Sovereign of Judgment Chapter 95

Episode 6: Mafia Game / Chapter 95: At the Ruins (1)

TL: emptycube / ED: Obelisk

The Cayenne star.

They had imagined a fiery land akin to the Sun because it was a star and not a planet.

They had thought that for those at the lower levels, even if they had awakened karma, it would be difficult for them to endure the heat.

However, the reality was very different from their imaginations.

Lee Jinhee mumbled,

"Wow… What is all this?"

It was a star filled with life. Although it was very different from Earth… It could be called something close to an ecosystem.

The red and yellow flowers, which bloomed plentifully on the ground, absorbed the star's heat energy and were composed of a mysterious material. The atmosphere, which allowed living creatures to breathe, was filled with gas and wavelengths that earthlings were unfamiliar with. There were also living creatures which consumed the flowers in this environment. The field was red like the sunset and transparent like dawn. The plentiful lights in the star split into countless wavelengths. An aurora with the colors of the rainbow fluttered in mid-air.

If they were to describe the temperature, it was hot enough for water to evaporate instantly. However, even still, there was a flowing river. A material, which had a boiling point of metal on Earth, created beautiful waves as it flowed alongside the field like water.

The earthlings, who had come to the star to go to war with the monsters, were momentarily stunned at the scenery. Earthlings had spent a lot of time looking for life out in space. To find life in space, they had looked for planets with a similar environment as Earth's. A planet with water that orbited a star at an appropriate distance. A planet humans could survive on. However, in reality, alien lifeforms were born in environments unimaginable by humans, like the Flame Wing tribe born from the Big Bang and the Dark tribe born from dark matter. This place was the same. The fact that plentiful life existed on a star they had thought would be uninhabitable filled them all with emotion.

Handke, the artillery captain, said in a dazed voice,

"Wasn't this a place invaded by monsters?"

This place was too beautiful for it to have been invaded by monsters.

Even Chu Youngjin, who didn't express his feelings often, stroked his red sword, which had been reborn with a new name 'Chu Youngjin's Protection', with complicated emotions. His expression looked somewhat bitter.

"We move,"

Said Choi Hyuk, who was the most emotionless out of the bunch, in an indifferent voice. There was only the goal 'shocking mission completion ability' in his mind.

As if waking from a dream, the Berserkers broke out of their daze and began to march at Choi Hyuk's voice.

When they ran wearing the Shoes of Hermes, it didn't take long for them to discover a city. No, to be precise, it was a ruin that was once a city.

"Just looking at the traces of the ruin, it looks like it was a civilization more advanced than Earth,"

Mumbled Ryu Hyunsung.

Bae Jinman expressed a different opinion,

"You can't necessarily say that that's the case since it's a star with tens of thousands of more usable green energy than Earth."

Being an elderly professor of medical science, Bae Jinman's explanation got a nod from Handke, who graduated with a natural science degree.

"The ground is overfilled with energy. The flowers blooming in that field and the wavelengths that fill the atmosphere, if you know how to harness these energies, it might not be impossible for us to create a floating city during the industrial age. Of course, it'll be difficult to make an 'apples to apples' comparison."

That was right. The ruin in front of them seemed to be composed of the remnants of tall buildings, crashed floating city areas, and still floating city areas. At first glance, a high-rise floating city might seem like something from a civilization within the realm of parascience, but if there were tons of materials stronger than steel concrete, and if a random stone on the street possessed the energy of tens of liters of petroleum… it might have been much easier achieving this level of civilization than on Earth.

They looked around as they entered the city. Baek Seoin said,

"Hmm… It looks like they set up a line of defense here."

Like he said, at the outer boundaries of the city, there were broken suit-like objects, numerous meter-tall barricades, and weapons similar to artillery.

No corpse could be found as if they had all been eaten.

When they made their way to the center, they began to see corpses of monsters amongst the wreckage. Crooks, mountain orcs, and bladed ghosts were among the other monsters they were seeing after a long time… They were 1-2-star low ranked monsters. Perhaps they were plentiful in numbers due to their low rank because they were monsters they had seen frequently.

"Were they annihilated with just these monsters?"

Lee Jinhee seemed doubtful. Especially since guns were somewhat effective against 1-star monsters, and as they could do significant damage to 2-star monsters with the help of heavy firearms. It seemed comical for a civilization, which had developed with high-energy as its foundation, to be annihilated by 1-2-star monsters even if they hadn't awakened karma.

Baek Seoin shook his head.

"Or… It might be that the only monsters they could kill were these."

He meant that since monsters above the 3-star level were immune to physical damage, they wouldn't die in the first place, leaving no corpses behind.

"And it's strange."

Baek Seoin frowned. Lee Jinhee looked back at him,

"What is?"

"Why was it that there were no monster corpses at the outer boundaries of the city?"

When they heard that, it was strange. The outer boundaries had tons of wreckage of destroyed weapons, but they didn't see any monster corpses. If only 1-2-star monsters invaded them, then those corpses should have been littered from the outside.

"Isn't this more like the monsters appeared within the city?"

"Unless… Strong monsters destroyed the defensive line, leaving normal monsters to invade afterwards."

While expanding on Baek Seoin's opinion, it seemed like Ryu Hyunsung thought of something as he glanced towards Choi Hyuk. 'Choi Hyuk shakes them up, and the Berserkers smash them apart.' That was the Berserkers' basic tactic. There was no reason that the monsters couldn't use this tactic either.

Just then, the world temporarily became dark. It looked like it was becoming darker from afar, and then at some point, it was night. A complete darkness in which they couldn't even see their own hands. Then, as if nothing ever occurred, it became bright again.

"Wha-what was that just now?"

People all around became confused. "Report!" "Report!" Shouting voices erupted everywhere. In less than three minutes, green flags were raised amongst the lines of millions of people. All clear.

"Huu… What was that? Was it a distinct natural phenomenon on the Cayenne star?"

While relieved, Baek Seoin didn't lower his guard against the mysterious occurrence.

On the other hand, Choi Hyuk felt a sense of déjà vu. He had experienced this occurrence during his training.

"An evil hand of night…?"

The evil hand of night Choi Hyuk remembered was a monster with enormous eyes. It would scan an immense area with its large eyes and then figure out and share the distribution of karmalings and their weak points to other monsters. When it blinked its eyes, a darkness, so dark that it was impossible to see anything, fell on a targeted area, making it useful for sudden monster attacks. Not only that, but it also had the effect of restricting the effectiveness of karmalings' detecting abilities.

"What the… My Mind's Eye suddenly isn't working properly?"

"It's like there's a fog in front of me…"

Were what the Berserkers were saying. It was the evil hand of night's typical detection obstruction effect. Choi Hyuk was sure an evil hand of night appeared here. At the same time, he knew what was wrong.

He had learned that evil hands of night were high ranked monsters along with doppelgangers during the new recruit training… It was a monster that shouldn't appear in this supposed easy place.

Just then, a hologram of Richard appeared in front of Choi Hyuk. It was one of the convenient functions of the 'military gate system'.

It seemed Richard arrived with his troops just now.

"It looks like it."

Richard attempted to contact Commander Mack. Then, annoyed, he frowned.