Solo Leveling- Ragnarok-Chapter 316

The Apostle of Nightmare was dead. His seemingly flawless plan had disintegrated, and the Apostle himself had faded into nothingness like a fleeting dream.

However, he had left a considerable legacy behind, one far greater than anyone expected. Of course, it was something that greatly benefited Suho.

The first sign of that legacy appeared in the Sea of the Afterlife. At first, it was just a faint breeze and nothing more, but that breeze quickly became something far more significant.

Since the beginning of time, the deathly air that had blanketed the sea had been still. Now, a cold wave spread from the World Tree to various parts of the Sea of the Afterlife, and the long-stagnant air began to move at last. It wasn’t a dramatic change—the cold simply coated the water around the World Tree with ice. Considering the sheer, boundless scale of the sea, there was barely a difference—just a slight cooling of the black waters.

“Good. It’s getting colder. We’re heading the right way,” Esil said, smacking her lips as she guided the fleet forward. She gave swift commands to the ships under her command and kept a steady gaze on the horizon.

Now that they had confirmed the World Tree’s direction, certain things became clear. As they all knew, the Sea of the Afterlife was a stagnant realm of death, a vast dumping ground where scraps of souls drifted endlessly. It was like a dimensional sewer where weeds—creatures that fed off the remnants of the dead—grew wild. It was inevitable that such weeds would gather around the tree, and they were witnessing that phenomenon.

As the weeds attacked the ships, the demons shouted to Esil.

“Your Majesty! More of them! They’re everywhere!”

“They won’t stop attacking!”

“Stay calm. This is to be expected,” said the Monarch of Gluttony, unfazed by their frenzied reports.

As the demon fleet drew closer to the World Tree, the number of weeds blocking their path increased exponentially. The demons, who had been confidently sailing, now began to show signs of panic. The attacks from the swarming weeds were overwhelming, relentless, and terrifying.

The situation grew more desperate. Even a moment’s carelessness was enough to allow the weeds to gnaw holes into the ships’ hulls. Black seawater began to seep through the gaps, and roots burst in after it, lashing out violently at the demons aboard. If they didn’t stay sharp, the ships they had painstakingly built could sink into the black abyss in an instant.

However, they were not defenseless.

“I’m sick of these pests!”

“Fine! Bring it on! Let’s see who wins!”

The shadow dwarves gritted their teeth, grabbing their hammers and saws as they rushed to repair the ships.

“Chew through the hulls all you want!”

“We’ll fix them faster than you can destroy them!”

“The contest is on, then! Let’s see who’s quicker.”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as we have enough materials.”

“Victory will be ours!”

It soon turned into a full-blown competition—the speed at which the weeds damaged the ships versus the speed at which the dwarves repaired them. The shadow dwarves worked with manic energy, their movements swift as dark vapor poured from their bodies.

The battle was intense, but the outcome wasn’t hard to guess. The closer the ships drew to the World Tree, the more the weeds multiplied. The vessels were being damaged faster, but with that damage came more materials to repair them. As a result, the shadow dwarves grew unsatisfied with simple repair. They began to expand the ships, building them stronger in real time.

It was a fierce contest, and the dwarves were just a step ahead. Of course, even the slightest lapse in concentration could tip the balance, but all that did was fuel the dwarves’ competitive fire.

“Hah! This is great!”

“It’s been too long since I’ve worked this hard!”

“I could die happy right now! Though I’m already dead, of course! Hahaha!”

They cut into the remains of the weeds, laughing as they worked.

If it had only been the dwarves, they would have been overwhelmed long ago. The sheer number of weeds was simply too great. However, they weren’t alone. While the dwarves focused on repairs, the demons and shadow spiders fiercely battled the weeds to keep them at bay.

Even the Elvenwoods—the ancient trees, including Álfheimr, that had been reduced to ship keels—had begun to stretch out their own roots, attacking the weeds and draining their vitality. The trees were just acting on instinct, but the result was extraordinary.

The ships became living ghost ships, constantly growing, healing, and reinforcing themselves. Given that they were crewed by demons, they were perfectly suited to the Sea of the Afterlife as a fleet of death. At this point, no matter how hard the weeds fought, they could not stop the demon fleet’s relentless advance across the water. Instead, they only served as fertilizer, making the ships even bigger and more durable.

“Your Majesty!” a demon cried to Esil. “I see a thin layer of ice ahead!”

Through the pitch-black sea, where nothing had been visible before, they finally located what they were seeking. Up ahead, where the real cold could be felt, there was a vast pillar looming faintly in the distance.

Grinning fiercely, Esil roared, “Prepare for battle! More of them will be coming!”

The demons had reached the World Tree.

***

Back in the real world, Suho was busy attending to other matters. Of course, as a freshly crowned Monarch, Sirka was busy as well.

There was a problem in the legacy left behind by the Apostle of Nightmare—particularly the problem of Experiment Forty-Seven. The woman with flawless, pale skin and pink hair, so perfectly beautiful that it was almost unsettling, stood before Suho. She was slowly breaking apart into fine dust.

“You don’t have to look at me like that,” Suho said.

In the same manner she had appeared before him for the first time, she was dividing into tiny pink cells as she disintegrated. She watched him with calm eyes.

“I am the greatest toy the Doctor has ever made, the result of forty-six preceding experiments,” she said. “My creator is dead. It is only fitting that I, too, lose my source of power and fade away.”

Her voice held no hesitation as the pieces of her drifted away like petals on the wind. When Suho had burst into the Apostle’s lab, even Experiment Forty-Seven had been surprised. But now she seemed unfazed by the prospect of her own death.

Softly, the particles continued to fall away.

“I have no soul, anyway. I do have a consciousness, but even that has no real foundation...”

“So you don’t fear death because you don’t have a soul?” Suho asked.

“Death does not exist for someone like me.”

Half of her body had already disappeared as she answered Suho’s question with quiet composure. The way her form dispersed was, ironically, quite beautiful.

“So the shadow power won’t work on me either,” she added. “That was a point the Doctor paid special attention to when he made me.”

Hearing this, Suho realized just how cautious the Apostle had been when it came to the Shadow Monarch’s authority over shadows. By nature, the Apostle was naturally against the idea of anything he created being claimed as a shadow soldier. That was why Experiment Forty-Seven had been crafted without a soul. She was a doll, a vessel with no true essence. In a sense, she could be described as the pinnacle of a humanoid AI, one that had been created solely through the Apostle’s power and effort.

Beru, who now understood the Apostle’s research better than anyone, narrowed his eyes. He murmured from his perch on Suho’s shoulder, “It isn’t just her. All past test subjects have been unmade at their core and are vanishing.”

It was true. Suho looked around and realized that the “Outer Artifacts” once held by the villains from China were crumbling into dust just like Experiment Forty-Seven. They became eerily like pollen scattering in the spring wind.

Pollen—that wasn’t merely a poetic metaphor.

Suho turned his gaze back to Experiment Forty-Seven and said, “Tell me, Beru. How were these made? Keep it as simple as possible.”

“With pollen,” Beru replied, tracing through the Apostle’s memories. “He used a mix of various spells, but the most fundamental ingredient was the pollen of Elvenwoods.”

“So he borrowed from the power of the Apostle of Paradise?”

“Yes. The Apostle of Evolution lacked the ability to create something entirely new. His research only consisted of bringing multiple things together and combining them. Even his ideas mostly involved copying someone else.”

It wasn’t necessary to ask who this “someone” was. It had to be Sung Jinwoo, the most shockingly terrifying creation the Apostle had ever met. All his research had likely been aimed at replicating a being like Jinwoo.

“Pollen...” Suho mused, watching the cells of Experiment Forty-Seven spreading around him. He then turned his attention to the crystal in his hand.

[Item: Seed of Evolution]

[Acquisition Difficulty: ??

Type: Consumable

A seed made by compressing the energies left behind by the Apostle of Evolution.]

The item description offered little information. Beru had crafted it for Suho, but even the shadow ant wasn’t sure how to use it.

“What do I do with this?” Suho asked.

“I’m sorry... I did it on a whim. I can’t tell you what it’s for,” Beru said. “But I’ve removed every bit of the energy of the Itarim. It won’t be able to harm you.”

“Hmm.”

Suho looked away from the seed and called out to someone else.

“Arsha? Get out here.”

A soft buzzing filled the air. Even before Suho finished speaking, small bees began gathering all around him. The swarm quickly condensed and transformed into a small, fairy-like figure, who greeted him reverently.

“Yes?”

Arsha, the Queen Bee, had appeared. Though her true body remained trapped within the Shadow Dungeon, the worker bees she commanded were always hovering nearby.

Without being commanded to do so, Arsha had spread her bees far and wide to scout for Suho and assist him however they could. Since her true form was forever imprisoned in his shadow, her survival depended on her loyalty to him. But after Ragna had been born into the world, she no longer served out of obligation, instead pledging her loyalty by choice.

“Do you have a task for me?” she asked.

Suho gave the fairy-like Arsha a command. “You see that pollen? Call out more worker bees and gather it all.”

“What...?” Arsha asked, confused.

She turned around, slowly inspecting the disintegrating Experiment Forty-Seven and the spreading pink cells. A gleam of understanding lit her eyes, and she nodded.

“Pollen... Understood. We bees specialize in that sort of thing.”

With nothing more needing to be said, the bees got to work.