Chapter 691 – Call It a Diversion Operation (5) #PART1

I’d seen [Tyrant] before, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with it.

Liu Zunqun.
If you dig deep, there are differences of course. In his case, his [Lord] class had evolved into [Tyrant].

I recalled what I’d seen in the previous cycle. Not that it changes much.

Liu Zunqun had only ever wielded the powers of Tyrant allowed by the [System]. But now that I had crushed the System’s arbiter, Raymon Sean, with my own hands… the limiters should be gone.

If I were to become Tyrant, I’d surpass Liu Zunqun.
I could wield that power to its fullest.

Of course, the title [Tyrant] wasn’t something one could just claim at will. Think of what Liu Zunqun had done. Even after he had completely dominated the nation of China, his class remained [Lord]. It was only after endlessly repeating atrocities too vile to even mention that he finally reached the state of Tyrant.

So naturally the question arises—
How does someone like me, Lee Hoyeol, intend to be called Tyrant?

…gulp.

Beside me, I heard Elsidor swallow dryly. He must be thinking I plan to walk the same path as Liu Zunqun.

He could have tried to stop me.
Excessive as always.
But Elsidor’s blind loyalty bordered on suffocating. His pledge to follow me—whether I was right or wrong—didn’t sound like a lie.

I stifled a laugh.
I already said, I have no such intention.
All I’m doing is waiting for the right moment.

Yes. I was simply waiting for the Demon King of the Second Throne, Agares, to devour the anomaly land called Seoul. Put in Arcana terms…

You can have it, that title of Seoul’s Lord.

I was waiting for Agares to claim it. And considering his authority, it wouldn’t take long.

Close my eyes, and his voice rises in memory.
-【Kneel. Sinner.】

True to his epithet as Master of Language, Agares’s words carried a compulsion far beyond Liu Zunqun’s brainwashing. With mere speech, Agares could easily be acknowledged as king. No rivers of blood were needed. And this, even before he had shown himself.

“My king, Lord Agares…”

Already, some were prostrating themselves on the ground.
Players who had been preparing for battle had long since lost their will to fight under the influence of his words. They looked no different from subjects awaiting the procession of their Lord.

And then—

“Just as planned.”

This scene, too, was part of my arrangement. Agares becoming Lord of Seoul was a non-negotiable condition. The sole path left for me to become Tyrant.

In matters of brainwashing, Agares’s power is on another level altogether.

His Word held sway as long as he lived—or perhaps even after his death, lingering with its victims. Unlike theHeavenly Unity, who broke free of Liu Zunqun’s control at the moment of its collapse, Seoul would never escape Agares’s grasp.

And of course, I didn’t expect it to.
No—I was hoping his power would exceed all expectations. The deeper the indoctrination that Agares was a perfect Lord, the more, when I severed his head—

The more heinous a Tyrant I would become.