Chapter 129. Crown of Thorns (3)
The head of the person who had been rallying the whole situation flew off and the people started to calm down for now as Enbi Arin and the other previous Clan Leaders controlled the situation.
But only for now.
Everyone was uncertain of what would happen since the situation itself was rather grim and they only had limited information.
They were all like a barrel of gunpowder that was about to explode.
‘I need to deal with the situation before that happens.’
Hansoo took a glance at the temporarily calm adventurers as he continued his preparations.
Clunk Thunk
Crunch Crunch
A sound of something constantly being devoured.
As Hansoo fed the Thousand Soldiers Armor with weapons and armor, the armor itself acted like a hungry baby bird and constantly chewed down the gear.
The clans would have a surplus of weapons in their base just in case the weapons they had been using broke.
Hansoo had taken all of these, which the people had left behind in a hurry, on the way back from dumping the Graphite.
Since it’ll be better for him to use it than letting it sink.
As it ate the gear the missing parts grew back and holes were mended back even thicker than before.
Soon, Hansoo’s entire body, which towered at around 2m tall, was surrounded in armor.
Hansoo, after completely fixing the Thousand Soldiers Armor, checked the status of the Nurmaha’s ring as he grasped onto the Forked Lightning.
‘Good. Though I haven’t healed all the way…’
It hasn’t even been a day since he had almost been chopped apart in halves from the Tiradus.
Expecting a complete recovery after the Racial Metamorphosis being released was not a good bet.
‘But I’ll move out since I can just about fight.’
Trying to fight at his peak condition was pushing it a bit too much.
Since one would need to fight as long as they were alive within the Abyss.
His current goal of utmost importance was acquiring the Crown of Thorns.
Hansoo finished feeding the Thousand Soldiers Armor as he stood up.
Enbi Arin asked as she saw Hansoo preparing to move out.
“Where are you going to go?”
Hansoo pointed towards the center of the mane in the distance.
Oten saw this as his eyes shone.
Since he knew what Hansoo had pointed towards.
“Holy land…”
Holy land. Land of the gods.
The location where the most amount of essence flew through upon the Lazar.
The location where the great patriarch’s residence, Tao-Bao, and the great temple existed.
At that moment numerous shouts were heard from all around.
“What the hell? Something is crawling out from the ground?”
“Get into formation! Something is here!”
Kiiruuurururuk
Kuuududuk
Something was crawling through the hide from beneath.
The people made nervous expressions but then started to loosen up.
Since they could guess the identities of those things.
“The fairy’s tricks are quite harsh aren’t they. To spread them beneath the ground?”
Everyone laughed as they looked at the squirming hide beneath their feet.
In their thoughts, the only thing that could come out from beneath the hide of the Gragos was a beast that the fairy would’ve made.
And those beasts weren’t much of a problem to them.
It might be a different story if they were all separated but countless amounts of people were gathered here due to the mass relocation.
“Let’s see what the beasts around here look like.”
“Hahaha!”
There were actually people who were happy about the beast showing itself.
Since the common enemy that had suddenly appeared loosened up the situation when they have been all on guard against each other.
Soon the thing that had been making the noise beneath showed itself.
Kiruuruk
About 3m tall.
And it’s appearance was something they were all too familiar with.
Everyone freaked out as they saw this.
“What the fuck! Is it a baby Tiradus?”
“Aaaak!”
The silver beast that had crawled out from the ground was very similar to the Tiradus that had caused a massacre against the humans in the past.
Though it was small and silver-colored, it was basically a weaker version of the Tiradus.
The people would only freak out since they had seen a disaster caused by the Tiradus.
But soon the people calmed themselves down and shouted while grinding their teeth.
“Damnit! We have the numbers! Just attack it!”
“Yeah! It’s small too!”
A much smaller size than the 10m tall Tiradus from before.
And the fact that everyone was together gave them confidence.
Soon a massive assault of skills were sent out.
Towards the existence that had made them scared in a situation where they had been all nervous.
Boobobobooom!
The thing that had crawled out from the ground was worthy of looking like the Tiradus as it withstood the assault of the skills quite well.
But their numbers made a difference.
The overwhelming amount of skills had turned around 20 of the silver Tiraduses into rasg.
“Uwahahaha! This is amazing for stress relief!”
“Damn! It doesn’t look like this thing is a beast! It doesn’t drop anything!”
Everyone laughed as they looked at their target which had been killed off way too easily.
But Hansoo just shook his head.
“This is just the start.”
“What?”
At that moment Sofia frowned.
The ground started to rumble and shake as if an earthquake happened.
“Uuh? Uuuhhh? What the hell? Is this thing going to roll as well?”
Everyone freaked out.
But soon they found out the cause of the earthquake.
Kyaaarararak
Unlike the people’s worries, the earthquake wasn’t caused by the movements of the Gragos.
But it was about the same level of danger.
“Fuck…”
The expressions of those who had smashed apart the silver Tiraduses and were laughing turned grim.
Kyrararak!
Tremendous amounts of silver Tiraduses popped out from the ground as they charged towards the humans.
A number that caused an earthquake just by simply coming out of the ground.
“Holy…What is that. I’ve never seen this before.”
Oteon frowned as she looked at the silver wave that was approaching them.
This place, the White Lion Lazar, was their hometown.
They had lived upon these lands for countless years and someone at the level of a priestess can say that they knew everything about this place.
But this was the first time that Oteon was seeing this.
As Oteon looked at Hansoo with a serious expression, Hansoo replied very quickly.
“They’re the leftovers of Elkadion. We need to deal with them.”
Elkadion’s masterpieces.
One was the <Body Enhancement Surgery> that they knew very well about.
And the other thing was that.
Unmanned Weapons, <Akadus>
Hansoo thought of Elkadion’s memories from before.
***
— …One… hour.
I completed the Body Enhancement Surgery with the various amounts of information I gained from the Telautograph about the Gragos.
At that moment I got greedy on another topic.
— Even if we receive the Body Enhancement Surgery, the ones who fight at the frontlines are the Akarons.
There’s nothing that would do more harm than fighting in the frontlines.
And another problem.
The enhanced body had played a huge role at driving off the Margoths.
But after a powerful common enemy had been driven off, the Akarons couldn’t control the overflowing amounts of power within their energy and started to fight against each other instead.
Like the 1st great war from the past.
When tribes fought each other and when patriarchs and priests opposed each other.
In the end I made a conclusion.
That I needed an absolute power in order to control and end all oppositions.
Something that could reduce the casualties of Akarons from the Margoths and at the same time controlling the Akarons so that they wouldn’t fight with each other.
There was a need for a powerful force to suppress them until the enmity inside the Akarons dispersed.
Thankfully, I had a tremendous amount of information and materials.
Material and information that I gained from dissecting and researching the Tiradus.
— This thing had been created by somebody. Why can’t i make it?
If I could use the information of the Tiradus and create a powerful soldier that could fight instead of the Akarons and have the power to control these soldiers then my plan would succeed amazingly.
But I must think and choose very carefully and wisely to whom I will give this power over to.
If this power were to fall in the hands of someone evil then… A disaster will happen.
***
‘Sadly everything failed even before he could use it.’
Hansoo frowned.
An extremely powerful unmanned soldier, Akadus.
And an unmanned factory that could constantly pump out these Akadus..
And the symbol of the power that could control the Akadus, Crown of Thorns.
Though they were much weaker than the Tiradus, there were much more of them.
As if Elkadion was proving to be the best researcher in the history of the Akarons, she had created a force that could control the entire Akaron race with huge success.
But it was too late.
Even before the factory went into work to create countless amounts of Akadus, the Calamity of Death had hit the Gragoses and Elkadion had to leave to another world before the Crown of Thorns could even be used.
The problem was that the automatic factory that created the Akadus, <Arklateori>, had constantly created the Akadus even after Elkadion had left.
And these Akadus hid around and then attacked the humans when they got near.
Since they were set to attack every form of life the moment they detect them.
“Don’t we just need to deal with it in the front then?”
First pillar, Taruhol spoke out cautiously.
If those unmanned weapons were created to protect the Akarons then it made sense that they wouldn’t attack the Akarons themselves.
But Hansoo shook his head.
“It will attack you too.”
When Elkadion had created this, the Great Patriarch and the Great Priest were opposed of each other and Elkadion had set the Akadus to attack every lifeform since she was afraid of the Crown of Thorns being stolen.
It would shred apart anything including the Akarons.
Oteon made a depressed expression as she heard this story.
“Why…Hasn’t the great Elkadion left behind the Crown of Thorns…”
Hansoo read out the fact within the Memory Crystal.
“It seems that back then he couldn’t hand it over due to the opposition between tribe-side and priest-side being too harsh. In the case where one side acquired this strength, they would annihilate the other. And it didn’t really help that much in solving the Gragos problem anyway.”
“…”
Oteon sighed at those words.
Since it was all true.
She had lived through those times.
If that crown had been given to one side then that side would’ve used it to destroy the other side.
Since that time period was of full of rage and hatred.
And they had failed at acquiring the trust of Elkadion.
“…There are no words I can say. What are you going to do then?”
It was impossible to cut through the giant wave of the Akadus.
One would turn into swiss cheese from the countless amounts of them attacking.
Though they would be able to hold on for quite a while since all the humans were gathered together, they couldn’t win over an army.
Hansoo very simply answered.
“Go through the secret tunnel. Get to the unmanned factory beneath the Holy Land, Arklateori. We just need to take back the Crown of Thorns that is located there.”
Everyone clicked their tongues as they looked at Hansoo.
‘…There’s nothing he doesn’t know about huh. He really prepared well.’
Oteon, after being grateful of Hansoo being on their side, spoke with a much more comfortable expression.
“…It would be very tight but it’ll be better than fighting that thing head on.”
Hansoo shook his head.
“The secret tunnel won’t be easy as well.”
‘Is that so.’
Oteon frowned.
Since there actually wasn’t a reason for the hidden tunnel to be easy and comfortable.
No, it would have much tighter defenses since it would need to hide something.
“We would have to divide our forces then…Who goes and who stays?”
Enbi Arin mumbled as she looked at the Margoth level people around her.
Most of the Margoth levels were gathered here.
But not all of them could go together.
Since the Margoth level people were also very capable commanders along with their strength.
Someone had to remain behind and command the fight against the silver army.
Others had to follow Hansoo, help him and retrieve the Crown of thorns
At that moment Ariel, who had been listening quietly, spoke out.
“I’m going to go with you, Hansoo.”
“…What are you planning.”
Enbi Arin frowned as she looked at Ariel.