Chapter 158

Chapter 158
## Chapter: 158
Chapter Title: The Elves’ Fury

‘That female is not of the human race?’

Auril tilted her head slightly, confused.

They were standing in the presence of a being that was fundamentally inhuman.

‘A monster. A truly repulsive and bizarre monster.’

The instant her eyes landed on the figure, a cold shiver ran down her spine.

Though she possessed the silhouette of a person, that woman was anything but human.

A chaotic mixture of unidentifiable scents drifted from her.

It was the unmistakable aroma of a creature that was profoundly lethal.

‘Void of feelings?’

Most unsettling of all was the complete absence of longing or sentiment.

She was entirely colorless.

Every living entity, no matter how small, carried some spark of desire within.

Humanity, in particular, was defined by being the most driven by their inner cravings.

And yet, there was nothing here.

There was only a single explanation for such a state.

‘A cadaver. The Undead!’

By reflex, Auril’s hand moved toward her hip.

She was not alone in this reaction.

The entire group of ‘Laurel Warriors’ accompanying her shifted into offensive positions the moment they laid eyes on the woman.

Elves were the ancestral rivals of the walking dead.

Coexistence in the same environment was an impossibility for them.

It surpassed mere revulsion; it was a deep-seated, visceral enmity.

Simply witnessing her existence sparked a violent flare of temper.

How could a member of the undead be standing right there among those humans?

“This is quite the elaborate reception.”

……The man who had arrived just moments ago remarked as he scanned the elves currently poised for battle.

Beside him stood another man clad in the vestments of a priest.

“Aruwen…?”

The priest uttered the name of the elven elder, suddenly becoming as still as a stone carving.

Andrew’s pupils trembled uncontrollably.

There was no possibility of a mistake.

The elf positioned in front of the spatial gateway was unmistakable.

She was certainly his spouse, Aruwen, who had vanished without a trace one afternoon.

The very woman who had deserted him and Andasar to journey back to the Primordial Forest.

She had departed leaving nothing but a cold, detached correspondence.

The message hadn’t contained much.

Only the statement that she would never come back. That was the extent of it.

He had spent a long time searching for her, but his efforts yielded no results.

He had considered entering the Primordial Forest himself, but with the responsibility of raising Andasar, he couldn’t gamble his life on such a dangerous quest.

Consequently, he had resigned himself to the idea that their paths would never cross again in this life.

‘Why are you standing here?’

Ha.

The irony was overwhelming—the elven elder who had come seeking out Randolph was actually his wife, Aruwen.

However, Aruwen’s eyes were not on him.

Her attention was locked entirely on Andasar.

‘Ah.’

In that heartbeat, Andrew felt as though his world was collapsing.

It was the realization that she had perceived what his daughter had become—a lich, a member of the undead.

If that were the case, he had no defense to offer, even if he possessed a thousand tongues to explain.

A brief, tense deadlock ensued.

She couldn’t fathom how this human in religious attire was familiar with the elder’s name.

‘Those who defy death are an affront to nature. They must be returned to the earth’s peace.’

But the presence of the undead was a much more pressing irritation.

Auril had been conditioned from birth to wipe out all traces of the undead.

She had been a personal pupil of the Elf Queen and ranked among the three most formidable combatants within the ‘Laurel Warriors’.

Because of this, she found the existence of an undead being completely intolerable.

It appeared to be lurking within the human group, masquerading as one of them.

Suddenly, leaves from the Laurel tree manifested like wings upon Auril’s heels.

“Auril…!”

Shrieeek!

Before the elder could intervene, Auril caught the breeze and lunged forward in a blur, pulling an ancient branch from her belt.

The shimmering image of a sanctified blade covered the wood.

The undead creature would be shattered by this strike in a single blow…!

Clang-!

A sharp vibration numbed her arm, and Auril performed a midair rotation from the impact.

Her strike had been intercepted.

“Are all elves typically this insolent?”

The voice belonged to the man who had commented on the reception earlier.

He had parried her attack using a blade that radiated the chill of midwinter.

‘Sword aura?’

The subtle radiance flickering along the metal was unmistakably sword aura.

It was a hidden art available only to those favored by the World Tree or combatants who had surpassed the seventh stage.

To encounter a human who had attained such mastery was shocking!

‘Ah.’

She had been so fixated on the undead that she failed to properly evaluate the man.

It was a lapse in judgment.

An error that a Laurel Warrior should never have committed.

But in that moment.

“What… is happening?”

“Can… can such a thing be real?”

“Auril… get away!”

The elves who watched the man gripping the winter blade began to shake, their voices filled with terror and disbelief.

Auril was paralyzed as well.

Her legs refused to respond to her will.

Her entire frame felt as heavy as granite, rooted to the spot.

‘What… what kind of longing is that…!’

The manifestation of desire radiating from the man was terrifying.

She had never encountered or even heard rumors of a force like it.

Hidden Trait: High Druid of Great Nature

Black King.

A sovereign lion of pure shadow, draped in a cloak of absolute murk.

He bore a striking resemblance to the White King, yet he was a stark mirror image in hue, looking down from the precipice.

“Perish!”

“Eradicate every last one of them!”

“Do not falter against those pathetic ants!”

“Disgusting vermin!”

At the base of the cliff.

Colossal insects were engaged in a brutal territorial conflict.

These were insectoid monstrosities indigenous to the southern wilderness.

They were once trivial creatures, but after being granted the ‘gift’ of the Black King and attaining advanced cognition, they fell into a cycle of mutual loathing and endless warfare.

“Black King, those idiots still haven’t finished their business?”

A dark elf walked up from the rear and shook her head in disapproval.

The members of the Rift Tower had assembled.

“Hmm, engineering the ultimate insect is a slow process.”

The Black King gave a casual shrug.

Gu Poison.

A tribe in the south practiced a ritual of trapping various bugs in a vessel and utilizing the final survivor to create a lethal toxin.

Taking his cue from that, he intended to forge the supreme insect monster, but their new intelligence had only served to prolong the conflict.

The ‘gift’ he had provided seemed to be the source of the complication.

Rubbing his jaw, the Black King mused.

“Granting them ‘Great Sage’ might have been a blunder. Perhaps ‘Mutation’ would have been more effective?”

“Wouldn’t that have just killed them all?”

“Perhaps one would have evolved and endured, no? Though such a thing has never occurred before…”

The Black King possessed the power to grant ‘gifts’—essentially ‘hidden traits’.

However, among his options, mutation was one of the most volatile.

Those who received it usually couldn’t withstand the change and perished.

Even so, it might have yielded better results than Great Sage.

To produce the perfect specimen, such a high-stakes gamble might have been required.

The Black King slowly shifted his gaze.

Five individuals had scaled the tower.

Currently, however, only four were present.

“I assume the Master is deceased.”

“Correct. We were fools to ever place our confidence in that piece of filth.”

He was a burden until the very end.

Following his hollow promises to climb the tower was a terrible mistake.

He died in isolation and merely gifted points to the leading group.

“And yet, you still met with failure, didn’t you?”

The Black King pointed out their collective shortcoming.

A loss was a loss.

Regardless of where the individual blame lay, it was the outcome of their actions as a team.

It was a failure shared by everyone.

The dark elf’s gaze wavered.

“T-That… Black King, there was a variable we didn’t account for. A ‘bug’ user…”

“A bug, you claim…”

“Someone who traverses the isolated sectors alone. Neither the tower administrator nor the lord of the first floor could have foreseen him. Yet, he managed to slay the Earth Dragon.”

He hadn’t come with empty hands.

The theories regarding the leading party were true, and he had taken down the Earth Dragon that served the White King.

Only then did the Black King display a faint spark of curiosity.

“The Earth Dragon? Who accomplished that?”

“……Lactusha.”

“Is that the truth? Did he actually finish off the Earth Dragon?”

Under the heavy stare of the Black King, Lactusha gave a nod.

“It sustained a mortal strike from the Black Heaven Sword. There is no possibility of survival, Black King.”

“You didn’t actually stay to see it breathe its last, though.”

“……”

“Tsk tsk. The Earth Dragon is still among the living.”

“……What? That’s impossible…”

Lactusha fell into a state of alarm.

The creature had been hit by the Black Heaven Sword while it was channeled with sword aura.

It was a catastrophic injury that no living organism should be able to walk away from.

Yet the Black King was certain of its survival, despite not being there.

How could he know?

The Black King pointed a single finger toward the firmament.

A massive entity was drifting there.

An object so vast it seemed capable of shrouding the entire world.

“Do you perceive ‘Despair’?”

“……Yes, Black King. I see it clearly.”

Despair.

One of the Four Evils, distinct even from the disaster deity Baal, whose very name served as a title of power.

It remained concealed from the eyes of others, but those who carried the Black King’s blessing could see it plain as day.

It was presently merging with the Four Kings, a beast he was certain would serve as his ultimate advantage once it fully awoke.

“The four primary guardians of the White King have been mentally connected from the beginning. If the Earth Dragon had truly perished, there would have been an unmistakable ripple.”

“Ah…”

Lactusha let out a long breath.

It was alive.

How could any creature survive her strike!

“The Earth Dragon, which should be dead, continues to breathe. If that’s the case, then this ‘bug’ user must be involved. Did you get a look at him?”

“……No. However, the party definitely consisted of a human and a dryad.”

“I see. So the elves have finally made a move.”

“The elves from the Primordial Forest?”

The Black King nodded his head.

The appearance of the Rift Tower this time changed things.

Having seen the potential rewards for clearing it, the elves would not remain idle.

Particularly with a ‘dryad’ in the mix—a creature that shared a soul with the woods.

Elves living under the aegis of the World Tree would find it much easier to locate them.

“But Black King, don’t the elves usually shun the outside world?”

“With the World Tree nearing its end, they are left with no other options.”

“The… World Tree?!”

The World Tree sat at the heart of the Primordial Forest.

It was a gargantuan tree whose roots supposedly spanned the globe, living up to its legendary name.

The very essence and symbol of the elven race was fading away.

The myths stated that if the World Tree ever fell, the floating continents would plummet into the darkness below. Its importance was absolute.

The Black King spoke with a casual air.

“The World Tree and the elven race are a single entity. The death of the tree is the death of the elves. Having remained stagnant for so long, this was the inevitable conclusion.”

They had been isolated within the Primordial Forest for centuries, perhaps millennia.

Remaining still and beginning to decay.

Their only hope for survival was to reach ‘max level’ and attempt to break through their inherent limits.

Lactusha spoke with visible tension.

“Then… the fact that the elves are reaching out means…”

They intended to scale the tower for that purpose.

Most likely alongside the ‘bug user’.

Hmm. The Black King tilted his head in thought.

“It seems a truly fascinating individual has surfaced.”

A bug user that the tower itself seemed to permit.

He had never encountered such a phenomenon.

Under normal circumstances, no one could bypass the regulations established by the administrator.

And yet, here was someone who ignored the rules, crushed his subordinates, and conquered the tower with overwhelming force.

‘Bypassing the rules. A hidden trait… if it is possible, that must be it.’

Only hidden traits possessed the power to work outside the tower’s internal logic.

Yet even the Black King struggled to understand.

He was familiar with every hidden trait.

He could assign them and raise their potency.

But a hidden trait capable of shattering the tower’s laws…

‘Perhaps Heavenly, or even related to the Admin.’

One potential answer was a Heavenly trait.

It was the only category of hidden trait that he was unable to bestow upon others.

However, a Heavenly trait could not be physically acquired by a body.

If that wasn’t the answer, then it truly had to be the work of the administrator.

Who could it possibly be.

Ruuuumble.

Suddenly.

The noise of the environment died down.

The battle below had reached its conclusion.

The Black King turned his gaze back down toward the base of the cliff, a wide grin spreading across his face as if his previous worries had never existed.

“Oh ho, the birth is complete. The ant king. Your new companion has arrived.”

“……Ah.”

Auril let out a faint, strangled sound.

How had she missed it?

A yearning of that magnitude should have been obvious from the very start.

‘It is too immense…’