Chapter 127. Crown of Thorns (1)
Kururururururu.
A giant statue was standing in the middle of the sea of lava as if it were a continent.
A now slumbering Lazar.
Though its entire body had turned black unfitting of the title of White Lion, its prideful and majestic look had still remained.
Though it was slumbering flat on the sea of lava, it’s size was so large that not even half its body was submerged under the lava.
Kuooooooo!
The Gragos slowly approached the black lion with Oteon’s guidance.
Though the bull was on the bigger side out of the Gragoses, the lion was so huge that the laying eye level of the lion and the standing eye level of the bull were similar.
As if it had felt the bull approaching it, the black lion opened its eyes with a lot of effort and stared at the bull with its huge eyes.
“…”
Everyone gulped down their saliva with nervous expressions.
The bull had withstood most of the assaults from other Gragoses with its pure size.
But this one was different.
If that lion, which was staring at them with its full moon like eyes, smashed them with just its single paw, the Gragos they’re standing on will have its head blown off and they will fall down onto the lava.
And the lion was also a carnivore.
But that was all.
The lion closed its eyes again as if keeping it open was tiring.
“Hoooh…”
While everyone was sighing in relief, the giant head of the bull approached the neck of the lion, which was sleeping with its head on its front legs, and touched it.
Kuuuurururung
The two giant Gragoses had connected.
Oteon shed tears of joy.
She had never even dreamt of being able to return to the kingdom of which they had been driven off.
“Ohh…Ohhhh!”
Oteon and the Akarons, who were crying out in joy, calmed down and started to focus again.
Since they knew that this wasn’t the end but rather the beginning.
Enbi Arin slightly frowned as she looked at the Akarons and Hansoo, who were moving around non-stop, and spoke.
“Aren’t you going to heal the ones approaching us over there? If you need help then we will help you.”
Enbi Arin then looked at the tens of mountains approaching them from the distance.
No, the mountain-sized Gragoses.
Ones who were approaching them in order to chew down the bull-shaped Gragos.
If they don’t heal those guys then the Gragos they were standing on will get destroyed by the zombie-like Gragoses who were approaching them.
“There’s no time.”
“What?”
Hansoo looked around.
Cross clan, Enbi Arin.
Rerorerore clan, Kim Gwanje.
And Ariel and the other who were leaders of various other big clans.
Most of the large clan’s leaders were here.
Hansoo looked at them and spoke.
“There’s something you need to do.”
“What?”
“A big migration. We need to get everyone on this Gragos onto the black lion, before those things get here.”
‘There’s not enough time.’
A single Tiradus per Telautograph he needed to put the cure into.
Even Hansoo would take quite a bit of time to deal with them and heal afterwards.
While he kills each and every one of those and heals the Gragos, the bull will get attacked.
‘…So we give up this place.’
Hansoo finished his thoughts and looked at Oteon.
Oteon thought of giving up their Divine Beast, Gragos, and felt her insides being ripped apart but she nodded as she gave up.
‘We need to clutch onto this chance.’
If Hansoo hadn’t brought the Gragos here then they would’ve been able to live a bit longer.
But in the end the bull will have fallen to the ground due to the always increasing Margoths or the infected Gragoses.
And the living things above it will die off of course.
They couldn’t wait on the Bull for an eternity.
They needed to move when they had the time.
They needed to live upon a powerful existence that couldn’t even be compared to the bull.
“You need to hurry. It wouldn’t even take 3 days for those guys to get here.”
Ariel and Enbi Arin nodded as they started to send carrier pigeons in numerous directions.
***
Kooooooong.
“You damned bastard! Don’t push!”
“Fucking bitch! Wanna have a go at it?”
The thousands of carrier pigeons which had originated from the head were sent to almost all of the nervous clansmen at the same time.
The carrier pigeons which had spread to the large clans such as Cross and Rerorerore were then sent to the middle and small sized clans and then the middle and small sized clans sent them to lone adventurers whom they were friends of or had some form of a connection with.
Soon a giant march from the tail of the Gragos to the Forest of Horns and finally to the black lion had been created.
Though the atmosphere wasn’t that great.
‘It’s chaos.’
Enbi Arin, who had been leading the Cross clan, clicked her tongue.
Everyone had been on edge due to the clash of the Gragoses.
When they had gathered the people who were usually enemies and tried to sent them across, numerous clashes occurred from all around.
And there was another person who was actually creating a problem.
“Yo, Ariel. Aren’t you going to control them properly?”
“…What do you want me to do?”
Though they bickered, most of the Margoth levels knew each other.
As the usually kind Enbi Arin called her out, Ariel complained back.
At the end of Ariel’s sight, the person who had taken the leadership position of the Okonelly clan while Ariel had been caught, Akon, was there.
Akon shouted out from the middle of the Okonelly clan.
“Why are you making us cross? What would happen when we go over there! Previous leader?”
Akon then mumbled inwardly.
‘How can we trust a weakling who had been caught by the enemy.’
The black lion on the other side did not look like it was in its normal condition.
The skin was dingy compared to the usual healthy skin and there were no living plants unlike the bull which had numerous forests and jungles all around.
But the most terrifying thing were the corpses.
‘…Damn, people told me that the corpses that had starved to death are the most unsightly.’
Akon frowned as he looked at the corpses which he could see from multiple kilometers away.
Tens of Margoths which had starved to death.
That giant body had been impoverished to the point where the leather had stuck to the bones.
If those things, which went crazy for the body fluids, had starved to death then the humans wouldn’t have much chance.
Akon sweated profusely as he shouted towards his surroundings.
“Listen! Those guys are definitely thinking of throwing us on the black lion and leaving us! Then we would have to starve over there!”
Everyone frowned.
Since that black lion definitely looked like a land without hope to them.
“…Is that it.”
“That seems like it.”
Everyone started to mumble.
Ariel, who had been listening to this, finally realized what it felt like to die from high blood pressure.
For him to act like this when they had saved their lives and were working this hard.
‘This bastard… I can kill him with a single strike.’
But she didn’t dare.
Margoth levels weren’t invincible.
The clansmen who were swarming over on that side were people who she had trained well.
They were not easy opponents.
And most of them were thinking that his words made sense.
If she were to attack that guy then it would be like adding fuel t the fire.
‘Damn… This is really embarrassing.’
Every other clan was heading towards to the other side without a single problem but why was her own clan doing this.
Ariel frowned and then used a skill and shouted out extremely loudly.
“You bastards! Look at the Gragos approaching us! If you stay here you’ll die anyway! Do you know how much those zombie guys tried to chew up the Bull? If you stay here then the Gragos will sink as a whole!”
Everyone nodded at those words.
Though most people were skeptical of migrating, there was a reason for the crossing.
They ‘might’ die from hunger if they go over there but if they stay here then they will definitely die.
By sinking onto the lava.
But it wasn’t that Akon didn’t think this far.
Akon mumbled inwardly.
‘Those guys have a method of getting rid of the Gragos who are approaching.’
Why would the leopard suddenly back off from the bull’s buttocks.
The Akarons would have done something.
‘Those guys even know how to control the Gragos… Of course they know how to get rid of them.’
But one of the people nearby talked to Akon with a worrisome expression.
“I heard… That the person who fell the Gragos was a single person. And that he is making us move because he can’t deal with them all.”
Akon clicked his tongues.
‘This useless kid… He believes such words.’
Akon pointed towards the mountains approaching them from afar.
“So you’re saying that a single person went inside of that, did something and the Gragos backed off? You think that makes sense?”
“…Well, true.”
The man nodded.
That thing was not something humans could deal with.
The logic of the adventurers and the knowledge of the Akarons spread like wildfire.
Suddenly there were people who started to abandon the march.
“Aren’t these guys actually just setting us up for a trap?”
“Hey! You guys go ahead first then!”
The people who had broken off gathered with the Okonelly clan as the center.
Enbi Arni looked at the scene and frowned as it even felt like a clash would happen from the Cross clan and the other adventurers.
‘…Well. This should be happening anyway.’
It was an obvious result.
They had to make a decision that would impact their lives within a short amount of time with limited information.
Who would want to abandon the Gragos they had been living upon and go on top of the suspicious black lion?
The problem was that this may cause thousands of lives to die off.
They had pulled out everyone from the corners of the Gragos.
They just needed to cross to the black lion but for a problem to occur here.
‘This won’t do. Let’s first kill off those guys…’
This wasn’t the best solution.
Since there would be a lot of deaths.
But Enbi Arin’s method was that finishing things off fast was better rather than delaying time.
While Enbi Arin poured strength upon her fists, another hand stopped her.
“There’s no need.”
“What?”
Enbi Arin looked at Hansoo, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, with a confused expression.
“…Didn’t you go somewhere?”
Enbi Arin muttered while looking at Hansoo.
This guy said that he had to do something important.
Hansoo nodded.
“I did prepare something.”
“…?’
“I don’t have much talent in persuasion, I’m going to make them cross forcibly.”
“What have you done?”
Sofia asked with a nervous expression next to him.
Though she had seen him do his work since the Red Zone, this guy never did things ‘normally.’
It was destruction or mega destruction.
She didn’t know what kind of life he had lived but even a terrorist would be nicer than this guy.
‘Well if the results weren’t good then he would just be a terrorist.’
Hansoo shrugged his shoulders while looking at Sofia’s nervous expression.
“Well it’ll be a bit wasteful if we don’t use the things that remained.”
“…?”
At that moment the bull shaped Gragos started to cry out.
Guoooooooooooo!
And soon the bull shaped Gragos started to tilt its body very slowly.
Into a position of rolling on the lava.
“Aaaa!”
“What is this! What’s going on!”
Everyone freaked out.
Since they didn’t know what caused this.
But Gwanje realized what caused this and made an expression of disbelief.
Since he knew what Hansoo had done.
“You crazy bastard! The remaining Graphite!”
Hansoo nodded as he shouted out loudly.
Loud enough that everyone within the Forest of Horns could hear.
“Emergency! The Gragos is going to roll! Escape! We have to escape to the black lion!”
Boooooom!
The giant voice resonated over the people who had gathered.
And the people who had been in a chaotic situation realized what happened.
As well as what they would need to do in order to survive.
“Uwaaa! Damnit!”
The members of the Okonelly clan, Akon and everyone else who had been gathered, started to madly dash towards the black lion.
And like people who had survived the Otherworld for 5 to 6 years, they were successfully escaping to the black lion despite the vibrations.
‘Damn, they’re running the best.’
Hansoo laughed as he looked at the Okonelly clansmen who were running towards the black lion at extreme speeds.
“Let’s go over as well.”
“…You’re really insane.”
“As long as the results are good.”
Hansoo looked at Gwanje who was sighing as the thought of his next goal.
‘Go onto the Lazar and retrieve the Crown of Thorns.’
Elkadion’s relic, Crown of Thorns.
But this wasn’t for him.
There was something else for him.
The legacy of the great patriarch, Mekido, that Elkadion had prepared.
The treasure that allowed Mekido, an Akaron, to fight the Tiradus and win on a one versus one.
Hansoo finished his thoughts as he moved towards Lazar.