Chapter 63 – Age of Chaos

It’s been a week since the level 29 portal exploded.

After that incident, a level 28 portal and a level 29 portal exploded in a row.

This strange incident was occurring only in Korea, and thus all eyes of the world were on Korea.

All the areas where the portals were exploding were in the abyss of the sea.

Using the epicenter of the earthquakes caused by the portal explosions, they could trace the general location of the portal. However, finding the exact location still proved to be difficult.

Currently, the International Awakened Organization had made plans to hire professionals to assist in the investigation efforts.

40 years ago when the monsters first appeared to the present time, many nations fell to the monsters.

Most countries did not last the first two years, disappearing into the chapters of history.

Currently, only 80 countries remained, and most of them were in the International Awakened Organization.

The organization was able to do its job starting 12 years ago when the portal explosions stopped at the level 28 dungeon.

The goal of the organization was to research on the portals and monsters, and to prevent further damage against the monsters that have taken over those fallen nations.

They also used the bloodstones and item drops obtained from the monsters to convert them into a source of energy.

The Portal Erasure Test project was rushed into action by the organization, as each of the nations contributed.

In a week, the members deployed from the organization would be arriving here.

They’ll probably form investigation teams and start searching for the reason of the explosions.

If a situation like this occurs, all the nations would not hesitate on using all their resources to help out, as the situation could go out of control and turn into a massive crisis that could affect them as well.

At the same time.

President of the Awakened association Choi Man Seo called all the department heads.

It wasn’t to provide assistance to the organization, but avoid taking the blame for the incident.

The reason was the following.

Each nation had their own radical faction that disagreed with the way the government ran the nation, dreaming about unrealistic ideals instead.

However, there wasn’t such a deeply rooted radical faction as the one in Korea.

The world suspected that it only came to be like this because of how corrupt the government in Korea really was.

After the Central Plant Center exploded, many terrorist attacks followed, but none caused any serious damage.

Without treating the infection and thinking that it’ll just heal on its own, many years had passed.

If the radical forces are to blame for these explosions due to them stepping up their game and they are not stopped, it was obvious that Korea would be expelled from the International Awakened Organization.

Since this group was a threat against humanity, the nation of Korea that harbored them would be completely cut off and isolated, rotting away until its complete disappearance.

And if the radical faction still was a threat against the world, brute force would be used to destroy this small little country.

The president of the association Choi Man Seo spoke.

“I’m sure everyone is already aware of this, but within a week, members from the IAO will arrive.”

“…..”

“….”

“But here is the thing. If they find out the real reason for the portals exploding, what do you think would happen? Oi. Department head Kim Ho Jin. Been looking gloomy for a while. What do you think?”

The president as well as subordinates already knew that the culprit was the radical faction.

However, instead of discussing it with the government, they were too busy keeping it all hushed up.

To his question, Ho Jin replied with the same disapproving frown as he kept his stance on the matter.

“If the tooth is rotten, you can still pull it out!”

“As expected. If people like you were born earlier in the past, you would’ve left quite the name. But you won’t live for long. There’s even an ad about this. How when everyone says yes, you are the type of person to say no.”

“President, you already know how big their group is! If you say nothing and try to keep this silent, this will blow up into something huge…”

“Enough. Find the portal location within a week. And write it on the report that you’ve taken down some of the portals around the area. Understood? Right now, the citizens of Korea are praising the association that contained 3 portal explosions. Don’t go ruining it for us. Do you think I’m the only one covering my eyes and ears to live?”

“Then what will you do when the radical faction comes to attack us? 6 years ago after the attack on the Center Plant Center, the attacks from the radical faction continued, and it wasn’t just a few cases! At this rate, we will be kicked from the International Awakened Association without a doubt, and it’ll only be a matter of time before this nation is destroyed not by monsters, but by war.”

“Hold up. Did I hear that correctly? Radical what? Radical Faction? Does anyone here know what is this Radical Faction he’s talking about?”

To the president’s inquiry, everyone rolled their eyes about and remained silent.

Jumping up from his seat, he charged Choi Man Seo as if to kill him.

“Do what you want! You disgusting figurehead!” 1

“Oh ho! Take this bastard away immediately! Do you think that mighty radical faction only exists in this small little country like Korea? Stop acting out when you don’t know anything at all. What are you doing! Take him away now.”

As the Awakened guards were dragging Ho Jin out of the conference room, he did not stop cursing out at the president.

Because he knew that this situation with the radical faction only came to be due to people like the president taking care of situations like this.

“And you call yourself the president of the association! It wouldn’t be a stretch to call you a subordinate of the radical faction! I’ll get you for this, and you’ll pay!”

“Well aren’t you out of your mind. Really giving out your resignation statement spectacularly. Get rid of his desk immediately, and have people supervise him so that he can’t even as much as squeak! Everyone, you understand what I said today, right? Let’s stop for today. One week. Forget about going home and focus on getting this resolved quickly.”

“Yes….”

Department head Kim Ho Jin’s furious yelling could be still heard clearly, despite being too far to be loud anymore.

“All of you in there are the same, you bastards!”

****

“Dark Lady….”

“Yes, master.”

“So you did it. I thank you for your loyalty.”

“You humble me, master.”

“I asked Ghost to find a portal that’s level 30 or above. Once the portal is found, you can proceed without any issues, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good…. Thanks to you, that day can come a little bit quicker.”

Radical faction’s boss. Master Zekill.

He commanded all three of the leaders to gather at Incheon, where Dark Lady ran the city in order to formulate a plan for the mass chaos would be ensuing soon.

He planned to have the currently government collapse, and did not hesitate on his goal to raise a new rule.

The strong obtains power and political control, and rule over the weak.

His first goal was to blow up the portals, because that would cause the expulsion from the International Awakened Organization.

If that happened, no one would care if this country is taken over or devoured by them.

A complete isolation from the organization.

After that, it would be time to take over the entire country and use it as a base of operations to increase the strength of the radical faction around the world.

“Joker.”

“Yes, master.”

“Lend Dark Lady your strength.”

“Yes… master.”

Joker was the best of the three leaders before, but now having lost his spot, was seething in rage.

It was fact that he wasn’t getting recognized by the boss. And now he had to role of being a support for someone who was weaker than him.

Looking downwards, he briefly paused to calm down.

However, it was interrupted by Zekill speaking.

“I heard of a strange rumor.”

“What would that be…”

“I heard that Park Hyun, one of our financial backers, died due to a single Awakened. Is that true Joker?”

“Yes. That is the truth. He had quite the ability, so I tried to capture him, but since he fiercely declined the offer, I already took care of him.”

“Is that so.”

Joker lied to hide the fact that he was trying to use Min-Cheol, who had infinite mana, for his own use.

He could reveal Min-Cheol’s existence to him right now, but since Dark Lady had succeeded in the portal explosion, it would look disloyal if it was found out that Joker had tried to do this on his own.

There was nothing to gain from speaking up.

He swallowed his saliva as Zekill continued.

“One month. Within one month, everything will change. We’ll be in the center of it all. For that day…”

“Yes, master.”

“Yes, master.”

Finishing, Zekill hid from view once more.

After that, Dark Lady went towards Joker and started to taunt him.

“You heard what the master said, right?”

“…..”

“I think I need more mana. Send 200 magicians to me, Joker.”

“You little bitch, running your mouth without any concern. Dark Lady….”

“Pfft. So, it seems the rage of a male lion chased out from his own pack isn’t anything to be afraid of.”

“… I’ll follow his orders. But soon, you’ll regret saying those words.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it, Joker Gen-er-al~.”

Leaving the room, Joker began to quietly murmur to himself.

“Seems… Seems my only option is that boy.”

****

“Whew. Finally all that tedious hunting is over. But why is my ear so itchy? Is someone talking about me?”

For me who had been only focusing on growing stronger physically, something more important happened.

It was selling the Lizardman’s Gauntlet each weekend.

It wasn’t for the money.

For a magician class, more important that their physical prowess was the skill level of their skills as well as their MP amount.

This wonderful, amazing essence maker was enough to get rid of the stress of Awakening the skills I possessed.

It was too wasteful to Awaken a C ranking shield?

It was true that I used to think like that up until recently.

It only took a few hours for me to realize that it was incorrect.

It was a week after selling the 5 gauntlets.

The amount of essences I had never fell below 5.

Other than the Frost Orb that I got at level 1, all shields, buffs, and debuffs were already Awakened.

The moment they hit level 100, I immediately Awakened them using the essences.

No matter how low the skill ranking was, by Awakening them and leveling them enough, both the destructive capability as well as the usefulness was ridiculous.

For example, I could use Lightning Spray again.

It really shined on low level dungeons, but as dungeon levels increased, it didn’t do much. However, after Awakening it, it succeeded on causing small amounts of damage to even level 28 dungeon monsters.

And the monster was a lizardman, who boasted almost unfair amounts of physical and magical resistances.

“It wouldn’t be that bad to become an essence collector.”

I obtained Iron Skin, as well as the other skill that Jong Ho obtained for me.

Both were S ranking shields with the same cooldown and duration.

The one difference was that while Iron Skin could possibly cause the enemy to become immobilized, the new skill Holy Block inflicted holy element damage, which was hard to defend against, even with high magic resistances.

Of course, it had a low chance to activate the secondary effect.

Let’s say that I use three of these shields at the same time.

Then my attackers could be hit with the reflected damage, immobilized, and holy elemental damage.

At least one of the shields would activate its secondary effect.

I thought that my Mana Shield was everything I needed, but I was pleasantly surprised at these shields that I never knew existed in the first place.

My level was now nearly 300, and my main attacking spells Meteor Call and Iceberg were nearing level 200.

The cooldown would be zero.

‘Have you seen a hunter who spammed Meteor without a care? That’s me.’