Sovereign of the Infinite Clones [Novel] Chapter 438

My Alter Ego’S Path To Greatness Chapter 438

***

Summoning (2)

The Black Dragon Society.

It was a name that had long since lost any real presence after being eclipsed by the Blood Alliance, to the point that it would not be surprising if it disappeared altogether at any moment.

It was only because they were an old and prestigious organization that had existed in the underworld of China for at least several decades before the Great Cataclysm that they had managed to keep their lineage from dying out.

Though even that had long since become a thing of the past.

‘The Black Dragon Society… It’s an unfamiliar name, yet there’s a surprising amount of information about them left in the database.’

That could only mean they had once been a powerful force that made quite a name for themselves.

Back in the early days, when Returnees had only just begun appearing one after another, they had fortunately managed to undergo a successful transformation and enjoy considerable prosperity thanks to one of their key executives returning as a master of the Transcendence Realm.

A tremendous amount of blood had been spilled both internally and externally during that process, but that was hardly anything special, as such things always happened whenever power changed hands.

The martial artist who had overturned the organization himself had also ended up losing his life to someone stronger than him within just a few years.

‘The important thing is that the Black Dragon Society developed a few distinctive traits in the process.’

The most notable among them was that they began to favor Returnees from martial arts worlds who used the Mysteries known as ‘martial arts.’

Of course, there was a practical reason for that as well.

For some reason, an unusually high proportion of Chinese Returnees came from worlds classified as martial arts worlds.

Considering that most people transported to martial arts worlds were Asians, perhaps the awakened individual’s subconscious had some influence on which dimension they were sent to.

‘It’s the same with vampires being particularly dominant in Europe.’

Furthermore, since those whose growth had stagnated after returning to Earth had no choice but to interact with their peers and hone their techniques if they wanted to become stronger, it was hardly strange that the Black Dragon Society had come to be centered around martial artists.

Well, in the end, their pursuit of such an extreme direction seemed to have caused them to fall behind even more meaninglessly.

“…Therefore, we concluded that relocating to Korea was the only chance for the Black Dragon Society to make a comeback. The Korean Peninsula has been an area that the Ascension Society has strangely shown little interest in until now.”

The forces of the Ascension Society deployed to Korea were nothing more than insignificant scraps compared to those stationed in mainland China.

So even after hearing that they had ultimately surrendered their territory and completely withdrawn, they had not considered it a serious matter, that was what Black Shadow said as he quietly bowed his head.

‘To put it bluntly, they just completely underestimated the Blood Alliance, which had become the representative force of Korea’s underworld, didn’t they?’

Chinese people looking down on Korea as a small country was hardly anything new, so it was not particularly surprising.

They must have thought that no matter how formidable Phantom, a Transcendent, was, he alone would be unable to properly respond to an insidious conspiracy like this.

“Yes, I understand your motive clearly.”

Heinz II slowly nodded. Black Shadow had been the vanguard dispatched to prepare the groundwork.

If the plan succeeded and the Blood Alliance completely collapsed, that would be ideal. Even if it did not, the purpose was to keep them too preoccupied with other matters to pay attention to anything else.

“So what you’re saying is…”

The mere fact that a master at Black Shadow’s level, standing at the very peak of the Transcendence Realm, had been dispatched for such an operation showed just how important they considered this matter.

“The head of the Black Dragon Society who ordered all this is right there?”

“…That is correct, Lord.”

Even so, they had made the fatal mistake of severely underestimating their opponent’s capabilities.

Heinz II extended one hand and pointed toward the distant city, then looked in the direction his finger was indicating.

Heilongjiang Province, located at the easternmost tip of China, and one of its largest cities, Harbin.

‘All right. Let’s go see what the person in charge looks like.’

Having personally stepped forward to put a definitive end to this situation, his eyes took in the beautiful nightscape of the city.

***

It was estimated that there were roughly a hundred people currently known as Transcendents on Earth.

The exact number could not be determined.

Not everyone revealed their existence and operated publicly, and there were also quite a few regions that had become difficult to contact from the outside for various reasons.

Africa, which had become little more than a savage land ruled by countless warlords, South America, where superhuman cartels held more influence than the governments, the Middle East, crawling with extremist terrorists—it was nearly impossible to obtain information from such places without special means.

All they could do was estimate that the number was probably around that figure based on the ratio of Transcendents to the population.

However, there was one fact that the general public had failed to anticipate.

All those regions cut off from the outside world had the same force operating behind the scenes.

That was only natural, considering that they were the ones who had fanned the flames of chaos in the first place.

Whether it was Africa, South America, the Middle East… or anywhere else.

In that sense, today was a very special day. For it was the day when the shadowy figures who had been manipulating the world from behind the curtain were gathering.

An Otherworld completely covered in pristine white marble, with elegant patterns carved throughout, giving it a solemn atmosphere reminiscent of a temple.

Creak…

The door connecting it to the outside swung open with a small noise, and a middle-aged Hispanic man with a magnificent Kaiser mustache and a scar running across his eye strode inside.

He casually looked around before immediately heading toward the round table in the center.

Clank! Clatter…
CLANG!

Heavy metallic noises rang throughout the room with every step he took.

A thick suit of metal armor covering his entire body without even a helmet, a battle hammer the size of an adult’s body in his hand, and a large-caliber shotgun hanging from his back and swaying with every movement.

As the fully armed man approached the round table as though he were ready to fight at any moment, a Black man who had arrived much earlier and already claimed a seat twisted his lips into a mocking grin.

“Quite the noisy entrance, dictator. And you’re the last one to arrive, too.”

Unlike his counterpart, he carried neither weapons nor any notable equipment.

The only things adorning his body were accessories seemingly made by weaving together bones, feathers, and the like.

But for someone who had reached Transcendence through shamanism, such ritual implements were his true weapons.

“Hahaha! My apologies! A little commotion broke out in my territory. You know how there are always so many things to worry about when it comes to business, don’t you? Unlike those war addicts who do nothing but gobble up the money I’ve worked so hard to earn.”

The Hispanic middle-aged man pulled a thick cigar from inside his coat.

He bit off the end, spat it onto the floor, then lit it and took a deep drag before slowly blowing the smoke toward the Black man.

At the same time, the air around them gradually became tense.

“…Hmph! What’s there to be proud of about a drug addict making money through smuggling?”

“Better than stuffing yourselves like pigs while starting pointless wars, don’t you think? Isn’t that right, Mr. Self-Proclaimed Liberator?”

“Pointless? Through our struggles, countless peoples have escaped exploitation, and countless villages have regained their freedom. You filthy dictator… Did you just call our holy war pointless?”

“……”

“……”

A frigid silence flowed between the two men.

But it did not last long.

Whoooooosh—!

A fierce storm whipped up alongside the flow of powerful energy.

The muzzle of the large-caliber shotgun, imbued with an enormous amount of energy, was aimed at the Liberator, while something that had appeared in midair bared its fangs at the Dictator.

It was a situation on the verge of exploding into conflict at any moment.

“Unless you both want to get beaten half to death, why don’t you stop there?”

However, they were not the only ones present.

At the languid-sounding voice of a woman, both men’s bodies flinched.

A woman with disheveled blonde hair, her head still buried against the round table without having moved an inch despite the commotion.

Yet no one here could ignore her warning.

No matter that they too were Transcendents and branch leaders responsible for South America and Africa respectively, they had no choice but to restrain themselves before an absolute power that surpassed them both.

“Tsk. Consider yourself lucky.”

“Hah! I was about to say the same thing.”

In the end, the two men withdrew their energy and went to sit at opposite ends of the round table.

Of course, even then, they continued glaring at each other.

The two had completely opposite ideologies and personalities to begin with, so friction was inevitable whenever they were together.

Fortunately, their spheres of activity had been far apart until now, so they had not had many opportunities to clash.

‘Ah, I already feel tired.’

The blonde woman with her head against the table let out a deep sigh.

In fact, this was not the first time she had intervened to stop a fight.

Even though they had only been facing each other for a short while, they had already clashed several times before this.

‘They’ve all got such strong personalities and pride. And considering how nonexistent their sense of camaraderie is, what else could I expect?’

It was only natural.

Each of them had their own reasons for joining the Ascension Society.

Some had incurred debts that were difficult to repay because the Society had saved their lives or helped them grow. Others had judged that joining them would be advantageous for achieving their own ambitions. And some had joined because they feared or revered the absolute being known as the Ascension Society Lord, and so on…

If it were up to her, she would have simply left them alone to fight as much as they wanted.

But with the Lord’s orders, she could not simply stand by while the executives fought each other to the death.

Especially since the colleague who was her equal had left to carry out the Lord’s orders.

And then there was…

Her gaze shifted toward several empty seats, now vacant because their owners were absent.

‘I heard about it, but… Seeing it in person really drives the point home.’

This gathering had been directly convened by the Ascension Society Lord, and every high-ranking executive above the level of a branch leader was required to attend.

Yet a considerable number of seats remained empty.

‘Starting with the Law Enforcer, the Duke, the Scribe, and Nagaraja…’

And that was not all.

The Executioner, who was essentially second only to the Lord in terms of combat power, had also fallen to them, along with the Doctor, who was practically one of the Lord’s two right-hand men alongside the Oracle.

Furthermore, she bore at least a small degree of responsibility for the Executioner failing to escape in time, since she had been responsible for providing the supporting bombardment.

So this situation could not simply be brushed aside.

‘I definitely stopped the bombardment after confirming that he had safely escaped. How could he fail to get away properly despite having such a ridiculous ability?’

Had the Executioner simply been incompetent, or had the Masquerade been exceptionally capable?

After complaining inwardly several times, she took a light breath.

Even if she personally disliked him, she had to keep public and private matters strictly separate.

If the enemy force “the Masquerade” was truly this powerful, then they too needed to devise countermeasures as quickly as possible.

Creak—

Just as she was deep in thought, wrestling with the complicated matters running through her mind, the door connecting to the outside opened again.

The dozen or so high-ranking executives, each radiating an extraordinary presence regardless of age, gender, or race, all turned toward it at once.

Everyone who could attend among the executives had already arrived, so they could easily guess who had just appeared.

“I kept you waiting.”

And just as they expected.

A low voice belonging to the one they had all been waiting for finally drifted in from the direction of the door.

“Ah!”

“The Lord has arrived.”

“My Lord!”

It was an ambiguous voice, belonging to someone who might have been an ordinary young man or an extraordinary old man—an indistinct voice that even she, a Judge who had sprouted divinity, could not properly perceive.

She swallowed hard and wiped the sweat that had gathered on her palms against the hem of her clothes.

“Hm. Looks like everyone behaved themselves. Good job.”

The Oracle’s voice followed, carrying a hint of amusement.

Judging by how he occasionally glanced toward her, he seemed to have already figured out everything that had happened here.

‘Did he know all along and leave it all to me? What a nasty hobby.’

It was at that moment that an unexpected variable appeared.

“Woo-hoo! Long time no see, everyone! Have you all been well? Ah… Come to think of it, I heard the news. The Executioner… The Executioner…! Sob!”

It began with the high-pitched, frivolous speech of a middle-aged man with grayish-brown hair—or rather, a cyborg who looked like one.

He then began to choke up as though genuinely overcome with grief, before tears started streaming down his face and he began to openly wail.

It was the ‘Doctor,’ who had gone into hiding to modify his resurrected body.

“Waaaaah—! Sob! Sniff!”

As everyone stared blankly at him, bewildered by his emotional whiplash that was even more extreme than what they had witnessed before, his turbulent emotions continued changing without end.

“AAAGH! This is impossible! We let them take the Great Demon’s body, the Great Demon’s body! There are still so many experiments I haven’t conducted yet! To lose such a precious top-grade test subject like this—!! I’m jealous, jealous, jealous! I cannot accept this!”

Anger, followed by jealousy.

There was no helping the fact that his grief over losing a comrade had taken such a different direction.

After all, that was simply the kind of man he had always been.

“…Phew. Still, it’s fortunate. I secretly made a homunculus, just in case, without the Executioner’s knowledge. If I hadn’t even had that, I might really have gone insane. Huhuhuhu!”

And the end of that outburst was enough to leave everyone speechless.

The Executioner had repeatedly challenged the Ascension Society Lord over the years, and the result had always been severe injuries serious enough that he could barely recover.

The Doctor had actively assisted with his regeneration each time, and judging from what he had just said, it seemed he had already conducted every experiment he could in the process.

He had even gone so far as to secretly collect materials and create a homunculus without permission.

That said everything.

If the Executioner had discovered it, things certainly would not have ended simply.

The existence of an artificial lifeform that looked exactly like someone possessing divinity could itself become a weakness capable of threatening the divinity he had accumulated.

Though now, none of that mattered anymore.

“Hm? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

Yet the Doctor merely tilted his head as though he had no idea what the problem was.

“We have a purpose for gathering here, don’t we? Come on, come on! Let’s get started!”

He then smiled brightly, clapped his hands cheerfully, and exclaimed with enthusiasm.

“A strategy meeting to capture every member of the Masquerade as test subjects!”