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Sparks and flames crackled along with the purple currents.

The room was filled with a spectacle of purple lightning.

The intense purple flashes felt as though they were burning their retinas.

The current mercilessly assaulted the Paladins.

“Ugh!”

“Argh!”

Some of the Paladins, caught off guard, were shocked and dropped to their knees. However, none of them lost consciousness.

Their heavy armor saved them.

The specialized heavy armor worn by the Paladins had enough defensive power to deflect most attacks.

Thanks to this, they could withstand Levin’s Purple Lightning without collapsing. But the power of the Purple Lightning was so overwhelming that they didn’t escape unscathed.

Their entire bodies tingled, and the burning sensation left the Paladins unable to regain their composure easily.

Only Deputy Commander Victor remained unharmed by the purple current.

A faint white barrier surrounded his entire body.

It was a Holy Shield, a defensive skill that only high-ranking Paladins could deploy.

Soon, as the tide of purple lightning that had filled the room subsided and the light returned to normal, Victor’s eyes widened.

“Damn it!”

The intruders, along with the highest-grade Mana Stone that had been stored in the cell, had vanished without a trace.

The only ones left in the room were himself and the Paladins.

Victor shouted.

“The intruders have stolen the Mana Stone and fled. Capture them immediately!”

“Yes, sir!”

The Paladins, having recovered from the shock, rushed out of the room.

As he led the charge, Victor thought to himself.

‘These aren’t ordinary enemies. To disappear with the Mana Stone in the blink of an eye… they must have mastered a special skill.’

They had vanished from a tightly sealed cell without leaving a trace.

It would be impossible unless they used teleportation. But teleportation was still an unachieved technology.

Though it was being researched in Neo Seoul, only the theoretical groundwork had been laid, with little progress made.

‘Then Blink? No, that’s not it. Blink doesn’t activate if the line of sight is blocked, and its range is only about ten meters.’

Only a few in Neo Seoul could use Blink, a skill considered a lower version of teleportation.

Victor had a rough idea of who those Awakened with Blink abilities were.

‘But it wasn’t them. They were definitely young.’

He had seen them, albeit for a fleeting moment.

A boy with a buzz cut and earrings and a girl wearing a pointed hat.

The only fortunate thing was that when the boy with the buzz cut unleashed the purple current, Victor had instinctively activated a skill.

‘Infinite Pursuit!’

It was a skill used to track enemies of the church.

It implanted a subtle scent on the enemy’s body.

A scent that only the skill’s user could detect.

The affected person wouldn’t even realize they carried such a scent.

With Infinite Pursuit, Victor pinpointed the targets’ movements.

“They’re on the first floor.”

They were currently several meters underground.

The targets had been in the same space just moments ago, but now they had swiftly moved to the first floor.

If they hadn’t used teleportation or Blink, only one possibility remained.

‘An Awakened with the ability to phase through objects.’

He had never heard of such an Awakened before. But the outcome spoke for itself.

The intruder must possess the ability to phase through matter.

Victor quickly issued a command.

“Reinforce the church’s barrier. No matter how capable they are at phasing, they won’t be able to pass through an enhanced barrier.”

“Yes, sir!”

One of the Paladins responded and used a telepathy skill.

―Intruders detected. Immediately enhance the Holy Barrier to the highest level.

―What’s going on?

The cleric in charge of the barrier responded with a question.

The Paladin’s temper flared instantly.

―Did you not hear? Intruders have infiltrated. Reinforce the barrier to the highest level right now.

―Understood. Give me a moment.

―What do you mean, ‘a moment’? Do it now!

Meanwhile, Victor and the Paladins arrived at the first-floor chapel.

They caught sight of Levin and Brielle’s backs disappearing through the church doors.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

At that moment, the bell hanging in the steeple rang, and the barrier surrounding the church was reinforced. But by then, Levin and Brielle had already escaped.

“Damn it! Too late.”

“Deactivate the barrier.”

When the barrier was reinforced to the highest level, even the Paladins couldn’t pass through.

Bang! Bang!

As proof, Victor and the Paladins were thrown back after hitting the barrier.

The Paladin who could use telepathy shouted at the cleric in charge of the barrier.

―Lower the barrier.

―What nonsense is this? Didn’t you just order me to reinforce it?

―The intruders have already escaped!

―Damn it!

The cleric in charge of the barrier hurriedly deactivated it.

As the barrier slowly faded, the Paladins looked on with anxious expressions.

Victor gritted his teeth.

“To dare intrude upon the holy sanctuary. I will never forgive this.”

The fact that an unidentified intruder had violated the sacred ground of the church filled him with humiliation.

He vowed to capture the intruders who had stolen the highest-grade Mana Stone and tear them apart.

At that moment, the barrier was finally deactivated.

Victor and the Paladins quickly resumed their pursuit.

Dongdaemun was already in a state of emergency.

When the bell hanging from the steeple of the church, known as the Holy Sanctuary, rang, the entirety of Dongdaemun went into lockdown.

All exits out of Dongdaemun were sealed, and the main roads were blocked by Paladins and clerics.

Ordinary residents were forbidden from leaving their homes, and with various barriers and magic circles activated, Dongdaemun was perfectly isolated from the outside world.

Victor initiated Infinite Pursuit.

“They haven’t left Dongdaemun yet. All Paladins, capture them!”

* * *

Zeon moved his right wrist up and down.

His movements were restricted by the shackle around his wrist. But the restriction wasn’t just physical; the mana within his body felt as if it had turned to stone, refusing to move.

This was the power of the mana shackles.

“What an interesting device.”

“You have no idea how many lives were sacrificed to create that thing, do you?”

Eloy asked as she stared at the mana shackle with a look of disgust.

“I figured as much.”

“There’s a department at the City Hall dedicated to developing magic tools. It’s called the New World Team.”

“That’s a fancy name.”

“It’s a group of hundreds of lunatics with the ambition to open a new world with the devices they’ve created.”

“A team with that many people?”

“Some maniac thought it would be a good idea to put all the crazy people together, thinking it would create some synergy.”

“And who was that?”

“Who do you think? The big boss at the top.”

“Jin Geum-ho?”

“Correct!”

Eloy nodded.

Not all Awakeneds are specialized in combat.

Those like Brielle, who developed their talents in research, were all gathered into the magic tool development department.

The support they received was limitless.

Money, materials—anything they wanted was supplied in abundance.

Initially, there was a lot of criticism.

People thought they were wasting too much money. But as the years passed and the New World Team began producing results one by one, those criticisms faded away.

Every item produced by the New World Team was groundbreaking.

Armor made from new materials.

Prosthetics that combined magic and machinery.

Firearms designed for hunting monstrous beasts.

All sorts of restraints, magic circles, and barriers developed to counter Awakened individuals.

The items created by the New World Team rapidly spread into civilian use, raising the overall level of Neo Seoul.

The rapid development of Neo Seoul was heavily influenced by the New World Team.

“That’s fascinating. Gathering crazy scientists and Awakeneds in one place.”

“Don’t even mention it. The department that supports them is constantly on edge because of the daily incidents they cause.”

Fortunately, her other persona, Mandy, didn’t work in the New World Team’s support department. If she did, Eloy would have been the dominant personality all the time.

Eloy muttered to herself as she ran her fingers over the mana shackle.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? To solidify mana and render abilities unusable.”

“What’s even more amazing is the material used to make this mana shackle.”

“What do you mean?”

Eloy looked puzzled.

Creating new materials by combining byproducts of monstrous beasts with metals was nothing for the New World Team. Of course, whether the newly created materials had the desired effects was another matter.

Zeon stroked the surface of the mana shackle.

“It seems to be made of something special.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“It’s hard to explain with words…”

“Oh, forget it then. I hate dealing with headaches.”

“Alright.”

Zeon chuckled softly. But his gaze toward the mana shackle grew colder than ever.

‘This feeling… is it dragon bones?’

There was indeed a faint trace of dragon bones in the mana shackle.

The method Zeon used to recognize this was simple.

He sensed a similar aura in the shackle as he did in the dragon’s eye embedded in the Inferno Gauntlet.

He had worn the Inferno Gauntlet for eight years. It had been over seven years since the dragon’s eye was embedded in it.

Naturally, he had become highly sensitive to a dragon’s aura.

‘They’re insane! To use dragon bones for something like this.’

Dragons—the most powerful creatures.

As far as Zeon knew, only seven dragons had crossed over from Kurayan.

Krasias, the deity-like being who had turned Earth into its current state, took the form of a dragon, so he didn’t count.

Due to the backlash from the terraforming, it vanished without leaving a trace.

Of the remaining seven dragons, one was hunted by Dyoden and the Awakeneds led by Jin Geum-ho.

The second dragon, Haeltoon, disintegrated completely in a fierce battle with Dyoden, leaving nothing behind.

Zeon had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the remaining five dragons.

He had wandered the world for eight years but had never encountered anything that he could identify as a dragon.

‘So this shackle was made from the bones of the first dragon?’

Dyoden had never told him what happened to the first dragon.

Dyoden’s sole focus was hunting dragons. He had no interest in what humans did with the carcasses of the dragons he had successfully hunted.

‘So they used the dragon’s remains to advance Neo Seoul.’

Finally, a long-standing question that Zeon had harbored was answered.

Neo Seoul had a technological gap of over a century compared to other colonies.

Logically, this shouldn’t be possible.

Civilizations spread like ink in water, darkening everything around them. They naturally spread and dyed everything the same color.

So, having a technological gap of more than a hundred years defied logic.

‘That was the difference. What Neo Seoul had that other colonies didn’t. The dragon’s remains.’

It was clear now that Neo Seoul had achieved such a highly advanced civilization by creating new materials from the remains of a dragon.

With this, one of the biggest mysteries Zeon had been pondering was solved.

As Zeon shook his head in disbelief at the shocking truth.

Thud! Thud!

Footsteps were heard outside the door.

Someone was approaching the cell where they were imprisoned.

Eloy immediately stood up, ready to defend herself.

“Is it the NSSC bastards coming again?”

It could be someone coming to avenge their fallen comrades. But the footsteps echoing in the corridor were from just one person.

It wasn’t a group, but a single individual approaching.

“So, he’s here!”

Zeon, as if understanding something, stood up and walked toward the door.

Clank!

At that moment, the small window in the door opened, revealing the visitor’s face.

Zeon’s eyes met the visitor’s.

“It’s been a while, Zeon.”

“Lee Ji-ryeong!”

The person staring at Zeon through the window was none other than Lee Ji-ryeong.

He glared at Zeon with eyes as fierce as a lion’s.

“If you were lucky enough to have survived, you should’ve stayed hidden or fled to another colony. Why did you come back to Neo Seoul? Because of you, a lot of people have been inconvenienced.”

“So you orchestrated all this?”

Lee Ji-ryeong didn’t answer; he just smiled, baring his white teeth.

———