Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert

Chapter 241

The NSSC was essentially a massive warehouse structure.

Its interior was equally vast.

In this expansive space, an immense number of lightning bolts were striking down.

Flash!

A relentless rain of lightning poured down without pause.

The lightning traveled along the steel framework, spreading throughout the entire NSSC headquarters.

Crackle!

The barrier, which had barely been holding, shattered like glass under the onslaught of Lee Ji-ryeong’s lightning.

“Ugh!”

“Everyone, get outside. If we don’t, we’ll be fried too.”

A considerable number of the Pegasus Raid Force Awakeneds hurried outside.

They weren’t confident they could withstand Lee Ji-ryeong’s lightning. As a result, only a few Pegasus Raid Force Awakeneds remained inside the NSSC headquarters.

Kelda, Lee Ji-ryeong’s secretary and head of the Rescue Team, had a tense expression.

“The Captain is using his full power?”

If Lee Ji-ryeong, an S-rank Awakened, went all out, the entire area would be reduced to ashes.

Even if Lee Ji-ryeong won, he wouldn’t be able to avoid the consequences.

Authorities from all sides would tear him apart.

There was no way Lee Ji-ryeong didn’t know this.

He must have seen the future.

A future where if he didn’t kill Zeon now, there would be no future for him or the Pegasus Raid Force.

That’s why he was ready to risk everything in this fight against Zeon.

‘If that’s the case, then I have to risk everything too.’

At that moment, a figure swaggered toward Kelda.

It was Eloy.

In Eloy’s hand was the Mad Gumiho.

She had retrieved it after it was confiscated when she was imprisoned.

With the Mad Gumiho in her hand, Eloy’s face was full of confidence.

Although she was confident in hand-to-hand combat, holding the Mad Gumiho made her feel more secure.

Eloy glared at Kelda and spoke.

“You’re mine.”

“Can you handle me?”

“Idiot, what the hell are you saying? Handle you? I’ll stomp you down without breaking a sweat.”

“Sigh! Neither you nor Zeon are to my liking.”

“If you don’t like it, how about winning first?”

“We’ll see soon enough who the final victor is.”

Kelda bit her lip hard.

Boom!

At that moment, a thunderous roar shook the entire NSSC headquarters.

Zeon and Lee Ji-ryeong had clashed.

That was the signal for Kelda and Eloy to attack each other.

Bang! Boom!

Kelda, wielding her gray skills, and Eloy, swinging the Mad Gumiho wildly.

There was no room for anyone else to intervene in their fight.

Now, the NSSC headquarters belonged solely to Zeon and Lee Ji-ryeong, Eloy and Kelda.

Flash! Boom!

A massive bundle of lightning bolts flew toward Zeon with a thunderous sound.

In an instant, the sand stored in Zeon’s subspace poured out and blocked the attack.

The lightning couldn’t penetrate the sand barrier and scattered in all directions.

The scattered lightning struck the Pegasus Raid Force Awakeneds.

“Gyaaah!”

“Gahk!”

Though the lightning’s power had weakened after being blocked by the sand, it was still the lightning of an S-rank Awakened.

The shocked Awakeneds convulsed and collapsed.

“Damn it! Let’s get out of here.”

“We’re not cut out for this fight.”

The few Awakeneds who remained quickly fled outside.

Meanwhile, the battle between Zeon and Lee Ji-ryeong grew even fiercer.

As Lee Ji-ryeong spread his arms wide, countless bolts of lightning struck Zeon directly.

Each bolt carried enough power to blow apart an entire body with just one hit.

In response, Zeon formed a spherical barrier of sand.

The sand sphere surrounding him blocked the lightning, but a significant amount of it turned black and fell to the ground.

It was only natural for the sand to melt under such extreme heat.

This was exactly what Lee Ji-ryeong intended.

“This is why you can’t defeat me. Outside, you could endlessly supply sand, but the sand stored in your subspace is finite.”

He would burn the sand until it was all gone. As he continued to burn it, eventually, Zeon would run out, and that would be Zeon’s end.

The only question was whether his mana would last until then, but for an S-rank like Lee Ji-ryeong, that wasn’t a concern.

Crack! Flash!

Once again, a bolt of lightning shot toward Zeon with a loud crack.

Zeon dodged the lightning and swung his hand.

Dozens of serpentine strands of sand flew toward Lee Ji-ryeong.

It was Viper, one of Zeon’s frequently used skills. However, the Viper never reached Lee Ji-ryeong.

A barrier of lightning formed around him, blocking all of them.

The Vipers that hit the lightning barrier were charred black and fell helplessly to the ground.

“I told you it’s useless.”

Lee Ji-ryeong sneered at Zeon.

A lightning mage versus a sand mage.

In the desert, Zeon might be far stronger, but here, he, as the lightning mage, had the upper hand.

Choosing a favorable battlefield was also a skill.

Trapping Zeon in the NSSC headquarters had been a brilliant move.

Fizzle!

Zeon sent out another Viper, but once again, it collided with the lightning barrier and disintegrated. Zeon’s power was waning.

However, there was no sign of urgency on Zeon’s face.

Flash!

Zeon dodged another lightning bolt that flew at him in the blink of an eye and snapped his fingers.

“Sand Soldier!”

In an instant, dozens of Sand Soldiers rose from the sand.

He could have summoned more, but with limited sand remaining, he summoned only a few dozen for now.

The soldiers, born from the sand, attacked Lee Ji-ryeong according to Zeon’s will.

“Hah! I told you it’s useless. You’re so stubborn.”

Lee Ji-ryeong waved his hand with an annoyed expression.

A bundle of lightning struck the leading Sand Soldiers and incinerated them.

Sizzle!

The Sand Soldiers collapsed into blackened heaps.

If they had been human, they would have been terrified by the sight of their comrades dying, or they might have fled without thinking. But Sand Soldiers weren’t human.

They had no fear, no complex thoughts.

There was no concept of retreat for Sand Soldiers.

They moved solely according to Zeon’s will.

And Zeon’s will was to attack.

Just as Lee Ji-ryeong had no intention of retreating from this fight, neither did Zeon.

Lee Ji-ryeong was his enemy.

An enemy bound by a deep grudge.

Even if Zeon were to surrender or beg for reconciliation, Lee Ji-ryeong would never spare him.

This was a fight that wouldn’t end until one of them was dead.

Zeon had no intention of whining about being at a disadvantage.

Dyoden had taught him better than that to whine when fighting in an unfavorable battle.

He would use every means at his disposal to face his enemy.

That was the survival tactic Zeon had learned in the desert.

Boom!

With an explosion, another Sand Soldier was destroyed.

And that was just the beginning.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The Sand Soldiers charging at Lee Ji-ryeong exploded one after another.

Surrounded by a barrier of lightning, Lee Ji-ryeong was the embodiment of a thunder god.

A thunder god descended to earth, freely summoning lightning to strike Zeon.

The skill Lightning Field.

This was Lee Ji-ryeong’s domain.

In this place, Lee Ji-ryeong was as powerful as a god.

A rain of lightning poured down.

No matter how much they had surpassed human limits, no Awakened could avoid such a massive barrage of lightning.

Zeon had no choice but to raise a wall of sand to block the incoming lightning.

Sizzle!

The sand, directly hit by the intense heat of the lightning, melted and turned into crystals.

The sand melted and transformed into something like glass.

Seeing this, Zeon’s eyebrows twitched.

He had remained calm even as his sand was running low because of Exion.

The ultimate weapon he had in his possession.

Once he brought out Exion, his power would be multiplied.

But he had been holding back on using Exion because it was a trump card he wanted to keep hidden until the very end.

If he revealed Exion too early, he would face even more suppression. That’s why Zeon wanted to fight Lee Ji-ryeong using only his pure abilities.

Boom!

At that moment, an immense bolt of lightning, on a completely different level from before, struck Zeon directly.

Giga Lightning.

A skill with several times the power of an ordinary lightning bolt hit Zeon.

The sand wall protecting Zeon shattered, and he was exposed to the electric currents.

“Argh!”

Zeon screamed as he was flung backward.

White smoke rose from his body after being struck by the Giga Lightning.

Yet Zeon was still alive.

Thanks to the robe made from Leviathan hide.

If his robe were to be rated, it would be considered an item beyond standard classifications.

It possessed that much powerful defensive capability.

Thanks to it, Zeon’s life was saved.

Lee Ji-ryeong’s lips twisted upward.

He was certain he had gained the upper hand.

“Ho! To think you survived that. But you won’t survive it a second time.”

Crackle!

Sparks flew from Lee Ji-ryeong’s entire body.

Hammer of the Thunderer.

It was the most powerful skill Lee Ji-ryeong could currently use.

A skill far stronger and more destructive than Giga Lightning.

No matter how extraordinary Zeon’s robe was in terms of defense, it wouldn’t be able to withstand the Hammer of the Thunderer.

Boom!

Before the Hammer of the Thunderer could even be unleashed, the ceiling of the NSSC headquarters blew away.

Revealing the night sky of Neo Seoul.

Lightning poured down above Lee Ji-ryeong’s head.

The lightning that gathered in Lee Ji-ryeong’s body condensed.

Buzz!

Lee Ji-ryeong’s body trembled.

It felt like lightning, not blood, was surging through his veins.

The sensation of truly becoming the Thunder God sent a thrill through him.

At that moment, something strange caught Lee Ji-ryeong’s eye.

Zeon was kneeling on one knee, with his hand pressed against the ground.

Lee Ji-ryeong sneered at Zeon.

“Have you already given up?”

“…”

Despite the sneer, Zeon didn’t blink an eye.

He was exerting the utmost concentration.

Only then did Lee Ji-ryeong sense something unusual and grew tense.

“You?”

The atmosphere changed.

Although this was a space dominated by Lee Ji-ryeong, there was an odd flow of energy.

At the center of it was Zeon.

Lee Ji-ryeong instinctively realized that he shouldn’t delay any longer.

He reached out toward Zeon and shouted.

“Hammer of the Thunderer!”

Boom!

The condensed lightning within his body shot toward Zeon.

It was a bolt of lightning as large as a building.

It possessed enough power to vaporize the NSSC headquarters in an instant.

It was a power worthy of the name Hammer of the Thunderer.

As the world turned white from the massive lightning strike, Zeon’s voice rang out.

“Sand Gehenna.”

Fwoosh!

In an instant, the temperature inside the NSSC skyrocketed.

It rapidly rose to thousands of degrees Celsius.

The sand scattered on the floor melted under the extreme heat and turned into something like molten lava.

Just as its name suggested, a hellish scene of molten sand unfolded.

From within the Sand Gehenna, a massive pillar of molten lava shot up.

The pillar of molten lava clashed with the Hammer of the Thunderer.

Boom!

“Gah!”

“Uwaah!”

An enormous shockwave from the explosion swept over the Awakeneds outside the NSSC.

Like leaves caught in a storm, the Awakeneds were flung in all directions.

When the Awakeneds, who had rolled pathetically on the ground, came to their senses and looked up, the NSSC headquarters had completely vanished.

In the place where the NSSC once stood, Zeon and Lee Ji-ryeong faced each other.

Lee Ji-ryeong’s face was filled with shock and disbelief.

“You?”

“This is a skill I realized thanks to you.”

He had been inspired by watching the sand burn under the lightning.

What if he used the power of fire contained in the Inferno Gauntlet to melt and manipulate the sand?

Until now, he had occasionally mixed fire-based skills with his sand powers. But this was the first time he had been so strongly inspired.

For most people, it would have ended with mere inspiration. But in that fleeting moment, Zeon had materialized his inspiration.

He maximized the power of the InfernoGauntlet, applying extreme heat and pressure to the sand.

In an instant, the sand melted and boiled, turning into an inferno—Gehenna.

It was truly a gehenna of sand.

While Lee Ji-ryeong had claimed the area as his domain with Lightning Field, Zeon had declared this place his territory with Sand Gehenna.

Zeon raised his hand. Then, the molten masses that had been churning on the ground floated into the air.

“Now, let’s begin the second round.”

———