Solo Leveling- Ragnarok-Chapter 294

“Aaaaagh!”

The Apostle of Paradise barely managed to evade the full force of Haein’s attack, but he was far from unscathed. One-third of his torso was gone. An entire arm, from his shoulder to his waist, had been severed entirely.

To make matters worse, it had been a lightning strike. The strike was so powerful that the severed flesh had turned to cinders, crumbling to ash and dissipating in the wind.

Of course, the apostle could replace a mere body at any time. The real problem lay elsewhere.

How can this woman’s power also contain the energy of a Ruler?

The consequences were devastating. Not only had he lost a portion of his physical form, but his very soul had suffered damage.

“How could a human do such a thing?!”

As the apostle stared in shock, a vast shadow loomed over him, casting his vision into darkness. Even seeing it again made him grind his teeth in frustration.

That energy I sense in the shadow wyvern!

It was clearly that of the Monarch of Shadows. He still didn’t know what was happening, but it didn’t matter—his next move remained unchanged. He had to escape, using any method necessary.

“Mouth of the void!”

With a desperate cry, he thrust his remaining arm outward, frantically tearing open rifts in every direction. Dimensional holes punctured the space around him. From those ragged tears, chaotic dimensional storms erupted, colliding and intertwining into a vortex of destruction.

A monstrous wind surged through them, hurtling toward Ilhwan and Haein. If they were swallowed by it, they would be scattered like cosmic dust, drifting in the void for eternity.

“This is my chance...!”

Unfortunately for the apostle, Ilhwan dodged the raging storm with practiced ease, leaping upward. It was as if he had encountered situations like this countless times before.

He landed softly on the back of the shadow wyvern with Haein.

“Father!”

“Thank you, my dear daughter-in-law.”

Ilhwan gave Haein a proud smile, then without hesitation, brandished his twin daggers.

The old man locked eyes with the fleeing apostle and dove straight at him. It reminded the apostle of Jinwoo, whom he had once encountered in the Outer Universes. He lost all will to fight.

The daggers swung wildly, and the powerful pressure they created spread out in all directions.

A harrowing scream escaped the apostle’s lips. His fingers were first to be severed, then his remaining arm. His legs soon followed. Finally, his torso was mercilessly torn apart as he was entirely dismembered. At last, even the wretched soul that had been hiding within his ruined body was carved to shreds by Ilhwan’s relentless assault.

The Apostle of Paradise could no longer even scream. In the heart of the dimensional rift, amid the swirling chaos of the void, only the sickening sounds of flesh tearing and bones shattering remained. In the end, his fragmented body crumbled away and dispersed into the abyss.

Then something astonishing happened. The remnants of the apostle, reduced to mere scraps, were drawn into Ilhwan’s Stones of the Outer Gods.

Ilhwan watched the spectacle with cold indifference.

“So he’s being absorbed, then?”

His battered body began to regenerate, feeding on the apostle’s lingering power. The cracks in his skin sealed, and his shattered bones mended. Slowly, his body returned to its original state like a piece of broken pottery becoming whole. The deterioration caused by the twenty-three Stones of the Outer Gods was beginning to reverse.

It looks like I won’t have to worry for the time being, Ilhwan thought.

As the lingering pain that had plagued him for so long finally began to fade, he let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, the Apostle of Paradise, reduced to the barest sliver of his former self, desperately searched for an escape.

I-I must run...!

A vortex of dimensional storms roared around him. Beyond the torn fabric of space, he saw countless rifts leading to the unknown. And beyond that chaos, he finally sensed it—the energy of a garden he had set up long ago.

Without hesitation, he flung himself toward the opening, the dimensional wall rippling as he crossed it.

“I did it!”

The apostle felt a rush of relief, his heart lifting as his sliver of a soul passed through the barrier. Using the last of his strength, he had torn through and escaped.

Of course, his pursuers were not able to follow him. That was only natural—the gap he had just slipped through was far too small for such powerful beings to pass through. Granted, that also indicated that he had grown pitifully weak, but what did it matter? The important thing was that he had survived.

“I can always regain my strength!”

After all, he was merely a fragment of his true self. He might be weakened now, but he could find the other fragments that had crossed over into this universe and bind with them to recover his power.

That wasn’t without its complications, of course. It would be a tedious process to find all the fragments, and once fused, whichever had less power would be consumed by the consciousness of the others. It was disappointing, but they all came from the same body, so it wasn’t such a big problem.

First and foremost was survival. The biggest obstacle, in his mind, was the Monarch of Shadows.

“Could we... really have lost the war?”

Had the Monarch of Shadows returned after victory? Had he truly defeated the countless Itarim? It was too horrible to even imagine.

If it was true, then nothing but certain death awaited him. He had never imagined such despair.

How are so many humans infused with the power of the Rulers on this planet?

First there was the Monarch’s son, then his father, and even his wife! It seemed there were no ordinary humans in this family at all.

Still, the apostle had survived. He sighed and muttered, “I was nearly eaten alive.”

Yes. For now, this is enough.

He took a moment to assess his surroundings. He had arrived here by using the last of his energy to align dimensional coordinates. This city was a villain stronghold he had established years ago in China. Just like in North Korea, this location also held a garden he had carefully nurtured.

The remnant of his battered soul drifted into the villain-infested city.

“Wh-what? I don’t...”

But the scene before him was different from what he remembered. The city had already been reduced to rubble. Buildings had collapsed, and the streets were drenched in blood.

Wait, was this city exposed too?

A sense of dread crept over him.

How could this keep happening? What about the perception-blocking magic he had set up? He feared for the worst, if only because of all the things he had been through recently.

First of all... Let me see. I don’t sense the Monarch of Shadows anywhere!

That was a stroke of luck. Then he checked for the shadow soldiers of the Monarch’s son. None of those could be detected either.

Then what the hell happened? Who could have done this?

There came a noise from above. The apostle looked up and saw countless drones filling the sky, their cameras scanning the ground.

“What...?”

He was stunned. Even such fragile devices could bypass his magic if they looked directly down from above.

Then suddenly, a powerful hand seized his fragmented soul from behind.

“Agh!”

“What the hell are you?” the figure growled.

“I should be asking that question!”

The apostle was taken aback. Once again, the human who had grabbed him bore a disturbingly familiar energy. But while unexpected, it was welcome—perfect, even. Even without any Stones of the Outer Gods, the human was a high priest-level vessel.

“Human! Within your aged body, I sense a fragment of my true self!” the apostle cried. “Submit to me now and offer me your power—”

Before the apostle could finish, the old man tore into his spiritual body. He was quite literally consuming the apostle’s soul.

“What the hell?! What do you think you’re doing?”

The Apostle of Paradise’s already weakened soul was being crushed and absorbed, completely mangled in the mouth of this human. The old man was eating the apostle alive.

Liu Zhigang, the six-star hunter of China, licked his lips. “Hmm. Tastes familiar.”

“You! Don’t... tell me...”

As he was being devoured, the apostle finally realized that he had made a grave mistake. Here was another man just like Sung Ilhwan, a vessel far too large to make any sense of.

Even inside this old man, the apostle sensed a space formerly occupied by a Ruler. Even one of his own fragments was lying dormant in a corner of that vessel. Not only had it failed to take control, but it had lost its own sentience and power.

“H-how can this be?”

It was unclear what mystical power made this possible, but this old man could also use the power of the followers of the Itarim as if it were his own.

The apostle, who knew nothing of the Echo Forest Spring Water that Suho had discovered, was lost. He didn’t know what to think.

“How... How can humans be so...”

Liu continued to chew and swallow, and the apostle suffered a slow and meaningless death. He felt only terror and bewilderment at the fact that the humans he had thought so little of were capable of such things. To think, even a random old man he encountered in passing turned out to be such a monster.

Liu smacked his lips again. “Another follower of the Itarim, then? But he didn’t seem strong enough.”

He clicked his tongue and tilted his head. The being had been far too weak to be a follower. The energy he had absorbed was laughably small.

Liu pulled out his phone and immediately called Suho.

“Hey there. Yeah. It’s me, Liu. Just like you said, I convinced the government to deploy surveillance drones and found the villain city. I’ve been searching for places besides this, and what do you know? I found a follower of the Itarim and killed him...”

Modern-day smartphones were truly convenient. With real-time translation, it was actually easier to communicate by phone than to speak in person.

Liu was tracking down the hidden gardens in China and destroying them one by one, just as Suho had requested.

From Suho’s perspective, it was a simple idea. China had illegally sent countless drones to spy on him when he was in India, so why not put that swarm of cameras to good use? He could easily discover the remainder of the gardens from above.

Of course, convincing the Chinese government to cooperate had been a hassle, but that was an easy task for someone like Liu. It wasn’t that he had political clout, since he had focused only on training all his life, but shattering a single government building tended to create instant negotiation power.

“Ah, yes. So you have a use for the city’s Elvenwood? All right. I’ll trim the roots and leave it out for you.”

Liu ended the call and glanced up at the tree in the center of the ruined city. A moment ago it had been desperately resisting, but now it stood completely motionless.

Liu had a feeling that the tree had fallen still the moment he consumed the follower of the Itarim, but the cause didn’t really matter. He had used his “political clout” to gather all the hunters in China, and now they were going to wipe everything out.