The Foreigner on the Periphery

That was the answer to the question left unfinished yesterday in the Gelanco dimension.

Asiph-1 pondered Minjun's words.

=Indeed. You orchestrated it. I assumed your goal was to hijack the systematic dragon breeding and slaughtering system established by the Kavite—their ‘dragon farm,’ as it were.=

Yesterday, Minjun had denied that assumption.

=But you said that wasn't the case. I wondered why you deceived them into believing it if you had no intention of stealing it... I see. So that was the reason.=

‘I gave the Kavite a reason to modify their bodies. They had no reason to hesitate, knowing they could just sacrifice another young individual and switch vessels if push came to shove. If something went wrong, they could simply discard their current body and make improvements in the next. Even now, those bastards think this was a brilliant plan they came up with entirely on their own.’

Yet Minjun was the one behind their decision to transplant fragments of human DNA.

‘They poisoned their own blood with their own hands.’

Minjun described the genes planted in those ancient test subjects—the race now called humans—as ‘poison.’ He meant it in a different sense than dragon blood.

Asiph-1 channeled its final question into a telepathic wave.

=However, you also said this yesterday: that waking all of your slumbering kin would require an enormous amount of power, of energy.=

‘Because they've been asleep for far too long. If things had gone according to plan, I would have slept a reasonable amount of time, woken up, and sought out the "grazing planet" I had prepared. Oversaturated with dragons that were still mere beasts, it would have been a place where I wouldn't even need to slaughter them—I could have kept them alive and harvested as much dragon blood as I needed. But now, I'm in a situation where that level of "sacrifice" won't solve the problem.’

=If you need significantly denser energy than planned, how do you intend to acquire it? The Kavite's plan to redomesticate dragons is still a long way off, and as you said, you have no intention of hijacking it.=

He fell silent for a moment before speaking.

What followed was a statement Asiph-1 had completely failed to anticipate. It almost seemed absurd.

‘Truthfully, the phrase "self-sacrificial Dark Magic" is practically an oxymoron.’

The primordial race easily overturned the very phrase Asif-666 had once spoken.

=Pardon? Why bring that up all of a sudden...=

‘That term causes the misunderstanding that no one but the caster is sacrificed. In reality, that isn't true. The only reason I've been able to use Dark Magic up until now is the dragon blood I consumed in abundance beforehand. The reason I caused more of a mess than necessary in the Gelanco dimension yesterday was that I finally had a proper meal after ending an eight-hundred-year fast.’

=I understand what you mean. The life force you expended—your own life force—was ultimately derived from dragons, if traced back to its source.=

‘In the end, it's just a difference in the number of steps and the efficiency of the result. Either you consume the sacrifice like I do, filter the life force within to make it purely yours, and then convert it into magic. Or, like other Dark Magic practitioners, you extract raw life force from the sacrifice and convert that directly into magic.’

=The former, having undergone a filtration process, would be more efficient. Your method.=

‘And the greatest sacrifice is inevitably dragon blood. Properly absorbing it is impossible for anyone but me. That's the standard, anyway.’

He muttered, tracing his distant memories.

‘Nevertheless, I thought about this before those bastards caught me. For a massive spell to wake my kin—a single, transcendent incantation—wouldn't the latter be better, if only to save time and effort?’

=Turning them straight into Dark Magic sacrifices without eating them? Are you referring to dragons?=

‘Then I'd have to kill too many dragons. Like I said, dragons don't even live in one place anymore. It's too daunting a task for me to handle alone. When would I have the time to roam around, eat them all, and digest them?’

=Then...?=

‘So I changed direction. Does the fuel I need to burn to wake my kin absolutely have to be dragons? There's another race swarming the Dimensional Center. Their life force density is lower than dragon blood, making them lesser sacrifices, but I can make up for the lack of quality with quantity. Furthermore, I even had a plausible motive.’

=By motive, you mean...=

In a flash, Asiph-1 understood the unspoken meaning.

=Ah!=

Revenge and salvation.

Achieving both goals simultaneously.

Minjun smiled gently.

‘It was the most certain and obvious motive of all.’

Gripping the mentally frozen Magic Tool in his hand, Minjun recalled his earlier dilemma.

Should he eat them or not?

Was it acceptable to sacrifice others to overcome their own discomfort and disabilities?

The "others" he envisioned in that question were, naturally, dragons. The creatures they had originally engineered as livestock.

However, Minjun had never harbored such moral dilemmas when it came to the Kavite. He could state with absolute certainty that he had never hesitated even once.

The Kavite lay beyond a line Minjun had firmly drawn. A line that was sharp, profoundly deep, irreversible, and reeking of blood.

Minjun felt a hatred so intense toward those existing beyond that line that it threatened to paralyze his reason.

Asiph-1 shuddered. Toward it, Minjun sent out a telepathic wave that sounded almost like humming. It was a very cheerful declaration.

‘They are going to go extinct.’

   *

Orcs must be erased from this world.

Baek Se-gyun, the Seoul branch leader of the Solidarity for Human Rights in Action, firmly believed this.

Bang! Bang, bang!

Fwoosh!

In the corridor outside the hotel venue celebrating the election of first-term assemblymen.

Sparks flew everywhere alongside the gunshots.

Not even a minute had passed since the Human Rights Alliance intruders, including the branch leader, smashed through the windows and swarmed in. The blocking bodyguards charged forward desperately, but the intruders swept through them with unstoppable momentum.

The bodyguards gathered to escort the orc assemblymen were formidable, but the Supernatural Ability Users accompanying the branch leader were far superior.

“The venue is that way!”

“S-stop them! Aaaagh!”

Baek Se-gyun led his subordinates along the predetermined route.

Their target today, of course, was the orc assemblymen gathered just beyond.

‘The place will be swarming with orcs anyway, so don't bother picking and choosing faces. Just shoot to kill on sight!’

That was the order he had given his subordinates today.

There was a reason they had suddenly launched a terrorist attack on incumbent lawmakers in the heart of Seoul after lying low for a while. The Human Rights Alliance had grown extremely impatient lately. Their daylight support—the backing they needed to operate in Korea—had abruptly been cut off.

There was a political party called the Human Center Party. Defying everyone's expectations, this minority party had positioned itself as the swing voter in the National Assembly. Though they officially vehemently denied it, they had secretly been cooperating with the Human Rights Alliance all this time.

But recently, every single incumbent assemblyman from that party had become incapable of performing their legislative duties.

It all started with an incident where they had hidden in a safe house to evade terrorists targeting them. After the situation was resolved, the police tried to send the assemblymen back to their homes, but they desperately lashed out and refused. They merely chanted a single phrase like a spell: ‘We have to stay here and remain quiet.’

Ultimately, it took several hours for them to regain their senses and be sent home. But afterward, every one of those assemblymen suffered from a severe eating disorder. No matter what rare delicacies they were fed, they vomited them up, claiming they tasted like excrement, and screamed for even more delicious food.

No one knew that these symptoms were a side effect—magnified hundreds, thousands of times—of the aftermath once experienced by the people around a certain Immigration Office agent.

The symptoms only worsened as time passed, eventually making it impossible for them to even attend National Assembly sessions. Since they willingly refused to eat anything, it was naturally only a matter of time.

Even if they all resigned from their assembly seats as things stood, there would be a vacuum of several months until the next by-election.

‘During that time, the ruling party will have the National Assembly in the palm of their hands. Furthermore, the number of those disgusting pigs has increased because of this very by-election!’

The Human Rights Alliance made a decision.

They had to restore the twisted balance.

They would have to reduce the number of orcs in the National Assembly to match the human supremacists who had lost their function as rubber stamps.

To protect human rights.

“Go! Push deeper!”

Blood spilled and screams echoed.

The intruders' magic effortlessly neutralized the bodyguards' artifacts. Although there were Supernatural Ability Users among the defenders as well, the difference in caliber was stark. The reason some of Korea's finest elites crumbled so easily was simple.

Fwoosh!

“W-what is that... Aaaagh!”

A gruesome shadow floated above Baek Se-gyun's shoulders as he cleared the path ahead.

The monster, which ceaselessly formed and collapsed its shape, spewed a mist of blood with a gaze full of hostility. Every time it extended a hand, the bodyguards' heads were smashed apart like tofu.

“We can't fight that. Run!”

Baek Se-gyun didn't let the fleeing ones escape, either. At his command, the shadow's arm extended like a whip, thrashing through the corridor. Wherever that razor-sharp energy grazed...

Slash!

The sound of flesh and bone splitting apart echoed. People's bodies were cleaved in two, leaving sharp, clean cuts. The expressions on the tumbling corpses were twisted in gruesome agony.

Someone shrieked.

“Dark Magic! A Dark Mage!”

A forbidden art that granted absurdly strong abilities at the cost of another's pain and life.

It was a Supernatural Ability found only in underground syndicates like the Human Rights Alliance. Aside from the extreme exception of "self-sacrificial Dark Magic," simply using it would instantly turn the caster into an internationally wanted criminal. Unless someone was already a fugitive, it wasn't something easily dabbled in.

Baek Se-gyun was a practitioner of Dark Magic. For today's operation, he had just sacrificed a massive batch of vagrants secured from the slums, better known as the orc community. Most of them were orcs and goblins.

Kiyaaagh!

Looking at the monster spewing madness in all directions, Baek Se-gyun reminded himself anew.

‘Just as I thought, it's gotten ridiculously stronger compared to before.’

It was a phenomenon most other Dark Magic practitioners were experiencing as well.

Those who had reached the level of summoning that monster felt that the power of their summons had increased drastically. Even if they offered the exact same sacrifices, the power returned to them had amplified several times over.

They couldn't figure out the reason at first, but they welcomed it. However, as time went on, a slight side effect was discovered.

Crunch! Rumble!

Kyaaaagh!

Baek Se-gyun gritted his teeth.

He roared at the monster.

“Stop! Leave the corpses alone and aim for the ones behind them!”

Only after he bellowed a few more times with bloodshot eyes did the monster drop what it was holding. It was a lump of gore, reduced to a dripping pulp. The remains of the bodyguard it had just killed.

Baek Se-gyun remembered what the victim had looked like before being crushed like that.

‘It always reacts like this whenever it sees a black-haired man of that age and build.’

Whenever those conditions were met, the monster would lunge as if it had run into a mortal enemy it could never forget even in the afterlife, determined to leave not even a corpse behind.

Anyway, excluding such a trivial side effect, it was a thoroughly welcome change for Dark Magic practitioners.

Bang!

The moment the defense line broke and the venue doors swung open.

Boom!

Rumble!

A scorching blast of fire exploded from within, as if they had been anticipating this. But the Human Rights Alliance intruders did not stop their advance. Faint lights flashed from their bodies as they deflected the attack and poured inside.

Up until that point, Baek Se-gyun had happily anticipated the outcome.

The level of security for the orc assemblymen they had scoped out in advance was obvious. Now that they had breached this far, the massacre would proceed smoothly.

That was what he believed...

“What?!”

His eyes widened.

A scene entirely different from his expectations unfolded.

First of all, the combat power in this room was nowhere near the level they had anticipated.

“What the hell are they?!”

Powerhouses entirely too exceptional to be ordinary bodyguards for orc assemblymen were hidden throughout the banquet hall.

The people Jenkinson had stationed to protect Minjun's people blocked attacks with telekinesis, smothered the boiling shadows with various spells, and parried swords with axes blazing with aura.

Baek Se-gyun's eyes darted around restlessly. He was completely bewildered.

“Supernatural Ability Users of this caliber are on the level of contracted agents for national organizations!”

Organizations like the National Police Agency, or... the Immigration Office.

“Urgh!”

It was a fiercer response than expected, but they were currently fielding their strongest members as well. Baek Se-gyun gathered his power. Just as he tried to direct the shadow monster to attack the orcs...

Bang! Bang, bang!

“Aaaagh!”

He saw the ranks of his subordinates who were attempting the same thing collapse. Most of them were magic-type Supernatural Ability Users with weak physical bodies. Clear red holes were punched through the foreheads and hearts of those falling to the floor.

Baek Se-gyun was dumbfounded.

They got shot?

They were armed with artifacts capable of blocking hundreds of gunshots in the first place...

Kya-ha! Kyahaha!

In a realm he could not see, spirits were busily darting across the banquet hall. Behind them, a white-haired elf was continuously pulling the trigger without even taking proper aim. His expression was utterly blank, but sparks flew incessantly from the muzzle of his gun. He seemed to be firing wildly, yet every single shot found its mark. Following the flow of the wind, the spirits guided the bullets straight to their exact targets.

“Ugh! Uuuugh!”

In the spot shielded by that elf, a terrified goblin cowered, clutching a gun in one hand. Sweating profusely, he continuously muttered something under his breath.

“I'm... I'm...!”

Baek Se-gyun felt a sense of urgency.

He had just seen a young woman, who appeared to be a foreigner, activate some sort of artifact.

She, too, was a rarely seen high-tier mage. From the pistol in one hand, she fired bullets imbued with enchantment magic. The bullets that struck their enemies detonated violently, unleashing flames like bombs. At the same time, her other hand was busy firing off various spells in rapid succession.

Even amidst all that, the artifact she triggered pierced through the barrier the Human Rights Alliance had prepared and broadcasted a clear signal.

He had no way of knowing who or where that signal would reach. But one thing was certain: if reinforcements saw it and arrived, the situation would become vastly more difficult.

‘Damn it, at this rate!’

Baek Se-gyun ordered a retreat.

He muttered regretfully to himself. How many orcs had he killed today? He saw bleeding figures collapsed everywhere, but it wasn't as many as he'd hoped. It was a pity. He should have killed more. As many as his hands could reach...!

Shaking off his frustration and lingering regrets, he was already signaling his subordinates. Even if victory was difficult, retreating seemed entirely feasible. If they used the shadow monster to screen the front and pulled out now...

“...?!”

A powerful intent echoed through the air, freezing his very mind.

=What... what on earth are you doing?!=

The moment that wave battered against their souls, Baek Se-gyun and the rest of the Human Rights Alliance intruders nearly fell to their knees.

It was a telepathic intent carrying that level of majesty. An intense mental wave unlike anything they had ever experienced.

They knew that races like humans or orcs could never emit something like this. It was a power bursting from an entity of an entirely different echelon.

At the same time, Baek Se-gyun realized that it was only natural this was his first time encountering it.

Because any of his comrades who had encountered ‘something like that’... would have already passed the point of no return.

=How dare you!=

The figure who materialized in midair was a young man with neatly slicked-back blond hair. But no one present judged his age by his appearance. That majestic bellow from a moment ago had erupted from that man. They knew it instinctively.

Baek Se-gyun muttered to himself. How could he be here now? They had clearly said he was in Hong Kong. There was a major issue with the ‘election’ over there, so he wouldn't have the luxury of paying attention to the plight of ‘insignificant bugs’ like this—and he certainly had no reason to expend massive amounts of energy to cast a Teleport spanning thousands of kilometers...

His lips trembled. He couldn't even fathom letting out a scream.

How on earth!

The Ancient Dragon Jenkinson glared down at them with seething rage as they stood frozen in sheer disbelief.

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