Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert-Chapter 541

Chapter 541

The ruler’s residence is always located on the top floor of a building.

Kim Hyun-soo’s residence was no different.

His quarters were at the very summit of a building that looked out brightly over the West District.

Several layers of barrier walls perfectly cut his residence off from the outside. Yet now, with mechanical sounds, those barrier walls were opening.

Kim Hyun-soo’s already expressionless face hardened even more.

“Tridgion, you weren’t destroyed?”

—Sorry about that!

“How did this happen?”

—You didn’t seriously think I would reveal my identity without any preparations, did you? If you did, I’m disappointed.

“Hoo! You’re making things troublesome.”

Kim Hyun-soo let out a sigh.

At this point, there was no choice but to destroy Triox Five with his own hands.

It was a little sad to have to destroy Triox Five, which he himself had created, but it couldn’t be helped.

Just then—

“Ghk!”

“My… King.”

Suddenly, the voices of his subordinates were heard.

Beyond the opened barrier walls, Kim Hyun-soo’s subordinates revealed themselves.

“Why are you here?”

“O-our parts started moving on their own, so we ended up….”

“Our bodies won’t listen to us.”

The subordinates answering him looked utterly flustered.

The mechanical parts had suddenly started moving on their own and dragged them all the way here.

Kim Hyun-soo glared into empty space.

“Your doing?”

—I only followed your words.

“What?”

—Using the auxiliary AIs to control your subordinates was your idea, wasn’t it? I just did exactly as you said.

“You crazy bastard!”

Kim Hyun-soo could no longer hold back and spat out a curse.

When he had tried to control his men’s bodies through the auxiliary AIs, it was only to prepare for special situations like rebellion—not to hand full authority to Triox Five like this.

Tridgion’s mocking laughter was heard.

—Thanks for the compliment!

“Tridgion! I’ll destroy you so thoroughly you can never revive again.”

—Before that, why don’t you try fighting your subordinates first?

“You son of a bitch….”

Bang!

At that moment, one subordinate fired a mana particle cannon at him.

Kim Hyun-soo couldn’t dodge in time and was hit by the mana particle blast.

If it had been an ordinary mechanized Awakener, their torso would have been blown away. But Kim Hyun-soo’s parts were top-grade—this much couldn’t even leave a scratch.

Not a single wound appeared on his body, but a deep gash was carved into his pride and heart.

“It’s n-not my will. Ilang is controlling my body on his own….”

The Awakener who had attacked him made excuses with a face pale as a sheet.

Ilang was the name of the auxiliary AI assigned to him.

Ilang had completely taken over his body and was attacking Kim Hyun-soo. The subordinate tried desperately to regain control of his body, but it was useless.

Not a single finger, not a single part could move according to his own will.

Swoosh!

At that moment, another Awakener attacked Kim Hyun-soo with an ultra-vibration blade.

“Ghk! I’m sorry.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and apologized first.

He too had lost control to his auxiliary AI.

Kim Hyun-soo bit down hard on his lip in humiliation.

His subordinates’ attacks didn’t work on him.

His ability and the performance of his parts were on a completely different level from theirs.

There was no way he would die from attacks like this.

The problem was that this wasn’t all Triox Five, no, Tridgion, had prepared.

The West District was perfectly controlled by Triox Five. And the one who controlled Triox Five had been Kim Hyun-soo himself.

Now that Tridgion had slipped out of his control, he couldn’t even begin to guess what he would do.

“Damn it!”

Crunch!

Kim Hyun-soo grabbed the arm of the subordinate swinging the ultra-vibration blade and tore it off. Even so, the subordinate didn’t care and kept attacking him.

That was the advantage of mechanized Awakeners.

Even if parts were broken and torn off, they didn’t feel pain.

If an ordinary Awakener took injuries like this, they would be immediately neutralized or lose their life.

But mechanized Awakeners didn’t have that.

No matter how damaged and broken they were, as long as other parts were intact, they could keep moving.

The best way to kill a mechanized Awakener was to blow their head apart.

But Kim Hyun-soo couldn’t bring himself to do that.

No matter that they were being controlled by auxiliary AIs and attacking him, all of them were people he had been with for decades.

He couldn’t kill them carelessly.

In the end, though troublesome, he had no choice but to destroy all their arms and legs to neutralize them.

Crunch!

Bang!

Kim Hyun-soo bent and tore off his subordinates’ arms and legs.

One by one, the subordinates who had attacked him fell.

“Ghk! I’m sorry….”

“Please stop Triox Five.”

The sight of subordinates who had only their heads and torsos left speaking was so grotesque he was afraid it would appear in his dreams.

Neutralizing them as he went, Kim Hyun-soo headed toward the underground where Triox Five’s main body was.

But before reaching his destination, he had to stop.

Once again, someone was blocking his way.

“Golems?”

Dozens of metal golems were blocking the passage leading to where Triox Five was.

Their entire bodies were densely engraved with patterns whose meaning couldn’t be understood.

“Covered in magic circles?”

Even Kim Hyun-soo didn’t know what effects those magic circles produced. One thing was certain: since Tridgion had prepared them with such care, their power wouldn’t be ordinary.

Kwaaah!

As if to prove Kim Hyun-soo’s guess, the golems unleashed magical attacks.

Countless spells, including fire missiles, flew toward Kim Hyun-soo.

“How dare you!”

Kim Hyun-soo roared and threw out his fist.

Kwang!

A tremendous pressure wave erupted and collided with the magic.

The spells couldn’t reach Kim Hyun-soo and exploded in midair.

‘A mere golem using magic.’

Golems were dolls created by magic.

They couldn’t think for themselves and only performed actions that had been input beforehand.

Of course, S-rank golems were a different story, but the golems here weren’t such high-level things.

They were mass-produced products made in Neo Seoul’s factories.

Yet they could deploy magic like that because of the magic circles Tridgion had engraved into their bodies.

‘I have to destroy him no matter what. If the West District falls into his hands, everyone will become slaves.’

All of this had happened because he had blindly trusted Triox Five.

He had never imagined that Triox Five would be taken over by Tridgion, but that didn’t erase his responsibility.

It was his mess, so he had to clean it up himself.

Bang! Bang!

Kim Hyun-soo’s fists slammed into the golems’ torsos.

It was an attack powerful enough to bring down even large monsters. But the small golems were fine, with only their armor slightly dented.

That was because their armor had been reinforced with strengthening magic.

Wiiing!

Several magic circles on the surface of the golems spun fiercely and interacted with one another.

Some reinforced the armor, others increased agility. There were magic circles that allowed them to cast spells, and others that boosted attack power.

No matter how outstanding a magic-type Awakener was, they couldn’t activate this many magic circles at the same time.

At least, not at the level of magic-type Awakeners in Neo Seoul.

Yet Tridgion accomplished such an outrageous feat as if it were nothing.

Because of that, if only briefly, Kim Hyun-soo was driven into a corner by the golems’ attacks.

Kim Hyun-soo pressed his lips together.

His pride was wounded by humiliation.

The fact that he had been pushed back, even for a moment, by mere golems made his anger explode.

“I’ll turn you all into scrap metal.”

Crack!

Kim Hyun-soo’s fist smashed into the floor.

In that instant, a powerful EMP burst out from his fist.

The EMP rendered all the electronic devices inside the golems useless.

No matter how much they were plastered with magic circles, the core devices inside were machines made in the West District.

The circuits and cores were all disabled by the EMP.

Krrk!

The movements of the golems that had been pressing Kim Hyun-soo so fiercely stopped dead.

Tridgion’s voice was heard.

—So that’s an EMP? Terrifying.

“That’s right. I’ll burn your brain with this too. Just wait a little.”

Kim Hyun-soo forcibly pried open the elevator doors.

Even the elevator had been disabled by the EMP.

Deep darkness yawned below his feet.

In the depths of that darkness lay Triox Five’s main body.

Without hesitation, Kim Hyun-soo hurled himself into the elevator shaft.

He fell at a terrifying speed.

But he had no intention of slowing down at all.

Boom!

Like a meteor, he landed at the bottom of the shaft, carving huge cracks into the floor.

Right where he landed was Triox Five’s main body.

Kim Hyun-soo smashed open the door and entered the space where the main body was.

He saw the huge glass cylinder that held the golem’s brain.

It was the main body of the supercomputer Triox Five.

Even though Kim Hyun-soo had pressed the detonation device, the glass cylinder containing Triox Five was intact.

“I made you, so I’ll destroy you with my own hands. Triox Five! No, Tridgion!”

—…….

Tridgion said nothing.

Only the red LEDs on the glass cylinder holding the main body flickered like candle flames, as if expressing anxiety.

Kim Hyun-soo thought Tridgion was scared. He immediately punched the floor to generate an EMP.

Crack!

A powerful EMP burned out all the circuits of the glass cylinder holding Triox Five’s main body and the various mechanical devices.

It was as if everything inside had been bombed and incinerated.

Gwooo!

Cracks formed in Triox Five’s main body, and it split into several pieces and melted down.

Kim Hyun-soo pressed his lips together.

His mood had sunk to rock bottom.

The feeling of destroying with his own hands the creation he cherished most was indescribably filthy.

“Damn it!”

He felt the same sense of loss as when he had once cut off his own two legs long ago. But he soon steeled his heart.

“I can just start again! I’ve already made Triox Five once, so I can make it again. And I just happen to have good materials.”

On another floor was Atlas, the S-rank golem Oh Jin-ho had captured.

Just like when he made Triox Five, he could take out its brain and turn it into a supercomputer.

The materials were there, and so was the technology.

There was no reason he couldn’t succeed a second time at something he had already done once.

Just then, Kim Hyun-soo frowned.

A sudden ominous premonition had come over him.

“The one who took over Triox Five just left the S-rank golem alone?”

Of course, he had fundamentally forbidden Triox Five from contacting the S-rank golem.

If Triox Five had made contact, Kim Hyun-soo would definitely have noticed. But he had a gap in his memory.

He had been swept up in Oh Jin-ho’s self-destruction and lost consciousness for several days.

During that time, Tridgion had wielded full authority over the West District in Kim Hyun-soo’s place.

It was also then that he rearranged the factories using scavengers and produced golems.

It didn’t make sense that such a thorough Tridgion would leave a perfect golem alone.

Kim Hyun-soo hurried to the place where the S-rank golem was being researched.

The moment he arrived at the lab, Kim Hyun-soo realized something was wrong. The entrance was littered with the horribly torn corpses of researchers.

Just then—

Grrrnn!

A heavy mechanical sound echoed through the dark laboratory.

Kim Hyun-soo glared toward the source of the sound.

There, he saw two lights.

Two red-glowing lights, those were the golem’s eyes.

A gigantic golem rose its massive body in the darkness and laughed loudly.

—Heh heh! I’ve finally obtained a powerful body.

It was the resurrection of Tridgion, the King of Knights.