Chapter 80

Chapter 80
## Chapter 80

### The Throne of Radiant Light

The Silver Fox Mask had previously stated that their objective involved the purge of the labyrinth’s restless dead. If the dark void currently consuming Riley fell under the classification of “undead,” would dispelling it fulfill that requirement?

He dismissed the thought with a small movement of his head.

Speculation was a luxury he couldn’t afford at this moment.

“Riley, the legendary Sword Saint.”

He addressed the figure, hoping for a response.

A notification had flashed upon crossing the threshold of the Golden Rule, declaring that “The soul has returned.”

Taking that into account, there was a slim chance that the man once revered as the great Sword Saint had regained his mental clarity. The mere fact that an immediate onslaught hadn’t begun lent some weight to the theory.

Harmony.

It was a beautiful concept.

Finding a non-violent resolution was the gold standard of the modern era.

*Skreeee—!*

The Earth Dragon unfurled its massive wings.

As they expanded in a terrifying show of force, a staggering multitude of mana spheres began to crystallize in the air.

The offer of peace had been punctuated by a violent refusal.

“. . . So, you’ve chosen the hard way.”

*Boom!*

*Thud! Crash! Boom!*

The ground began to heave.

—

Something felt fundamentally wrong.

Kim Hana tilted her head, her expression clouded by doubt.

Even after an exhaustive search through every social media platform and video archive, the data only became more unsettling.

“Every single Warrior has gone dark . . . ?”

“Hana, what are you going on about?”

Seo Jung-ah asked from the adjacent seat. Kim Hana chewed on her thumb nervously before answering.

“There isn’t a single active Warrior to be found anywhere right now.”

“That can’t be right. You’re overthinking it. Maybe they’re just… not checking their KakaoTalk?”

Seo Jung-ah pulled up her own device to verify, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

Just a few minutes ago, her inbox had been buzzing with activity, but now the stream of messages had hit a total standstill.

Seo Jung-ah had cultivated a network of Korean male Warriors by dangling the prospect of “grabbing coffee with Kim Hana” as an incentive. Usually, they were desperate to reply in real-time, yet they had all vanished simultaneously.

‘Did they all lose their grip on reality at once?’

While Kim Hana was unaware of the specific strings Seo Jung-ah pulled, the sudden silence was inexplicable to Jung-ah. It defied logic.

“They seem to be hyper-focused on a singular event.”

“Focused? On what?”

“Warriors always appear to have insider knowledge of major shifts. It’s as if they’re being fed information from the inside.”

“I’ve heard those whispers too.”

“Isn’t it plausible that a massive event is unfolding somewhere—something so monumental that every Warrior needs to dedicate their full mental capacity to it?”

“Like the previous breach?”

Kim Hana gave a firm nod.

Every Warrior in her records had ceased operations as if following a synchronized command.

This had only happened once before.

Precisely during the time of the invasion.

Back then, however, several Warriors had maintained their live broadcasts. Even though the invasion was ultimately averted, the general consensus was that the Warriors had known it was coming.

Kim Hana voiced another suspicion.

“Why did Gracia suddenly pull out of Korea?”

“The threat passed, so she returned to her own country, didn’t she?”

“A huge contingent of Warriors slipped out of Korea at the same time, using Gracia’s departure as a screen. Doesn’t that strike you as calculated?”

“Hmm . . . .”

“And it’s not just that they moved—they’ve completely dropped off the grid.”

The ones who had left.

The legendary heroes and Gracia included.

They had all vanished into the shadows.

Kim Hana wasn’t alone in her paranoia. A quick search through Google revealed a deluge of speculative headlines.

* *Where Have They All Gone?*
* *The Sudden Disappearance of the Heroes.*
* *A Hidden Crisis: What Is Happening Behind the Scenes?*

While the mainstream press hadn’t picked it up yet, numerous independent international journalists were openly questioning the blackout.

And there was one more detail.

‘I am certain I spotted Park Hyun-myeong at the terminal.’

There was no mistake.

Park Hyun-myeong. She had witnessed him exiting the airport area.

He had even gained entry to the SGBAC alongside Gracia.

The SGBAC was the exclusive lounge for high-profile figures using private aviation. Unless Park Hyun-myeong was the secret scion of a massive corporate dynasty, his presence there was impossible.

‘Who exactly is Park Hyun-myeong?’

The puzzle pieces wouldn’t fit.

Wasn’t he just a regular salaryman who had walked away from his job? For a man like that to be boarding a private jet was beyond comprehension.

Perhaps he was far more significant than she had ever imagined.

Now, Gracia, Park Hyun-myeong, and a legion of Warriors had all converged overseas. All at once. All seemingly by design.

But for what purpose?

*Thud!*

Kim Hana stood abruptly and slung her bag over her shoulder.

“Let’s go find some answers.”

“Where are we going to look?”

“The Warriors. I’m going to get the truth from them directly.”

“Do you really think any of them will talk?”

“One of them will. I’m sure of it. Not the ones in the major guilds, though. We need an outlier. A complete social pariah.”

“Do people like that even exist in their world . . . ?”

They did.

Like the person who had once surreptitiously handed her a note claiming the heroes were frauds.

There were bound to be individuals who wanted to speak out but felt trapped.

She had to track them down.

The recluses.

The ones who operated in total isolation, untethered to any organization.

—

The Master stepped back into the depths of the labyrinth.

‘Randolph. That arrogant prick actually challenged Riley?’

He was seething.

There was a chance it was a different Randolph, but anyone with the audacity to face Sword Saint Riley had to be Phantom.

He had been stripped of his blade because of that man. His perfect weapon and all his secret advantages had been swallowed by the void and annihilated.

But this was Pangeniar.

“Buy out every essential resource from the labyrinth traders.”

“Understood.”

“We are right behind you, Master.”

The subordinates mobilized. They scoured the corridors, purchasing rare artifacts from the resident merchants.

“Mirrors of Added Conditions.”

‘If you possess the target’s name and they are currently within the labyrinth, the mirror becomes a weapon.’

The majority of challengers had already exited the simulation. Labyrinth merchants were everywhere, their inventories full.

They hunted them down, buying every single Mirror of Added Conditions they could find.

Once they had secured ten.

[Activating ‘Mirror of Added Conditions.’]

[Please identify the target for the ‘Mirror of Added Conditions.’]

Ten mirrors meant ten debilitating restrictions. If they were applied simultaneously, the target was guaranteed to fail.

It was Phantom’s hubris to use his real name.

Arrogant brat.

The Master wore a cruel grin as he spoke the name:

“Randolph.”

[‘Randolph’ is confirmed to be within the labyrinth.]

Ha!

Just as he thought. He was in there. If he was still active, it was a certainty that Phantom was the one testing himself against Sword Saint Riley!

The Master’s grin widened.

[No ‘condition’ could be applied.]

[‘Curse Immunity’ detected.]

“. . . .”

The Master’s expression turned to stone instantly.

—

The environment erupted in chaos.

Continuous detonations tore up the terrain. However, the Earth Dragon’s fury failed to land a single clean strike on him.

[‘Throne of Radiant Light’ is manifesting.]

Throne of Radiant Light!

An intense luminescence erupted from his ring, coalescing into the shape of a regal seat.

He took his place upon it, watching the Earth Dragon with a calm intensity.

A magnificent unique-tier item. This ring was the culmination of his most dedicated crafting efforts. Its properties shifted depending on the prefix it carried.

> **【Throne of Radiant Light (Brilliant Unique-Grade)】**
> * A seat of pure energy rumored to have belonged to the deity who once held the sun aloft.
> * Provide treasures to the throne to unlock its latent abilities.
> * Attributes shift based on the active prefix.
> * **Current Prefix:** Brilliant
> * Occupying the Throne of Radiant Light negates all damage originating from areas where light is present.
> * Grants the skill **’Brilliant Radiance (Lv. 20).’**
> * Activating ‘Brilliant Radiance’ will expend the current prefix.
>
>

Total damage negation!

As long as he remained seated, even the Earth Dragon was powerless to touch him. The protection only extended two meters in diameter, but it functioned as an immovable, invincible sanctuary.

He couldn’t stay there forever, though. The creeping rot was still eating away at things even now.

*Grooooar—!*

The Earth Dragon gathered a massive concentration of mana in its maw. It fired a devastating breath attack, but the energy washed harmlessly around him.

“Is that the best you can manage? You think that little puff of air can reach me?”

He goaded the beast. He needed to exhaust its reserves.

When the breath attack proved futile, the Earth Dragon went still. Then, it took to the sky.

*Shoooooo.*

*Shooooooaaa!*

Suddenly, ghostly ‘hands’ began to sprout from every inch of the floor.

Hands of the abyss.

The spectral phantoms that consumed everything they touched!

Waves upon waves of these hands clawed toward the throne, but they were repelled by the shimmering wall of light.

‘I can’t see a thing.’

The issue was visibility. With the hands of the void surrounding him, his line of sight was cut off. He couldn’t track the Earth Dragon’s movements in the air.

‘This ruins the plan to analyze its attack patterns.’

He had intended to use the throne’s protection to study the dragon’s behavior before launching his real assault. He had considered using an arrow, but he had even used Shatyris’s bow as a sacrifice to forge this ring.

All to obtain the perfect prefix.

‘Brilliant Radiance.’

And so, he had secured that power. He had no clue what it actually did beyond its high level. He understood the throne itself, but the prefix-specific skill was a mystery.

It was a one-time use ability that would strip the ring of its current status.

Should he trigger it?

Simply sitting here and wasting time was a dead end. The Earth Dragon had no intention of being predictable.

In that case…

[Activating ‘Brilliant Radiance (Lv. 20).’]

[Requirement: You may call to the throne the spirit of one who once walked in glory.]

[The summoned soul’s tier will rapidly deplete your Fragments of the Broken Golden Rule.]

It figured. He only got the full explanation after pulling the trigger.

The legendary figures of the past.

The skill allowed him to manifest the spirit of a fallen hero to fight on his behalf. He wasn’t sure of the exact logistics, but he assumed the spirit would descend upon him as he occupied the seat of power.

The most radiant, the most legendary being.

In a heartbeat, a gallery of names raced through his thoughts. The titans who had forged myths—the humble, yet all-powerful!

Whose name should he invoke? Who possessed the strength to flip the script?

The power levels varied wildly.

His first thoughts went to the ancient heroes associated with Riley. Those known as the ‘Hexad,’ the group that had traveled the world alongside the Sword Saint. One of them might be enough.

But it was a gamble. Their legends were mostly oral history. Without concrete data on their combat capabilities, it was a risk.

‘I need someone with undeniable stats.’

There was one person. Someone he knew was more capable of securing a win than anyone else in existence.

Himself.

. . . Knight King Wilhelm.

Knight King Wilhelm could handle this. He could crush the Earth Dragon and whatever came after it.

‘Wilhelm’s spirit, then.’

But did Knight King Wilhelm even possess a soul?

It was a question that had nagged at him, just as it did with Isaac and Isabella. Did the personas he inhabited—the ones all players inhabited—have an actual spiritual essence? Or were they merely sophisticated scripts?

If they did, then where was the soul belonging to this current vessel, ‘Randolph’?

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

The act of summoning would provide the answer. If the ‘Throne of Radiant Light’ was truly capable of calling the spirits of the deceased, then a success or failure would prove the existence of souls.

‘No use hoarding a trump card until it’s worthless.’

In the world of Pangeniar, items were meant to be used. Hoarding them until you died just meant they were reset and lost forever. No game embodied the phrase “use it or lose it” more accurately.

Besides, if the summoning worked, he could finish this.

The Abyss Labyrinth.

He would conquer the dungeon that had broken Gracia, MintChocoDelicious, and the entire Empire!

“Wilhelm.”

Seated upon the glowing throne, he spoke the name with quiet gravity.

Then.

[Summoning failed.]

The blunt notification that followed caused his brow to furrow in frustration.