When Amon opened his eyes again, he realized that his arms wouldn’t move.
For a moment, he panicked, but then, belatedly, he remembered that both of his arms had become pillows for his lovers.
Relaxing, he let out a sigh of relief.
‘For a second, I thought I’d been dragged somewhere weird again.’
Only then did Amon feel at ease.
He checked the lovers using his arms as pillows and sniffled slightly, his nose feeling a bit stuffy from just waking up.
“Sniff.”
As he did so, he briefly went over the conversation he had in the Black Sea.
‘Goetia passed through there.’
At the boundary of the world, they made contact with beings from the outside and gained power from them.
‘No wonder Sonia’s purification ability wasn’t working properly.’
Normally, just by spreading her wings, demons would start dozing off, but now it was clear why they had remained unaffected.
Adding the Outers to the list of enemy forces, Amon began devising new strategies against them.
His thoughts naturally led back to the incident in the Black Sea—when he had completely erased a giant.
Unlike a ghost, the giant had been utterly annihilated on the spot.
‘Maybe… this is the key.’
Amon suspected that this might be the reason why the ghost had specifically sought his help.
‘My ability, huh…’
Sonia’s rebound absorption, Cassie’s future sight.
Thinking that he too might have an inherent power within him, he felt his heart race for the first time in a long while.
The opportunity to grow was always exciting.
Wanting to engage in some self-reflection for the first time since childhood, Amon prepared to meditate.
But that pleasant time never even had a chance to begin.
***
WEEEEE-EEEENG—
In the dead of night, the sound of a siren suddenly blared through the palace.
The eerie sound sent chills down his spine, and Cassie and Sonia, who had been sleeping soundly, immediately threw off their blankets and sat up.
“What’s going on!?”
Even Sonia, who usually took her time rubbing her eyes when waking up, moved with quick agility.
Amon simply held up his phone, where a message explained the situation.
[Intruder detected.]
That short message sent through the security network was enough.
Without hesitation, they sprinted toward the main palace.
***
After winning the war against the AI, the crown prince had been confident that he had not let his guard down.
In fact, since he had to disable turrets and drones to fight the AI, thereby weakening the security network, he had made up for it by increasing manpower.
He had never imagined that was exactly what the enemy had been waiting for.
A classic Trojan Horse.
By rapidly increasing their forces, the chance of spies infiltrating also rose.
In the end, the infiltrators had disabled the security network from within, allowing those waiting outside to enter the palace without resistance.
The crown prince had been completely outmaneuvered, and he couldn’t hide his bitter frustration.
‘They must have moved at this hour because of Amon.’
Otherwise, there was no explaining why they had waited in silence until after Amon had finished his report and left.
‘I lost.’
In the end, security was a game of strategy.
And in that game, the crown prince had been overwhelmingly defeated.
‘No security in the world is absolute, but still…’
He had been too complacent.
Of course, he had done his best, but in the end, the enemy’s patience had paid off.
The fact remained—he had lost.
There was no other way to put it.
Finishing his thoughts, the crown prince closed his eyes in resignation.
‘Is it kidnapping or assassination?’
He didn’t know their exact intentions.
But one thing was certain—
A defeated royal had no right to choose.
Even now, as he found himself in this dire situation, he lamented that no one was coming to rescue him.
‘Did I cut down too many?’
His power base had originally been the military, led by his five-star general grandfather.
However, during the recent coup purge, he had completely wiped out those figures, leaving no close aides by his side.
It had been a bold move—completely crushing his political rivals, his second and third brothers, and eliminating external influences as well.
But he had never considered that doing so would leave him so vulnerable to an external invasion.
***
Soon, the intruders finished eliminating the remaining palace guards and stood before the crown prince.
They were clad in black combat gear, their faces obscured by dark head coverings.
At the forefront was a warrior wearing a black gat, leading the group.
The crown prince immediately recognized them.
***
The Saljugye.
A league of assassins.
Fixing his gaze on the black-gat warrior, the crown prince spoke.
“What business do you have with me at this late hour?”
There was no answer.
Instead, the warrior unsheathed his sword.
From that motion alone, the crown prince understood—there was no room for negotiation.
A moment later, the warrior charged at him.
And just before the sword could reach his throat, the crown prince had a thought.
‘What a meaningless end.’
But before that thought could even settle, he realized—he wasn’t dead.
The moment the sword barely grazed his skin, the black-gat warrior’s head exploded.
Frozen in shock at the incomprehensible sight, the crown prince then heard familiar voices.
Turning his head, he saw them—
The hacker siblings.
“Just as His Highness predicted.”
“The Trojan Horse tactic has been used so often against us.”
Given that the older brother had once been a Megacorp employee nearly replaced by a Breadman, his words carried weight.
Levi smirked slightly at her older brother before turning toward the other sibling—the Cookie Man.
“Brother, I’ll leave this to you.”
The Cookie Man, Mage, gave a small nod.
“It’s been a while since I held a gun.”
Nowadays, he mostly worked as a Netwalker, making it easy to forget—he had once been Megacorp’s head of security.
***
Vrrrr—
Mage began warming up his prized weapon, a minigun.
The sound of its barrels spinning filled the air, a weapon capable of turning human bodies into square centimeters of minced flesh.
As its terrifying speed became evident, the assassins tensed.
Then—
Brrrrrrrt!
With a roar, a hailstorm of bullets poured from the minigun at speeds nearly indistinguishable from lasers.
And so, Mage’s one-man massacre of the Saljugye began.
***
Leaving the intruders to Mage, Levi approached the crown prince.
Her perfectly timed arrival left him staring in bewilderment.
“You are…?”
“His Highness sent us.”
“Hyun did?”
“Yes. We happened to be on a call.”
Just before the assassins stormed the palace, Lee Hyun and Levi had been talking in their respective rooms.
Lee Hyun insisted that he had contacted Levi late at night solely to ask about countermeasures against hacking, but no one believed him.
As the two exchanged emotions over the phone in the dead of night, Lee Hyun suddenly made an urgent request to Levi.
“Your brother is in danger.”
Upon hearing this warning, Levi hurriedly sent a message to Amon’s group.
Then, gathering all available forces she could take immediately, she headed for the crown prince.
Levi finished her explanation.
The crown prince understood, but he wasn’t completely convinced.
“I understand that Hyun sent the message. But how did that kid know first?”
The internal security network had been neutralized by a Trojan horse-like infiltrator.
External reinforcements had scaled the walls and reached the crown prince in mere minutes.
Even the royal guards had failed to notice anything—’so how had Hyun been the first to realize it?’
***
After a moment of hesitation, Levi spoke.
“Actually… the leader of the Saljugye faction appears to be a member of the Geom faction.”
“Is that true?”
“Hyun is still linked to the Geom faction’s network. While speaking with me, he was sharing their location and field of view.”
“If that’s the case, it makes sense.”
The crown prince accepted the explanation.
‘If Hyun was connected to the Geom faction, he would have been alerted the moment the Saljugye faction moved and could react faster than anyone else.’
Levi nodded and turned her gaze back to the battlefield.
Her brother was overwhelming.
Meiji had replaced his entire body with machinery, except for his cookie-shaped head.
As a result, he was like a humanoid tank—firing a minigun as if it were a rifle, launching missiles from his shoulders, and even shooting a shotgun from his elbows.
Against a group of Saljugye faction members numbering at least in the double digits, Meiji displayed absolute dominance in combat.
“Haha! This is my time to shine!”
Since his entire body was mechanical, Meiji had always been wary of hacking.
But now that the AI interference was gone, he had nothing to hold him back.
Dudududu!
Meiji showcased the true meaning of a one-man army, completely turning the tide against the Saljugye faction.
Watching this, the crown prince felt certain that this assassination attempt would be dealt with smoothly.
That is, until Meiji was hacked.
“Huh? Brother?”
“There was more than one AI???”
There had been a fatal flaw in their plan.
They had assumed only one AI was involved.
A new AI, which had hijacked Meiji’s body, spoke through him.
[Why would you assume only one of us came to Joseon?]
Unlike the previous AI, which had the bright and methodical tone of a mad scientist, this one spoke with the arrogant, suave voice of a nobleman.
With the arrival of this new AI, the tide shifted once again in the enemy’s favor.
Worse, their most powerful asset—Meiji—had been taken over.
The AI aimed Meiji’s minigun at the crown prince and Levi.
[I don’t care about process as much as my predecessor did.]
The AI exuded confidence, asserting its difference from the one they had deleted before.
Like Meiji earlier, it spun the minigun’s barrel, preparing to fire.
Levi clenched her teeth as she faced the sight of her own brother aiming at her.
“Damn it… why didn’t I consider this possibility?”
Levi blamed herself.
Beside her, her brother shook his head.
“It’s not your fault. I didn’t think of it either.”
And then—
Someone from the darkness rejected their self-blame.
“It’s not your fault. That’s just how this AI operates.”
A familiar voice.
One they had been waiting for, one they had wanted to hear.
Before they could even call his name, Amon emerged from the shadows.
Right above Meiji.
The sensors on Meiji’s back detected Amon, and his elbow-fired shotgun discharged.
But Amon easily evaded by stepping off the air itself.
Meiji immediately abandoned the minigun and clenched his fists for close combat.
However, as if anticipating this, bullets struck both of his knees, and a spear pierced his right shoulder.
Meiji staggered.
Amon seized the moment, pulling out a portable EMP device and jamming it into the back of Meiji’s neck.
“I’m sorry, Meiji.”
Sensing what was happening, the AI inside Meiji shouted, [It’s useless! A mere trick! That won’t even scratch me!]
Amon didn’t reply.
He simply pulled the pin on an EMP grenade and leaped backward.
Boom!
A massive electromagnetic pulse erupted.
Because Meiji’s entire body was mechanical, the impact was devastating.
His form below the neck turned into little more than scrap metal.
Amon approached the fallen Meiji and called to him.
“Meiji?”
“I was a burden again… sorry.”
“No, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have arrived in time.”
“Thanks… I owe you one again.”
Meiji, the cookie-bodied warrior, gave a small nod before closing his eyes.
The crown prince bit his lip and spoke.
“Thank you. Without you, I would be dead. Joseon will not forget your sacrifice.”
As he offered his respects to the seemingly fallen Meiji, Amon’s group gave him strange looks.
The crown prince noticed their gazes.
“Why are you all looking at me like that? Does the West not have a culture of mourning comrades?”
Amon responded on their behalf.
“No, we do. We have our own way of honoring them.”
“Then are you surprised because I didn’t follow your way?”
“Not at all. In Joseon, we follow Joseon’s customs.”
“Then why the strange looks?”
With a deep sigh, Amon walked over to Meiji.
And then—
Pop!
He detached Meiji’s head from his body.
“O||?”
The crown prince, stunned to the point of forgetting his dignity, made a dumbfounded noise.
Amon spoke.
“Just prepare some jam and flour after the battle.”
“Huh? What? Huh???”
The crown prince was utterly confused.
Ignoring him, Amon handed Meiji’s head to Levi.
“Take care of him.”
“I will.”
With that, Amon left to finish off the remaining Saljugye faction forces.
***
Levi watched him go, then casually observed the battle.
And when she got bored—
Pop!
She plucked off a bit of Meiji’s cheek and popped it into her mouth.
The crown prince, watching this, recoiled in horror.
“Aztec…?”
“No.” Levi responded with a dead-serious expression.