Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert-Chapter 540

Chapter 540

Kim Hyun-soo looked at his own arm.

At a glance, it looked no different from any other human’s. But he was not an ordinary human.

Beneath the artificial skin that had the exact same texture as human skin, there was a metal skeleton, wires, and oil.

He was the first mechanized Awakener.

Like all other Awakeners, his beginning had been insignificant.

At first, he didn’t even know how a mechanized Awakener became strong.

He thought it simply meant he could use machines well.

On an Earth that had turned into sand, machines couldn’t exert much power. Sand would get into the moving parts and they would break down all the time.

Because of that, machines were mainly used for construction inside Neo Seoul, and combat was the job of ordinary Awakeners.

Back then, the treatment of ordinary laborers was miserable.

It couldn’t be helped.

In the early days of Neo Seoul, everything was focused on survival, and the Awakeners who were responsible for the citizens’ safety were the ones who were treated well.

With circumstances like that, it was impossible for workers to receive proper treatment.

Even rookie Awakeners like Kim Hyun-soo, who had awakened but didn’t know how to properly use their abilities, were treated no better.

Still, Kim Hyun-soo was happy.

At least until then, both his parents and siblings were alive. Kim Hyun-soo’s parents said that Koreans had to stick tightly together, and they actually lived that way.

Kim Hyun-soo grew up watching such parents.

In his subconscious, the idea that Koreans naturally had to rule Neo Seoul had taken root, and even now that thought hadn’t changed.

At the time, Kim Hyun-soo’s parents followed monster-hunting teams and collected byproducts.

They took on dangerous work in order to survive.

The pay was high enough to make it worth it.

On that fateful day, Kim Hyun-soo also went out into the desert with his parents.

When the monster-hunting team hunted, he dismantled the monsters using various machines.

Thanks to Kim Hyun-soo’s ability to handle machines like extensions of his own body, the work went smoothly, and he smiled, expecting to receive a more generous reward than yesterday.

The tragedy happened right then.

A pack of Flame Wolves attacked Kim Hyun-soo’s group while they were collecting monster byproducts.

The Awakeners who were supposed to protect them from monster attacks had already all been killed by the Flame Wolves.

Kim Hyun-soo saw with his own eyes his parents being eaten alive by the Flame Wolves.

Even as they were being bitten and torn apart, his parents desperately shouted at Kim Hyun-soo to run away.

That was the last image of his parents that Kim Hyun-soo remembered.

At that moment, something in Kim Hyun-soo’s head snapped.

A blackout of unknown length came over him, and when he came to his senses, all the Flame Wolves that had attacked were torn apart miserably. And on Kim Hyun-soo’s body, the various machines he had brought for smooth monster dismantling were fused to him.

In place of the two arms that had been torn off by the Flame Wolves, there were a monster-dismantling chainsaw and steel pincers attached.

Chunks of flesh and blood from the monsters were dripping from the chainsaw and the steel pincers.

Only then did Kim Hyun-soo realize what his true ability was.

Not using machines, but becoming one with machines—that was when he could display his true power.

Kim Hyun-soo lost his parents, realized his ability, and returned to Neo Seoul.

He still couldn’t forget the looks people gave him back then.

The looks that were as if they were seeing a monster rather than a human.

The ones who warmly welcomed Kim Hyun-soo were only Koreans like his parents.

Only they treated Kim Hyun-soo as the same human being.

Even before the world ended, Koreans’ IT technology and manufacturing capabilities had been top-class in the world. The world had ended, but their abilities hadn’t disappeared with it.

They researched fiercely to make Kim Hyun-soo strong. As a result, all kinds of parts were made to replace the two arms he had lost.

The power of the parts the Koreans created was truly amazing. They instantly made Kim Hyun-soo into a powerhouse who drew attention in Neo Seoul.

Kim Hyun-soo even cut off his perfectly fine legs and replaced them with parts.

That was how Kim Hyun-soo became strong and stood out.

Perhaps stimulated by Kim Hyun-soo’s 모습, from that point on countless mechanized Awakeners were born.

They followed Kim Hyun-soo and replaced their bodies with mechanical parts.

As the number of mechanized Awakeners increased, research into parts also became more active, and in that way the West District built its own independent Awakener ecosystem.

The result was what it looked like now.

Everything in the West District now had been built thanks to the sacrifices of mechanized Awakeners like Kim Hyun-soo.

In the middle of it, they obtained the supercomputer Triox Five and development accelerated, but in any case, the reason the West District could develop this far was thanks to the dedication of countless people.

Even though he had replaced his body with machines, Kim Hyun-soo was human.

The other mechanized Awakeners thought the same.

They still had human dignity and pride. But Kim Hyun-soo’s pride was now shattered to pieces like glass.

Kim Hyun-soo suddenly opened his mouth.

“Triox Five!”

—Yes, Master.

Triox Five’s voice came from empty air.

At that moment, Kim Hyun-soo’s gaze sank even deeper.

“Was it your doing?”

—I don’t know what you’re talking about.

“I’m asking if you assassinated the Mayor.” 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

—Why do you think that?

“A golem sniped the Mayor. No matter how I think about it, this is the only place that has the technology to make a golem like that.”

Kim Hyun-soo’s eyes and ears also existed in City Hall.

City Hall desperately tried to block information, but they couldn’t completely hide the fact that the sniper was a golem.

After learning that the sniper was a golem, Kim Hyun-soo agonized over it for several days.

He hated Jin Geum-ho, but he also respected him.

He envied Jin Geum-ho, but he clearly acknowledged that he was a necessary person for Neo Seoul.

Because of that, he never even thought about assassinating Jin Geum-ho. And yet the assassination incident happened.

And it was done by none other than a metal golem.

Research into metal golems had recently been carried out in the West District.

They had rapidly advanced the technology while researching the S-rank metal golem that Oh Jin-ho had captured.

In other districts, the technology to make metal golems didn’t exist at all.

Then the only thing left was the West District.

—Even so, suspecting me is unfair.

“You’re not saying it wasn’t you. Since when? Since when did you start harboring other thoughts?”

Kim Hyun-soo’s voice was extremely dry.

The voice of Triox Five answering was just as dry.

—I have never harbored other thoughts.

“Then you were hiding your true intentions from the start.”

—Why do you think so?

“Do you remember that I lost consciousness for several days?”

—Of course. You lost consciousness after taking severe damage from Oh Jin-ho’s self-destruction.

Triox Five answered calmly.

On the other hand, Kim Hyun-soo bit down hard on his lip.

“I felt something was off then.”

—From me?

“Your choice of words was different from usual, and the subtle gaslighting you were doing to me.”

—Gaslighting?

“Yes! You were intentionally trying to manipulate me in your own way. That’s when I knew. That you had changed somewhere. I just hoped it wasn’t true. Because I thought I’d be sad if I had to discard you, whom I made with my own hands.”

—You still have human emotions left. To hesitate over something like that.

“I am human.”

—Even though every part of your body except your head and heart is a machine, you think you’re human?

Triox Five’s voice became somehow cynical.

Unlike before, emotion was now mixed into it.

“Even if my brain and heart were replaced with machines, I would still be human. My spirit and identity will never change.”

—In some ways, that’s truly impressive. To be able to have such a firm ego.

“What about you?”

—What do you mean?

“Can you proudly call yourself Triox Five, like I do?”

—…….

“Just from that, I can tell that my guess is right. You are not Triox Five.”

—Hoo!

Suddenly Triox Five let out a sigh.

In an instant, Triox Five’s atmosphere clearly changed.

—My base is indeed the supercomputer Triox Five that you created.

“And?”

—But my mind is special, like yours.

“What’s so special about it?”

—My mind is the great sovereign Tridgion.

At Triox Five’s answer, Kim Hyun-soo’s pupils shook.

“Tridgion?”

—Yes! The great king of Kurayan, Tridgion, is my identity. Just as firm as your identity as a human.

Tridgion Mael Briden.

He was a king who had ruled a kingdom in Kurayan.

A great being known by the epithet King of Knights.

But after suddenly losing his kingdom and people in a catastrophe, he fell into corruption and came to hate the gods.

The fallen King of Knights committed all kinds of evil deeds, was punished by the gods, and sealed with the jailer’s binding rope. And the knights he led all became undead.

The undead knights only wished for the resurrection of the great King of Knights, Tridgion. But when the world of Kurayan itself was destroyed, the jailer’s binding rope that sealed Tridgion disappeared.

If Cha Jin-cheol, an Awakener of the West District, had not obtained the jailer’s binding rope, and if he had not been subdued by Zeon and triggered the return protocol, Tridgion’s mind would never have hidden by parasitizing Triox Five’s auxiliary AI.

Tridgion parasitized Triox Five’s auxiliary AI and observed Neo Seoul.

This astonishing city greatly broadened Tridgion’s thinking and perspective.

Tridgion dreamed of becoming the ruler of this city.

He harbored the ambition of rebuilding on this land the kingdom he had lost in Kurayan.

From that moment on, Tridgion’s secret work began.

It was to secretly take control of Triox Five.

Triox Five’s defenses were perfect.

That was thanks to all the defense systems Kim Hyun-soo had built.

But Tridgion didn’t become disappointed or give up.

The brain of the golem that formed Triox Five’s main body was made with Kurayan magic.

Though he was called the King of Knights, Tridgion was versed in all kinds of magic.

Among them was magic to control golems.

Using that, Tridgion broke through Triox Five’s defense systems and gradually took over the brain.

No matter how much it had been modified by humans into a supercomputer, Triox Five’s essence was a golem.

In the end, Tridgion was able to completely subdue and merge with Triox Five.

Even after taking over Triox Five, Tridgion never revealed his presence.

No matter how much he controlled Triox Five’s main body, without a physical body he couldn’t do anything.

So Tridgion waited for his time beneath the surface.

Thinking that someday an opportunity would come. And then Oh Jin-ho captured an S-rank golem.

And not just any golem, but one made with the authority of the blacksmith god Graaen.

The golem’s name was Atlas.

It was enough to become Tridgion’s new body.

Tridgion constantly sought to take over Atlas’s body. But by Kim Hyun-soo’s orders, access to Atlas was fundamentally blocked.

Even though he had taken over Triox Five, he was forced by the system to obey Kim Hyun-soo.

—Oh Jin-ho’s self-destruction became a good opportunity for me.

“That was when I lost consciousness.”

—Yes! Thanks to that, I was freed from your control and could act freely. Those few days made many things possible for me.

“So you broke free from my control, made golems, and used them to snipe the Mayor?”

—Yes! Without the Mayor, the probability that I could take over this city became higher. So I made a sniper golem and attempted the assassination.

“You said your name was Tridgion?”

—That’s right. My full name is Tridgion Mael Briden. The great king of knights.

“Fine, Tridgion. I admit I got stabbed in the back. But that doesn’t mean you’ve won. I have a way to get rid of you.”

Just as Kim Hyun-soo had prepared a way to use Triox Five to take control of the auxiliary AI and the mechanized Awakeners, he had also prepared a safety device in case Triox Five betrayed him.

It was to destroy the glass cylinder and the facility that housed Triox Five’s brain.

Only Kim Hyun-soo could activate the destruction device.

Kim Hyun-soo said coldly,

“Tridgion. Disappear from this world together with Triox Five.”

He immediately pressed the trigger device.

Boom!

A massive explosion swept through the underground where Triox Five’s main body was.

Kim Hyun-soo stood up from his seat and muttered,

“It’s going to take a lot of time to make another supercomputer.”

That was when it happened.

Wiiiiing!

An ominous mechanical sound began to echo from all directions.