CHAPTER 150
150 - Belkarim's Seed

It was the being he had met before. A minion of the entity he had encountered in Belkarim's domain.
Her clothes and appearance were the same as back then, but she was very dirty. She was covered in dust, and the hem of her clothes was tattered, as if it had been worn down from long use without repair.
The veil covering her face, which once felt like a well-ironed, high-quality cloth, was now crumpled and looked like a dirty handkerchief.
She looked like she hadn't been able to take care of herself for a long time. As if she were being urgently chased by someone.
"Lord Jinwoo...?"
"It seems you remember me."
"How could I forget?"
She could never forget the Jinwoo of that day. The original owner of the Seeds. The one who cultivated the first garden.
Even now, having lost all his power and memories and reincarnated as a mere human, he could not be ignored. He had intervened in the battle between Belkarim and Jerakson, ultimately cutting down Jerakson and taking his power.
"Why are you here? And what's with your appearance?"
"..."
The maid closed her mouth and lowered her head slightly. A hint of caution could be felt in her gesture. Though he couldn't see it, she might have been biting her lip slightly.
He waited, but she showed no sign of opening her mouth. Seeming truly reluctant to speak, Jinwoo changed the question.
The fourth Seed, which he had yet to absorb and was just about to. He placed the one he had just picked up on his palm and showed it to her.
"Is this Seed, by any chance, Belkarim's?"
"...! Where did you get that!"
"Where else? I picked it up over there. It was just lying on the ground."
"That can't be..."
The maid's voice trembled. He could feel her heart wavering. Indecision and conflict consumed her.
'She's not asking for it back.'
When Jinwoo showed her the Seed, he had been on guard. He thought that if this was Belkarim's Seed, she might try to take it. In the worst-case scenario, he even considered she might launch a surprise attack, but she didn't.
About a minute passed. It was a very short time, but within the maid, dozens, hundreds of moments of agony flashed by. For her, who had lived in a stopped world where the sun never set, even a minute was like an eternity.
"My master has passed away. She died a miserable death."
"Dead? Belkarim?"
Jinwoo asked in surprise at the news that Belkarim was dead. The small connection that had started when he fought Johann. The one he had clashed with just recently during the battle with Jerakson—she had died so easily?
"No. My master is dead, not Belkarim."
"...What do you mean?"
The maid placed a hand on her chest. Though her attire was dirty and haggard from a long pursuit, the gesture itself was incredibly graceful. Like a young lady from somewhere who had been educated for a long time.
"I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Belkarim. The Spirit of Snow and Ice."
She introduced herself with a name he knew well.

Going deeper, they came to a fairly spacious clearing. It was impressive to see a small lake formed by groundwater dripping from the ceiling.
'The Spirit of the Lake.'
The blue spirit Rona had given him flew around joyfully upon seeing the lake. Leaving the spirit to play as it pleased, Jinwoo sat down with the maid, Belkarim. At her gesture, a worn but elegant table was set up near the lake.
"Was that wolf a fake?"
Jinwoo asked, unable to wait for Belkarim to finish preparing the tea. She boiled the water and brewed the tea with skilled movements. Only after serving it did she speak again.
"No. She was real, too. She is my other half."
"Other half?"
"It was necessary to isolate the Seed."
Her subsequent explanation was a different pattern from the Lords he had encountered so far.
"The twelve Seeds scattered across the world and burrowed into strong spirits. Most welcomed them. After all, spirits are beings who possess a strong desire for improvement."
The Spirit Realm is a place where beings from all over the universe with particularly strong consciousness and ambition gather. Without such qualities, one could not train their body and mind to the extreme, nor could they reach the realm of the spirit even after such training.
So when the Seeds of Erosion, masses of power, made contact with them, some spirits accepted them without refusal. They became Lords and were able to wield that power to its fullest.
"But not all of them did. There were also those who focused on its dangers rather than the power it offered. They believed that even if it granted great power for now, this power would one day eat away at them."

"Are you saying you did that?"
"Yes. The power of Erosion was attractive to me too, but I couldn't overlook the danger. So, I pondered for a long time on a way to use only the power while removing the threat of Erosion."
The result was tearing herself in half. It was a hard story to believe easily, but Jinwoo had been through all sorts of things. A story like this wasn't hard to accept.
"Once a Seed bonds with a Divine Spirit, it never separates no matter what happens. Unless you actually die. To block the threat of Erosion, a more extreme decision was needed."
So she separated herself. She divided herself in half and put the Seed in one of them. So that even if half was eroded, half would remain pure.
"The side with the Seed smoothly became a Monarch. The side without became a maid serving her. It’s a natural result since the side with the Seed was stronger."
"So you're saying the Monarch side died..."
Monarch Belkarim died, and the Seed was separated. However, it didn't end there.
The Seed, having lost its host and fallen out, became obsessed with the remaining half. The still-intact half of Belkarim. It chased after the Maid to burrow into her again.
"That's why I ran away. I don't need the power of the Seed anymore. I'm afraid of being eroded."
"Weren't you running from the wind?"
"That's true too, but the wind didn't particularly chase after something like me. The Seed was more persistent and tenacious."
To run away from all of that, she hid all the way down here in this underground. Whether she successfully escaped or not, the Seed no longer appeared. But then Jinwoo brought it.
"When you first brought it, I wondered if the Seed's power was at work. Like a compelling force, wondering if it followed me to the end..."
"Sorry, but I have no intention of giving it to you. This is mine."
"I know. That's why I decided to tell you everything."
The conversation was over. As a result, Belkarim did not covet the Seed. Rather, she seemed to wish for it to be taken away forever.
"I'm going to absorb it right now, so keep watch."
"Don't worry. No one can easily enter this underground."
"It was easy for me, though?"
"......"
Belkarim shut her mouth as if disgruntled. It sounded like he was teasing her unintentionally, but in reality, Jinwoo felt no resistance.
If he had felt any pressure, there would have been a reaction, but he felt nothing until he opened the underground door and entered.
‘Ah, maybe it’s because of the Seed.’
Thinking about it, it made sense. This Seed had been her other half for a long time. Whatever magic Belkarim had installed at the entrance, it wouldn't be magic that blocked herself.
Anyway, absorbing the Seed came first. Let's absorb it quickly, get the Lake Spirit, and go find the World Tree. He was also concerned about the identity of the ominous wind that killed the Monarch Belkarim.
‘Belkarim’s Seed. The power to stretch the flow of time like taffy, changing a moment to be near-eternal.’
It was a considerably powerful authority. Manipulating time was a power not easily used even by gods in stories.
However, it wasn't invincible; this power applied to a specific space, not to the opponent. It was impossible to do things like stopping only the opponent while moving alone.
‘Well, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a strong power.’
Above all, it had good synergy with Cain's Seed. If he used Belkarim's Seed to make the day eternal and then utilized Cain's Seed, which used the power of the sun as an energy source, wouldn't he have an infinite supply of power? It felt like theoretical invincibility.
‘By the way, what on earth is that wind?’
He understood it sweeping away the minions. But it killed the Monarch Belkarim?
From what he felt when fighting her once, Belkarim wasn't stronger than Jerakson. Perhaps the fact that the original body where the Seed was planted was only half a Divine Spirit played a big part. The fact that the Seed's authority didn't directly help in combat must have played a role too.
But even so, she was a Monarch. Even without special authority, the energy held within the Seed alone was enough to dominate the world.
For such a Monarch to be helplessly defeated...
‘If it doesn’t have a Seed, there’s no reason to make contact, but...’
Conversely, if that bastard was also a Monarch holding a Seed, this time when they were this close might be an opportunity.
To recover the fifth Seed.
The wind blew. A wind like a lukewarm heat wave. There was a discomfort coming from the ambiguity of being neither cool nor warm.
The wind carried a smell. The scent of rotting corpses and insects. A bit of the forest's freshness was mixed in, but the rotten smell was much stronger, burying all weaker scents.
There was a man. He was sitting on a chair, but he was an entity that didn't seem human, as if he had fused with the tree and the chair.
His skin was mostly covered in tree bark, and instead of red veins, tree stems and vines ran through him. Hard roots grew from his feet and the chair, digging deep into the ground and sucking up nutrients.
It felt like a very long time had passed. A solitude as if thousands, tens of thousands of years had passed without him standing up from the chair even once.
The largest tree in the vicinity. No, the being becoming a tree smelled the scent carried by the wind.
"This is..."
The smell of rotting corpses felt fragrant to him. Because all of them were prey that could become his nutrients. Since he had already extracted all the souls, there was no reason to covet the bodies, but there was nothing to refuse either.
However, an unpleasant smell seeped in through it. A terrible stench that felt like it would twist his nose.
It was the smell possessed by a Monarch's Seed. And not just one or two.
"Disgusting bastards... flocking together."
He killed one a while ago. Did they gather because rumors of that spread?
One, two, three... including the one he killed a while ago, a total of four Seeds. He could feel the smell of four bastards.
"Trash defiling His garden. I will strike and kill every last one of you."
The man's eyes became bloodshot. Killing one wasn't enough. Because there were twelve of those insects.
Four of them—no, excluding the dead one, three—were clumped together in one spot, so now was the opportunity to clean the garden.
The wind blowing around the man slowed down. In inverse proportion to the man's rage, the wind's speed continued to slow until it almost stopped. But it never stopped completely.
The ominous wind began to slowly, but surely, encroach upon the surroundings.