Chapter 224: time to up

Jun-ho stood up from his cedar chest, his large rubber boots making a quiet, firm thud on the floorboards as his long fingers closed around the rough black hemp wrap of his sword. He didn’t look at the three women, his face an unmoving sheet of stone under his gray hood. "Let’s go up."

They climbed through the low deck hatch onto the open stern deck. The air outside was freezing, the grey ocean mist rolling over the rail in thick, wet sheets that smelled of old brine, dead kelp, and raw primitive magic.

Ahead of the bow, a massive, ancient structure rose straight out of the ink-black water—a giant circular gate built from thick blocks of black volcanic basalt rock, half-buried under a mountain of pulsing red coral reefs that glowed with a heavy, unstable crimson light. The water inside the gate perimeter was churning violently, forming a giant, five-meter whirlpool that threatened to drag the wooden lugger down into the dark stone shafts below.

[Primitive Sector Detected: The Siding of the Leviathan (Tier 5 Unfiltered Gate).]

[Status: Active / Core Shield engaged.]

[System Note: Phase 3 attributes will calculate all experience and resource blocks at a 100x value under the Monarch’s Ledger.]

"The outer sector shield is military grade, Jun-ho," Eun-bi said, her voice returning to that sharp, practical public-sector drawl as she adjusted her canvas bag. She pointed her trauma scissors through the gray fog toward the red coral line. "The legacy guilds built three concrete anchor pillars over the basalt frame five years ago to lock the logic loop. If we try to clear it with raw strength, the loop will release a high-tier blood lock spell that will freeze our props from behind."

"The shield belongs to the ledger now," Jun-ho said flatly. He turned his head slightly toward Rea and Lilith. "Clear the outer line."

"Watch the line, big guy," Rea whispered, her golden-blue eyes spinning in a lazy, sharp circle as her full crimson lips parted into a slow smile.

The two master rogues moved together in a single, fluid blur of black silk and red leather. With their multiplied Phase 3 speed, they cut a clean, fluid line through the low sea mist, Rea’s obsidian dagger slicing through the legacy guild’s tracking cables on the first concrete pillar while Lilith’s crimson nails tore the automated alarm stones out of the rock face with a sharp clack.

Their full, perfect shapes twisted smoothly through the spray, their hips swaying in a tight, synchronized rhythm that completely bypassed the outer tracking sensors before the guild operators could even print a fresh log file.

[Outer Shield Disengaged.]

[The Monarch’s Ledger Multiplier Active: 100x Asset Calculation Applied.]

[Mana Cost: 1000. Current Mana: 2200/6500.]

A sharp, heavy click exploded through the entire maritime sector—a mechanical sound that made the iron frames of the lugger’s engine room hum with a deep, mechanical frequency. The ink-black distortion inside the central basalt gate didn’t expand; it turned a deep, solid blood-red color, the thin blue mana threads inside the portal twisting and turning like living wires as the ancient ledger rewrote the entire gate logic of the mile-wide sector.

"Tae-woo, lock the boards!" Jun-ho called out.

The five elite vanguards moved in a single, synchronized motion. They didn’t drop back an inch. They hoisted their wide blocks of dark basin rock with both hands, slamming the sharp stone edges flat against the timber bulwarks to form a solid, five-man mountain wall that completely covered the front deck.

A massive swarm of primitive sea entities—Ancient Deep Crawlers the size of small delivery trucks, their white shells covered in dark mineral scales—burst out from the red coral reef, their long bone needles tipped with a greasy black fluid that carried a high-tier rot attribute. They lunged toward the boat’s hull together, their iron claws aiming to crush the timber planks.

But the moment their heavy iron legs crossed the boundary of his frame, Jun-ho let the frozen ocean behind his ribs break its banks completely, the Ashen Domain - Phase 3 expanding outward in a flat, fifty-meter ring of thick grey frost.

[Ashen Domain Phase 3 Active.]

[Perimeter State: 50 meters (Extended by the Monarch’s Torc).]

[Mana Cost: 500 per minute. Current Mana: 1700/6500.]

The air inside the fifty-meter circle dropped forty degrees in a microsecond, the wet salt spray on the planks instantly turning into a thick sheet of white ice. The world inside the perimeter slowed down until the long bone needles of the crawlers looked like lazy grey flies floating through the drizzle.

Jun-ho raised The Ash Remnant with his left hand, the new black hemp wrap solid and dry in his grip. He didn’t drop into a defensive stance, and he didn’t use his back. He simply snapped his left wrist, driving the sharp matte edge of the thousand-fold blade straight down onto the lead crawler’s iron chest piece.

The thunderclap was massive, a localized earthquake that shattered the truck-sized monster into thousands of tiny gray scraps. The blast didn’t stop there; the shockwave traveled straight through the frozen air, hitting the remaining ten crawlers flush in the center of their white shells, their scales fracturing into gray ash before they could even fall.

[Target Neutralized: Ancient Deep Crawler x10.]

[Total Experience Gained: 1,500,000 XP.]

[Level Up!]

[You have reached Level 30 (Milestone Tier Gained).]

[You have received 20 Unassigned Attribute Points.]

The gray notification boxes piled up across his vision in clean lines before vanishing, leaving only the ink-black text of his new level waiting on his screen. The level-thirty line was crossed, the primitive gate was open, and the private detail was poised right at the threshold of the deep core vault.

Jun-ho lowered his sword, his fingers uncurling from the rough black hemp wrap as he looked down into the blood-red portal. Right beside his shoulder, Rea and Lilith stood close, their breathing quick and warm against his neck, their fingers catching the frayed thread of his sleeve as the old wooden lugger slid straight down into the deep, dark silence of the Leviathan’s siding.