NOVEL WEB Chapter 190
“Just a moment ago, we were all laughing and joking, and now my colleagues, subordinates, seniors, and superiors are suddenly shivering, transforming into something unrecognizable, and charging at me.”
No one answers when I ask what the hell is going on, ignoring even my demands to stay back.
With eyes rolled back, they come at me with terrifying intensity—not to kill, but merely to tie me down.
In such a scenario, the villains showed an incredibly diverse range of reactions. Some squealed about past grievances, apologizing, while others insisted, “How did you know I stole that?” or “You just let me off the hook and now you’re climbing over me?”
It was nothing short of absurd. Just a moment ago, they were worried about the organization, but now, their own skin threatened, their attitudes flipped in an instant, making it utterly delightful.
I could hardly hold back my laughter.
As one villain screamed, “Where the hell are they attacking from?” I chuckled to myself, thinking, ‘Right here, buddy.’
“…Blanca, while venting your frustrations is fine, you shouldn’t take too long, you know?”
Ageha, who had been watching from the side, commented with slight concern, but I reassured her.
“Don’t worry, I’m going at my own pace. You know that drinking poison doesn’t mean you immediately fall over, right? You did just fine.”
“Well… that’s true, but there was really no need to remind me…”
She answered weakly, and having rested enough, she decided to get back to work, conjuring up a breeze with the other abilities users towards the city.
Jinhyeon looked like he just bit into something sour, but he kept silently generating wind without voicing his thoughts.
This was just the first step of the annihilation. Covering the city in poison while drawing out key personnel, including the higher-ups.
No matter how strong an abilities user is, or how modified they are, at the end of the day, they are still human.
If a regular person can’t eat, they die; if poison spreads, they die.
Even if they might have some resistance compared to normal humans, they would eventually hit a limit.
Hence the plan was to cover the entire city in poison.
Now, one might wonder why we were spreading slime. The biggest reason—was simply for fun.
It’s quite a sight to see comrades backstabbing each other.
And no, it wasn’t just for some malicious reason.
“It’s about time they showed up… Ah, there they are.”
From a distance, figures seemingly belonging to the Evil Society were charging toward us.
Among them were some carrying what looked like corpses, while others bore parts of human bodies.
“Ambush! Everyone, prepare…”
The leading hero shouted for everyone to get ready upon seeing them, and Changwon, who was hovering above, instantly smashed them down, shaking the ground beneath.
It was a natural reaction. Anyone would think they were either the enemy or completely insane upon seeing that.
“They’re not enemies; they’re my ingredients. No need to attack.”
However, in reality, it was simply about luring in the lower beings who were just sitting around with nothing better to do.
They’d either already killed everyone around them or gotten infected by a mimic and ended up twiddling their thumbs for no good reason.
More than anything, they’d just slowly die off without doing anything, so I wanted them to come over here where they could at least be of some use.
“…Ingredients, you say?”
Ageha repeated my words back to me, as if to confirm she hadn’t heard wrong, but that didn’t change the purpose of those things.
The factory isn’t a place that creates something from nothing. It’s essentially a place that manufactures different things based on materials.
Therefore, I needed physical substances to use my abilities.
Though Heros Company provides some materials, this way felt a bit more convenient for me.
And I’d rather not leave even a corpse behind for things I didn’t want to kill.
“Oh, ingredients. It might look a bit unsightly, so… Ageha, can you, like, use some sort of illusion magic? I need to hide this black pit over here.”
“Ah, got it.”
Ageha seemed to sense what was about to happen and rushed to chant a spell, cloaking the area around the entryway with a black veil.
This is kind of fascinating. It’s like reality is being censored, with a solid black barrier blocking everything.
Fascinating as it was, I had work to do.
I guided the lower beings to jump into the well covered by the veil.
Even the ones being squished down by Changwon, now half-melted, moved in a wobbly, grotesque manner, which I found eerie myself.
If I found it bizarre, then those watching certainly thought it looked like a nightmare.
Even heroes who had seen all sorts of sights by rolling around on the frontline were horrified by what they were witnessing.
Thank goodness. If they had seen the full process, they might have rushed in to attack the moment a villain showed up.
“It’ll be fine! Even if Miss Blanca’s methods are cruel, she’s on our side… trust me.”
Immediately upon slowly absorbing the red paste that was finely disassembled, I broke it down and recombined it into a toxic substance, expelling it from my body.
You could say it was a virtuous cycle. Breaking down trash to produce poison, using that poison to catch more trash, and making more poison again.
Isn’t that a little too merciful to the ones who wouldn’t be of any help while alive?
So, killing off these minions and then breaking down the bodies to create more poison, I noticed that the frequency at which lower beings crawled out from the depths of the city had greatly decreased.
“Looks like it’s starting to thin out. Seems like most of the dead weight has been filtered out.”
Ageha asked if I found any hidden secret locations or anything, but I replied to her that I had no idea.
“Slime is useful, but it doesn’t have biological tracking capabilities, sadly. Even if it did, I couldn’t kill them all by myself.”
“That’s true. Then let’s hand things off to the next team and make our exit.”
Since the area would soon become a complete mess, we had to pull back to avoid getting dragged into it.
Once I collected the slimes I had spread throughout the ground and the atmosphere, I readied to leave, just as the other heroes stopped their winds towards the city.
While retreating, Ageha raised a magic circle towards the sky and shot up a sphere glowing red.
Thinking of sending a radio transmission anyway, it seems Ageha can be surprisingly sentimental.
—-
While we were waiting at the top of the mountain, finally, a red light shot up from below.
For a moment, I wondered what that signal was. We hadn’t discussed anything like that beforehand.
However, I felt reassured when a radio transmission came through, ordering us to proceed to the next stage.
I thought it might be some sort of performance, but from the sounds on the radio, it didn’t seem like it was.
Voices were heard over the radio, warning Ageha against any unplanned actions.
After chuckling for a moment, with a determined expression, Lapiz stepped forward, followed by her family.
This might seem like they were stepping in directly, but that wasn’t the case.
They were merely there to assist Lapiz. The core of this stage was Lapiz and Changwon.
No, we weren’t completely handing everything over to them. Other heroes would certainly participate too. However, their roles were of the utmost importance.
The goal for this stage was total destruction of the city, so Lapiz and Changwon, who excelled at wide-area destruction, were the focal point.
“…Then, I’ll begin.”
As Lapiz sank her hands into the ground, her family placed their hands on her back, channeling their magic into her.
“Go deep. So deep that everything on the surface looks pitiful. That’s right…”
Her grandmother was whispering words that sounded like advice while trying to assist Lapiz in what she was about to do.
After a short while, the ground rumbled, and the area towards the city began to glow golden, shaking the very earth.
What started as a mild vibration akin to a truck passing by quickly escalated into a quaking force, too strong for anyone to stand, as the city began to shatter apart.
Her mother contained the surrounding area with magic, ensuring that the mountain we stood on wouldn’t collapse, but the city was collapsing chaotically.
With the city already bombarded and on shaky ground, the added earthquake made it impossible for the buildings to hold on.
Moreover, with heroes like Changwon hovering above and unleashing destructive forces downwards, it transformed into a scene hard to believe that people once lived there in under five minutes.
Having caused such catastrophic destruction, Lapiz looked completely exhausted, kneeling on the ground and catching her breath.
“Well done, Lapiz. You’ve done great; take a break, we’ll take it from here.”
She insisted she could rest just a little before joining us again, but honestly, it seemed like she could use a proper break.
She had done more than enough, after all.
I turned my gaze towards the city.
Most buildings were reduced to mere skeletons, with some even lacking any structure at all.
“Did we take care of everything…? I can’t say yes, can I?”
Even though I knew it wasn’t over, I felt a desire to test the theory, muttering those words out loud.
“Minho, don’t say such nonsense.”
Immediately, Seolhwa, guarding my side, jabbed me hard in the ribs, urging me not to say such things.
I felt a bit hurt from the jab, but since she was right, I couldn’t say anything back.
“I know, I know. I just wanted to say it’d be great if this was the end.”
Like that would happen, right?
The fact that most buildings were destroyed meant there were still some that remained standing.
Like one that was missing its base, leaving only the top floating, or,
Buildings that were being held together by bizarre entities that clearly belonged in a horror movie.