Chapter 248: Home oming

Hwang Chae-Il was monitoring the war through the monitors. He screamed, “We can’t lose the barrier!”

The barrier over Eden was crucial. Without it, the world could see the inside of Eden, and even more importantly…

“The energy inside Eden has begun exploding!” Hwang Chae-Il yelled, staring at the various colors dancing on the screens.

Eden was saturated with filled Death and Life. These energies would go wild without the barrier, and…

‘The players will be placed in danger. Worse yet…’ Hwang Chae-Il panicked. The biggest problem was the non-players living near the area. The players here at least had some immunity, but the regular citizens nearby were helpless. Most had moved far away from the Bukhan River region, but the energy inside Eden was immense.

In the worst-case scenario…

Hwang Chae-Il’s hands moved fast as he mumbled, “Many will die.”

Crackle.

The intense focus made the flames burn brighter. The pain made him frown, but he refused to stop working.

“Ah, this might just work!” Hwang Chae-Il exclaimed after finding a way to recover Eden’s barrier.

But in return…

“We’ll lose the home-field advantage…” Hwang Chae-Il’s face turned dark. If he restored the barrier, their allies would lose the buff and the enemies the debuff.

They were about to face the three hell kings, so this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

Hwang Chae-Il asked via the open communication channel, “Will this be okay?”

After a short silence, he heard El’s reply.

-Go ahead.

Hwang Chae-Il nodded. This would make things harder for them, but they would at least save the innocent non-players.

Hwang Chae-Il was about to order the barrier’s restoration when suddenly, he saw something strange.

“...!”

***

“How is Belphegor alive?!” Lou wondered.

After Hwang Chae-Il had announced he would restore Eden’s barrier, the Eden soldiers quietly observed the situation. The identity of two of the three hell kings had finally been revealed.

To their shock, both of them were Belphegor.

“How can there be two of them?!” Lou’s face turned tense.

The two Belphegors looked exactly the same and exuded identical energies. Lou tried his best to understand the strange situation.

“Did they clone him? But that doesn’t make sense… Clone a hell king?” No matter how hard he tried, Lou just couldn’t accept what was right in front of his eyes.

It was shocking enough that Belphegor had come back from the dead. But, now, there were two copies of it.

“Snap out of it! The how or why don’t matter. The important thing is that you need to kill them! They are still covered in dark flames, so this is your only chance!” Soo-Jung yelled, looking pale from having used too much of her power.

“Got it.” Lou nodded in agreement and watched as the three hell kings transformed into giants. Leviathan had taken its water dragon form, but the two Belphegors had just magnified their original forms.

“Lou! We need to stop them!” El stepped forward; she was the only one still calm. Soo-Jung was too exhausted to do anything other than maintain the dark flames.

El calmly ordered, “The rest of you must help us too! The skeletons and the griffins will go rescue the players, as just being here could kill them.”

The allies gradually regained their calm as well.

Turning toward Lim Hye-Sook, El asked, “Please wake up Yoo-Bin!”

Lim Hye-Sook nodded. Yoo-Bin still couldn’t completely control her power, but she would be a great asset in this battle.

“The barrier is returning to normal.” El looked up at the sky. Indeed, the barrier was slowly reappearing.

“It will be a difficult fight.” The energies that once saturated Eden disappeared as the barrier returned. This also meant their opponents would no longer be suppressed inside Eden. They had traded their advantages for this barrier.

“This is for our master.” El opened her snow-white wings.

Whoosh.

It was difficult to imagine that corruption had once turned them black, as they could not be any purer at the moment.

El flew up and yelled, “I’ll take one Belphegor! Lou, go take down Leviathan. Yoo-Bin and Baal, please take care of the other Belphegor! Botis, Hal, and the rest, you…!”

Botis replied, “We’ll take care of the rest of the demons and unknown creatures.”

El nodded and looked ahead. By now, both Belphegors had completed their transformation. Lucifer’s dark flames covered them and all the enemies on the field.

“Kwerrrrk!” The two Belphegors roared like mindless beasts.

Deciding on one of them, El murmured, “Luminosity.”

A bright halo bloomed behind El.

Boom!

This light blinded everyone. The battle was in its final stage.

***

“O…ppa…” His ears were ringing, but he could still hear a voice through the noise.

‘I…’

He remembered being in…

“Oppa!” This time, he heard the voice loud and clear.

He remembered being inside the helicopter and shooting Eden from the sky. Then suddenly, the barrier had disappeared, and some strange energy had created a gale strong enough to knock down the helicopter.

“Min-Hee!” he screamed, slowly regaining his consciousness. When the helicopter went down, he had used everything he had to protect Kim Min-Hee. Thanks to his experience as a tanker, he felt certain he had succeeded in protecting her.

“Ugh…!” He finally felt the gruesome pain.

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Her face covered in dirt, Kim Min-Hee yelled, “Oppa! Oppa! Are you okay?!”

‘His arm…’ All he could feel was pain and nothing else. Finally, he saw a teary-eyed Kim staring at him.

“Oppa, your arm…”

“It… it’s okay,” he replied, realizing his arm was gone. He wasn’t okay, but it was all he could say.

“Hng…”

He heard Kim Min-Hee cry and realized he needed to be strong now. The helicopter was gone, so now he had to assess the situation. Using his player instincts, he tried to figure out his next step.

‘Where are we…?’ He looked around to see if there were any enemies nearby. Eden had become a gate, and players went inside to close it. This meant they were in an active war zone.

There was a chance they might survive the strange energy here, but…

“Oppa…” Kim Min-Hee sobbed.

When he looked up, he saw her pale face.

‘The magic here is volatile,’ he thought in panic. Because he was never a great player, he couldn’t protect Kim Min-Hee from this kind of energy. And losing an arm wasn’t helping him either.

“Ugh,” he groaned in pain while assessing his surroundings. He could see a large amount of smoke and fire far away.

‘That must be where the helicopter fell…’ It would have been great if he could save the pilot too, but it was already a miracle that he had saved Kim Min-Hee. And this cost him an arm.

“Oppa… I can’t breathe,” Kim Min-Hee whispered while gasping for air.

Boom!

Just then, he heard a loud blast from far away. This had to be the greatest scoop of his life, but he couldn’t see his camera anywhere. Plus, Kim Min-Hee was turning blue.

“Try not to breathe too much!” he ordered. Under normal circumstances, breathing in and out deeply would be the right thing. But Kim Min-Hee was a non-player. If she breathed in too much of this energy, she could die.

He held Kim Min-Hee’s hand using his only arm and apologized, “I’m sorry.”

He was in agony, but he needed to apologize to her. After all, Kim Min-Hee was a victim. His ambition for an exclusive had created this disaster.

“It’s okay…!” Kim Min-Hee wiped away her tears and whispered, “Oppa, you must live… You need to live and…”

Her pale face was now nearly white. Dragging his body closer, he hugged Kim Min-Hee tightly.

Were they going to die here? The explosions from far away were followed by energy bursts swarming toward them. It was difficult enough for him just to keep himself alive, but he was now becoming sleepy. He realized that he had probably lost too much blood. He had brought some healing potions, but he had no idea where they were now.

But he was at least glad of one thing.

“Min-Hee.”

“Oppa?”

He consoled himself that he at least got to spend his last moments with Kim Min-Hee. He was apologetic toward her, but he was glad she was here with him.

He closed his eyes.

“Oppa…” Kim Min-Hee’s voice sounded weaker as well.

Then suddenly, he felt a presence next to them.

“Is this yours?” the stranger asked.

“Haa! Haa!” The oppressive magic disappeared, and he could breathe much better now. He quickly checked on Kim Min-Hee. She was unconscious, but her face was regaining color quickly. The stranger was seemingly blocking the magic to help Kim Min-Hee.

The cameraman looked up to see the stranger holding his slightly-damaged camera.

‘I guess I protected my camera pretty well too.’ He realized that he had unconsciously saved his equipment too.

“Huh?” Suddenly, he gasped, discovering who was holding his camera.

“Tao Chen?”

“Hmm… How did you get here?” Tao Chen, code-named Beautiful Beard, mumbled. He was a world-famous Chinese high ranker.

The cameraman asked, “Why are you here…?”

“You must be a reporter…” Tao Chen ignored the question and asked, “How would you like the greatest scoop of your life?” He pointed at the faraway place where all the explosions were occurring.

***

Gi-Gyu stood still to focus.

“The Egos feel unstable,” he mumbled. This suggested that something had happened in Eden. The fragile sync that connected him to everyone shook a little. He could almost hear their screams.

He gradually increased his concentration.

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As his senses centered, the information regarding the Eden situation entered his brain through his connection to his Egos.

Gi-Gyu opened his eyes. He had learned everything he needed to know in a fraction of a second. While he was away, it appeared his Egos had grown much more powerful. Gi-Gyu also learned about the ongoing war inside Eden.

But the most serious news was…

“There are two Belphegors?” Gi-Gyu couldn’t understand. Because he had received Belphegor’s mace as a reward from the Tower, he had assumed that Belphegor was dead.

So how could there be two of them now?

As calmness entered his eyes, he recognized that the “how” didn’t matter. He should be more worried about his Egos’ instability. Eden was under attack, and it needed him.

-Master!

Finally, Brunheart was awake.

“Brunheart, open the gate,” Gi-Gyu ordered.

-Hng… We don’t even have the time to exchange hellos? All right!

Brunheart opened the bright blue gate right in front of Gi-Gyu.

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