Chapter 32
The kingdom is facing a crisis.
The anomaly originating from the north has hastened the scheduled invasion.
The phenomenon that turns the kingdom to ashes has begun its advance from the north.
The unexpected early raid was sluggish, and the throbs from the north dealt a devastating blow to the kingdom.
The kingdom turned to ash.
The kingdom, built by gathering countless resources, was collapsing.
The precious soldiers gathered over a decade had turned to dust in an instant.
A decade of patience vanished in a moment.
The cornerstone to dominate the world crumbled like this.
As the territory that ground the kingdom is expanding further, there was an urgent need to head south.
However, the soldiers on the ground were unable to advance, and the kingdom was exposed due to the pulsation revealing its entrance.
Ultimately, the situation arose where we had to evacuate the royal castle and hurriedly move south.
‘!’
While the soldiers were prepared to migrate, I felt something alien entering the kingdom.
It was an intruder.
How long had it been since the kingdom was exposed that an intruder already came in?
The intruder was gray overall and walked leisurely into the kingdom without paying any particular attention.
Though it was unacceptable for an intruder to do this, there was no luxury in the kingdom at the moment.
The soldiers of the kingdom, lacking leisure for mercy, began to move swiftly to eliminate the intruder.
*
An open hole leading underground.
It was a cave filled with a bizarre atmosphere intertwining ice and metal.
Metal powders were sticking to the floor and walls, creating patterns.
Judging by the appearance of the metal dust, the cave walls looked like they were made of a powerful magnet.
Occasionally, flashes could be seen within the cave as if lightning struck, indicating that high-voltage electricity was also flowing.
The height was about 1.2 meters, ample enough to walk around.
A cave with high-voltage currents flowing and a mere height of 1.2 meters? How on earth can a human explore this?
Well, it doesn’t matter to me.
Delving deeper underground, I found a massive chamber full of pathways.
And there, a large number of ice spiders were lying in wait.
They were clinging everywhere, utilizing the magnetic property of the cave walls.
Unlike the large soldiers roaming outside, these were not even humanoid and were mere small soldiers about 1 meter tall.
With the low height of the underground passage, it was an unavoidable choice.
Even though the quantity of those ice spiders was high, they didn’t pose much of a threat.
After all, they weren’t objects.
I read the destruction conditions that could simultaneously annihilate them with my eyes.
If they weren’t objects, destruction was easy.
*
The gray intruder picked up a piece of ice from the ground.
An ice piece for soldiers clad in a body of steel and ice armor?
‘What can you do with a piece of ice?’
The intruder clenched its fist tightly, tapping the wall three times.
Then, it lightly tossed the ice piece into the air.
Before the ice piece fell, the intruder quickly performed a handstand and flailed its legs to time it with the falling ice piece.
The ice piece, struck by the kick, sluggishly flew toward the center of the open lot.
It was so slow that it was hard to consider it an attack.
The ice piece nudged a metal chunk resting in the middle of the open lot.
That metal fragment appeared to be the remains of a soldier afflicted by the pulsation that started from the north.
The shock from the collision with the ice piece caused the metal chunk to roll over, blocking one of the ice spiders.
‘Is this all you got?’
Such thoughts involuntarily crossed my mind. There was no need to worry about something like this.
But then, a powerful discharge surged into the metal sphere in the open lot, changing everything.
The metal sphere exploded like a grenade, sending the spiders flying, which rolled together in a heap.
The fragments scattered from the sphere lodged everywhere around the open lot, including a spot where the intruder had touched with its fist.
A massive crack emerged from that point, crossing the open lot and inciting another explosion.
The high-voltage current flowing through the passage was the problem.
Normally, such a shock wouldn’t have caused the passage to collapse.
The pulsation that started from the north, together with the immense amount of shock accumulated in the passage.
Countless metallic powders and fragments originating from the pulsation.
And the trivial actions taken by the intruder hit at just the right timing.
That chain reaction obliterated all the soldiers of the kingdom gathered in the open lot.
The sound of the passage collapsing echoed through the underground.
‘…’
The intruder possessed extraordinary abilities.
What the hell is this? An ability to arbitrarily manipulate probability?
I wasn’t clear on the specifics, but it was evident that they were a formidable being with enough power.
It seemed impossible for the current kingdom’s forces to match.
Yet, every strong being had their way of dealing with things.
They just needed to be given a false sense of victory.
They could hide their true self and make others believe they had won.
Preparations to welcome this strong being began in the core of the kingdom.
*
Having eradicated the enemies with a single piece of ice, I dusted off my hands and surveyed the collapsed open lot.
The few surviving spiders were scuttling away in all directions.
It became clear when similar spiders appeared that they were akin to the soldiers outside.
‘There’s an object that created the ‘Ice Throne of Dobong-gu’ in this cave.’
Patter patter.
With a lively footstep, I set off in search of the Ice Throne of Dobong-gu.
Tracing the fleeing soldiers’ paths upward, I arrived at a massive open lot.
Ice soldiers were lined up like vassals, and artificial lights illuminated the space from above.
The patterns engraved on the pillars and walls had a sacred power akin to that of a temple.
It was a magnificent space that would evoke an “Wow!” from anyone.
At the end of this space stood a huge Ice Throne, and atop it was a being clad in black steel.
If I had to express it, it was armor radiating a royal aura.
This immense room was adorned with floating metallic objects, amplifying the mysterious atmosphere.
The armor standing up from the throne approached, holding a massive mace, making thudding footsteps as it came closer.
While it was a splendid entrance full of vigor, I had no interest.
I turned my head to continue my search for what I was looking for.
That was understandable; after all, that armor wasn’t an object.
It was no different from a big, well-decorated ice soldier.
The armor wielding the mace, bothering me, crushed it with my ghosting layering while focusing on searching for the object.
The object was found in an unexpected place.
It was on the table next to the throne.
The table had many metallic objects floating above it, and one of them was the object.
Disks of metal hovering above a magnet like a superconductor.
Among those metal pieces arranged like ornaments, only one object was hiding.
It was the Superconductive Frog.
A frog frozen flat, not moving, just floating freely.
‘Why? Why a frog?’
I couldn’t believe that the object that had completely destroyed Dobong-gu and sent Korea into terror was just this.
It was a simple frog with straightforward destruction conditions.
[If a part of the body is destroyed, it dies.]
I had expected it to be quite strong, even if it was less than the hungry ghost, but I felt a bit deflated.
Realizing I had caught onto its identity, it began attacking with a torrent of cold and electricity.
However, physical attacks couldn’t affect me at all.
What should I do about this strange entity? I pondered as I picked up the frog with one hand.
But the shiny superconductive frog crumbled as soon as it was gripped in my hand.
It looked like steel, but its strength was weaker than wet tissue.
*
It was a monster.
The bait soldier couldn’t even trip me up.
Even the perfect concealment was easily thwarted.
The brazen monster held my true self in one hand and wore a playful smile.
I hadn’t given up until the last moment, but the monster’s grip intensified.
‘Is this how it ends for me?’
Is my eternal kingdom meeting its end like this?
As I heard the crunch, something crumbling, my consciousness sank into endless darkness.
‘Before me… only darkness… ‘
*
As the frog shattered, all the soldiers gathered in the plaza crumbled like puppets with their strings cut.
The invader from Dobong-gu had finally been vanquished.
If there had been a place to breathe a sigh of relief, this would have been a moment to take a deep breath and feel lighthearted.
I was so relieved that my body began to float naturally.
‘????’
After killing the superconductive frog, I became the Superconductive Reaper.
With the cave filled with magnetic fields, I could float around as if I were swimming through the universe, which was quite a fun ability.
If it had been an on/off type incapable of switching like a pig, it might have been inconvenient, but luckily, it wasn’t.
As I floated around the cave, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Should I ask Sehee Research Institute to make one?
The joyous cosmic floating play had to cease abruptly due to a sudden earthquake.
The pulsation of the Steel Tower began again.
Upon the death of the frog, the ant tunnels began to collapse, unable to withstand the pulsations from the Steel Tower.
To escape the collapse, I ascended to the ground and stood atop the melting Ice Throne.
Looking down from about 20 meters above the ice, Seoul appeared to be in chaos.
Tsunamis on the ground threatened Seoul.
Civilization was being destroyed.
It now faced a threat from the Steel Tower, incomparably greater than the Ice Throne of Dobong-gu.