Chapter 489

The Martial God looked down at Dongbang Sak, who had a tired expression.

To erase the traces of Blue, he had recently been swallowing and spitting him out excessively, but

Dongbang Sak's power had weakened much more than he expected.

'I need to adjust the pace a bit.'

When Dongbang Sak's power weakened, the Martial God's Martial Soul also weakened.

Until now, he had pushed through despite this to eliminate the traces of Blue, but

Now that he could feel the significant decrease in power, he needed to stop this decline here.

[Dongbang Sak, your power has decreased a lot. For the time being, recover and train.]

"Train… is it alright?"

Dongbang Sak's eyes widened, as if the Martial God's words were unexpected.

[Yes. But forget about Blue, and don't think about honing it anymore.]

"…Understood."

At that order, Dongbang Sak slowly nodded in agreement.

And as he began to train in earnest again,

'…As expected, his power recovers quickly.'

The power of Martial Soul that had decreased,

Began to rapidly return to its original state in less than a few days.

Was it because he had already walked this path once that recovery is so fast?

But even so, the amount that had decreased was considerable, yet the change was this rapid.

'His talent is indeed dangerous.'

The Martial God raised his guard once again as he observed Dongbang Sak's talent.

'In the past, I even envied that…'

In the very distant past,

When he had just started the infinite regressions, he had envied Dongbang Sak's talent as one of the players, but

Now he considered that talent to be at the level of a system error and didn't dare to compare himself.

Rather, through Martial Soul, he had prepared a means to exploit that ability.

'Let's raise him just enough to be controllable, then put the leash back on.'

The Martial God, completely unaware that Seong Jihan was behind the weakening of Dongbang Sak's power,

Allowed him to train.

And this action,

[The distortion of stat 'Martial Soul' has abnormally increased.]

[Do you want to identify the cause of the problem?]

"Oh ho."

Came right back to Seong Jihan as an opportunity.

'Lowering Martial Soul's distortion significantly must have had a big impact on the Martial God himself.'

So he made Dongbang Sak train again to return Martial Soul to its original state.

"Let's identify the cause."

Seong Jihan used the given opportunity to spy on Tuseong.

Zzzzing…

A screen appeared before his eyes,

Showing the desolate star, Tuseong.

[...]

In the screen,

Dongbang Sak was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed.

Flash. Flash.

Seeing more swords of light being created around him one by one,

It was understandable why Martial Soul's distortion had risen so steeply.

'While it's nice to be able to see Tuseong, I feel like I wasted my Administrator authority.'

He lowered it by 6 with great effort, but it was quickly restored in no time.

He used a month's worth of authority, and it only lasted a few days.

As Seong Jihan was feeling regretful,

[Martial Soul's distortion increases by 2.]

[Martial Soul and Blue form a weak connection point.]

As two swords of light flashed into existence, one soon took on a blue hue.

'Oh?'

Along with this, Blue gained more connection points with Martial Soul.

This didn't overlap with the connection points with Blue that Dongbang Sak had built up so far.

'What… Did Dongbang Sak train for me like this?'

Seong Jihan hastily manifested his Blue.

He could clearly feel that his ability had increased slightly compared to before.

'This makes the Administrator authority not feel wasted at all.'

When he spent 3000 and Dongbang Sak quickly recovered his power, he thought, 'Why is that old man like that?'

But now that he was developing Blue with that talent, the return on investment was enormous.

As Seong Jihan was smiling at this unexpected fortune,

[…Master. I'm sorry. During training, the ability of Blue connected.]

[I saw.]

The atmosphere in Tuseong was serious, unlike Seong Jihan's mood.

[Despite giving you so many warnings. You still thought of Blue.]

[I judged that there might be a clue to develop martial arts in that authority, so…]

[…I'm disappointed.]

Swish…

A giant snake emerged again from the Martial God's form.

It soon swallowed Dongbang Sak, who was sitting cross-legged.

'What? Why is he suddenly eating him?'

As Seong Jihan was puzzled by this scene in Tuseong,

[Forget again.]

The Martial God gave this order while swallowing Dongbang Sak.

Crackle…!

Along with this, the Martial God's energy connected with the Constellation relics.

He was mobilizing all his power to suppress Dongbang Sak's strength again.

'Hmm… So that's how he severs the connection point with Blue and reduces Martial Soul's distortion.'

Seong Jihan, having grasped the general situation from watching the screen,

[It seems it's becoming increasingly impossible to control… As soon as the seal is broken, I'll have to order him to retrieve the World Tree.]

Could also roughly figure out when they would invade through the Martial God's words.

'The seal was for 3 months, so there's not much time left until it's released.'

Tuseong, which had been given a 3-month probation as punishment for summoning Jihan, the Constellation candidate.

That period was now coming to an end.

If Dongbang Sak invaded as soon as the seal was broken, he needed to prepare for this in advance.

'Blue got a bit stronger thanks to that today… but the gap is still big.'

Seong Jihan recalled when Dongbang Sak fought the Red Administrator.

Although he had the Martial God's support, he laid out Nine Palace Eight Trigrams all over Tuseong.

Even with a huge difference in power, he avoided all the precise carpet bombing of total annihilation.

His movements were on a completely different level.

To draw out the Taiji Sword against such an opponent,

He needed to narrow the gap even more than now.

'There's not enough time to catch up through training… and the most effective thing I can use right now is Administrator authority.'

If he had known this would happen, he would have saved some instead of pouring it all into upgrading Blue.

Seong Jihan regretted spending it all when he had it and thought about ways to get more Administrator authority.

'Giving up stats like Red or Eternity isn't effective.'

Giving up the two stats with high distortion would increase the daily incoming Administrator authority, but

Right now, he needed immediate authority more than an increase in daily earnings.

The time when Tuseong's seal would be broken was approaching soon.

After pondering for a while,

'I guess there's no choice. That's the only way…'

He opened the system and contacted the Green Administrator.

* * *

[Senior.]

[Senior… Junior. What favor are you contacting me for?]

[You caught on quickly.]

[There's no way you'd be this polite if you didn't have a favor to ask. You wouldn't even contact me.]

Quite perceptive.

Seong Jihan, seeing Yggdrasil's response, got straight to the point.

[Is there no way to get more Administrator authority?]

[I remember transferring a considerable amount of authority last time. I have nothing more to give.]

[Of course, I'm not asking for it for free like last time. I want to borrow it.]

He was one of the last people he wanted to be indebted to, but

Given the circumstances, he had no choice.

Unlike GP, Administrator authority was a resource impossible to obtain from anywhere except other Administrators.

Seong Jihan decided to borrow from him.

[Hmm… The red has disappeared from humanity, what do you need it for?]

[That's…]

[You're not asking to borrow authority without telling me what it's for, are you? I don't have an excess of authority either, you know.]

[You gave me a million each time when I was eliminating the Red factor.]

[That was an investment to eliminate my political rival. Well, he seems to still be hiding somewhere…]

Yggdrasil speculated that the Red Administrator was still alive somewhere, and continued.

[So, why do you want to borrow it?]

[Dongbang Sak, who subdued the Red Administrator, is about to invade Earth on the Martial God's orders.]

[Why is he invading? Didn't you make a peace agreement with the Martial God? There's no need for him to attack you.]

Strictly speaking, it's retrieving the red World Tree, not an invasion.

But,

'I probably shouldn't mention the red World Tree in front of Yggdrasil.'

The red World Tree that eliminates the void.

If Yggdrasil learned that such an item was on Earth,

The next invaders might be the World Tree Alliance rather than Dongbang Sak.

That would be like avoiding the wolf only to call the tiger.

There's no need to bring this up here.

[It seems Dongbang Sak is hard to control, so they want to use this chance to get rid of him along with me.]

[Hmm…]

[So, is a loan possible?]

[It's possible. About 100,000. The interest is 1% per day.]

1% per day?

Isn't this outright robbery?

[Hey, no deal.]

[Oh my. Seeing you immediately switch to informal speech, I guess the deal is off?]

[Yeah, with 1% per day, I can't even pay the interest.]

[But if you satisfy my curiosity, I could lend it without interest.]

Was this the real goal all along?

Seong Jihan thought this, but still,

[Is that so? What are you curious about?]

He sent a polite message again.

[I like how quickly your attitude changes.]

[You're too kind. Please, ask whatever you're curious about.]

[Your face. I noticed it had recovered a bit last time… How did you do it?]

Seong Jihan frowned at this message.

'He's got good eyes.'

He immediately noticed the slight recovery from contact with the red World Tree.

'I definitely shouldn't say more about the World Tree.'

The red World Tree that deletes the void.

If he learns it's under the Earth's sea, the World Tree Alliance would surely launch a massive invasion here.

Seong Jihan thought for a moment, then found something to answer with.

'The restoration ability of Blue. Let's pretend I've gained it.'

Severance and restoration of distortions.

Of these two functions he had realized were Blue's abilities, he hadn't properly used the latter yet.

But well, he'd figure it out someday.

Seong Jihan pretended he had learned it in advance and sent him a nonchalant message.

[As I gained insight into Blue's authority, I got a bit of a hint. So it recovered a little.]

[Blue has the ability to eliminate the void?]

[It worked very slightly, but hasn't progressed since then.]

[I see… Wow. That's amazing. An ability to eliminate the void. If you develop that, it could become as groundbreaking an authority as the Red Administrator's 'Hell'.]

No. Why are you praising it so much?

It's burdensome for the person who lied.

[It's still in its infancy.]

Seong Jihan sent a message downplaying it, but.

[Where did it disappear from? Alright. I'll invest this time too.]

[By invest, you mean…]

[You don't have to pay it back.]

[Oh…]

[Just stay alive. If you die here, it means one method of removing the void disappears.]

Yggdrasil seemed to value this highly.

This time, instead of lending authority,

[The Green Administrator 'Yggdrasil' transfers 200,000 Administrator authority.]

He transferred twice the amount he asked for.

'…I need to turn this lie into truth.'

If Yggdrasil found out his words were false, the Green Administrator's side won't stay quiet.

Blue's restoration ability.

He needed to figure it out somehow.

'Still, I've gained the power to prepare for Dongbang Sak for now.'

Seong Jihan decided to deal with the immediate problem first and

Sent him a message.

[Thank you for helping me again, senior. Thanks to you, I should be able to handle him.]

[Good. Let's meet after you finish this. I really want to see Blue's void-eliminating ability with my own eyes.]

[Understood. I'll contact you after I've dealt with this matter.]

Seong Jihan calmly responded to the proposal to meet in person, then ended the message exchange with Yggdrasil.

"Phew… Somehow I managed to end it."

It's good that he got 200,000 authority, but,

Even after dealing with Dongbang Sak, this matter will be a problem.

'Blue that restores the void… There's no rest, is there.'

Blue's restoration ability.

But how to figure that out?

There's not enough time to train now.

As Seong Jihan was thinking about this,

[10 minutes have passed.]

Beep.

As the screen showing Tuseong turned off with that message, a thought occurred to him.

'…Ah, right.'

The long training period with no end in sight.

There's someone who can shorten this, isn't there?

'Since I've received authority support, I should use Dongbang Sak's talent.'

If he sharply lower Martial Soul like before, Dongbang Sak might be given another chance to train.

Then there might be a situation where Blue develops too.

"Lower Martial Soul's distortion."

[Lowering the abnormally increased Martial Soul distortion…]

Seong Jihan began to immediately use the Administrator authority he had received.