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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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Chapter 601
"The world tree... as an undead?"
Seong Jihan tilted his head at Karlein's words.
How could he turn the world tree, a symbol of life, into an undead?
As he was questioning this incomprehensible statement,
"There are many elf remnant souls accumulated on this mountain."
"When I looked, I didn't see anything like that."
"They're fragmented and buried in the ground, so you probably couldn't detect them with a quick glance. Only a necromancy master like me can perceive them."
"Hmm..."
"And at the spot where the world tree was, even more intense remnant souls are split into pieces. I suspect these are the remnant souls of the world tree that was here."
Karlein revealed that the remnant souls of World Tree Alliance members were secretly hidden on Namsan.
"But Urd absorbed all the elves, are there really remnant souls left?"
"I heard that story and looked at other areas too... but there were no elf remnant souls elsewhere. They're only here."
Elf portals that had opened in major cities all over the Earth.
The elves who were massacred and then absorbed by Urd had disappeared without even leaving their souls behind.
But Namsan, unlike other areas, has elf remnant souls, was that it?
"I guess when the World Tree Alliance established their Colonial Government here, they killed their own elves too."
"Ah. That must be it. You said there was a world tree here, right? For a world tree to take root, the soil needs to be full of life energy, so they probably buried elves for that purpose."
"...So, they used elves as fertilizer to settle the world tree?"
"Yeah. It's a common soil enrichment practice in the Alliance."
So that was why the remnant souls were fragmented and buried in the ground.
"Rather than leaving them in the ground, it'd be better to draw them out as undead."
"Right! That's why I need your help!"
"What kind of help?"
"It's nothing much, just help with my ultimate necromancy."
Ultimate necromancy.
What a grandiose name.
As Seong Jihan smirked,
"Now!"
Karlein stood up and stretched his hands high towards the sky.
Then,
Whoosh...
Black smoke poured out from his body.
His demigod form collapsed, and a black skull head popped out.
"Why did you come out like that?"
[To use my ultimate skill, I need to be in this form!]
"How grand of a magic are you trying to use..."
[Hehe... Just watch. First, we need to connect the fragmented remnant souls.]
Kaaaa!
As the black skull opened his mouth, black smoke poured out.
It seeped into the ground, and the surroundings started turning black.
Whoosh!
Elf ghosts began popping out one by one.
However,
"None of them are normal."
Some ghosts had 4 arms attached to their torso.
Some had 8 ears stuck on their head.
None of the elf ghosts maintained their original form.
[That's because I'm piecing together the fragments. But their experience points should be decent.]
"Really?"
Pak!
As soon as he heard that, Seong Jihan threw a punch at one of the ghosts.
Then,
Whoosh...!
The elf ghost vanished instantly.
It wasn't just the ghost he punched that disappeared.
All the summoned elf ghosts in the vicinity vanished.
"Hmm... I don't really notice anything."
When Seong Jihan reacted indifferently because no level up message appeared after eliminating all the ghosts,
[Hey. Of course it won't increase by administrator standards... You have to look at it from human players' perspective!]
Click. Click.
Karlein protested, clenching his teeth in frustration.
[More importantly, help me out. I can summon the elf remnant souls, but the world tree remnant soul won't budge at all.]
"How should I help?"
[Try raising some Void.]
"...Void?"
[Yeah. You have some Void, right? I saw you summon a terrifying sword before.]
Seong Jihan frowned at those words.
No, he had desperately used it all up over the past few weeks.
"You should have said so earlier. I've used almost all of it up."
[Huh? You used up Void?]
"Yeah. I had some personal business and consumed it."
[Even so, Void shouldn't be a stat that just disappears at will...]
"For me, it does."
[...Aren't you amazing? So amazing.]
Click. Click.
The black skull that had been just clenching its teeth at Seong Jihan's assertion,
[But... you still have some left, right? Try raising even a little bit of Void.]
"Alright."
Currently, his Void stat was 50.
Seong Jihan drew it all up at once.
Whoosh...
Purple mist rose around his body.
[What? That's a lot?]
"This is only 1/10 of what it used to be."
[You reduced it that much...? Okay. Anyway, let me use this Void...]
As the black skull opened its mouth,
The purple Void that Seong Jihan had raised entered his mouth.
In that state, Karlein exhaled black smoke onto the ground again.
Unlike before, the smoke tinged with purple, turned the earth black faster and more widely.
Then, many more elf ghosts started popping out than before.
[Wow. Void really is good... Seems like I've drawn out all the elf remnant souls.]
Even roughly counting, thousands of ghost entities had emerged, but,
[But the world tree is being really stubborn...]
He grumbled that the original target, the world tree, wasn't coming out.
"But do trees even have souls?"
[Yeah! World tree level ones all do! Think about Yggdrasil. She's essentially a tree, after all.]
"I guess."
[But what on earth is the identity of this world tree, that it won't come out like this?]
"Well, it was already high-level to begin with, and in the end, Yggdrasil herself directly descended to dominate humanity... So it probably won't come out easily."
[Hmm...]
Karlein pondered Seong Jihan's words for a moment, then
[If Yggdrasil descended... then the world tree here might have been Yggdrasil itself at the end...?]
He brought up an unexpected idea.
* * *
"You're saying the world tree remnant soul buried in Namsan is Yggdrasil?"
[Yeah! It has to be that level to resist my summoning! Even my soul summoning imbued with a massive amount of Void!]
"Well. It's not that massive though..."
[It's an enormous amount to me!]
Seong Jihan pondered as he listened to Karlein's words.
'Yggdrasil definitely died on the moon though.'
When Urd saw Seong Jihan's authority and decided she needed to live, didn't she transfer the Void seal that was on her to Yggdrasil, causing her death?
'And Urd told the dying Yggdrasil to take the Blue and Red flame.'
Even though she could have easily blocked his attack with the Light Clock, Urd encouraged Yggdrasil to burn just because she was curious about the Blue and Red flames.
Yggdrasil, who gave everything to Urd without reserve and then disappeared.
But now her remnant soul was here on Namsan?
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Join our Discord for release updates!
https://discord.com/invite/dbdMDhzWa2
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"I find it hard to believe."
[I'm telling you, she's the only being who could withstand this!]
"Hmm... Yggdrasil died on the moon. Should we go there and check?"
[The moon? Yeah. We can be sure if we find a remnant soul there and compare. Let's go!]
As Karlein agreed to Seong Jihan's suggestion,
Zzzzing...
He immediately opened a portal to the moon.
After moving to that location,
[Can you support me with Void again while I search, like before?]
"Here you go."
As Seong Jihan materialized Void again,
Whoosh...
The black skull swallowed it and then spread its energy widely across the moon.
After about three or four hours had passed,
[Hmm... There's nothing here.]
"Really?"
[Yeah. At the end, she was consumed by Void, right? Because of that, Yggdrasil on the moon has disappeared without a trace.]
Karlein said there was nothing to salvage on the moon side.
"Then we should head back."
Zzzzing...
And so, the two returned to Namsan without any results.
"This means we couldn't cross-verify if the world tree remnant soul is Yggdrasil."
[That's right... But anyway, to draw that out, we'll need more Void. Head, do you think you can manage it?]
"I'm not sure."
In the past, he absorbed Void from the half-masks used by ancient elves.
There was some Void he gained recently came from breaking Yoon Seah's vessel, but,
'There are no ancient elves, and I've destroyed Seah's vessel, so the route to obtain Void is unclear.'
Even dog poop was useful when you needed medicine.
Now that he actually needed Void, no means of acquiring it came to mind immediately.
'I can't waste residual points on raising Void either.'
He needed to use the residual points gained through leveling up to increase his Blue stat.
"I'll look into it for now. You keep those elf ghosts from flying away."
[Alright. While making the undead theme park, I'll also check on my remnant soul summoning technique.]
The world tree remnant soul that refused to emerge from Namsan's ground till the end.
Seong Jihan and Karlein decided to come up with their own measures and parted ways.
'Well then. I should go change the constellation sponsorship.'
Before the Space League match started, he needed to change the constellation sponsorship for the two strongest warriors.
Actually, he could have done the sponsorship remotely, but,
'Might as well go check on the state of those I brought while I'm at it.'
Seong Jihan moved directly to Korea's BattleNet center.
Whoosh!
As he entered through the main entrance of the BattleNet center,
"Ah..."
"M-Mr. Seong Jihan!"
The security guard at the entrance recognized him and bowed 90 degrees in surprise.
"Where are the Space League representatives staying?"
"They're in training camp at the new association building that was just constructed!"
The guard pointed to a large building next door.
"Ah. So I need to go there. Thank you."
Seong Jihan nodded lightly and took a step forward.
Whoosh!
Though he only took one step, he instantly entered the new building and,
"Oh..."
"M-Mr. Seong Jihan!"
"Hello."
After greeting the surprised people lightly, he asked a staff member,
"Where are the national team players?"
"Ah... They just finished a practice match and are resting!"
"Then could you call Ariel and Gilgamesh for me? I need to change their constellation sponsorship."
At Seong Jihan's words, the staff members looked at each other hesitantly.
"Is there a problem?"
"Ah. Ms. Ariel is reviewing the practice match, so she's at the BattleNet connector, but..."
"What about Gilgamesh?"
"He, he said his work was done since he did the practice match today. So he went out."
"He left?"
Seong Jihan's eyebrow twitched.
The Space League representative match was in 3 days and he just left after finishing one practice match?
"Yes..."
"How long ago did he leave?"
"He, he got into a limousine that came to pick him up about 5 minutes ago..."
"I see. I'll go catch him first then."
Seong Jihan expanded his senses widely.
He could sense familiar energies from the upper floors of this new building,
People like Yoon Seah and Sophia were detected, but,
'I'll see them later.'
Seong Jihan expanded his detection range further to sense Gilgamesh's unique life energy.
Soon,
'There he is.'
Gilgamesh's wavelength was detected.
* * *
Inside a limousine in Gangnam,
"Driver! Why isn't this car moving?"
Gilgamesh was scolding the driver while looking at the heavily congested road.
"I'm, I'm sorry. It's weekend evening so the traffic is bad..."
"Huh. This is the car I'm riding in. Shouldn't everyone make way for me?"
How would they know he was in the car to make way?
The driver grumbled inwardly at Gilgamesh's nonsense, but,
"I'm sorry..."
He kept apologizing out loud.
"Hah. Even the provided alcohol is all cheap stuff."
Gilgamesh, who had somehow learned to judge alcohol prices just by looking at the bottles despite not being on Earth for long, continued to express his dissatisfaction.
"Thinking about how that Ariel sneakily took the victory today, I need good alcohol to soothe my mood... Is this all the treatment I get from American First?"
"We, we'll prepare better ones next time...!"
"Hmph. We'll see about that."
As Gilgamesh picked up a bottle of alcohol with a disgruntled face,
"Hey. Don't tell me you lost?"
"Yeah... Huh?"
From the seat next to him, a familiar voice.
And a voice that sent chills down his spine as soon as he heard it.
"I heard Ariel was reviewing the practice match, so I thought you were out drinking after winning, but..."
"Uh..."
As Gilgamesh looked to the side, hoping it wasn't true,
"You've exceeded my expectations, haven't you?"
Grin.
There was Seong Jihan, sitting with his legs crossed as if it was his own limousine, smiling while looking at Gilgamesh.
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Asura]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Join our Discord for release updates!
https://discord.com/invite/dbdMDhzWa2
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