would inevitably fade.

And the moment that fascination dried up… that would spell his doom.

‘…Confound it, employer! What are you waiting for?! Move faster!’

Ahn, picking up on Ken’s desperate state, narrowed her mental focus.

Both of them were walking a tightrope, their remaining window closing fast.

“Ahn! Not yet… Ugh!”

“Hmm.”

Malpi was shifting the spatial layout to create defensive strongholds, while the remaining fighters, Jose included, strove to purchase fractions of a minute, battling with everything they had… but the power gap was too vast.

Their comrades were dropping one after another, trading their lives for meager moments…

…and Ahn’s unique capability, her intrinsic power, represented their sole salvation.

Wooong—!

The internal energy swirling inside her synchronized with the ambient environment.

Chakra, the mechanism used to alter abstract concepts and physical laws by leveraging one’s internal cosmos.

As her internal universe expanded and broke outward, it began enforcing its parameters onto the external setting.

Her specific chakra, the concept of ‘Fate’, integrated with her intrinsic talent, 「Probability Manipulation」—the very asset that had shielded her from Oracle’s foresight and allowed her to surpass her natural cap—unleashed its genuine capability.

—Fate Manipulation.

A operative of the Heaven’s Turn Society, who had been systematically pressuring the Burning Torch leadership, suddenly grimaced.

“What? This sensation is…”

He observed his palm, his pupils contracting, before pivoting to examine the surrounding space.

He wasn’t an isolated case.

Strikes that were guaranteed to land inexplicably veered off target.

Defensive counters that should have amounted to nothing suddenly turned… lethal.

The ground, already unstable and shifting, grew exponentially more treacherous, and their forward momentum, checked by unforeseen barriers, ground to a crawl.

“Tsk, this is turning into a tedious affair.”

Nagaraja, the Branch Manager, who had been overseeing the conflict from a distance, clicked his teeth, piecing together the current phenomenon.

He had assigned the… termination of the surviving Burning Torch forces to his cohorts and had kept his eyes fixed on the Executioner’s duel with Ken, anxious that the fiend might… accidentally kill the boy.

But that was the extent of his concern.

Dismissing the setback, he redirected his focus toward the Executioner.

It was certainly commendable that she could influence numerous transcendent combatants simultaneously, even through indirect means… but structural limits existed.

The most she could accomplish was… extending their survival by a few moments.

“There is no cause for my direct involvement.”

He possessed the means to conclude the matter instantly if desired, but he chose to abstain.

The final verdict was already set in stone, and the spatial seal wasn’t going to yield anytime soon.

It was far wiser to remain stationary to counter any unforeseen developments.

And his logic was sound.

‘…What is this?’

…Were it not for a highly specific… anomaly.

‘…What could this be? Why is causality… shifting so erratically…?’

Ahn, offering support to her comrades and tilting the scales of destiny to maximize their odds of slipping away, creased her brow, an unreadable look overtaking her features.

An unrecognized pressure, originating from an external location, was persistently… meddling, fracturing the chain of cause and effect.

The numerical data provided by 「Probability Manipulation」 fluctuated wildly, and an unmapped destiny, its starting point obscured, signaled to her, its resonance… mesmerizing.

As though it carried the precise resolution she required.

Yet its true nature eluded her.

Still, her period of reflection was cut short.

‘…Regardless of its nature, it cannot possibly be worse than our current predicament.’

Her trait had bought them a momentary reprieve, but it offered no permanent safety.

She needed to act, to introduce an anomaly, even if it required… gambling with her life.

Wooong—

She channeled every scrap of her residual reserves and discharged her power, ‘Fate Manipulation’, guided entirely by her gut feelings,

…imploring that this mysterious anomaly would prove… advantageous.

As her fingers locked onto a strand of destiny, a delicate… anchor reaching in from an exterior point, she yanked it into their space,

Flash—!

…a radiant illumination flared nearby,

…and a blade, shimmering with brilliant luminescence, tore straight through the dimensions.

“…A blade?”

Reaction time was non-existent.

The edge, following a brief… pause, as though… evaluating, suddenly swung downward, carving a ragged, extensive gash into the structural fabric of the universe.

And from the interior of that tear,

“…Huh? The spatial drag… it softened. My entry was smoother than anticipated. Is this barrier prone to outside breaches?”

…the vocalizations of a man carried through.

Clank—!

The echoing resonance of solid armor plates striking one another.

‘…That person is…!’

Ahn’s eyelids parted wider as she took in the transpiring event.

An individual, stepping free from the dimensional tear, had just… walked right into their isolated zone.

The moment he set foot inside, the chamber… appeared to… grow brighter, as though the ambient atmosphere itself was… glowing.

It wasn’t a trick of her eyes.

He was literally emitting a… holy ring of light!

At that moment, understanding dawned on her.

That the anomaly, the savior capable of reversing the course of this engagement…

“…Ah well, it makes no difference. I have arrived.”

…a genuine marvel… had appeared.

However, she had failed to foresee…

“Khaha! Who dares torment our newest recruit?!”

“…Ugh, the ventilation here is… miserable. I knew this trip was a mistake. My stomach is turning… I need to wrap this up immediately and head back…”

“Oh my, look at this… quite a gathering.”

…their sheer quantity.

—

‘…Let us analyze the situation… ‘

Heinrich, outfitted in an immaculate ivory suit of plate armor, dispassionately evaluated the room.

The active combat had already… ground to a halt.

‘…Granted, that is only logical.’

His arrival had been remarkably… spectacular.

Furthermore, this sector was intended to be… locked down, completely inaccessible.

Even he, utilizing his sacred blade alongside 「Spatial Slash」, had encountered friction breaking through.

Then, a collection of… eccentrically costumed figures had materialized out of thin air beside him.

It would be a miracle if they hadn’t drawn every eye in the room.

“…Identify yourselves. By what means did you breach this perimeter?”

Nagaraja, who had been tracking the developments with a tranquil and almost… indifferent demeanor, finally voiced his query, his vocal tone dropping into a threatening register as his expressions petrified.

His hand gripped his lance, his physical stance shifting into a coiled, defensive arrangement, all past levity vanishing instantly.

His amber, serpentine eyes contracted as he ran his gaze over their forms.

“The Saint… Phantom… and…”

A warrior encapsulated in lustrous plate armor, his visor hiding his identity, his entire being pulsing with sacred energy.

Phantom, meticulously turned out in a dark formal suit, a pale masquerade mask obscuring the upper portion of his countenance.

He pinned down those two identities instantly, after which his attention migrated to the remaining pair.

‘…So the Saint is tied to this as well. But those other two… ‘

A towering, heavily built man with an exposed chest, a savage animal mask concealing his head, alongside an individual wrapped from head to toe in baggy garments, heavy mitts, and a full-face motorcycle helmet, completely masking their identity.

His thoughts worked rapidly, sorting through the expansive data archives he controlled as the regional director of the Heaven’s Turn Society.

‘…That headgear… it matches my records. That is the individual from the Seoul incident, the one who assisted with emergency operations before vanishing. As for the large one… ‘

He had committed the dossiers of numerous high-risk targets to memory while constructing this ambush… yet he could not identify the muscular figure.

This blind spot stemmed from the fractured data streams he had obtained from Doctor, which lacked several vital points.

Right then, the gargantuan, bare-chested figure, who had been popping his joints, planted his foot forward and boomed with dramatic, showy confidence.

“Khaha! If your curiosity demands my title! I am the Lion Mask, an elite constituent of the Masquerade!”

“…Uh… well… you can select… whatever label suits you…”

Directly following that, a exhausted voice, completely drained of… zeal, drifted from his rear.

Nagaraja’s brow furrowed at their… informal and dismissive introductions.

They were explicitly… treating him as a minor nuisance.

[“Hmm— This is… quite amusing.”]

Before he could offer a scathing reply, another voice cut across the space.

The Executioner, the fiend who had been quietly evaluating the landscape after carelessly swatting Ken away,

…had closed the distance to their position.

[“I harbored some… expectations… but this… exceeds my projections. To think the entire group would gather in one basket…”]

The fiend, his mouth splitting into a ghoulish smirk that exposed rows of razor-sharp dentition, deliberately studied the fresh arrivals, his gaze burning with predatory satisfaction, like a hunter gifted an unearned… bounty.

Their collective weight was… immense, their pressure… stifling.

It wasn’t merely the cumulative strength of several high-tier combatants.

Every single one of them possessed staggering individual power, their tiers dwarfing his own, their internal pressures… bordering on the celestial.

[“Khehehe!”]

His frame, forged through endless cycles of warfare, vibrated and flexed, his muscle groups tightening.

Numbers failed to intimidate him.

If anything, he was… ecstatic, his murderous intent spiking, his appetite for conflict… becoming uncontainable.

[“Superb! A desperate scramble for existence! A mutual pact of slaughter! This captures the raw essence of living! I was beginning to find this… dull… but this venture has proven its value after all!”]

“Haha! You and I… we share a perspective! Allow me to present you with a… token! To commemorate our… budding acquaintance!”

[“Oh? A token?”]

“Indeed, a little something I… find immensely satisfying. It is… spectacular.”

Harley smirked, his pupils burning with intensity as he closed the distance.

The instant he entered striking range,

“Khahaha! Mind you… relish every bit of it!”

…without a single heartbeat of hesitation,

Kaboom—!

“…This one is on behalf of our rookie!”

…he discharged his technique, a cataclysmic strike, a… sudden token of appreciation.