The Hero Returns

"..."

Luslec didn't reply to Su-hyeun's question.

However, the Su-hyeun didn't need to hear Luslec's answer to know that he was incredibly flustered right now.

That fluster was all that Su-hyeun needed to confirm his guesses.

"Hah—ah," Luslec sighed at length as the air around him grew increasingly colder. He had finally realized that he would not be able to deceive Su-hyeun any longer. "When did you figure it out?"

"I've known that your gestures of goodwill weren't as simple as you made them out to be a long time ago. More than anything else, the god supporting you is keeping their eyes on me, so there must be a reason for that."

"So, like, can you tell me from when?"

"I started suspecting something was off when you first showed up on this planet. Nothing more than innocent curiosity? That could've been true, but even then, I thought you had another more definitive purpose for coming here."

"Holy cow, you are rather untrusting of people, aren't you?"

Luslec walked up to one of the benches on the rooftop and then settled down on it. He crossed his legs and began pouting in dissatisfaction, too—indicating that he was genuinely displeased right now.

Su-hyeun did find such an expression somewhat funny, but the current situation didn't allow them to exchange meaningless banter.

"Are you not going to answer me?"

"I'm not here to keep an eye on you."

"Sorry?"

That reply was unrelated to his question.

Rather than providing a straight answer, Luslec chose to correct Su-hyeun's question first, "I'm not here to monitor you. Of course, our first encounter was not a coincidence, and my goodwill isn't strictly borne out of some simple fan worship, but anyway—"

"Okay, then what is it?"

"Urgh! I've already been scolded a lot for crossing the line, you know? If I let you know this one too, then I'm really gonna lose my head...Can't you, like, let this one go?" Luslec made a distraught face.

Unfortunately for him, there was no way Su-hyeun would let this slide when his suspicions were confirmed to some degree like this. "No, I cannot."

"Urgh! In that case, let's keep this to a bare minimum, shall we? Please?"

"What do you mean, bare minimum? I have more than one or two things to ask you, after all."

"Even so, I have never done anything to harm you, Mister Su-hyeun. Am I wrong?"

Indeed, he was right about that. No—forget about harming—Luslec proved to be a big help.

From their first encounter onward, he helped Su-hyeun overcome the trial. He was the one who gave away a clue to acquiring the World Tree's seed. Then, he even provided information on the ranks of Predators, such as the One Hundred Evils or the Ten Great Evils.

In a way, he was performing the role of an invaluable assistant until now.

"If it weren't for those times, I'd have kicked you out already."

This was the reason why Su-hyeun didn't immediately chase away Luslec, a man with too many secrets who also happened to be a rather suspicious person.

"You weren't going to kill me?"

"It's something similar."

"So cold-hearted."

"In any case, if the purpose is not to monitor me, then what is it?"

"It's the same thing as what I've been doing until now. To assist you."

"Assisting me, you say?"

Luslec had indeed been helping him out.

This realization made Su-hyeun furrow his brow.

Despite saying that the purpose was to assist him, Luslec was unwilling to divulge his secrets? Su-hyeun didn't know his current circumstances, but there was no doubting that everything Luslec said so far was more than enough to rouse up substantial suspicions.

"Still, I'm sure of it now. Behind him is one of the Five Godly Sages," Su-hyeun thought.

Su-hyeun only knew of two such gods: Zeus and Master Subhuti.

Out of the two, he had yet to run into Master Subhuti. Still, he didn't even know the names of the remaining three.

At the very least, he now knew Zeus and Master Subhuti were not involved here.

If Zeus was supporting Luslec, then Su-hyeun would've figured it out already. It was also the same story with Master Subhuti.

"This guy's ability is far too different from the Sage Arts."

Not only was Master Subhuti the progenitor of Sage Arts, but he was also the teacher of Sun Wukong and the Bull Demon King. He didn't seem like the kind of individual who would have "Apostles" serving him, and more importantly, Luslec's abilities were cut from a different cloth than the Sage Arts.

"Which means it has to be one of the remaining three..."

Excluding Zeus and Master Subhuti, Luslec would probably not reveal the identities of the remaining three gods even if Su-hyeun asked. All he could figure out through Insight, for now, was to determine whether Luslec was lying to him or not.

"Can't you tell me who's behind you?"

"I'd rather choose to die before I tell you that," Luslec replied in a resolute voice.

It was unknown whether his faith and trust in his god had become too deep after becoming an Apostle or the "pledge" he talked about in the past getting in the way of revealing the truth. Still, at the very least, he wasn't saying that just for fun.

Most likely, it would be near impossible to coax Luslec into coughing out the information related to the Five Godly Sages regardless of the methods employed.

"Fine, then, what's your real purpose for coming here?"

In the end, Su-hyeun had no choice but to be satisfied with the information he had managed to gather up to now. He then asked about the real reason for Luslec's sudden visit.

Now that the interrogation was over, Luslec sighed softly in relief and replied, "I've already heard about the events in Olympus, Mister Su-hyeun. The news of one of the Three Destroyers dying is a big topic of conversation back in the God Realm."

"The God Realm?"

"It's a world where various gods gather to live together. Most gods with some fame would have traveled there at least once. Even Olympus is simply a part of the God Realm."

The world of the gods?

It seemed that there was another place like that aside from Olympus. According to Luslec, it sounded as if this God Realm was far bigger in scale than Olympus.

Su-hyeun's curiosity was piqued all of a sudden. Just like how Zeus, one of the Five Godly Sages, was residing in Olympus, he wondered if this God Realm was also home to another god in the same tier.

"Most likely, at least more than one, too."

The diagram of societal relations among gods didn't seem to differ too much from the world of mortals, as far as Su-hyeun could tell.

He even briefly wondered if the lives and societies of mortals were reproductions of the world of gods in some way. Also, Apollo said something similar to this in passing in the past as well.

In a world, no, even in a nation where people came together to live, an "order" was bound to be established. Whether that order was in the shape of a democratic society or a communist dictatorship, it would be established without fail.

And the one standing at the top of that order was...

"Probably, one of the Five Godly Sages."

Su-hyeun already heard from Zeus that the Five Godly Sages were involved with the Tower of Trial's system. Among them, Master Subhuti was supposed to be the core architect of the system itself.

Su-hyeun needed to search for, and speak to, Master Subhuti in the near future. But if it was also possible, he was thinking of meeting all Five Godly Sages as well.

He asked, "How can I travel to this God Realm?"

"I'm sorry, but even I don't know," said Luslec.

"You don't?"

"Yes. I only heard about it from someone else, you see. I've never been there before, and I've never been in contact with the gods living there, too."

Luslec said that the God Realm was in an uproar, so Su-hyeun wondered if this mysterious Apostle had a point of contact with the gods living there, but to think that wasn't it...

That revelation deflated Su-hyeun a bit, but at least, he was sure of Luslec telling the truth. He would get nothing useful even if he continued with this line of questioning.

"Okay. But why did you bring up the matter about the God Realm...?"

"This matter is already a hot topic among the gods, so what do you think is happening among the Predators?"

"..."

The viewpoint was switched around.

What about the Predators, the ones standing diametrically opposed to the gods?

This event was related to Uranus, one of the Three Destroyers standing at the peak of the Predators. The news of his death should weigh as heavily among the Predators as the death of one of the Five Godly Sages to the gods.

Which could only mean that...

"Shiva has begun paying you attention, Mister Su-hyeun."

The two other Predators in the rank of the Three Destroyers were now getting interested in Su-hyeun's matter.

"Is that so?"

"You don't sound surprised?"

"Of course not," Su-hyeun answered. He then began grinning, "Killing that Predator means this whole thing will be over for good, doesn't it?"

"W—well...I suppose that's one way of looking at it," Luslec nodded at Su-hyeun's opinion, even if the latter's reaction was not what he expected.

For sure, the current violent upheavals taking place throughout the universe were centered on Shiva.

Following up Uranus' death with Shiva's demise would be the same as ending the universe's annihilation. At the very least, there was little doubt that the threat called dungeons would stop appearing in Su-hyeun's homeworld.

"Anyway, I'll keep cheering you on, regardless. I'm actually legit scared of Shiva, you see."

"Thanks for all that cheering."

"Well, I should be on my way now," Luslec quickly sprang back up from the bench.

Su-hyeun thought that he would be staying for a few days just like before, so he couldn't help but ask him, "Do you have an urgent business to take care of?"

"The whole universe is kind of out of kilter these days, you see. I've got a lot on my plate, unfortunately," Luslec shrugged his shoulders as he replied.

Su-hyeun stared at Luslec, who was now making a mischievous grin, and waved his hand, "Take care, now."

Luslec turned around to leave and waved his hand as well to say goodbye. When Luslec did, a tear in space revealing a black void appeared before him and then gradually closed in to swallow him up.

Split—

Crunch—

No one now stood in the spot where Luslec got "swallowed" up.

Su-hyeun lowered his waving hand and pocketed it.

"The God Realm, Uranus, Shiva, the Five Godly Sages..."

Quite a lot of information had been crammed into his head and got messily tangled up in there.

The death of Uranus...

Back then, Su-hyeun was simply working diligently toward solving the trial he was given, but the end result caused this universe to enter a new phase of upheaval.

Before leaving the rooftop, Su-hyeun looked up and stared at the sky. At least for today, the usual calm sky up there looked rather different to him.

The violent upheavals taking place throughout the vast expanses of the universe and countless many dimensions had morphed into a gigantic storm that was steadily approaching here.

* * *

Afterward, Su-hyeun sought out an open field in the unpopulated part of Gangwon Province.

Honestly speaking, he would've preferred to rent out the same underground space below the Jongno Tower since it was the closest, but he was worried about making a mistake with controlling the Thunder Dragon and shattering the magic barrier once more.

He spent most of the remaining time perfecting his control over the Thunder Dragon.

And the next day...

In the morning, which hadn't exactly been the promised one day yet, Su-hyeun's pocket began vibrating noisily.

Vrrr—

Lee Ju-ho was calling him.

"Huff, huff..."

Su-hyeun swept aside the magic circle drawn on the ground as sweat poured down his face.

Brush, whoosh—

When the outline of the magic circle he carved out with his sword collapsed, the barrier surrounding the area vanished without a trace.

He then picked up a towel lying around on the side and wiped away his sweat. His whole body was drenched like a soaked sponge, so he decided to sit down first before anything else.

He pulled out the phone from his pocket and answered the call, "Yes, hello?"

"What are you doing right now?"

"You know, just—I had something to do, so I'm somewhere a bit far away."

"Even though you came back not too long ago, you're still busy as always. Anyways, we've finished organizing what you asked me for. Just as you asked, we compiled every incident no matter how trivial it is, as long as it seemed unusual somehow. Put the phone on speaker. Then, let's check out the files I sent you."

Su-hyeun did as told and switched the phone on speaker mode. His phone had been noisily ringing a few times for a little while now; it must have been the device telling him that several files had arrived.

"For now, that's all we managed to compile. As for the remainder, I think it'll take another day or so. Take a look and see if anything catches your eye, and if there aren't any, give me a call."

"Alright, thanks."

"However, you should pay attention to the files of the first incident, the 12th, 37th, 55th, 91st, and..."

Lee Ju-ho began listing those incidents that even he found unusual. Su-hyeun, not really caring about the order, took his time opening the first file and confirmed its contents.

But then...

"Bro?" The photo accompanying the very first file instantly caught his attention. "This...Where did you find this photo?"

This particular photo showed a humanoid giant with the head of a dragon.

Su-hyeun was all too familiar with this creature's name.

"Fafnir!"