Chapter 278
Chapter 278
The boardroom exhaled.
Sangmin slumped forward, resting his head on the cool wood of the conference table. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his sweating neck.
"He left," Sangmin breathed. "He finally left."
"Morpheus was wrong again," Lim Cheolho said. The Chairman was smiling again. It was a wide, genuine smile. "It calculated that it would most certainly be a complete wipe-out, but our Miracle managed to surpass the calculation again. Though I guess this only worked because the Absolute’s clone they were dealing with was the Devil Monarch"
The boardroom doors swung open.
Lee Gookrae, the Head of the Planning Department, walked in. He held a data tablet in one hand. He looked exhausted, but his eyes were bright with a fanatical energy.
"I heard the alarms," Gookrae said. He looked at the paused image of the ruined Stormbreak courtyard on the main monitor. "Did they survive?"
"They survived," Nahee said. "But the clone escaped. It has moved to hell."
Gookrae laughed. It was a loud, chaotic sound.
"This is fantastic," Gookrae said. He slapped his tablet onto the table. "Do you realize what this means? A rogue Transcendent clone is now roaming the worldview."
Sangmin groaned, keeping his head on the table. "Gookrae, please."
"I am serious!" Gookrae said, grinning. "A clone that can reach Absolute status again if it hunts a couple of gods is just wandering around. The original Heaven and Hell episodes I spent years mapping out? They are completely derailed. The lore is broken. Anything can happen now!"
Lim Cheolho chuckled. "You seem very happy about your work being ruined, Director Lee."
"I love it when players break things," Gookrae admitted. He tapped his tablet. "But you don't need to worry about Rudra ruining the regional balance anymore."
Sangmin looked up. "What do you mean?"
"Stormbreak is bankrupt," Gookrae said simply. He pulled up a summary report on the screen. "Rudra spent most of the excess golds to create the enhancement stones which were promptly used. And now more than half of his city's infrastructure was just pulverized by the Devil Monarch. He has to rebuild from scratch with an empty treasury."
Gookrae swiped the screen again. A new text summary appeared.
"And while Rudra was fighting for his life, Grid was grinding," Gookrae said.
"Grid?" Sangmin asked. "What did he do?"
"He just cleared the Mysterious Forest," Gookrae explained, reading from the report. "He defeated the doppelganger that resided there. The one that took the form of Pagma from a hundred years ago."
Nahee leaned in. "Did he secure the hidden piece?"
"He did," Gookrae confirmed. "Grid learned two new Pagma's Sword Dances from the fight. He also gained the named-tier doppelganger as a pet."
Sangmin whistled softly. "That is a massive power spike."
"It gets better," Gookrae added. "Grid also discovered a Yellow Mithril Mine in the forest."
Nahee’s eyes widened slightly. "Yellow Mithril can be processed into Fairy Dust."
"Exactly," Gookrae said, his grin widening. "When used in alchemy, Fairy Dust improves the success rate by twenty percent. Grid just secured an economic goldmine for the Overgeared Guild. The balance is restored. Grid's territory is going to catch up while Stormbreak tries to reach their previous height."
Lim Cheolho nodded slowly. He looked at the summary of Grid's victory, then back to the image of Rudra sitting in the ruined courtyard.
"A good competition," the Chairman murmured. "The rivalry remains healthy. Let them rebuild."
The oppressive red sky over Stormbreak was gone.
Natural sunlight poured into the ruined courtyard. The heavy, suffocating pressure of the Devil Monarch had vanished the second Lucious stepped through the rift.
Rudra sat on a cracked wooden crate near the shattered fountain. His black coat was covered in grey dust. He rested his newly enhanced staff across his knees. The white lightning crackled quietly against the draconic leather of his gloves.
He was alive. His knights were alive.
He opened his interface and checked his inventory.
It was bad,
The massive stacks of Weapon Enhancement Stones were nearly gone. The Armor Enhancement Stones were pretty much gone. The Blessed stones and concentrated holy water were gone. He just had a few items that he absolutely couldn’t sell.
He closed the inventory and opened the territory management window.
The territory gold count stared back at him. It was a bleak, miserable number.
Rudra decided not to ignore that for now.
Across the courtyard, the cleanup had already started. The stasis field was gone. The Ambrosia of Rebirth had done its work.
Piaro stood near the rubble, slowly flexing his newly regrown right arm. He gripped his iron hand plow, testing the weight. He looked mildly annoyed that his calluses were gone, but his posture was relaxed.
Nearby, Kratos was keeping his belly low to the ground.
The black and gold lion sneaked around the edge of a massive crater. He sniffed a piece of shattered masonry. The rock was coated in a faint, lingering grey residue—the leftover demonic force from Lucious's aura.
Kratos opened his jaws and bit the rock. He chewed loudly, swallowing the demonic dust before the Witches could sweep it up.
[The skill 'Mana Devourer' has consumed a transcendent's demonic force fragment.]
[Your pet, Kratos, has leveled up.]
The tank-sized lion let out a small burp, looking extremely satisfied, and trotted over to another piece of rubble.
Near the destroyed entrance of the barracks, the deflected shockwave had sliced clean through three massive stone support pillars. The cuts were perfectly smooth, angled down toward the dirt.
A group of children from the Stormbreak Academy had already found them.
"My turn!" a young Beastman cub yelled, shoving a human boy out of the way.
The cub scrambled up the back of the fallen pillar. He sat on the perfectly smooth, angled surface and slid down the stone like a playground slide, landing in the dirt with a happy shout.
Rudra watched them. He watched Kratos eating dirt. He watched Piaro inspecting his plow. He watched Silas crying over the ledger.
He was broke. His city was a mess. The clone had promised to come back.
Rudra sighed. He stood up from the crate, brushed the dust off his coat, and slung the staff over his shoulder.
"Alright, Silas," Rudra said, ignoring the accountant's weeping. "Let's figure out what's for dinner. We have a lot of work from now on."