Ranker Who Lives Twice

Team: HH, thursdays, Yahiko (3/12)

“Cain?”

Finding Yeon-woo staring at the symbol on the spire, Heidi carefully called his name.

Emotions were swirling in his eyes. Rage, annoyance, hate, resentment….. The intense emotions quickly settled down, but it was shocking for her. The Yeon-woo that she had seen until now was always cold and logical. It was the first time she saw such a reaction.

However, Yeon-woo just turned around with emotionless eyes. He had a questioning look, like he was asking her why she called his name.

Heidi pulled herself together and shook her head.

“I-It’s nothing. You were just quiet.”

Yeon-woo nodded his chin.

“I’ll be looking around above here, so you go down. Also—”

“Yes. I’ll let everyone know not to come this way. Don’t worry.”

Heidi realized what Yeon-woo was going to say and spoke with heavy eyes. Yeon-woo nodded and moved past her to the spire.

After watching his back for some time, she quickly turned around and scattered the players elsewhere.

Because of that, she didn’t hear it.

The sound of Yeon-woo clenching his teeth as he entered the spire.

“That son of a b****. He dared to…..”

* * *

Yeon-woo was furious. Before he saw the spire, he was already holding himself back.

It was annoying that there weren’t any traces of his brother, but he decided to look at everything logically to identify any weaknesses.

Bayluk was one of the best toxicologists within the Tower, and he had a poisonous air around him that could get someone sick just by walking next to him. One breath of his could kill an entire tree.

To go against such a guy, Yeon-woo needed to prepare thoroughly.

He had the fire property, which was probably the direct opposite of poison, but among the poisons he used, there were strange ones that weren’t affected by any property.

Yeon-woo was going to look in every nook and cranny of the island while he was recovering.

If different poisons had been created and experimented with here, he could learn many things.

Just by observing how the island was organized, he thought he would be able to find countless secrets related to the guy.

However, where had all the people gone? He needed to look into why they had left the island as it was.

Finding his calm, Yeon-woo was able to sort through all the information he found.

But he was hit with something unexpected.

The moment that he arrived at the spire, where Bayluk usually stayed when he was on the island, he saw Arthia’s symbol at the very top of the tower.

How would he not be angry?

Bayluk had created the extreme poison that ate away at his brother’s body until the end. It was also Bayluk who pierced his heart and killed players who wanted to help him.

Leonte and Bahal had rebelled with other forces, but Bayluk and Vieira Dune had the biggest hand in bringing his brother down.

Someone who didn’t deserve to speak about Arthia had its symbol on the tower?

Crunch—

He wanted to destroy everything on this island, especially that spire.

Still, he managed to hold himself back.

He didn’t know why Bayluk had put Arthia’s symbol on the spire. It might’ve been to mock his brother, or he could’ve done it out of boredom. Being moved by such a thing wasn’t something he should do.

First, he had to answer the questions in one side of his mind.

‘There are outsiders here, but there’s no reaction.’

Although he had cut off the channel communicating with the outside and the magical barriers, there should’ve been some kind of reaction from the island with all these outsiders on it.

However, Bayluk wasn’t doing anything.

Yeon-woo wondered whether he had thrown the island away, but in that case, he would’ve destroyed the island completely.

There were still different documents and experiment subjects left on the island.

‘Something definitely happened to the island.’

It seemed that it had affected Bayluk as well.

‘Something to make him quickly leave his manufacturing plant. What could it be?’

As Yeon-woo asked himself this, he walked through the countless hallways of the spire. There were different rooms to his sides, but none of them seemed particularly important.

Just then, a flight of stairs appeared before him. There were two flights of stairs going up and down. Of the two directions, Yeon-woo chose the one that went underground.

I was surprised to see so many things have changed after seeing the island for the first time in a while. So this is why he left from time to time. He was making this?

It wasn’t that his brother had never come to the island after giving the coordinates to Bayluk.

Occasionally, Bayluk would leave Arthia, and his brother had followed Bayluk here once out of curiosity.

At the time, this was the building Bayluk had stayed in.

The second floor was used for visitors, and the third floor was used for storage rooms and archives. Also, he said that personal experiments happened in a large-scale underground room with a special defense system.

Underground, it was…..it was so large and ridiculously complicated. It was pretty much a maze, ugh.

There was a thick iron door at the end of the descending stairs. It was a door that would never open unless a special password using magic was entered.

Yeon-woo brought his Magic Bayonet down powerfully.

Clang!

However, the iron door was so sturdy and thick that it wasn’t even scratched.

“Tsk.”

Yeon-woo clicked his tongue and got into position again to swing his Magic Bayonet with Consciousness. Black Aura covered it, and a deep scratch was left on the iron door.

Kwang—

With the sound of an explosion, the iron door was blown away. What was revealed was a complicated hallway that was twisted like a maze, like the diary had said.

It looked to be even more complicated than when his brother had come. It was difficult to move through it with what the diary said. Of course, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a way.

“Scatter.”

Checheche—

Yeon-woo’s shadow stretched out, and about thirty Monster Portents scattered around him.

Yeon-woo was planning on moving everything here into Intrenian first.

Boo and Brahm would probably analyze it for him. He felt a bit bad because he was increasing their workload, but it was the best solution.

However, there was something Yeon-woo had to take from here.

‘Here.’

Twisting through the hallways, he stood in front of a door.

It was an experimental lab with all kinds of flasks and containers.

Yeon-woo left his subordinates to collect those objects, and he instead headed towards a wall that was further inside. When he tapped the wall, there was a clear sound. It meant that it was empty inside.

He turned the book next to him. As he did, the wall flipped, and a large safe was revealed.

“Bingo.”

Yeon-woo brought his Magic Bayonet down onto the handle. The safe had a feature that would cause it to explode if something from the outside suddenly shocked it, but the Magic Bayonet perfectly countered that.

Creak—

There were ten tightened flasks of different colors inside.

I was so curious why Bayluk’s experiments required an entire island.

An alchemist would need an island for his experiments, and because he was a toxicologist, he needed to find a way to make poison away from the public.

Still, the fact that he needed this much space made it seem like he had an end goal.

Like how I needed the elixir desperately.

It seemed like Bayluk had the same kind of goal.

When I asked him, Bayluk was deep in contemplation for a while before he eventually spoke.

“Godly Human.”

That was all Bayluk had said, and he didn’t explain further. All his brother knew was that Bayluk was trying to recreate a legend that was in the world he used to live in.

This island was a lab for him to make the Godly Human or whatever it was called. The poisons that he used were things that came with the process.

These liquids inside the safe were the results of all the experiments.

Basically, it was an upgraded version of the Strengthening Potion Yeon-woo made when he was a part of the Foreign Legion for the Red Dragon.

‘But one thing’s for sure.’

Yeon-woo’s eyes flashed.

‘There’s nothing better to strengthen holy power or God’s Blessing than this, since it was made to recreate a legend.’

“Boo.”

「Yes. Mas. Ter.」

Above his shadow, the Lich, Boo, appeared and bowed.

“Take these and analyze their beneficial effects and possibly harmful effects. Put the ones that aren’t needed somewhere else.”

「Yes. Sir.」

Boo took the ten flasks and returned to the shadow.

‘There’s no way such a suspecting guy would’ve left the results open like this.’

Yeon-woo predicted that half of the ten flasks would be pure poison.

It might have looked like an elixir on the outside, but it might have been a poison that could melt your body instantly. Bayluk was definitely capable of doing that.

Just then, the Monster Portents let him know that they had gathered all the materials inside the spire.

‘Collect everything else on the island too.’

They returned into his shadow again.

With this, he had gotten what he needed from the island.

Yeon-woo slowly stepped out of the room.

* * *

Yeon-woo left the underground and slowly searched the second and third floors.

There was nothing there because the Monster Portents had taken everything, but it was useful to observe how Bayluk had lived.

When he arrived at the farthest room on the third floor, the study, he unwittingly smirked.

Half of the wall that he saw as soon as he entered the door was glass. He could see the River of Souls sparkling in the sunlight, and it looked picturesque.

Yeon-woo though he just spent all his time in dark labs, but…..

“So he still had a normal side to him too, huh?”

There was nothing about Bayluk that he liked. He felt the strong urge to find him that instant and break his neck.

It was pretty much a relief that he didn’t appear here. If he was in front of him, Yeon-woo would’ve turned everything to ruin, not caring about the research that was done.

Crunch.

Yeon-woo ground his teeth again and looked at the black bracelet and chains that suddenly began to ring.

Urrrng, urrng—

It was like it was trying to say something. The shackles on his left ankle also shook.

It was something he had felt since after gaining the Grief of the Black King, but Yeon-woo felt like his connection with the bracelet had become deeper. He could handle the Monster Portents even more smoothly, and the 3rd Spirit felt different too.

It was like he could feel something sticky and bleak at his fingertips. It was something he couldn’t explain.

Was it because his understanding of the Despair of the Black King was deeper after finding the set?

[Azrael looks at you with silent eyes.]

And after he gained the shackles, Azrael’s gaze had become more intense.

He was a god of death who definitely knew something about the Black King. Just what was the identity of the Black King?

‘On the other hand, it’s too quiet on this side.’

Only

[The godly society, ‘Olympus’ remains silent.]

From Zeus’s Astrape to Poseidon’s Triaina. Although two of the holy artifacts of the Olympians of Olympus had been swallowed, they were strangely quiet.

Yeon-woo rubbed the shackles with deep eyes.

[Azrael is watching you.]

[Azrael quietly urges you to check the artifact.]

At Azrael’s continued urging, Yeon-woo pushed aside his thoughts and opened the information window of the shackles.