Chapter 312: Satellite World (1)

In the suburbs of Seoul was an E-rank Gate very popular among low-level Players, bustling with Goblins that even an adult man could hunt as long as they had a weapon. However, that was mostly in the past; the rank of the Gate had been adjusted to S after the appearance of demonic beasts known as variant monsters.

The appearance of variant monsters was a problem in and of itself, but the bigger problem was that each of these demonic beasts were so strong that World Rankers needed to get involved. Even Sword Dragon Kim Si-Hun, the strongest Player in humanity and assumed to be far above World Rankers, had to be mobilized once.

"Hyung-nim! Over here!" Si-Hun shouted to Oh Kang-Woo, who had brought his subordinates.

Kang-Woo, after hearing him, followed Si-Hun's voice. No, he did not even have to follow his voice to know where to go.

'It's been three years.'

Faint nostalgia hit him; the memories of feeling despair when he saw the message windows and Goblins in front of him, frantically running toward where he had heard Han Seol-Ah's scream, and shedding tears from the beauty of a woman he had met after ten millennia and asking her to marry him...

All sorts of memories flashed through his mind.

"Kang-Woo, this place is..." Seol-Ah whispered, having remembered where this place was.

Kang-Woo softly nodded. "Yeah. This is where we first met."

"Ah." Seol-Ah's face reddened, and she smiled. "Hehe. Back then, I'd never thought we would end up together like this."

"Really?" he smirked. "Come to think of it, what did you think of me on our first meeting? You know, your first impression of me."

"Mm..."

Seol-Ah fell into thought while lightly placing her right index finger on her lips. She was looking back on her first meeting with Kang-Woo.

"At first, I thought you were a weirdo."

"..."

"But back then... You tore off your clothes and treated my wound, didn't you?"

"Oh, yeah. I did."

Kang-Woo recalled doing that when he had seen that Seol-Ah's leg was injured.

"It was from that moment," Seol-Ah remarked.

"What?"

A smile bloomed on Seol-Ah. "From that moment... I fell in love with you."

"Darling...!"

Kang-Woo's cheekbones ascended. His face burned hot from thinking of himself back then.

'Screw three kids.'

They needed at least five.

'After all, both Seol-Ah and I'll be living far too long.'

He couldn't stop smiling while thinking of his rosy future ahead.

Cha Yeon-Joo, who had joined them after meeting at the Gate entrance, stared daggers at them. She frowned and spat on the ground.

"Fuck."

All couples should die by being skewered with bamboo spears and burned alive.

***

Crackle! Spark!

"... It's certainly a color we've never seen before," Kang-Woo stated.

"Yes. I've never seen a purple Rift before," Si-Hun replied.

A purple Rift was in the air where Kang-Woo had first come to Earth and met Goblins. He carefully approached the Rift, picked up a rock near it and threw it in. The rock disappeared into the Rift as if it had been sucked inside.

"Mm."

"Nothing... happened," Si-Hun mumbled while staring at the purple Rift. He then said while looking down at his watch, "We don't have much time left, hyung-nim."

They had found the Rift right away, but they only had three hours for this operation. They had to close the Rift as soon as possible to minimize otherworldly influence on Earth.

"Let's go inside right n—"

"Wait," Kang-Woo grabbed Si-Hun's shoulder as he was approaching the Rift impatiently. He turned his head to say, "All of you, stay back."

After getting everyone to step away from the purple Rift, he carefully approached it.

'It's no different from regular Rifts just from its outer appearance.'

He needed to confirm whether it was just the color that was different, or if there was some other fundamental difference.

'What energy has it been made with?'

For instance, black Rifts were made with demonic energy. Kang-Woo slowly extended his hand and touched the purple Rift.

Whoom!

Just then, the purple Rift fluctuated. A powerful force pulled him in.

"Kuh!"

Kang-Woo tried to pull out his arm while biting his lip, but it wouldn't budge. He created a black blade with the Authority of Blades and swung down on his arm without hesitation.

Slash!

He cut off his arm, black blood spewing everywhere. He turned to look behind him; thankfully, Uriel had not arrived yet. He slightly grimaced from the pain shooting up from his arm.

"Hyung-nim!" Si-Hun shouted.

"Oh, I'm f—"

Whoom—!

Just as Kang-Woo was about to say that he was fine, the purple Rift expanded explosively and engulfed him.

"Shit, Kang-Woo hyung!"

Si-Hun jumped into the Rift after Kang-Woo.

"My king!"

"Kang-Woo!"

Balrog and Seol-Ah quickly approached the Rift.

"What... the hell?" Yeon-Joo mumbled.

Before they even had time to be shocked, the purple Rift expanding at tremendous speed swallowed everything around it whole. The E-rank Gate that had once been like a sanctuary for low-level Players was swallowed by the purple Rift.

***

"Kuh."

Kang-Woo slowly opened his eyes. He narrowed his eyes from the pain shooting up from his arm. He raised himself up from the ground and looked around.

"Where..."

He was in a desolate area. The sky was ash-colored, and the ground was so dry that it was split everywhere. Giant rocks that seemed to be from wreckages were scattered all over the place.

Riiing.

[You have entered 'Shade', a satellite world of the Triad!]

"What the fuck is this?" Kang-Woo cursed as he read the message window that had popped up in front of him. First and foremost...

'Authority of Regeneration.'

He grabbed his arm on the ground and placed it on his severed arm stump. The wound regenerated instantly as it bubbled.

"Now, then..."

Kang-Woo slowly read the message window in front of him again, and his eyes narrowed into slits.

'What is this supposed to mean?'

He had no idea what the Triad or satellite world was. They were strange names that an author trying to act cool for no reason would have come up with.

'I seriously have no idea what Triad means. As for the satellite world... Is it like the satellites that orbit planets?'

He couldn't make anything out of these terms, but he could assume that there was a world known as the Triad, and he had entered one of the worlds that orbited it.

"Fucking hell, we're really raising the scales. Are we writing some kind of odyssey or something?"

Kang-Woo chuckled. He recalled the novel that had published over a thousand chapters over the span of ten years back when he had still been on Earth.

'That aside...'

Kang-Woo narrowed his eyes and looked around. He could not see a single one of his comrades that he was sure had been engulfed with him.

'Authority of the Beholder.'

He looked for traces of those that had been linked to him by the soul, such as Si-Hun, Balrog, Echidna and Halcyon.

"... Shit."

However, as if he was looking at a screen filled with static, he could not pinpoint their locations. The only thing he could feel was that they were still alive.

'Seol-Ah is fine too.'

Kang-Woo had crammed the Authority of Protection plus other Authorities into the ring that he had given Seol-Ah. He was easily able to check that her life was not in danger even from far away.

"... I guess I have to find them myself."

Aside from that, he needed to destroy the Rift Core, the key objective of this operation. Realizing that he did not have a lot of time, he soared into the air using the Authority of the Sky.

"Kang-Woo...?"

Just then, Kang-Woo saw Seol-Ah among the rocks scattered about. She quickly approached him with a smile as soon as she saw him.

"So this is where you were!" she exclaimed.

"Darling?"

"Phew. I was so scared after being separated from you."

Seol-Ah approached Kang-Woo and embraced his arm. A soft sensation enveloped his arm.

Kang-Woo's expression hardened for an instant, but he quickly regained his composure.

"Have you found anyone else?" asked Seol-Ah.

"No, not yet."

"Ah..." Seol-Ah sighed in disappointment.

"What about you?"

"I haven't seen anyone else either."

"How long has it been since you woke up?"

"I just woke up as well. Behind that rock over there. I happened to see you as I was looking around in confusion," she remarked as she pointed at a rock behind her.

"Hm."

Kang-Woo nodded. He raised his head and looked around the area in detail one more time. He checked the distance between the rock that Seol-Ah had pointed at and where they were right now.

"... I see," he mumbled while nodding as if he was thinking about something very deeply.

"Um, Kang-Woo."

Seol-Ah embraced his arm even tighter and called him with a trembling voice. She twisted around as if she needed to pee and leaned on him while panting heatedly.

"I was... so scared because I was separated from you," Seol-Ah said seductively. She reached into his clothes. "How about we do it for a bit... before we go find the others?"

"N-Now? Right here?" Kang-Woo asked, his face dyed with bewilderment.

Seol-Ah nodded. She then answered restlessly, "Yes. I... can't hold it any longer."

Kang-Woo gulped. He looked around, and then grabbed her shoulders.

"In that case..."

Their lips grew closer.

"Kang-Woo..."

Seol-Ah closed her eyes. She pushed her breasts on Kang-Woo and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Slip.

Seol-Ah's shadow moved like a living organism along the ground. It traveled up Kang-Woo's body and slowly reached for his head. A sharp blade came out of the shadow and aimed for the back of his head.

"But, you know..." Kang-Woo suddenly opened his mouth while tilting his head for a kiss.

"Yes? What is it, Kang-Woo?" asked Seol-Ah, flustered.

The corners of his mouth curled up as he stared at her.

"You should've done a better job."

"I beg your pardon?"

"They're not that small."

"What do you m—"

Crack.

"Kurgh!"

Kang-Woo's hands that had been on Seol-Ah 's shoulders suddenly grabbed her neck.

He pulled her away from him and continued, "My darling's aren't that small, dammit."

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