Chapter 221
The System’s familiar female voice rang in his head the moment Jin-Woo uttered ‘Rise up.’
[‘Rise up.’]
[‘Player’ Nurturing System delete code has been entered.]
[The System will now be deleted.]
Jin-Woo was now bestowed with the true power of the Shadow Sovereign, which meant that the System was now rendered irrelevant to him. So, it began deleting itself.
He felt as if he was saying goodbye to a nanny that looked after him since his childhood. He then suddenly thought of a question and asked the Shadow Sovereign.
“How did you include the female voice in the System?”
[….That’s actually the architect’s voice.]
The Sovereign was a bit dumbstruck by Jin-Woo’s sudden question, but eventually, added more explanation.
[That creature was from a hermaphrodite race. It’s possible for them to produce both male and female voices.]
“…..”
He often wondered who the owner of that clear and cool voice was every time it accompanied the System messages, but to think, it was the same dude all along.
Feeling a bit sheepish, Jin-Woo averted his gaze, prompting the Shadow Sovereign to chuckle under his breath.
“Kuk, kuk.”
‘I also enjoyed watching that part of you, too.’
This man was indeed worth betraying the architect’s promise, even though trust was one of the most important things for the Sovereign. A small hint of sorrow briefly flashed past his eyes.
In the meantime, the System continued on with deleting itself step by step.
[All limitations imposed on the power ‘Player’ possesses has been lifted.]
[With the removal of the limitations, every Shadow Soldier of ‘Marshal’ grade enjoying the authority of the Sovereign will regain all of their original powers.]
[Marshal grade soldier Igrit’s powers have been restored in full.]
[Marshal grade soldier Beru’s Stats have been enhanced greatly.]
[The former Shadow Sovereign, ‘Osborne’, is returning to the world of eternal void.]
Jin-Woo silently listened to the messages before raising his head. He found the Shadow Sovereign, despite facing his own end, staring back at him with serene eyes.
Jin-Woo was able to understand all the pain and suffering the Sovereign had gone through because of the memories of the distant past shown to him within death’s territory. His goodbyes were, therefore, genuine and heartfelt.
‘Goodbye, my king.
I pray that you find the peaceful rest you dearly wished for so long in the land of eternal sleep.’
Finally, even the System message signifying farewell popped up.
[Will you really delete all System and System-related functions?]
Two icons of ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ blinked in the empty air.
Jin-Woo shifted his gaze, one last time, to the Shadow Sovereign. Even until the end, the former angel hadn’t lost that content smile of his.
Because, that would be the lasting image engraved in his heart, after all.
That was why Jin-Woo also smiled back.
With a smile, he issued his final input to the System.
“Yes.”
***
RUMBLE!!
A powerful wind pressure being generated at the same time with an explosion of light forced back the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs and the Sovereign of Frost. The former regained its posture first, its brows quivering.
[A Fragment of the Brilliant Light….?]
The body of the robe-wearing enemy was now burning in golden flames. That light was the symbol of the Rulers.
This b*stard was, without a doubt, a human that borrowed their powers. However, why were the Rulers aiding one of the most powerful Sovereigns out there, the Shadow Sovereign?
The Sovereign of Frost cried out.
[The worst calamity imaginable is approaching us through the body of the human you’re trying to protect! Are you planning to bring the apocalypse to this world by your own hands??]
“…..”
The man wearing the robe didn’t even bother to reply. No, instead of an answer, he simply brought up both of his shortswords near his chin, clearly getting into a stance to fight. That was as good a sign as any of his intent.
The Sovereign of Frost’s expression hardened after confirming this man’s decision once more.
Its current opponent had borrowed the powers of the Rulers and activated Spiritual Body Manifestation. But, a human’s body couldn’t withstand a god’s power.
Unlike with the Sovereigns who had completely taken over the host’s body and ego, the one borrowing the Ruler’s power would soon crumble into dust and disappear.
‘Even then…. He’ll risk dying just to aid in the Shadow Sovereign’s revival?? Just what are the Ruler b*stards scheming now…?!’
The Sovereign of Frost looked at the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs. They exchanged suspicious gazes. There was no time. The beast-like man, the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs, nodded its head.
Instantly, the two Sovereigns split left and right to approach the robe-wearing man from both sides, before raining down a ceaseless barrage of attacks.
The claws of a beast and the spear made of ice tried to tear into the robe-wearing man countless times, but as if he was well versed in combat, he easily countered and repelled all incoming attacks with expert movements.
He would let the ice spear slip past him or block against the claws, but never forgot to throw out his counterattacks every now and then, as well.
This was the action of a warrior that survived a nonsensical number of battlefields throughout his life. A truly troublesome opponent, in other words. An enemy possessing great strength and technique disregarded his own life to block the advance of the two Sovereigns.
BOOM-!!
The robe-wearing man blocked the weapons that carried incredible amounts of magical energy belonging to two Sovereigns, and then, shoved them away once more.
The Sovereigns landed some distance away, correctly judging that it would be quite difficult to get a desirable result in time, at this rate.
Tap, tap.
As if the robe-wearing man had no purpose other than protecting the vessel of the Shadow Sovereign, he only stood his ground and didn’t chase after the Sovereigns.
[….Just what is your true identity?!]
The Sovereign of Frost was left dismayed and puzzled, but the robe-wearing man remained silent as usual.
It was then.
The Sovereign of Beastly Fangs suddenly reverted from its Werewolf appearance back to its human form and spoke up.
[I’m done with this.]
The sharp fangs peeking out of its lips went back inside, and its long claws also changed back to those of regular person’s nails. As it turned around to leave, the Sovereign of Frost hurriedly cried out to stop its comrade.
[We’ve come this far, yet you wish to leave now?! Are you insane!!]
[Can’t you sense it?]
The Sovereign of Beastly Fangs shook its head.
It possessed sensory perception far exceeding the norm and after picking up on the subtly-changing atmosphere, its body shuddered ever so slightly.
[The surrounding Mana has begun crying out. Soon, the Shadow Sovereign will arrive.]
The gaze of the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs went up to the sky before shifting back to the Sovereign of Frost.
[I’m taking my leave.]
[But, you promised to attack the Shadow Sovereign with me, did you not?!]
Veins bulged on the neck of the clearly-agitated ancient Ice Elf. Too bad, the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs remained rather collected in its reply.
[My promise was only applicable when the vessel remained a human. However, the real thing is about to come, so there’s no more reason for me to stick to our promise.]
[Even then, how can a King of all beasts run away with his tail between his legs?!]
The Sovereign of Beastly Fangs was triggered by those words and it angrily grabbed the collars of the ancient Ice Elf.
[You can’t understand me because you’ve never tasted the true power of the Shadow Sovereign, oh, Sovereign of Frost!!]
Back then, the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs got to witness the depths of the Shadow Sovereign’s powers when he faced off and survived against six huge armies consisting of the beast army, demonic army belonging to the White Flames, and lastly, the armies of the four Rulers.
Such a monster was about to show up here, so who cared about one’s dignity in such a situation? It was fine if others ridiculed the Sovereign for hiding behind the Dragon Emperor. It’d do anything if it meant surviving until the end.
It made the correct call to abandon its former comrade, the King of Demons, the Sovereign of White Flames, and to escape from the battlefield back then.
And now, it was not daring to risk encountering the real deal while trying to kill the Shadow Sovereign’s vessel.
The Sovereign of Beastly Fangs was the King of Beasts, whose power was founded upon the abundant life force of the surrounding creatures. And the power of death, capable of eating into that life force, was the most fearful and frightening thing in the universe.
Indeed, there was no time to waste its breath here. It sensed the terror of death approaching ever closer with every passing second, and quickly released the collars of the ancient Ice Elf to generate its personal Gate.
[I shall pray for your fortune.]
With that departing words, the beast quickly stepped into the Gate.
The Sovereign of Frost clicked its tongue unhappily as it watched the Gate gradually shrink before completely disappearing from the view.
[What a foolish b*stard.]
How could a fool that runs away in fear, even when there was a nearly dead prey right before its eyes, be deserving of the title of the Chaos World’s best hunter?
The Sovereign of Frost’s thoughts remained the same as before – the Shadow Sovereign had to die, no matter what. And the prey was as good as tip-toeing on the precipice’s edge. Nothing would change just because a hindrance suddenly showed up.
Indeed, there was no reason to borrow the hand of a coward. Deciding such, the Sovereign of Frost activated its own Spiritual Body Manifestation.
Although its stamina would greatly be consumed by maintaining this form, as this wasn’t the world it originally belonged to, there was a need to get the result as soon as possible before the Shadow Sovereign really made his appearance.
[Taste the terror of the bitter frost, you weakling!]
The Sovereign of Frost transformed into a gigantic ice storm that instantly covered up the land. The violently thrashing blizzard slammed into everywhere!
After morphing into an actual storm, the Sovereign of Frost coldly glared at the robe-wearing man below and roared out like a thunderclap.
[This is my true power!!]
Tens of thousands of ice spears created out of crystallised Mana in the air began raining down like falling snow. Each spear carried enough power to kill a person in one shot. That was how extremely terrifying this attack was.
Cars still remaining in the roads were swept away like worthless toys and buildings were torn apart by the blade-like winds. However, the robe-wearing man didn’t even budge from his spot and protected Jin-Woo behind him with all his being.
Countless wounds began appearing on the man facing off against the endless barrage of ice spear blizzard. The Sovereign of Frost didn’t let up with its attacks, not even for a second.
[My soldiers!]
From the snow that had piled up to one’s knees, ice humanoids created from the magical energy rose up one by one. And soon, they numbered nearly several thousand!
[Attack.]
The ice humanoids heard the command of their Sovereign and pounced simultaneously at the robe-wearing man. He desperately resisted against these humanoids by slicing them and shoving them away.
Unfortunately….
Stab!
He was struck on the shoulder by an ice spear and wobbled unsteadily on his feet.
“…..”
Even in the midst of this, the ice humanoids were still rushing at him relentlessly. The man forcefully strengthened his legs and gritted his teeth.
The mysterious man tenaciously hung on, and the Sovereign of Frost decided to once more enter the fray itself. It transformed into a crystallised form of sheer coldness and, while emitting white smoke from its entire body, it gallantly strode over to the man.
[Get out of the way!!]
Its loud roar prompted the ice humanoids to quickly scatter. The Sovereign of Frost stood before the man and opened its maw real wide.
Incredibly cold energy began gathering within its mouth next.
The air began freezing up. Ice even formed on the chin of the man visible underneath the hood.
At this rate, things would get very dangerous. The robe-wearing man understood this. However, if he tried to evade this attack, it’d hit Jin-Woo still lying on the ground head-on.
The man displayed no hints of evading even when facing off against the horrifying murderous intent oozing out from the Sovereign of Frost.
The facial expression of the Ice Elf crumpled unsightly.
‘A measly human simply borrowing the powers of a higher being through sheer luck dares to form such an insolent face at me!’
Finally, the horrifying aura of coldness was fired out from the mouth of one very enraged Sovereign.
KUWAAAHH-!!
The man crossed his arms in an ‘X’ to defend against the blast of cold air. Rather obviously, his arms had to bear the brunt of blocking the entire attack and they became frozen in an instant, unable to move again.
And then, truly vicious attacks continued on the man now unable to offer any resistance.
Pow! Pow!! Pow!!! Pow!!!!
Every time the Sovereign of Frost smacked the man, his upper torso visibly staggered. However, he never took a step back, not even once. Blood trickled down his legs and formed a pool beneath his feet, but he continued to endure.
[How dare a measly little human….?!]
The Sovereign of Frost tilted its shoulder and raised up its right arm up very high. In an instant, cold air gathered around the arm and transformed into a gigantic ice block.
‘Now, let’s see if you can withstand this!’
The Sovereign of Frost was planning to not only crush the man, but the vessel of the Shadow Sovereign lying behind him, too. It roused up its entire magical energy to slam down the block of ice.
Vuuu-woong!!
The man watched the shadow of the falling ice block grow ever larger and raised both of his frozen arms above. Even if his arms shattered, even if his body was crushed, he must protect Jin-Woo.
He dragged out every ounce of power granted to him by the Ruler and his body glowed in the most brilliant golden radiance.
And finally…
BOOOOM-!!
…There was a collision.
Strangely enough, although there was a collision, he didn’t feel any impact force from it at all.
‘What is….?’
The man opened his closed eyes and discovered someone else standing before him.
‘….!!’
This figure was kitted out in jet-black armour. And then, there was the blood-red mane extending from the top of its helm all the way down to its back.
It was none other than the faithful servant of the Shadow Sovereign, Igrit. He defended against the massive block of ice before roughly shoving it away.
The Sovereign of Frost had to doubt its own eyes after that attack was perfectly defended against.
[Igrit?!]
If the Marshal-grade Shadow Soldier made his appearance, then that could only mean….!
The ancient ice Elf flinched nastily in surprise and hurriedly shifted its gaze to the spot behind the robe-wearing man. Sure enough, the unconscious man who should’ve been lying there could no longer be found anymore.
Finally…
Finally, the Sovereign of Frost understood what the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs had said before running away.
The atmosphere itself was trembling. Mana, the magical energy densely packed in the air, was resonating with the entrance of a transcendent existence.
Igrit turned around and politely knelt down and lowered his head.
Kiiieeehhk!!
Beru, having appeared alongside Igrit, screeched out loudly as if to announce the return of his master, and quickly knelt down while facing the same direction.
And between the two, Jin-Woo calmly walked out.
He took a sweeping look around the messily destroyed surroundings and threw a question at the Sovereign of Frost.
“Did the beast run away?”
[……]
Only after facing off against the true Shadow Sovereign did the ancient Ice Elf realise the reason why the King of Beasts made its hasty, scared escape earlier.
Even though it was the Sovereign of all things existing within the cold, it was still trembling pitifully before the lord of death standing before it.
Jin-Woo continued on.
“….I didn’t permit it.”
The Sovereign of Frost couldn’t understand what he meant and reflexively asked back.
[What was that??]
“I didn’t give my permission for it to run away.”
[What are you even on about…?]
Jin-Woo didn’t even give the ancient Ice Elf enough time to get flustered and simply closed his eyes. He rapidly expanded his sensory perception to his surroundings in search of the unique magic energy signature belonging to the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs.
The range of his perception exceeded past the border of South Korea in an instant and enveloped the whole planet.
He was deeply confident that, as long as the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs didn’t escape to the gap between dimensions and remained hidden somewhere on Earth, he’d located that b*stard no problem.
And his confidence was not proven to be baseless.
Jin-Woo smiled refreshingly and opened his eyes after discovering the presence of the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs.
“Found you.”
Chapter 222
While Jin-Woo had his eyes closed to focus all of his attention on searching for the escaped beast, the Sovereign of Frost had intuitively sensed it. It was an opening left by the Shadow Sovereign.
Such an opportunity would not come around a second time. Even if there was a huge gap in individual strength, how dare he take his eyes off his enemy?
Avoiding death would be impossible if this chance was left ungrasped.
It was facing unavoidable death right now. In order to struggle free from the shadow of death taking large strides towards itself, the Sovereign of Frost decided to bet everything on one final move.
‘I must end everything with this one hit.’
Its right arm slipped behind its back and Mana began gathering there in a large lump. It then proceeded to create the most powerful spear of ice it had ever created.
Every ounce of energy dragged up by the desperation it felt would be contained within this attack!
A terrifying amount of magical energy was being forcibly concentrated on the ice spear. The power gathered was so great that the ground beneath the Sovereign wielding the spear froze up in pure white while issuing cracking noises.
Just before one would be tempted to wonder whether the Sovereign’s right arm grasping the spear had expanded far too much or not…
The spear was fired out with the velocity of a bullet and tore straight through the air.
Whoooosh-!!
At the same time, the ice humanoids received orders from their master and pounced on Jin-Woo like a nest of enraged fire ants.
Whoooosh-!
Moments before the spear aiming at his forehead could penetrate into his face…
….Jin-Woo opened his eyes.
“Found you.”
Simultaneously, the time flow of the surroundings came to a standstill as if the ‘pause’ button had been pressed on the playback. No, actually, the time had slowed down to such an extent that it almost looked as if it had come to a standstill.
The ice spear’s shaft spinning at a scarcely-believable speed was definitely getting closer, albeit only an inch at a time. And behind that, he could see the Sovereign of Frost’s rather deeply distorted face glaring in his direction.
Was that all, though?
He even could see the faces of every single ice humanoid surrounding him from all sides pouncing on him.
This was the scope of the Shadow Sovereign’s vision once he got ready for battle. His ability to perceive that had reached the realm that no other human being could ever hope to touch upon, and made it as if everything around him had come to a dead stop.
Jin-Woo was like an alien invading the world of a paused video and relaxedly scanned his surroundings.
This feeling…
‘Haven’t I felt something similar to this before….?’
When could that have been?
He slowly combed through his memories and eventually recalled that moment when he was about to die from the assaults of the stone statues.
Indeed.
Back then, time had come to a standstill as if everything had been paused, too.
‘Ah, so I had already possessed the power of the Shadow Sovereign in me, even then.’
Only now that he got to unlock the full powers did he realise once more just how long the Sovereign had been watching him. Jin-Woo continued to check out his vicinity and soon, discovered the backs of his two Marshal grade soldiers.
‘Ohhh….’
Even though the time had seemingly frozen, both Beru and Igrit were moving in to intercept the enemies, albeit very slowly. This was as good evidence as any that their agility had reached an incredible height now.
Jin-Woo studied them in happiness before remembering that there was a spear coming his way.
‘Oopsie.’
Like an insect studiously crawling forward, the spear was continuously closing the distance bit by bit. To stop the weapon’s advance, Jin-Woo used one of his powers.
‘Ruler’s Authority.’
This was one of the Shadow Sovereign’s powers, although he trained on using it proficiently while thinking that it was merely a skill.
The moment he activated ‘Ruler’s Authority’, he got to see the Mana dispersed throughout the surroundings suddenly rush in and wrap about the ice spear.
Once caught in the magical energy, the weapon lost all forward momentum and stopped in its treks.
He got to see for the first time how the skill ‘Ruler’s Authority’ worked and he couldn’t help but softly sigh in admiration.
‘Ah, so it was not an invisible hand or some such.’
No, it was more like ‘invisible Mana’. Simply put, Mana moved according to the will of the skill’s activator. Jin-Woo’s eyes could capture the movement of Mana so clearly now, when it was impossible to do so in the past.
‘Nice.’
Now that his sensory perception had reached the peak, he could definitely pick up on the flow of Mana surrounding his vicinity. As he observed its flow, his eyes sparkled brightly.
This was the end result of the Rulers trying so hard to fortify this world. A world once devoid of Mana was now overflowing with it. And as the inheritor of the Shadow Sovereign’s powers, he was given the right to freely wield this energy with nothing but his will.
Ba-thump, ba-thump.
His heart raced faster as he sensed the surrounding Mana breathe.
‘….Let’s do this.’
Jin-Woo broke past the slowly-moving time and approached his two Marshals before resting his hands on their shoulders.
“There’s no need for you guys to step up here.”
Beru and Igrit heeded their master’s order and immediately stopped moving. Jin-Woo stood before them.
He’d now maximise his control of Mana that he trained whenever he had the time through ‘Ruler’s Authority’. He took a sweeping look at the ice humanoids and deeply breathed in and out once.
The emotion still filling his chest was the gratitude towards the Shadow Sovereign welling up from deep inside his heart. Also, gratitude for teaching him how to control his powers through the System’s guidance.
Jin-Woo was done focusing on himself and controlled the Mana in the air at once. In that blink-of-an-eye moment, the space around him tumbled.
Wooo-woung-!
It truly was for just a moment.
In an instant, a powerful wave of Mana, starting from Jin-Woo as its centre, crashed out and swept away the huge masses of ice humanoids trying to pounce on him.
The Sovereign of Frost also detected the violent storm of Mana rushing at it.
[….!!]
It hurriedly spread out an ice barrier to protect itself.
Once the violent winds of Mana went past, the Sovereign quickly undid the barrier and it was greeted by the sight of debris, belonging to the ice humanoids, scattered everywhere. The powerful pulse of Mana had destroyed them all. Even the blizzard storm clouds it had summoned were gone, too.
This was the power of Shadow Sovereign.
[But… but how!!]
The Sovereign of Frost shivered from shock after witnessing the true power of the Shadow Sovereign, formerly the greatest Fragment of the Brilliant Light, as well as one of the most powerful Kings in existence.
The wall.
The completely insurmountable wall.
Didn’t the gap between it and him seem far too great?!
Jin-Woo took a look around himself and nodded his head at the rather satisfying result before locking his gaze with the frightened eyes of the ancient Ice Elf.
Flinch!
He could sense that creature shivering even at a distance away.
He still had a score to settle with that thing. Jin-Woo recalled the face of the late Association President Goh Gun-Hui and his expression became colder in an instant. However, he wasn’t the type to expose his emotions that easily.
The enemy he wanted to kill the most would be disposed of at the very end. He’d make sure that the opponent would get to enjoy enough time to shiver in terror from the unavoidable death.
Jin-Woo raised his voice.
“You shall be the last.”
Suddenly, Jin-Woo’s figure slowly submerged into the shadow beneath his feet.
“Until I go and catch that beast, you stay and quietly wait, okay?”
***
As soon as the TV’s broadcast got cut off, the Association President Woo Jin-Cheol slammed his fist down on the desk.
Bang!
The final scene before the live footage got cut off was the one of Hunter Seong Jin-Woo powerlessly crumbling to the ground after getting struck by those two monsters.
Watching that scene play out, Woo Jin-Cheol felt as if his whole world had come crashing down. If only this desk wasn’t an item that Goh Gun-Hui had used, he’d completely smash it into pieces with one punch.
Woo Jin-Cheol’s clenched fist trembled greatly.
All the other subordinate employees present within the President’s office and watching the broadcast with him shut their mouths up as well. Heavy silence permeated in the office now.
However….
The Association President Woo Jin-Cheol knew better than anyone that he shouldn’t be wasting time here like this. He quickly threw out a question.
“How many Guilds are on site now??”
“All five major Guilds have arrived on site, sir.”
Woo Jin-Cheol stood up from his seat and urgently issued his new order.
“Our Monitoring Division will go, as well. And I’ll accompany them, too.”
“But, it’ll be far too dangerous, sir!”
“You think being dangerous or safe is important in our current situation?!”
Woo Jin-Cheol shot a scary glare, immediately rendering those employees trying to persuade him not to go utterly speechless.
The Republic of Korea had just lost its final line of defence, Seong Jin-Woo. Meaning, there was no more room to retreat. Every Hunter had to cooperate to kill those monsters, otherwise, there would be no future left for anyone anymore.
Woo Jin-Cheol hurriedly put on his jacket before raising his head to spot the real-time footage being transmitted from the CCTV camera, currently shown live, right next to the giant TV screen.
This camera was pointing to the sky 24 hours a day. It continuously streamed the sight of the super-massive Gate floating above the skies of Seoul. Woo Jin-Cheol’s eyes staring at the screen trembled for a moment then.
‘Perhaps….’
Perhaps, the nation of Korea was already doomed.
His heart tumbled to the pit of his stomach. Even if they got lucky and were able to kill those monsters, they would suffer grave casualties. Could they be able to deal with that nonsensically humongous Gate with the remaining Hunters, no, more accurately, without the presence of Hunter Seong Jin-Woo?
Just from thinking about the monsters in the city centre and then the super-massive Gate in a row, the despair he so desperately tried to deny rushed in like a tidal wave.
However, Woo Jin-Cheol forcibly shook his head.
Even if tens, hundreds of thousands, no, the entire population of Korea thought the same as he did, someone still had to step up and fight. The powers Hunters possessed were precisely for that purpose.
Woo Jin-Cheol gritted his teeth to shake off all unnecessary thoughts from his head. He was about to step outside his office when one of the employees hurriedly called out to him.
“Sir!!”
Woo Jin-Cheol looked behind him. Not at the employee calling out to him, no, but at the large TV screen with the news anchor urgently speaking to the viewers.
[Everyone, one of our cameras have finally reached the site!]
Maybe the camera was positioned on a rooftop of a high-rise building, because the scene now on screen was being filmed from a great distance away. But, that alone was enough.
The blizzard covering up the city was being dispersed by some kind of an unseen force.
Feeling rather agitated now, the Association President Woo Jin-Cheol brushed past all the employees that had stood up from their seats and rushed to the front of the giant screen.
Once the icy fog was blown away, it became possible to see clearly the figures standing on the street.
There were five people. No, make that four people, plus one creature.
Among them, the man standing before a certain ant soldier was someone Woo Jin-Cheol was quite familiar with.
“It’s Hunter Seong Jin-Woo!!”
Woo Jin-Cheol shouted out unbeknownst to even himself. Other employees saw the shattered remains of the ice humanoids strewn about around Jin-Woo and roared out in elation.
Waaaah-ah!!
Not only was Jin-Woo, who looked to be dead for sure, standing upright completely fine, he even seemed to have pushed his enemy into a corner as well, so how could they hold back their cries now?
Indeed, tears even threatened to break out of Woo Jin-Cheol’s eyes.
There was only one enemy now; the sole creature of ice seemed to be terrified out of its skull, because it was completely rooted to its spot, unable to even move an inch.
No one could tell just what transpired within that blizzard, but the situation had done a complete 180 now.
He didn’t need to hear it, but Woo Jin-Cheol knew that the attention of the entire world was focused on this very same footage being broadcast.
Just with what method would Hunter Seong demolish that monster now? The Association President Woo Jin-Cheol’s face was quickly filled up with anticipation as he watched Jin-Woo.
But then….
Jin-Woo seemed to be saying something to the monster, before he began submerging below his feet and disappearing from the site.
‘….???’
The expressions on the employees hugging each other to celebrate gradually hardened.
Eventually…
….Jin-Woo completely vanished from the battlefield.
The cameraman must be panicking as well, as the camera kept moving this way and that in order to locate Jin-Woo. Unfortunately, not even his hair could be seen now.
“Huh…..”
Woo Jin-Cheol couldn’t hide his fluster and rubbed his mouth. Yet another bout of heavy silence descended on the office of the Association President.
***
After returning to the hideout located in a jungle somewhere, the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs’ teeth began clattering.
That aura of death gradually tightening around its neck. What a regretful thing it was, wasting time arguing with the Sovereign of Frost and delaying its escape from that place.
Back when it was out hunting Brazil’s greatest Hunter, Earth was nothing more than a hunting ground filled with weak prey. The beast had been drunk on the feelings of freedom after leaving behind the dreary, boring gap between dimensions where there was practically nothing fun to do.
But now…
Who’d have thought that the Shadow Sovereign had descended to this world with a malicious plan up his sleeve? Unless they were talking about the human masquerading as the King of the Dead, fine, but the beast definitely didn’t want to fight against the real Shadow Sovereign.
If one wanted to stop that guy, then one needed power far exceeding him. One needed the Sovereign of Destruction.
‘Now that things have turned out this way, I have no choice but to hide here and quietly wait until the Dragon Emperor shows up….’
The beast lied down on the bed made out of leaves and branches.
When it did, several wild beasts of the Chaos World, referred to as monsters by humans, gathered around and laid down around the Sovereign’s feet.
These wild beasts possessing powerful magical energy were none other than the Sovereign’s royal guard. They purred and rubbed their faces when their King began stroking them.
But then, the Sovereign sensed something was off and stopped stroking the heads of its pets in his comfy reclined position.
‘Mm….??’
The furs on the pets had all stood upright.
The sixth sense possessed by all animals; the inexplicable sensation travelling down the back of its neck caused all sorts of goosebumps to break out on the Sovereign’s body.
It wordlessly shifted its gaze over to the same spot where the nervous beasts were glaring at, before its own eyes narrowed down to a slit. The shade of a tree several steps away was wavering noticeably, that was why.
The voice thickly laden with despair leaked out from the mouth of the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs after picking up the scent of death quickly permeating into its hideout.
“Could it be….?”
Chapter 223
The beast’s eyes opened wider. ‘Something’ was slowly rising up from that wavering shade of a tree.
‘Is that the human…?’
Or, was it the real Shadow Sovereign?
It couldn’t quite figure out the true identity of its opponent yet. However, the presence of the enemy all five senses of the beast had picked up were identical to that of the man who drove it to the edge of the cliff all those years ago.
Didn’t matter what his identity was, this man now possessed the perfect, complete power of the Shadow Sovereign.
‘He chased after me all the way to here?!’
The terror of death seemingly had invaded deep into the beast’s bone marrows, and as a result, the creature trembled greatly in pure fear.
And when Jin-Woo’s entire frame completely emerged back into the world…
Growl….
One of the savage beasts bared its fangs to threaten Jin-Woo in order to protect its master before quickly dashing forward. This monster, although outwardly feline in appearance, possessed three red eyes. It was also known to be one of the most vicious creatures even in the Chaos World.
Roar!!
The monster opened its jaw wide to reveal dozens of knife-like fangs that coldly reflected the light.
Jin-Woo disinterestedly stared at the predator dashing towards him. It seemed to possess as much magic energy as a boss from a rank S dungeon. If it was in the past, even he’d have to pay attention, but now, it didn’t pose any threat whatsoever.
But before that…
Boom!
Even before he could decide on what to do next, the savage beast suddenly lost its head and its four limbs sagged down to the ground.
The culprit was none other than the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs. It leapt in an instant and destroyed the savage beast’s head. Then, it quickly extracted its fist stuck deeply to the ground.
‘Why did he kill his own soldier…?’
When Jin-Woo stared at it with puzzled eyes, the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs got low to the floor and bowed its head. And then, words spoken with a trembling voice leaked out from its mouth now facing the ground.
[Oh, Shadow Sovereign, this King of Beasts does not wish to enter into a conflict with you. I pray that you forgive this one’s transgressions and accept me as your ally.]
This was the instinct of an animal in full display. When facing against an opponent that couldn’t be beaten and also, escaping from it was impossible, then one should bow one’s head.
The beast’s instincts were quite strongly recommending this course of action. Since the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs possessed the characteristics of a wild animal, it readily discarded its dignity and pride to stay loyal to the demands made by its instincts.
[Not too long from now, the Dragon Emperor will lead his army to descend on this land. During that time, my beast army and I shall aid you in your quest.]
The beast had assumed the most subservient posture it could.
Whimper… Whimper…..
The savage beasts behind the Sovereign were all frozen stiff in their terror and had sprung a leak, wetting the ground with their p*ss.
To these wild, untamed creatures that lived for their own continued survival, the aura of death walking ever closer was the most terrifying thing imaginable.
Jin-Woo briefly observed the King of the Beasts and its lowered tail before coming up with a reply.
“Fine.”
The Sovereign of Beastly Fangs was feeling really nervous, but upon hearing that easy answer, it began smiling inwardly. And that smile soon crept up on its face directed to the floor, as well.
What a foolish man!
‘That b*stard is not the real thing.’
The real Shadow Sovereign would never forgive the one who had betrayed him once before, and not to forget, someone who tried to eliminate the vessel prepared for his descent to this world.
Thanks to this human’s kindness and stupidity, the beast was able to buy some time.
How could it obey this man’s words when this human, no, this prey was busy emitting a delectable scent mixed in among that of the real Shadow Sovereign’s?
Indeed, all it had to do was to pretend as if it was on the Shadow Sovereign’s side and wait until the Sovereign of Destruction’s arrival.
‘When the time comes, I shall personally rip your corpse apart and gnaw on your bones.’
So, how could the beast not break out in smiles right now? With a bright face, the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs raised its head again.
[I swear my loyalty to…..]
As it did, it ran straight into the chilling glare, as cold as ice, and leapt back greatly from sheer fright. As a matter of fact, the level of fright it felt was so great that it had leapt back dozens of metres in one go.
Jin-Woo coldly addressed the beast and its pale complexion.
“Before we do that, though, we should settle our debt first.”
The beast squeezed out some words with a hardened expression.
[Debt? Could you be talking about the past….??]
In the past, the Sovereigns of White Flames and Beastly Fangs tried to stab the Shadow Sovereign in the back. Jin-Woo had seen that treachery through the recollection of the former Shadow Sovereign. However, that had no relevance to what Jin-Woo was about to do right now.
From the subspace that the System designated as ‘Inventory’, he extracted one Kamish’s Wrath.
Shururuk….
While grasping the blade tightly with one hand, Jin-Woo pointed to five spots in his chest with his thumb on the free hand.
“Five wounds where claws have pierced past.”
The horrifying pain from that moment was still vivid in Jin-Woo’s mind.
“Withstand five attacks from me, and I shall forgive you.”
That was the same thing as telling the beast to survive five fatal attacks.
It was at this point that the beast finally realised that Jin-Woo never planned to let it go from the beginning. The Sovereign of Beastly Fangs roared out in a final show of its pride.
[You dare…!! How dare you toy with me, the King of Beasts!!]
The Sovereign of Beastly Fangs activated Spiritual Body Manifestation and rapidly transformed into a gigantic wolf. Although, it was incomparably smaller than the one from the Shadow Sovereign’s memories, perhaps owing to the fact that this wasn’t the creature’s original world. Still, the King of Beasts wielded enough power to destroy this world and then some.
Now thoroughly enraged, the giant wolf loudly howled at the Shadow Sovereign.
[My life will end here today, but you too will not live for long!]
Whoosh-!
It was right then, a strand of chilling wind brushed past the face of the huge wolf. Searching for the presence of Jin-Woo that had simply vanished from its view, the creature quickly took a look behind.
And that’s where he was, having moved there before the wolf had noticed it. He slowly turned around to face the monster.
“The first hit.”
The wolf then saw it.
It saw the horrifying black aura rising up from Jin-Woo’s entire body. This guy, he wasn’t the fake. His movements completely matched that of the Shadow Sovereign.
Gulp.
Unbeknownst to itself, the wolf swallowed back its dry saliva.
But, then….
With an audible ‘plop’, something fell to the ground.
For a moment there, the wolf forgot what kind of a monster was standing before its eyes and lowered its gaze. What fell to the ground was a huge ear.
The wolf’s ear, cut off from its head, now lay on the ground next to its own feet like a hideous item of gore. And then, blood exploded out like a fountain. What visited after all of that was intolerably cruel pain.
The wolf gritted its teeth and raised its head back up and discovered that Jin-Woo was holding yet another shortsword.
One weapon in each of his hands.
Jin-Woo held the pair of ‘Kamish’s Wraths’ oozing out black aura and delivered his final judgement on the giant wolf.
“Four more left.”
***
Literally, enemies on all sides.
After Jin-Woo disappeared from the scene, the Sovereign of Frost was left stuck in a rock and a hard place. It’d be logical to escape if there was no chance of victory. But then, the gaze of the ancient Ice Elf landed on the two Marshal-grade soldiers belonging to the Shadow Sovereign.
‘Forgetting about the ant b*stard busy treating that human puppet of the Rulers, this….’
The remaining one was a huge problem.
It was none other than Igrit, also referred to as one of the two wings of the Shadow Army, who was keeping a close eye on the Sovereign right now.
This black knight’s nickname was the ‘Knight of Death’. He was the greatest knight there ever was, accompanying the Shadow Sovereign to participate in many battlefields and killing countless enemies in the process.
One of the opponents that needed to be kept an eye out for was standing right in front of the Ice Elf.
‘But then again….’
The ancient creature was not some measly little soldier, but a Sovereign. If it fought with everything it had, then bringing down two Marshal-grade soldiers wouldn’t be difficult at all.
No, the real problem was with these two possessing immortality-like abilities. They would continue to regenerate infinitely until the Shadow Sovereign ran out of his power.
This was really bad news, considering that the Sovereign of Frost had to waste a lot of its stamina by activating its Spiritual Body Manifestation.
On top of that, if it decided to attack these two soldiers, then their master would be alerted to its actions. All Shadow Soldiers were connected to the Shadow Sovereign. Even if one succeeded in defeating the Marshal-grade soldiers, that would only serve to summon their master over here.
That had to be prevented at all cost.
‘That’s why….’
The Sovereign of Frost spun around in order to quickly generate a Gate to facilitate its escape.
Swish-!
But then, Igrit appeared out of nowhere to block the escape attempt. He slowly shook his head and lightly tapped the hilt of the sword sheathed on his waist.
‘Don’t do anything foolish.’
Even without saying anything, his words came across loud and clear.
Swish-!
The Sovereign of Frost quickly swivelled its head around and discovered the ant standing on the other side, his maw wide open to screech out loudly.
“Kiiiieeeehhk-!!”
The meaning of this particular ant standing here, when he should have been healing the arms of that human….
….The gaze of the Sovereign of Frost shifted over to its front and caught the sight of the saboteur, now completely healed, walking in closer.
[These b*stards….!]
The Ice Elf shuddered in rage as the enemies surrounded it once more.
[Mere b*stards like you dare to….!!]
The angry voice of the furious King rocked the ground. The world began freezing again, and the storm clouds gathered up in the sky.
[How long do you think you lot will last against me?!]
Igrit unsheathed his sword, Beru’s claws extended in full, while the robe-wearing man held his shortswords tightly.
However, the event of these four colliding didn’t happen.
The first one to sense the change was, once more, the Sovereign of Frost.
[….!!]
When its gaze hurriedly shifted over to a certain direction, others followed suit as if they had a prior agreement. The shadow there was rippling noticeably.
The Sovereign of Frost needed just a little bit more time, that was all. It bit its lower lip in vexation.
[Shadow Sovereign!!!]
In a spot of ground a bit of distance away, Jin-Woo emerged from the shadow.
‘This is so convenient, not being restricted by the cooldown now that the System is gone.’
All restrictions on his abilities had been unshackled. That allowed him to return to this spot in an instant. Jin-Woo shifted his gaze over to the Sovereign of Frost over yonder.
He then lightly threw something in his hand in the direction of the Ice Elf. The Sovereign caught that object drawing an arc in the air, before its eyes trembled greatly from shock.
[Isn’t this….?!]
It was an ear belonging to a giant wolf.
The Sovereign only knew of one wolf large enough have an ear this big.
[It’s only been a few minutes since you left, yet you already killed the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs?!]
The Sovereign of Frost cried out in sheer panic, but Jin-Woo didn’t even bother to make his reply. He simply summoned his two shortswords like how he had done with the beast earlier, instead.
On the blades crafted out of the Dragon’s teeth was the still-fresh blood from the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs.
The ancient Ice Elf flinched greatly as the hostile intention from a truly powerful individual locked down on it. The two Marshal-grade soldiers and the robe-wearing man confirmed the black aura rising up from Jin-Woo’s shoulders and quickly retreated to the rear.
Jin-Woo gripped the hilts of the two weapons tightly. He had already given this creature enough time. And now, he was going to collect the debt.
The Sovereign of Plague, the Sovereign of Beastly Fangs, and now, the Sovereign of Frost. The deaths of these three would serve as Jin-Woo’s warning to other Sovereigns.
The Ice Elf watched as Jin-Woo dashed forward as if he was gliding on a smooth surface and urgently fired out multiple arrows of ice in a last-ditch attempt.
[You b*stard!!]
Of course, these arrows of magic were still fatal if struck, even though they were created in a hurry. Countless arrows, each one too powerful even for a rank S Hunter to survive, shot towards Jin-Woo in droves.
Dudududududududu!!!!
The Sovereign of Frost did everything in its power to prevent Jin-Woo from getting any closer.
[Uwaaaah-!!]
Too bad, Jin-Woo’s hands were quicker than those arrows raining down. He swatted away all the ice arrows aiming at him and yet, his dashing speed hadn’t decreased at all.
[Uwaaaaaaaah-!!!!]
Dududududududududu!!!!
Ice arrows were generated and fired out from the front of the personification of the frost, their numbers too innumerable to count, yet…
….Yet, Jin-Woo was able to break through their barrage and stand before his target.
Stab!
Jin-Woo accurately drove the Kamish’s Wrath into the shoulder of the Sovereign of Frost – on the exact same spot where the dagger had struck in the past. He did that to remind the creature about the late Association President Goh Gun-Hui.
[Kuwaaahhk-!!]
Suffering from the pain on an incomparable scale than the last time, the Sovereign of Frost’s head rose up high as it screamed at the top of its lungs.
Before the second shortsword could strike it, though, the Ice Elf hurriedly gathered the cold air in its mouth and fired it out. Jin-Woo reached up and simply covered its mouth.
Kuwaaaahh!!
Just as the cold blast of air unable to break free of his hand went on a rampage inside the Elf, Jin-Woo reverse gripped his other shortsword and stabbed it deep into his opponent’s chest.
CRACK!!
He heard the sounds of its ribs breaking and its heart being penetrated cleanly. It was the exact same attack that he suffered not too long ago.
[Kuwaaaahahhhk-!!]
However, Jin-Woo knew that such an attack wouldn’t be able to kill the Sovereign of Frost, since he had prior experience of killing two other Sovereigns.
“The beast died on the fourth attack.”
The chilling light shone coldly in Jin-Woo’s eyes.
“How long will you be able to endure?”
Terror filled up the eyes of the Sovereign of Frost as it looked down at Jin-Woo.
This man was the Sovereign of Death.
Weren’t those eyes the exact same as the merciless warrior that slew all the enemies he came across in an endless battlefield?
Only now did the Ice Elf realise just who it offended, and began shuddering from the crippling fear.
Shortly afterwards, the shortsword stabbing into the creature’s heart sliced down lower and tore the Sovereign’s body into a rag.
Chapter 224
Was there any other time in history that the whole world cheered on with one voice?
Jin-Woo vanished and then reappeared again shortly afterwards only to stab his shortsword into the chest of that Sovereign of Frost. It was precisely at that moment that everyone watching punched the air with both of their fists and roared out in elation, as if they all had been waiting for this chance.
Waaaaaaah-!!
They all despaired in the false knowledge that humanity’s greatest Hunter had died at the hands of monsters, so that spectacle proved to be the best gift imaginable to them.
Some passionately chanted Jin-Woo’s name out loudly.
Some began shedding tears.
Some tried to console those shedding tears.
And they watched together as a lone Hunter from Asia took care of the monster that threatened all of mankind.
Indeed, all of mankind.
The moment the Special Authority-rank Hunter Thomas Andre fell, and one of the top-ranked Hunters in the world, Lennart Niermann, tried to step up in his stead, these monsters had become far greater than the calamity of South Korea.
No, the situation had transformed into a grave crisis that directly impacted everyone else’s lives.
After all these years, people still hadn’t forgotten about the terror of watching the Dragon ‘Kamish’ swallowing up American cities, one after another.
No one alive wanted a repeat of that horrifying event. And that’s why every viewer, from all corners of the globe, went so wild at Jin-Woo’s victory.
It was as if they were trying to wash away the frustration and fear they felt while watching the best Hunters in the world continue to fall.
Waaaaaaah-!!!
Every time Jin-Woo attacked the Sovereign of Frost, the viewers roared out again and again.
And finally.
When that monster with seriously tenacious vitality finally toppled over and turned into grey-coloured ash before scattering away, the roaring cheers of the viewers reached their absolute peak.
Waaaaaaaahhhh-!!!!
Their combined roars rocked their respective cities.
Anchors tasked with relaying the breaking news were also shouting out at the top of their lungs, no longer caring whether the cameras were filming or not.
– Breaking news, just in!! We have learnt that Hunter Thomas Andre, previously thought to be fatally wounded, is still alive and he’s…..
– Ambulances have arrived on location just in time to take the victims to the nearest hospitals!!
– Those monsters that massacred the citizens are no longer moving! They all turned into ash and nothing remains of them now!
Breaking news pieces announcing the end of the battle continued to stream out of their TVs, but….
Seong Jin-Woo! Seong Jin-Woo! Seong Jin-Woo!!!
….But, the excitement and elation of the people showed no signs of dying down at all.
And then, there was this one man. There was this one particular man who was perhaps far more elated than anyone else on this planet. And that was none other than the current Association President, Woo Jin-Cheol.
His gaze was firmly fixed to the TV screen, even though he was surrounded by his fellow employees of the Association busily bear-hugging each other and cheering out in pure happiness.
He had discovered something from the live feed and his eyes trembled greatly.
‘Could it have been….?’
He hurriedly yanked his smartphone out and, with trembling hands, he searched for and played a certain video clip saved on his device.
He had watched this footage so, so many times. It was the footage of the late Association President Goh Gun-Hui being murdered, taken by the CCTV cameras inside the President’s office.
There was an unknown man captured in the footage.
That man appeared and disappeared too quickly within this grainy footage, so Woo Jin-Cheol couldn’t be sure, but now that he took a second look, didn’t this mysterious creature look almost like the monster that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo had killed just now?
Even the scenes of the frozen floor rapidly melting away were an exact match.
‘In that case….!!’
Only then did he realise just what kind of enemies Jin-Woo had been fighting until now. It was the murderer of the late Association President.
And then, Woo Jin-Cheol recalled the conversation he shared with Jin-Woo back when the latter came to pay his respects to the late Goh Gun-Hui. A powerful jolt travelled down his entire body.
[“Thank you. Thank you for being there for the final moments of the Association President.”]
[“….I’ll kill that b*stard.”]
[“Excuse me?”]
[“The monster that murdered the Association President. I’ll definitely hunt it down. You can save your thanks until then.”]
Hunter Seong Jin-Woo hadn’t forgotten about that day’s promise. And now, the monster responsible was dead. By his hands.
Woo Jin-Cheol’s nose became reddened and he raised his eyes, now wet with thick tears, to look at the TV screen. The camera was zooming into Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s face, looking somewhat tired now.
Woo Jin-Cheol could more or less understand what that expression signified. From somewhere deep within, a powerful emotion welled up uncontrollably. From here onwards, the late Association President should be able to rest in peace.
Woo Jin-Cheol recalled the memories of Goh Gun-Hui, a man he greatly respected, and inwardly muttered his gratitude towards Jin-Woo.
‘…..Thank you very much, Hunter-nim.’
***
The Sovereign of Frost reverted back to humanoid figure after its Spiritual Body Manifestation had been undone. It slowly turned into the grey-coloured ash.
The debt of the late Association President Goh Gun-Hui, as well his own, both of them had been settled in full now. Jin-Woo coldly looked at the Sovereign of Frost scattering away before turning around.
The two Marshal-grade soldiers waiting in the distance until the end of that foolish Sovereign’s punishment approached Jin-Woo.
“…..”
Even though he had now completely regained his original power, Igrit still maintained his reserved personality and he politely paid his courtesy to his master. However, quite unlike him….
“Ohhh, my kiiiinggg!!”
….Beru expressed his unreserved joy of being able to see his master again with his entire being.
Jin-Woo lightly tapped the big ant soldier and his two tearful eyes on the shoulder before taking a sweeping a look around his vicinity. There should have been one more person here. That man wearing the tattered robe was nowhere to be seen, though.
“Just who was that man, anyway?”
Beru was far too moved by his own emotions to reply properly, so Igrit answered Jin-Woo’s puzzled inquiry.
“While you lost your consciousness, he protected you with all of his being, my liege.”
Jin-Woo was taken by great surprise after hearing Igrit’s thick, manly voice for the first time, ever. But that lasted for only a short while. He formed a puzzled expression again.
“He protected me?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
Unlike Beru, Igrit was probably not that familiar with human languages, so they were currently conversing in what was referred to as ‘monster language’, which was actually the common tongue of the Chaos World.
However, there was no problem understanding each other at all.
In any case – did that mean a man he had never seen before was protecting him?
Jin-Woo had been having a Q&A session with Igrit in the common tongue of the Chaos World, as if he was a native there, before abruptly discovering something and walking over to it.
It was a certain item that had fallen to the ground.
‘Isn’t this….?!’
As he picked this item up, his eyes trembled rather imperceptibly.
***
The robe-wearing man sought shelter behind the exterior wall of a half-destroyed building and plopped down to the ground while pulling his hood back.
His hair and beard covering his face were unkempt and messy as if he had never bothered to trim them at all.
He was Seong Il-Hwan. And he was leaning against the wall while spitting out heavy, laboured breathing.
“Hah-ah, hah-ah.”
He then raised his left hand that had lost all feeling now.
Sure enough, his hand changed its colour to grey and was slowly disintegrating into dust from the tip of his fingers. This was the inevitable result of accepting the powers of a god with the body of a mere human.
However, even though he was experiencing unimaginable pain, he still formed a satisfied expression.
“It’s done….”
With this power, he managed to protect Jin-Woo. Now that his son had completely inherited the powers of the Shadow Sovereign, Jin-Woo would prove to be a great asset to humanity.
That’s why it was done now.
Seol Il-Hwan stopped looking at his gradually-disappearing hand and powerlessly leaned his head against the wall to close his eyes.
The Rulers had entrusted their powers to him and asked him to stop the Shadow Sovereign. He had been helplessly trapped within the gap between dimensions after the Gate closed up and thus was left with not much of a choice.
As a proxy of the Rulers, and as their emissary, he returned to Earth with an important mission to accomplish.
Unfortunately, Seong Il-Hwan couldn’t carry his mission out.
Even though he knew that the worst calamity in human history was hiding within that boy’s flesh, how could a parent kill his own child?
All he could do was to observe Jin-Woo from a place just out of his detection.
And as he continued to delay his mission, the opinions of the Rulers that had been focused on stopping the advent of the Shadow Sovereign gradually began changing.
And eventually….
‘The Brightest Fragment of Brilliant Light’ sent him a brand new mission.
[Protect the Shadow Sovereign.]
The Rulers had finally realised that they needed the Shadow Sovereign possessing his full powers if they were to stop other Sovereigns and their nefarious scheme.
There was no one else besides the Shadow Sovereign on Earth that could defend against the Dragon Emperor and its Army of Destruction before the soldiers of heaven could arrive later.
It was a huge gamble, considering that no one knew whether the Shadow Sovereign would side with mankind, or with the other Sovereigns.
And the result came out pretty quickly.
Jin-Woo remained on the side of humanity, and the Shadow Sovereign approved that choice.
The newly-reborn Shadow Sovereign was, simply put, Jin-Woo himself.
It was worth risking Seong Il-Hwan’s life in order to protect his son, in other words.
“…..”
Although it was unfortunate that he couldn’t even say a simple hello to his son he hadn’t seen in ten years, no one alive was qualified to take a child’s parent away twice. Even if that person just so happened to be said parent.
So, quietly disappearing like this was in Jin-Woo’s best interest. Seong Il-Hwan looked down at his body slowly disintegrating into ash and consoled himself as such.
It was then. He heard the familiar footsteps from nearby.
Seol Il-Hwan hurriedly got up and used his still-mobile right hand to pull the hood back and hid his face.
A certain someone stood before him, then.
He didn’t even have to take a look to know just who it was standing before him like this. It was Jin-Woo.
Even though here was the son whose name he so wanted to call out to, he still resolutely brushed past Jin-Woo’s side while hiding his face with the hood.
However, Jin-Woo turned towards the departing man and asked.
“Did you honestly think I wouldn’t have noticed it if you went away like this?”
Halt.
Seong Il-Hwan’s steps came to a halt.
But, how….?
He turned around towards his son, only to spot a certain item thrown by Jin-Woo slowly flying at in an arc towards him.
Grab.
What Jin-Woo returned was a shortsword. It was Seong Il-Hwan’s own shortsword that he ended up dropping after his left hand became useless.
He stared at the weapon for a moment or two, before raising his head. Jin-Woo was staring back at him with reproachful eyes.
Jin-Woo could still remember quite clearly that particular shortsword.
When he was a young boy, he got found out while playing around with his father’s shortsword and received a scolding worth remembering.
Only now did Jin-Woo consciously realise why his own weapons had been set as shortswords when the previous Shadow Sovereign swept through the battlefields with a longsword, instead.
It was all because of the memories he had of his father.
Influenced in part by his memories, the dungeons generated by the System ended up presenting Jin-Woo with daggers and shortswords as his main weapons all this time.
His hushed voice continued on.
“Are you going to leave again without saying anything, Dad?”
‘Dad’.
That one word dug deeply into Seong Il-Hwan’s heart and he had to remove his hood.
His right hand was slowly turning into ash as well.
His son flinched greatly after realising the state of his hands, but Seong Il-Hwan formed a thin smile as his reply and spoke.
“I didn’t want to show you this sight.”
Jin-Woo understood that a body turning into ash after exhausting all lifeforce couldn’t be saved no matter what. He hurriedly tried to get closer, but Seong Il-Hwan raised his right hand to stop his son.
His left arm had scattered away in dust and only his shoulder remained by then.
Jin-Woo hesitated, before remaining in his spot, and asked his father.
“Then, what about you, Dad?”
“…..?”
“Didn’t you want to see me again? Dad?”
Surely, he could still use his right hand for the time being, so how come…
Jin-Woo’s question caused Seong Il-Hwan’s raised arm to slowly go back down.
“I wanted to see you. Always.”
….To the extent that, even if you couldn’t see me, I still felt happy from the fact that I could see you from far away.
Jin-Woo finally came closer to his father until he stood right before his face. Seong Il-Hwan reached up with his remaining hand to gently touch his son’s face.
Thick tears falling from the boy’s eyes wetted the back of his hand.
‘This foolish father wasn’t able to do anything for you, yet despite that, you have….’
“….Grown up so well.”
Jin-Woo opened his mouth.
“Is this the Rulers’ doing? Are they throwing you away after using you?”
A scary amount of rage could be felt in Jin-Woo’s voice now.
Seong Il-Hwan shook his head, though.
“They only gave me an opportunity to make a choice. I chose to protect you, that is all. And that choice was not wrong.”
And now, even his remaining right hand was turning into ash and scattering away.
“I wouldn’t have minded talking to you for a little bit longer, but….”
And he wanted to stay here for a little bit longer, too….
He had done something reprehensible.
He ended up making a boy say goodbye to his father not once, but twice now. He tried so hard to hold back, but in the end, tears began flooding out from Seong Il-Hwan’s eyes.
“I’m sorry for not being a good father to you.”
Those were his last words.
Shururuk….
Seong Il-Hwan’s body, all his lifeforce exhausted from fighting against the Sovereigns, turned to ash. Jin-Woo hurriedly tried to embrace his father’s body slowly crumbling away, but….
What remained in his palms wasn’t a person, but grey-coloured powder.
Eventually.
In the spot where Seong Il-Hwan once stood, nothing remained.
Something from deep inside angrily welled up in an uncontrollable burst. Jin-Woo couldn’t hold it back anymore and in the end, raised his head towards the sky and roared out loudly.
“Uwaaaaaah-!!!”
When he did, the Mana in the atmosphere reverberated.
The sky, the air, the ground – they all cried.
And soon, Jin-Woo’s mouth began emitting the heavy, grave voice similar to other Sovereigns.
[Hear me, remaining Sovereigns!!!]
If all these events were set in motion simply because the Sovereigns decided to settle on Earth, then….
Then, I shall make them pay an unforgettable price for that.
I shall definitely make it so.
His voice infused with Mana was carried in the airflow and spread out to the rest of the world.
[You shall all pay for today’s events, without exception!]
The roar of the enraged Shadow Sovereign shook around both the heaven and earth.
[Are you listening, Sovereigns?!]
On this day, one human who inherited an unparalleled power decided where his abilities should be used on his own accord.
This was the moment that the true opening curtains of the war had gone up.
Chapter 225
Should this be called good fortune?
Jin-Woo’s voice could be heard all around the world, but he wasn’t speaking in the language of humans. The majority of people thought it was some kind of thunder rumbling in the sky. Theories on why everyone heard the exact same noise were quite varied, though.
However, such a matter didn’t pose a single problem, since the world was still celebrating – and felt relieved by – Jin-Woo’s victory.
It was the same story in the actual battle location.
Hunters had been nervously on standby in a location just a bit away from where the battle took place. When they heard that the monster had been taken care of, they couldn’t hold back and roared out in elation.
The two men in charge of the two best local Guilds, Choi Jong-In and Baek Yun-Ho, also spat out sighs of relief and looked at each other with wide grins.
“Hey, Chairman Baek. I thought your complexion wasn’t so good a few minutes ago. I wonder if you have settled down now?”
“Representative Choi, I think you need to wipe your cold sweat first before worrying about someone else.”
“I have a spare ‘cheongsimhwan’ on me, so if your heart is still fluttering badly, you can always ask me for one.” (TL note at the end)
“Aigoo~. You sweated so much. Why don’t you use this handkerchief to wipe your face first?”
The Masters of two Guilds that competed for the top spot in the local ranking started a rather pointy war of nerves. However, they could joke around in this manner only because the situation had been resolved now. Actually, these two couldn’t even swallow their saliva out of sheer nervousness until only a few minutes ago.
But, that was understandable.
Weren’t they being thrust into a battle against monsters powerful enough to treat Special Authority-rank Hunter, Thomas Andre, like a toy?
Not only their lives, but even those of every single Guild member were at risk. And the two Guild Masters, as well as every Hunter, summoned here under the emergency call-up were all thinking of the exact same thing.
That would be: if Hunter Seong Jin-Woo lost here, then it’d be no different than them all dying today.
Now freed from the intense pressure, these two men could express their happiness under the banner of waging a war of nerves.
The smiling Baek Yun-Ho sharing banter with Choi Jong-In looked beyond the latter’s shoulder and his gaze stopped moving then.
“Uh…..”
Choi Jong-In also followed after that line of sight and looked behind him. There was a lone man walking out from the centre of the ruined city.
Jin-Woo, having concluded his battle with the Sovereigns, quietly walked towards where everyone was.
Other Hunters discovered him one by one. His entrance immediately brought a bout of silence upon this place, once populated by loud cheers and happy yells.
The only noise coming from the surroundings were the wails of sirens, from the ambulances hurriedly arriving on the scene.
‘It’s Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.’
‘That man, he….’
The mood in this place had become oppressed by the sharp aura oozing out of Jin-Woo’s eyes, even though it was clear that the battle had ended in his favour. Not one person dared to open their mouths after seeing him like that.
The battle he fought had to have been incredibly intense because there was a hint of shimmering heat rising up from his shoulders even now.
But, why did the following events unfold as they did?
When Baek Yun-Ho met Jin-Woo’s gaze, the former sent his greeting with a bow. That was the beginning; as if they were saluting a soldier coming home after a very dangerous mission, Hunters all bowed their heads in Jin-Woo’s direction one by one.
Pure respect.
How could they not feel a sense of respect for a fellow Hunter capable of fighting on that level?
They all expressed their genuine gratitude and paid their respects, not because someone told them to, or because they were mindful of the surroundings.
Jin-Woo observed their show of respect, and….
‘……’
….He walked wordlessly past them towards the spot where the familiar-looking van had been parked.
Thomas Andre was about to be loaded into an ambulance and Lennart Niermann was guarding his side. Both men watched Jin-Woo’s departing back.
Lennart spoke with a worried face.
“Hunter Seong Jin-Woo didn’t look so happy.”
Thomas had received emergency treatment by the Healers and his condition had improved by a lot, so he could at least nod his head to express agreement.
“Yeah, he does look that way.”
“But, how come? He managed to beat those powerful monsters and survive.”
Only other Hunters would know what a Hunter was going through. That feeling of sucking in the outside air after clearing a high-difficulty dungeon couldn’t adequately be described in mere words.
So, why was Hunter Seong’s expression so gloomy like that?
Lennart’s question was answered by Thomas, actually.
“He probably isn’t happy with how the fight against those b*stards went down.”
“…..!!”
Lennart was deeply shocked by that reply.
Jin-Woo had displayed movements that had far surpassed the limits of a human being, yet he looked gloomy because he wasn’t happy with his performance?
How could such a thing even make sense?
As if he knew what his German counterpart was thinking of, Thomas Andre nodded his head and continued on.
“I also can’t believe it, but…. Most likely, during the fight itself, he must’ve felt disappointed by how many close shaves he had to experience.”
‘Aah, back then.’
Lennart recalled the moments when Jin-Woo’s chest was stabbed by the claws of the beast and let a low gasp escape from his mouth. Also, he remembered his own vision darkening in despair the moment when that ancient Ice Elf stabbed Jin-Woo with a dagger, too.
However, didn’t that happen because the enemies were simply too powerful? Never mind taking on both of them at the same time, how many people in this world could last as long as he did when fighting just one of them?
Lennart’s thoughts reached up to there and he shook his head.
‘No, that’s not it….’
For sure, the thoughts of being defeated because the enemies were tough belonged to regular Hunters, such as himself.
Maybe, ‘winning’ was a matter of course for a bigshot possessing strength like Hunter Seong Jin-Woo, and they probably focused more on how they won their battles, instead.
Now that his train of thoughts arrived here, Lennart felt a chill crept down his spine next. As he stood there in shock, Thomas added one last thing.
“He’s one really scary dude, that Seong Jin-Woo.”
“…..I completely agree with you on that one.”
After Thomas finished his deduction, he got taken to the hospital. During the ride, though…
‘I made the right decision not to throw a tantrum inside his office back then.’
….Lennart was busy telling himself never to become Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s enemy.
Screeeech-!!
Ah-Jin Guild’s ‘Bonggo’ came to a screeching halt, and a young man in the driver’s seat climbed out from the vehicle.
Yu Jin-Ho saw Jin-Woo getting beaten up by the monsters on TV and jumped into the van to rush to the battle location without any concrete plan.
And even though his sensory perception hadn’t been as enhanced as those of the higher-ranked Awakened, he immediately spotted Jin-Woo among the sea of Hunters populating the location and tearfully ran to his destination.
“Hyung-niiiiiiim-!!”
Jin-Woo watched Yu Jin-Ho running towards him with a flood of tears gushing out of the boy’s eyes, and the murderous anger oozing out of his own eyes softened just a tad.
Meanwhile, Yu Jin-Ho used the momentum of the running to tightly hug Jin-Woo. Now, normally, the latter would find dealing with this a bit annoying so he’d step aside like flowing water, but today was different.
Jin-Woo simply chose to gently pat Yu Jin-Ho’s back as the boy clung onto him and cried his eyes out. It was as if the warmth he felt from someone genuinely worrying about him managed to slowly melt his frosty heart.
Maybe, it wasn’t Yu Jin-Ho who needed consoling, but he himself? A thin smile formed on Jin-Woo’s lips.
Yu Jin-Ho finally managed to calm down and lifted his messy tear-and-snot smeared face away to ask a question.
“Hyung-nim, are you alright??”
“No, I’m not alright.”
“EHH??”
Yu Jin-Ho jumped up in sheer shock, his eyes opening wider. Jin-Woo then wordlessly pointed to his shirt, now deeply stained by tears and snot.
“Heok!!”
Yu Jin-Ho hurriedly used his sleeves to wipe his eyes and nose before lowering his head.
“I’m really sorry, hyung-nim. I was so happy to see you unhurt, so, like….”
Jin-Woo chuckled softly.
This kid, back then or now, he was one hell of a character, that’s for sure. But then, he was now a true ‘dongsaeng’ with a quicker wit than anyone when it came to Jin-Woo’s matters.
Yu Jin-Ho did his best to suck in his tears and spoke with a bright face.
“Hyung-nim, I knew this might happen, so I prepared a new set of clothes you can change into.”
“New clothes??”
Jin-Woo took a look at himself. And he clearly saw the messed-up state of his clothing from top to bottom after going through the intense battle against the Sovereigns.
“Well, if you return home looking like that… I’m sure your mother would be very worried, right? That’s why I got you some new clothes to change into.”
‘Huh.’
When Jin-Woo looked at him with praising eyes, Yu Jin-Ho wiped the bottom of his nose and tried to hide how happy he was.
“Let’s go, hyung-nim. Allow me to drive you back home.”
Jin-Woo thought about that for a minute, before nodding his head.
‘Mom and Jin-Ah must’ve been watching the TV as well, so I should prioritise putting their minds at ease before doing anything else.’
While Yu Jin-Ho was climbing up into the driver’s side, Jin-Woo turned around and took one last look at the centre of the city, the place where a life-or-death battle had taken place not too long ago.
Many people had rushed in there to take control of the situation, and he could see them doing their best to do their jobs.
Jin-Woo had gained quite handsomely out of that rubble.
‘First of all… I guess I should also prioritise finding a device that allows me to communicate even in the middle of that forest.’
He couldn’t repeat a mistake like this one ever again.
The biggest gain for today had to be ‘these’, though. Jin-Woo looked at the pair of shortswords his father had left behind. It was as if there was a hint of a person’s warmth remaining in their hilts.
‘Dad….’
As Jin-Woo remained still in his spot, he could Yu Jin-Ho’s cautious voice floating towards him.
“Hyung-nim?”
Jin-Woo lightly kissed the hilts of the daggers and stored them in the sub-space before belatedly climbing into the passenger’s seat.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Yes, hyung-nim!!”
The long, long day was drawing to a close.
***
In the end, the Hunter’s Association had to announce the identities of the monsters that appeared in Seoul as ‘Unknown’.
However, there was no doubt about the scale of devastation those creatures left behind being truly enormous. Countless people either died or were gravely injured; the number of collapsed buildings or destroyed cars were too numerous to count.
However, not everything could be seen as a loss.
Should one call this case a blessing in disguise?
What happened was, they found a way to deal with an unexpected danger.
Especially so for Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s incredible power that he displayed to the world during his fight – it managed to change the mindset of the world’s denizens in one breath.
And that changed mindset was immediately put to action. The symptom of this change, however, started off from a country that no one quite expected it to happen from.
That evening.
To discuss the handling of the aftermaths of the monsters appearing in Seoul, as well as the potential responses against the super-massive Gate, the current Association President Woo Jin-Cheol paid a visit to the Blue House.
With topic at hand being what it was, President Kim welcomed him rather courteously. After sharing a brief greeting, Woo Jin-Cheol asked his question first.
“Shouldn’t it be better for you to evacuate to the outskirts of Seoul, sir?”
The president of the nation hesitated with his answer, his expression looking complicated before he spat out a long sigh.
“I admit that I treated you rather badly the last time. I’d like to apologise to you about that. However, I implore you not to look at me as a man who had forgotten what responsibilities he has to shoulder. May I remind you, I am still the president of this nation.”
He continued on, although he carried the face of a man experiencing fear, yet at the same time, trying to overcome it.
“If I run away without saying anything, how badly will the citizens be shaken up? I do not wish to see my name being recorded as a blemish on our nation’s history.”
Woo Jin-Cheol thought of President Kim as yet another career politician who was only interested in raking in more votes, but having heard this rather unexpected reply, could only let a wry chuckle out of his mouth.
One could accuse that as being a disrespectful gesture but, as he had already committed a transgression against Woo Jin-Cheol, the country’s president didn’t raise any objections.
“Alright.”
Woo Jin-Cheol pulled out the prepared data and got ready to get going with his presentation. But then, an employee working in the Blue House hurriedly entered the office and whispered something into the president’s ear.
“What?? Are you being serious?!”
The president responded by shooting up from his seat with a disbelieving face. The employee replied with a very serious expression.
“Yes, sir. Mister President, how should we proceed next?”
“For now, let the call through. I shall personally speak to him.”
The employee promptly presented a smartphone to the president that was already connected to the mystery person on the other end of the line. The leader of South Korea took over the phone, and a voice that pretty much all Koreans were familiar with came out from the device’s speaker.
– “I pondered deeply on this matter for a very long time, comrade. And…. And, I’ve come to a decision that it might be for our best interest to aid our cadres in the South.”
That voice belonged to the leader of North Korea. The South Korean President couldn’t immediately understand what the other party was talking about and tilted his head this way and that.
“What… do you want to aid us with?”
– “Didn’t a Gate appear in the skies of Seoul? We shall dispatch our Hunters there, too. Let us combine the strengths of both the South and North to deal with this matter.”
“…..!”
North Korea was the signal flare.
The neighbouring nations had only displayed a tepid reaction towards the request for cooperation even with the appearance of Gate boasting an unprecedented size. But now, their attitudes did a complete 180 in an instant.
– South Korea, no, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo, must not be allowed to fall.
This was the conclusion various nations came to after watching the battle between Jin-Woo and the ‘Unknown’ monsters.
The ill fortune of Korea wouldn’t simply end in Korea alone. Which Hunter belonging to a country would be capable of stopping a calamity that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo couldn’t stop?
From the closest nations – North Korea, Japan, China, Russia – and to the far-flung nations such as America, Germany, Britain, and France, their Hunters hurriedly set off for Seoul in order to make it in time.
There was only one thought within their minds.
‘We need to aid Hunter Seong Jin-Woo and block the super-massive Gate, no matter the cost.’
The notion of Jin-Woo being their final defence line had been instilled within them after witnessing his feats.
And now, not just South Korea’s own Hunters, but the entire world’s were gathering in the capital city of this small nation in East Asia.
Chapter 226
Dawn, when everyone was in a deep sleep.
Jin-Woo travelled back to the sea of trees located in Japan, still remaining as a no-entry, prohibited area, after experiencing the dungeon break of the Giant-type monsters.
He didn’t come here to raise his level or to look at the stars in the sky, though. But then again, it must’ve been the memories of the night before, because when he took a look at the night sky, he naturally remembered Hae-In’s face.
Jin-Woo stopped by his family and assured them he was fine and quickly returned to the hotel in Japan. Cha Hae-In had already understood the reason why Jin-Woo had to disappear on her like that, just before they were about to share a meal together.
She knew better than anyone what would’ve happened if Jin-Woo didn’t rush back to Seoul. Her expression as she tried to hide her anxiety remained etched in his memory for some reason, though.
‘….Let’s get started.’
Jin-Woo took a look around him. Just like before, the stillness of the forest, with not a single living soul in it, greeted him. There was something he had to do in this place.
Jin-Woo sought out a suitable open ground and soon located one. He summoned out a portion of his Shadow Soldiers next.
‘Come out.’
Jin-Woo’s shadow expanded out greatly and his soldiers appeared on the ground. They were none other than the new additions to his army.
Jin-Woo tasted a mixed bag of emotions as he studied them. For the first time ever, he ended up breaking his own rule yesterday, one that he religiously adhered to since the very beginning.
These new soldiers were, before yesterday, all regular people. No, they were victims who were murdered by the Sovereigns.
Hundreds of soldiers, created from the regular people dying unjustly, as well as Hunters who tried to save them, now stood before their new master. He broke his own rule of never using innocent souls as his Shadow Soldiers.
And that was why Jin-Woo wanted to ask for their cooperation in this place.
‘Until this war is over, lend me your strengths, everyone.’
To protect their families, their lovers, their friends and their homes from those b*stards.
‘I promise to return you to the eternal rest once the battle is over.’
Although they were the dead beings forced into expressing their absolute loyalty through the Shadow Sovereign’s ability, they still retained their individual egos.
Jin-Woo’s sincere heart and desire were transmitted to every single one of them. Their eyes under the helms, covered by the darkness of the dawn, contained flames of hatred and rage towards the monsters that made them this way.
They realised this crucial fact – that they were now given a chance to exact revenge on those creatures with their own hands. And the one that gifted them this opportunity was the Shadow Sovereign standing right before them.
‘We shall fight alongside our liege!
We shall never let those monsters rape and pillage our land and our families!’
Such desires were being engraved in them now.
The stronger the Shadow Sovereign became, the greater the enhancement to the abilities of the Shadow Soldiers. Unlike in the past when he was borrowing the powers of the Shadow Sovereign through the System, Jin-Woo now inherited it completely and thus, the Shadow Soldiers created by him could not be underestimated at all.
Jin-Woo made one more request to them.
‘Lend me your strength.’
Their Sovereign made a request, and the Shadow Soldiers immediately replied back. They raised their fists up high and from their open mouths, the death throe-like horrifying roars exploded out.
Wuuuaaaaahhhh-!!!
The roaring started from the front row, but gradually shifted to the rear like the receding tides, and eventually, the entirety of the summoned Shadow Soldiers were crying out towards the sky.
Aaaaah-!!!
Their resentment-laden screams seemed to shake the earth itself. With this, the Army of Death had finished getting ready.
Jin-Woo’s eyes as he scanned them, flickered in a cold, murderous glare.
Definitely.
He’d definitely make the Sovereigns pay.
The roars of the soldiers filled with hatred continued to echo out for a long, long time afterwards.
***
The day before the dungeon break from the super-massive Gate was to take place.
It had been two days since the System disappeared. Jin-Woo was getting acclimatised by the absence of Daily Quests now. Many things had become convenient for him ever since restrictions put in place by the System had gone away, but there was also a few things that made life rather difficult, as well.
One such difficulty was the ‘Store’.
Jin-Woo summoned out a bottle of healing potion originally stored in his ‘Inventory’ and stared at it as if to bore a hole through the darn thing.
‘……’
As it turned out, every item found in the Store had been created out of the Shadow Sovereign’s powers. It was basically magic, where one would create something with Mana.
So, the theory went that, since he had inherited the Shadow Sovereign’s powers, Jin-Woo should be able to create the same types of items as long as he willed it, but….
He quietly closed his eyes and began picturing the healing potion inside his head. When he did, he could pick up the movement of Mana.
‘Concentrate, concentrate….’
Unfortunately, Mana busily moving around failed to gather and coagulate before scattering away in the air. It was a failure.
Jin-Woo spat out a sigh and opened his eyes again. It seemed that the threshold of creating something out of magic was still out of reach for him, for now.
‘I guess I need to practice for a bit longer.’
It was then.
The smartphone resting on top of his desk began vibrating and issued the ‘du-du-du’ noise.
– “Seong Hunter-nim, it’s Woo Jin-Cheol speaking.”
“Hello. What can I do for you?”
Jin-Woo settled down on his bed and answered the call.
Woo Jin-Cheol must’ve been working day and night, thanks to the mass-scale incidents that kept happening one after another, because his voice came across as a bit hoarse on the phone.
– “Excuse me, Hunter-nim… If it’s not too much trouble, may I ask you to come to the Association today?”
The estimated time for the dungeon break was literally right around the corner. From the perspective of the Association, they would’ve liked to get some advice from Jin-Woo, arguably the core combat force of the upcoming raid.
Since Jin-Woo didn’t have anything on his schedule anyway, he agreed to it without hesitation.
“I shall see you there.”
Click.
He ended the call and got ready to leave, but then, Igrit abruptly addressed him.
[My liege.]
‘Mm?’
Jin-Woo was yet to get used to Igrit’s voice. Still, he paid attention to the black knight’s trademark heavy and courteous tone.
[There is something I’d like to speak to you about.]
***
Next day.
Every TV station around the world stopped with their regular programming to broadcast live the unfolding situation in Seoul.
Some stations chose to broadcast the situation as it unfolded in the regular news format, while some others invited experts in the field and asked for their opinions.
One of the largest broadcasters in the States, ‘Hunter Channel’ went with the latter route and had invited experts in.
The broadcast soon got underway; one of the experts spoke in clear reminiscence as they looked at the live footage of the Hunters completely filling up the Gate’s location.
“Do you know how long it has been since that many Hunters from various countries have gathered in one spot?”
The emcee smiled and replied.
“I’m not sure…. Since Guilds with different nationalities join forces together to go on raids often, I’m guessing that it must’ve been pretty recent.”
The expert shook his head.
“It’s been over eight years. Eight. And it’s now approaching the ninth year mark now.”
Eight years.
Everyone watching the broadcast heard those words and immediately recalled the gigantic monster that terrorised humanity back then. The emcee wasn’t an exception, either.
“You say eight years…. Are you saying that this spectacle would be the very first time since the ‘Kamish’ raid?”
“Yes, that’s correct. This would be the first time that Hunters from five different nations or more got together, post-Kamish raid.”
Back then, the greatest Hunters alive from every corner of the globe stepped up to aid the United States of America, only to be annihilated and out of hundreds of them participating, only five managed to survive. They then became the ‘Special Authority-rank’ Hunters.
To all those countries that had lost their top Hunters, that day’s losses were indeed incredibly difficult to bear.
“Ever since that day, every nation refrained from interfering in the problems of other nations.”
That would be an obvious result. No one alive would’ve wanted to see the Hunters from their own countries lose their lives for another country.
Sure, there had been infrequent occurrences of Guilds from different nations joining hands for their mutual benefits, but this many Hunters gathering together in such a huge scale to aid another country would be a very rare thing to see.
“In that case, Doctor, could you possibly be saying that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo from South Korea will bring together the world’s Hunters, torn apart by the entrance of the Dragon Kamish?”
“That is correct.”
Perhaps finding the long-winded explanation rather laborious, the expert took a deep breath first before continuing on afterwards.
“It all started with Hunter Seong Jin-Woo solving the calamity of Japan’s dungeon break.”
Before that happened, though, Japan stepped up to help out with the problem on Jeju Island, but as everyone knew, the result of that venture was a complete disaster.
If the story ended there, then that would only add weight to the opinion that one shouldn’t be interfering with the problems of other countries. However, everything was turned on its head after Jin-Woo stepped up to eliminate the Giants that had made their appearance in Japan.
Even though there was the historical baggage between the two countries, as well as the dastardly scheme Japan’s Association had cooked up, a Korean Hunter still willingly rolled up his sleeves to aid his neighbours, didn’t he?
“Most likely, all the gratitude and admiration the Japanese citizens feel towards him can’t be put into mere words.”
Japan was able to survive the crisis all thanks to Jin-Woo’s aid. With that, the unwritten rule of not interfering with another country’s matter, in order to protect their own Hunters, had been broken for the first time.
What he did was to instil the sense of confidence of ‘I can do this’ into the Hunters. And a few days ago….
“Everyone watching the scenes of Hunter Thomas Andre falling must’ve sensed it then.”
Which living Hunter would be able to stop those monsters?
“And Hunter Seong Jin-Woo showed them what the answer was.”
However, the next problem facing them seemingly featured an even higher difficulty. If Hunter Seong Jin-Woo fell, then who out there would be capable of stopping the calamity?
Although there was a thin smile on his face, the emcee couldn’t form an answer to that query. The expert answered for him, instead.
“There’s no one. Indeed, there is no one capable. In other words, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo is the final line. If he falls, then everything will end.”
At that moment, many countries thinking that the super-massive Gate floating in the skies above Seoul was South Korea’s problem only, quickly came to a realisation.
If the Koreans couldn’t stop that Gate, then next would be North Korea, then either China or Russia, and eventually, the rest of the world. Now, the super-massive Gate had become the common enemy of the entire world.
This was the result achieved by a lone Hunter from Asia.
The expert was about to explain that they needed to overcome this upcoming calamity first if that result was to proudly bear its fruit. However, at that moment…
“Ahh! Look, just now!”
The emcee had been listening attentively to what the expert was saying but he saw the urgent prompts from the director and jumped up from his seat.
The gazes of the experts quickly shifted over to the live feed, as well.
The live footage now displayed the super-massive Gate opening its maws wide.
“Oh, my god….”
Everyone present within the studio became utterly speechless from the imagery that easily surpassed their imaginations.
***
The air began trembling.
Tens of thousands of Hunters surrounding the spot just below the Gate held their breaths and waited. This was a memorable spectacle, this sight of countless Hunters waiting for one single moment to happen.
The close-quarter type Hunters quietly waited for their turns, while those capable of attacking at long distances got ready to fling out pre-emptive strikes at a moment’s notice.
Arrows laden with magical energy and various spells ready to be cast were aimed at the sky.
Taut tension filled up the atmosphere.
And then… Whenever the gazes of these Hunters stopped glaring at the Gate above and lowered to the ground, they would all look at one place without fail. That would be Jin-Woo’s back.
Standing at the furthest front, Jin-Woo was glaring up at the sky with a sombre expression.
With every passing second, the dungeon break was approaching closer and closer. He could sense their aura now.
Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump.
The Black Heart, replacing his destroyed human heart, powerfully pulsed within his chest to let him know of the current situation.
Of course, the hearts of other Hunters were pounding away restlessly, as well. It was all because of the nervousness seemingly oppressing everything.
However, the emotion Jin-Woo was feeling at the moment was quite different from theirs. He was doing his best not to lose his composure and waited for the approaching final hour.
Hae-In, standing next to him, saw his expression and whispered to him.
“I think it’s my first time seeing you so tense like this, Mister Jin-Woo.”
“Really?”
Jin-Woo smirked to let her know that it was nothing. Hae-In also formed a light smile as a reply and looked back at the Gate while unsheathing her blade. She too had sensed that the beginning of the life-or-death battle was here.
‘Soon….’
However, she was mistaken about something.
Jin-Woo placed his hand on his chest and silently closed his eyes. He felt the pounding of his heart. The emotion welling up in his chest was neither nervousness nor terror. No, it was excitement.
“T-they are coming!”
“The Gate’s been opened!!”
Finally, the Gate began opening up.
The wall separating this world and the Gate disappeared and certain ‘things’ staying within finally began pouring out in endless droves. These creatures completely blotted out the sky in no time at all.
The Hunters below became completely dumbfounded by the number of descending creatures that seemed to be at least over one hundred thousand.
“But, how… how can that many monsters… at the same time?!”
“There, there are just too many!!!”
Gasps and screams thick with despair exploded out from here and there.
All those ‘certain things’ must’ve been under the influence of gravity-reduction magic, because they all landed on the ground very slowly.
“Attack! Hurry, attack!”
“Everyone, attack!”
Before those things land on the ground, they should try to reduce their numbers, at least by a little bit. Hunters sensed that their opportunity was here and began making their moves.
Magic spells ready to cast gleamed brightly from their hands and bowstrings aimed at the sky were all pulled taut. Tankers raised their shields up right near their chins to get ready for close-quarters combat with those descending things.
But then, before the concentrated firepower from the Hunters could pour out, Jin-Woo loudly yelled out.
[Nobody move!]
Jin-Woo’s will, carried by Mana, was clearly transmitted to even those Hunters who didn’t know any Korean. And it made everyone stop what they were doing.
‘But, why?’
‘Why did he stop us from attacking?’
Even though tens of thousands of Hunters were staring at him with eyes that screamed, ‘I don’t understand’, Jin-Woo simply repeated what he said.
[Everyone, don’t move.]
Woo Jin-Cheol watching from the distance hurriedly wiped the sweat off his forehead.
If they don’t attack now, then those creatures would land safely on the ground. When the battle breaks out in that situation, the Hunters out in front could get sucked into the attacks fired from the back.
Meaning, incidents of them worrying about the friendly fire would happen when they were already in a numerical disadvantage.
One of the subordinate Hunters working for the Association quickly approached Woo Jin-Cheol and looked at his boss with a worried expression.
“Association President….”
It was now time to make his decision. His head screamed at him to send out the word to start attacking, but in the end, Woo Jin-Cheol decided to trust Jin-Woo.
“Everyone, do not fire!”
“Do not fire!!”
Woo Jin-Cheol was put in charge of commanding the Hunters. So, rather understandably, they became quite dazed and lowered their hands when he began telling them not to attack.
‘Just what are they thinking now?’
‘They want to engage those things on the ground instead of hitting them first with ranged attacks? Against that many monsters???’
As confusion and terror began whipping up around the battlefield….
Eventually, those creatures landed on the ground.
The number of black monsters completely filling up the sights of the Hunters were so great that one’s mind would grow faint just from the sheer scale.
From the gathered swarm of monsters, one particular being began walking out towards them. Jin-Woo, too, stepped forward.
Just what was going to happen from here onwards?
Hunters couldn’t even breathe properly and closely watched Jin-Woo.
‘……’
‘……’
Jin-Woo stopped walking, and the ‘monster’ also stopped walking as well.
And then….
The ‘monster’ looking at Jin-Woo suddenly knelt down on the ground. And at that moment, the soldiers behind it also knelt down at the same time.
Chut.
The spectacle of a hundred thousand-plus soldiers bowing their heads at the same time carried an incredible, overwhelming shock value.
After a short bout of silence passed, the ‘monster’ kneeling right out in front raised its head and spoke.
[Grand-Marshal Bellion, here to humbly greet the Sovereign with his Shadow Army.]
Chapter 227
Fifty thousand or so Hunters from all corners of the globe, here to defend against the super-massive Gate, watched dazedly as the black monsters began kneeling before Jin-Woo.
“Jesus…..”
This sea of soldiers wrapped in black armour or black smoke seemed to go on forever. Every single one of these creatures possessed an incredible amount of magical energy, but there was something else that made the gathered Hunters doubt their own eyes even more.
“T-that, that, that! Could that be?!”
“Right at the end there, you see what’s right at the end there, right?”
“…..Yeah, I can see it.”
Hunters pointed to the back of this army of black soldiers, their complexions paling greatly. More specifically, they were pointing to the three black Dragons at the back of the army who were obediently lowering their heads before their owner, as if they were house-trained pets or some such.
The gathered Hunters were now rendered completely speechless after discovering those Dragons being the part of the line-up of these black soldiers.
The Dragon that appeared for the first, and last, time in human history had been ‘Kamish’. That one creature alone managed to wipe out almost every single elite Hunter alive back then, and the whole world was in danger of being thrust into a horrifying conflagration of destruction.
Seriously now, would people begin calling that Dragon with a name carrying the meaning of ‘undying flames’ for no good reason?
And so – only one such creature was enough to threaten the very existence of the human race, yet there were three of them now. It couldn’t be helped that the Hunters gathered here to fight these things felt as if all of their energy was quickly abandoning them.
Just what would have happened if they decided to clash against this army? Hunters imagined the potential combat situation against these black monsters currently in bowing positions and felt goosebumps rapidly spread throughout their bodies next.
And at the same time, they grew really curious about the real identity of Hunter Seong Jin-Woo, standing before them as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Jin-Woo swept his gaze over the Grand-Marshal Bellion and the seemingly endless number of Shadow Soldiers kneeling behind their leader.
‘So, this is the real Shadow Army….’
What Igrit said was right.
His black knight asked for an audience and spoke to Jin-Woo in his usual dignified manner yesterday.
[My liege, the Shadow Army has concluded all of their preparations.]
Jin-Woo needed a bit of time to completely digest those words. That’s how surprising it was to him.
That was why he was in a dilemma.
He knew better than anyone here regarding the matters with the Sovereigns and the Rulers, as well as the truth behind the Gates. But the thing was, he himself wasn’t certain about the overall narrative, so there was no way he’d be able to convincingly explain what was happening here to everyone else.
No, it was an impossibly tall order to convince every one of these Hunters coming from all over the world to stop the Gate before it turned into the worst calamity in human history.
And also….
In the one-in-ten-thousand case, no, make that one in ten million chance that Igrit’s information was faulty, could he be able to handle the fallout from that?
That was why Jin-Woo decided to wait.
He decided not to make up his mind until he could confirm the truth with his own eyes first, and waited until the Gate opened up. And the result of that was now kneeling before his eyes.
Jin-Woo inwardly swallowed his saliva and scanned his soldiers. Although he was not responsible for raising these soldiers, he could still sense that every single one of them was connected to him.
It was a complicated network, connected like a spiderweb. And through this network, the level of sheer joy they felt at reuniting with their master was fully transmitted to him.
‘This is the inheritance the former Shadow Sovereign had given to me….’
These creatures were all swearing their loyalty to their new master. Just like how quickly their hearts were racing, Jin-Woo’s own chest was as well, now filled up with powerful emotions.
That’s right.
He took a brief look at the Dragons at the back before returning his gaze to the front of the army.
The Grand-Marshal Bellion.
This guy certainly possessed a suitable amount of dignity and strength, fitting for the title he carried. There was a trace of torn-off wings on the back of his armour, though.
‘Two pairs of wings….’
Jin-Woo recalled that regular silver-clad soldiers possessed a pair of wings, while the Rulers had six wings, and from that fact, he could roughly estimate the level of Bellion’s capability.
Jin-Woo focused his sensory perception and the light within his eyes gleamed brightly.
With that, he could take a gander at the truly humongous reserve of magical energy the Grand-Marshal chose to hide because of the presence of his liege.
‘As expected….’
Because he possessed this much power, he was indeed qualified to lead a Shadow Army that contained even Dragons.
Jin-Woo raised his head.
The Shadow Army. The king wishing to go to war had finally regained his soldiers.
Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump.
Jin-Woo took a long, hard look at his soldiers as his heart raced faster and faster. The thing was, those kneeling before him weren’t the only Shadow Army, now were they?
If these guys were the soldiers that belonged to the former Shadow Sovereign ‘Osborne’, then Jin-Woo too possessed his own loyal soldiers, as well.
‘Come out.’
Even more Shadow Soldiers materialised from behind Jin-Woo at his beckoning. Their numbers had already ballooned to near two thousand by now.
Beru, Igrit, Greed, No. 6, Fangs, Iron, Jima, Tank, etc., all filled up the space behind Jin-Woo. And then….
Chut.
….They too knelt down and lowered their heads, just like the Shadow Soldiers that came out from the massive Gate. Every single Shadow Soldier, surrounding him from both sides, swore their allegiances in silence.
Jin-Woo nodded his head.
Finally, the separated Shadow Army had become whole.
A powerful force capable of standing up against the enemies and their armies had been completed. Things seemed to be unfolding quite smoothly right now.
However, Jin-Woo could feel quite a few gazes flying in his direction, stabbing him rather painfully on his neck, and he just had to take a look behind him.
‘……..’
‘……..’
That’s where he discovered tens of thousands of Hunters standing there staring at him, along with hundreds of reporters risking their lives to record the historic battle that was supposed to take place here.
Understandably, all of them were sporting the same sort of expression that screamed, “Just what the hell is going on here??”
‘Okay, so now….’
As a sort of reply to their frozen-stiff expressions, Jin-Woo formed an awkward smile.
‘….How am I supposed to explain this?’
***
Quite obviously, the whole world was in an uproar.
Well, every single monster emerging from the super-massive Gate started kneeling before Hunter Seong Jin-Woo, and this shocking scene was broadcast live to the entire world, so the pandemonium breaking out was rather understandable.
Viewers were watching on with anxiety and dread as the Gate opened up, so it was quite hard for them to drag themselves out from the pit of heady mental shock, akin to someone smacking them unexpectedly in the back of their noggins.
Pretty much every single online community went into a heated frenzy over this matter.
– What the freak? Those black monsters just now, just what the f*ck happened? Is anyone capable of explaining this sh*t?
– Don’t tell me, all those monsters are Seong Jin-Woo’s summons????
└ Horsesh*t…. I heard from somewhere that well over a hundred thousand monsters came out from that Gate.
└ What the hell. How can summons pop out from a Gate? You should start spewing things that make sense.
└ Oh? Why don’t you, good sir, enlighten us, the ignorant masses, then?
└ First of all, they all look exactly like Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s summons, don’t they? But still, how can summons come out of a Gate?
Many displayed the reactions of disbelief, but there were also a few who viewed the incident in a different light.
– Still, isn’t it a relief that those monsters weren’t our enemies?
└ For real. ㅇㅈ.
└ If they were, we’d all be dead by now. I saw an interview and they say there were three Dragons in the horde, too.
└ Three Dragons LOLOLOL So f*cking crazy. LOLOL
└ Kamish comes out, sees them, he be like, “Nope”, goes away ROFL
└ What are you even talking about? Kamish died almost nine years ago, so how can that thing come out and goes away again?
└ The commenter above mine, whoooosh. You must be a delight in dinner parties.
– Argh, this sh*t is driving me nuts. Seriously, man…. I wish Hunter Seong Jin-Woo just comes out clean and tells us what happened….
Meanwhile, TV stations continued to repeatedly broadcast the same shocking scenes from back then, and did their best to analyse and come to a suitable conjecture.
Unfortunately, there were no experts on this planet capable of convincingly explaining away the event of summoned creatures, not monsters, that belonged to a single person and even contained Dragons, coming out from a Gate boasting an unprecedented size.
“Huh-uh….”
“As to figure out how something like that can happen, even I….”
“Mhmm…”
Every single one of them was at a loss and could only shake their heads. They even spat out astonished gasps at the recorded footage of a hundred thousand-plus summoned creatures kneeling before Jin-Woo played over and over again.
Anyone could tell that was the sight of those creatures acknowledging who their master was. Some quarters in the world even raised the idea of calling Jin-Woo with a nickname of ‘Demon King’ because of that memorable scene alone.
Indeed, Jin-Woo was emitting the kind of manly aura befitting the title of ‘Demon King’ as he was being surrounded by all those black soldiers.
Soon, experts collectively defined this incident as….
….A miracle.
“Although this event unfolded in a shocking and unexpected manner, there is little doubt the end result is a fortunate one for all of us.”
“It’s fortunate, you say?”
“Can you see how many monsters, no, summons there are on screen right now?”
The expert pointed towards the Shadow Army displayed on the screen. Beyond Jin-Woo standing before them, one could see a nearly-infinite number of soldiers busy bowing their heads.
The emcee didn’t think too deeply about it as he began counting with his eyes before dry saliva automatically slid down his throat from that outrageous number on display.
One didn’t even need to bring up the fact that there were three Dragons included in this army. That was how horrifying the overall number was.
“If our Hunters were to fight those things, then it would no longer have been the issue of whether we’d win or lose. No, the remainder of humanity would have been counting the hours until those creatures get to the other side of the planet and completely exterminate us, instead.”
The emcee’s head nodded all by itself.
“Fortunately, they are summoned creatures of Hunter Seong Jin-Woo. And it seems that he can control them just fine.”
Regrettably, though – that remained a conjecture at this stage.
“Only Hunter Seong Jin-Woo knows the truth.”
That was where the expert ended his explanation. With rather excellent timing, the screen now displayed the very last scene from that event, the one responsible for causing everyone to be so astonished like this.
“Right here, this moment.”
Jin-Woo was taking a sweeping look at the other Hunters before he literally slid into his own shadow and disappeared without a trace.
That’s how he vanished from everyone’s sight.
The emcee helplessly shook his head before adjusting his glasses and continued on.
“The protagonist of this chaos, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo – just where could he be right now?”
The Korean Hunter’s Association was inundated with telephone inquiries, lodged seemingly by the entire world. Their only reply so far had been, “We don’t know, either.”
That, though, was like adding fuel to the already burning flames of interest for the event the world had laser-focused onto. The emcee stared straight into the camera with a still-excited face and addressed the viewers at home.
“We can only pray that he returns as soon as possible to clarify all the questions that continue to burn a hole in our heads.”
***
Jin-Woo put aside the curiosity of many, many people for the time being and made his way to the sea of trees in Japan. This vast expense of abandoned land was just about the perfect place to observe the movements of the entire Shadow Army.
Jin-Woo stood at a far distance, while the 130,000 plus army was split in two and stood on either side of a vast field.
‘Start.’
He issued his order inwardly, prompting the two columns of armies to powerfully rush towards each other.
Dududududududu-!!
The sounds of their feet pounding on the ground seemed to rock the earth. The distance between the two columns of rushing soldiers closed up in an instant, and just before they were about to clash head-on….
….Jin-Woo shifted the platoons that fell behind in the rush right behind the other column and had them surround the opponents in this mock battle.
Was that all?
In a location where there was a shortage of soldiers, he sent reinforcements. When some soldiers were left isolated, he simply unsummoned them and brought them back out in an adequate-enough location. The smoothness of his actions was like a river flowing to the ocean.
Deployment and manipulation of soldiers based on the experiences of battles he fought so far also applied to this hundred thousand-strong great army, as well.
“That’s enough.”
Jin-Woo spoke in a soft voice but that was still enough for the Shadow Soldiers to hear his will. They all came to a standstill in an instant.
Chack!
Their movements were in perfect synchronisation. After stopping this mock battle, Jin-Woo took a look to his side.
“So, what do you think?”
The Grand-Marshal Bellion spoke in an amazed, admiring tone of voice.
“I’ve never thought about mobilising the forces in this manner. I can only express the emotions of awe and shock, my liege.”
It seemed that, to Bellion, controlling the combatants in this manner was a fresh concept to mull over, even though he had roamed countless battlefields with the former Shadow Sovereign.
Especially the part about utilising the aspect of freely summoning and un-summoning Shadow Soldiers – that part left him with quite a pleasant surprise.
Igrit had been with Jin-Woo since the beginning and was perhaps the most familiar with how their master fought, so he proudly opened up his chest just a little bit wider.
Jin-Woo smirked softly while watching the black knight and his growing nose for a bit. He had to stop and pick up his phone, though, when the device suddenly went off noisily inside his pocket.
Vuwooo… Vuwoooo….
– “Hyung-nim, it’s me, Jin-Ho.”
“Hey. What’s up.”
According to Yu Jin-Ho, calls inundated not just the Association but the Ah-Jin Guild as well after Jin-Woo went and disappeared on everyone without saying a word, leading to the phone lines temporarily breaking down.
“….My bad. Can you hold on for a bit longer until I properly organise my thoughts first?”
– “Don’t worry about it, hyung-nim. Didn’t we establish this Guild so that you can focus on doing raids without being harassed by stuff like these?”
After hearing Yu Jin-Ho’s smiling voice coming out of the phone, Jin-Woo also formed a smile.
– “Ah, by the way. Have you called your family yet, hyung-nim?”
“Yeah. I told them I’ll be home after cooling my head a little bit.”
– “Well, in that case, they should be less worried about you. That’s a relief, hyung-nim.”
Jin-Woo pocketed the phone after ending the call, but a heavy, lengthy sigh slowly escaped from his mouth as he did so.
He knew that he shouldn’t be avoiding ‘it’ like this. However, in order to explain the Gates and his Shadow Soldiers, then naturally, he had to speak about the matters of the Sovereigns and Rulers, as well.
Soon, soldiers of the Sovereigns would pour out from the eight remaining Gates. How was he to go about telling others that the entire world would be turned into a fierce, bloody battlefield?
In order to give himself some time to think, he simply had to get away from there.
He thought that this was for the best.
Just a little bit longer.
He wanted humanity to enjoy peace even for a little bit longer.
‘I’m sure I can delay this for a few more days.’
Jin-Woo kept telling himself this; meanwhile, Beru sneaked closer to him and spoke in a serious voice. He had been rather quiet for some reason lately, though?
“Oh, my king….”
“Mm?”
Jin-Woo turned around to look at Beru kneeling on the ground, his head lowered deeply towards the ground as he opened his mouth.
“I beg of thee to bestow unto me an opportunity to compete for the position of the Grand-Marshal.”
“The position of the Grand-Marshal, you say?”
But, didn’t they already have a Grand-Marshal?
Jin-Woo felt puzzled by this, before abruptly recalling the System’s information on the highest grade of Shadow Soldiers available.
‘In that case, could he be….?’
Sure enough – Beru raised his head.
“As a Marshal of the army, I’d like to challenge the Grand-Marshal Bellion.”
Chapter 228
When the System was still around, it did mention something about what Beru was talking about. There could be only one occupying the position of the general of the army.
So, Soldiers that recently reached the Marshal grade must establish a hierarchy with the one before it – didn’t the System say something like that?
If he were to assume the general of the army was the Grand-Marshal, then indeed, Beru, as the recently-promoted Marshal, possessed the qualification to challenge Bellion.
Perhaps befitting an ant-type monster familiar with living in a large community, Beru wanted to establish the proper pecking order between the Marshals, it seemed.
‘Marshals going at it, huh…?’
Just to make sure, Jin-Woo shifted his gaze over to his other Marshal, Igrit, but the black knight politely declined the proposition. It seemed that he wasn’t interested in establishing the hierarchy between the Marshals at all.
Unsurprisingly, once the black knight quietly took a step back, the other guy to catch Jin-Woo’s attention was Bellion standing next to him.
The current leader in charge of the army 130,000-strong was Bellion right now. Only Jin-Woo was above him in terms of hierarchy, as the master of the army itself.
After meeting his liege’s gaze, Bellion bowed his head slightly.
Since he was in the presence of his master, he had lowered his posture as much as possible, but still, he was a good head taller than Thomas Andre. This giant calmly answered his boss’s querying eyes.
“I shall follow your will.”
Follow his will, he said.
Jin-Woo formed a slight smirk at Bellion’s answer.
His voice was, of course, very humble. However, it wasn’t all that difficult to read the underlying message that he’d face the challenger head on, as long his master gives the permission.
Jin-Woo sneaked a glance behind him, and Beru standing there had already extended his claws while visibly burning with fighting spirit himself. He must’ve also read the message, too.
“Kiieeehk!”
While Bellion was doing his best to mask his magic energy as much as possible, Beru was the opposite and didn’t hold back any of his horrible magic energy emission.
‘Hmm….’
Jin-Woo pondered for a moment or two before making up his mind.
“Alright.”
He knew pretty much everything there was to know about Beru, but Bellion was a different story. Knowing the extent of his combat prowess would prove to be an invaluable data in deploying the army correctly in the future.
It was also obvious that Jin-Woo’s heart would sway towards allowing the challenge to go through.
“However, I shall be the one judging when to end the bout.”
After receiving his master’s permission, Beru’s expression was now overflowing with ecstasy. Moved almost to tears, his eyes began sparkling brightly as he cried out.
“I am humbled and deeply honoured by your inscrutable…..”
“Stop it.”
“….I thank thee, my king.”
On one side, Beru celebrating his opportunity. On the other side, Bellion calmly getting ready for the upcoming challenge.
It was as if these two were the plucky challenger going up against the incumbent champion in a sports movie. But before these two could start duking it out for real, there was something Jin-Woo had to confirm first.
He summoned out a single ‘Kamish’s Wrath’ and loaded a bit of black aura on its tip. Then, he lightly swung it towards the forest.
Kwa-jajajajajajajak!!
The black ‘howl’ shooting out from the shortsword swept up a portion of the forest. However, the damage wasn’t as severe as he thought. Jin-Woo nodded and stored the weapon away.
‘With this much….’
It seemed that he didn’t need to worry about the surroundings getting destroyed unduly during the battle of the two Marshals. The ground had been hardened sufficiently enough by the condensed Mana and it would survive the upcoming warfare without a doubt.
‘…….’
Jin-Woo gazed at the earth with a somewhat lonely expression before raising his head. His eyes were already filled back up with anticipation as he looked at his two Marshals.
“Well, then….”
Both the Grand-Marshal and the newbie Marshal waiting for their master’s order nodded their heads simultaneously.
“We are ready, my liege.”
“Give us your order, oh my king!”
Jin-Woo chuckled and addressed the two.
“Get to your positions.”
***
Meanwhile, back in the Korean Hunter’s Association.
The activities taking place inside the Association’s emergency response conference hall were a lot more bustling than before, even though the so-called emergency situation had come to an end yesterday.
“The international media is still hounding us, demanding us to release an official statement already, sir!”
“The American Hunter Bureau is requesting us to release the information on Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim’s current whereabouts!”
“The Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disasters are asking us if it’s okay to bring back the evacuated citizens.”
“The Hunter Channel’s famous ‘The Jimmy Show’ wants to interview Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim….”
“Jimmy or whatever can kiss my a*s!! If he’s able to, tell him to find the guy and try his luck there!”
The number of calls flooding the Association was inconceivably high. It was a small miracle already that their phone lines hadn’t broken down yet.
As for the Association President Woo Jin-Cheol, even though he breathlessly issued one order after another, he also didn’t forget to spit out groans repeatedly as he stared at the stacks of official inquiry documents on his desk.
“Fuu-woo….”
The things he had to do was as tall as Mount Tai at this moment. No, hang on – if it was only as tall as that legendary mountain, that would have actually been preferable.
The thing was, Mount Tai had actually formed a long-a*s mountain range, and after overcoming one mountain, he’d be facing another one, and another one after that, and yet another one was waiting for him….
His work had piled up to the extent he couldn’t see the end now.
It was so serious that even he was feeling dizzy from the craziness of it all when he was supposed to be a rank A Hunter!
But then – Woo Jin-Cheol was busy shaking his head to get rid of this drowsiness, until he ended up hearing something spoken by a subordinate that simply could not be overlooked, no matter the circumstances.
“Just why did Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s summons have to come out from there….”
This employee’s words were tinged with a certain amount of dissatisfaction. Woo Jin-Cheol’s drowsiness was driven away in an instant. He immediately made this employee stand at attention before him.
“In that case, do you, Mister Seong-Won, think it would have been better if monsters came out from that super-massive Gate yesterday? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Pardon me, sir? Ah, no, that’s not….”
The subordinate couldn’t hide his fluster. Woo Jin-Cheol let his sharp scolding fly, regardless.
“If the phone calls you’ve been receiving until now weren’t about TV stations asking for interviews but relatives of the deceased Hunters asking for the news of their loved ones, do you really think you can continue working with just the thoughts of things being too hectic for you?”
The subordinate employee couldn’t even meet Woo Jin-Cheol’s glare.
Even if you were nominally an employee of the Hunter’s Association, as long as you hadn’t worked out in the field, you’d never really understand it.
They would never understand just what Hunters had to go through during emergency situations.
They would never understand just what kind of things unfolded and got buried inside dungeons, enshrouded in the darkness where no one could see you.
Going through all the potential scenarios that could’ve gone down during the raid of the super-massive Gate, what happened yesterday was easily the best result one could ever hope for.
Over one hundred thousand monsters popped out, but no one got injured. Nothing was destroyed. Not only that, all those monsters were absorbed into Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s fighting force.
Just who could’ve imagined it?
Indeed, no one could’ve dreamed such a result that far exceeded one’s expectations.
That was how Woo Jin-Cheol got to endure, with a smile on his face, all these mountains of work that probably required him to go through a few sleepless nights to finish.
But to think, there was an employee of the Hunter’s Association busy complaining about yesterday’s events just because his body became a bit fatigued.
How could he even dare to say something so nonsensical?
If Hunter Seong Jin-Woo was present nearby, Woo Jin-Cheol would’ve stepped up to slap some sense into this employee well before the young Hunter had a chance to get angry.
That was how deeply Woo Jin-Cheol understood what Jin-Woo was going through.
The Association President temporarily stopped his employees, and while taking a sweeping look at them, he began speaking with a loud voice.
“I know full well how flustered you all are after Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim suddenly vanished on us.”
However, there must’ve been a good reason why Hunter Seong Jin-Woo had to disappear on them like that, when he was a man possessing a strong sense of responsibility.
“In a way, the person most confused by yesterday’s event could very well be Seong Huner-nim.”
Didn’t someone say once that, with great power comes great responsibility?
Some line from a movie Woo Jin-Cheol watched a long time ago kept repeating itself in his head. However, that line helped him to imagine the weighty burden now pressing down on Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s shoulders.
‘I’ve been around Hunter-nim for a while now, but yesterday was the first time seeing him that tense.’
Indeed, Jin-Woo didn’t seem to know what was about to take place next.
It didn’t matter who, anyone in his shoes would’ve thought of quickly getting the heck out of there when the Gate one was ready to die defending against instead suddenly began spewing out his own summons. What’s more, they then began swearing their allegiance out of nowhere.
Who could be foolish enough to point the fingers of blame on him?
Right now, the Association’s job was to share the load until Hunter Seong Jin-Woo finished sorting out his confusion and returned to explain the current situation.
The Association had to perform the role of a sturdy, dependable shield for Hunters, regardless of the time or the circumstances.
“If we at the Hunter’s Association can’t even understand what Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim is going through, just who else will??”
The employees listening to the passionate speech from their President forgot all about their fatigue, the corners of their eyes moistening quickly.
As for the employee complaining like a little kid because summoned creatures came out from the Gate, he lowered his head to Woo Jin-Cheol and apologised as his own nose reddened considerably.
“I’m sorry, sir. I was being thoughtless. I am truly sorry.”
Woo Jin-Cheol wordlessly patted this guy on the shoulder and had him return to his post before sitting back down.
“Fuu-woo….”
He only shouted for a little while, yet there were at least twice as many documents as before piled up on his desk now.
‘……’
He shifted his gaze away from the stacks of paper, his mind still worried about Jin-Woo who’d no doubt be stuck in all sorts of dilemmas even now.
‘I wonder, what is Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim doing now?’
***
With a bright face, Jin-Woo got to a distance quite far from the two Marshals.
Igrit came to stand next to him.
Other Shadow Soldiers also spread out into a giant circle and created enough room for the two Marshals to move about unrestricted. Standing on the opposite end of that circle to his opponent, Beru extended his claws until they couldn’t be extended anymore and screeched out loudly.
“Kiiiiiieeeeehk-!!”
Meanwhile, Bellion wordlessly unsheathed the sword mounted on his hips. So far, he seemed to be a type of swordsman similar to Igrit, but then…
‘Mm…?’
Jin-Woo’s gaze was fixed to Bellion’s sword now. The blade looked rather uniquely-shaped.
‘Hang on, can I even call that a blade?’
As a matter of fact, the blade resembled the body of a centipede in that it was made up of dozens of connected sections.
As if they were done with their preparations, both of them looked at Jin-Woo simultaneously.
“Begin!”
The moment the signal was given, Beru dashed forward immediately.
“Kiiiieeehk-!!”
He closed the distance with a stupendous turn of speed and powerfully swung his claws; Bellion proceeded to block and let the attack slide past him, and then, as Beru’s momentum took him further away, the current Grand-Marshal spun around to face the distancing ant soldier.
It was then.
‘……!!’
Jin-Woo’s eyes widened.
Bellion pointed with his sword and it suddenly stretched out like a long snake to fly towards Beru.
Shushushushushu-!!
Beru urgently spun around and reflexively slapped the blade away.
CLANG!!
That was just the beginning.
Bellion used his sword like a whip and rained down a barrage of incredulous attacks at his target. The flexible body of the blade, carrying an enormous amount of Mana, danced and writhed according to its wielder’s desire to pummel the ground and air surrounding Beru.
BOOM!! BANG!! BOOM! BANG!!
On the other hand, all Beru could do right now was to concentrate all his being to barely defend against the attacks.
“Kiiiieeehk!”
While watching Bellion’s attacks that had clearly surpassed the limitation imposed by the sword-type weapon, Jin-Woo imagined what would happen if it was him facing that barrage.
When he did, everything seemed to slow down to a crawl. Even then, even within this slowed-down time, Bellion’s sword remained dangerously fast.
Jin-Woo’s expression became even more serious.
His eyes, now emitting cold glare, followed and caught each and every slap and swish of the unpredictable sword dance. Upper left, right side, upper left again, then lower left, and to upper right….
….The him of his imagination evaded all the attacks and was standing before Bellion.
And then, he cut the soldier down. In Jin-Woo’s imagination, Bellion’s neck rolled to the ground. It only took a blink to get to that point.
Bellion momentarily sensed this chill-inducing feeling of his neck being cut off and flinched grandly as he took a look in Jin-Woo’s direction.
‘Oops…’
He ended up being a bit carried away after discovering a rather interesting weapon; meeting Bellion’s rather panicky gaze, Jin-Woo replied with an apologetic expression. But that only lasted for a moment.
Beru didn’t miss this opening and viciously slapped the irritatingly-tenacious blade away, before dashing towards Bellion like a bolt of lightning.
“Kiiieeeehcck!!”
STAB-!
Unfortunately – against Jin-Woo’s own expectation, the one to stab his weapon in the midriff of his opponent was Bellion.
What an unexpectedly fast motor reflex!
On top of that, a scary power capable of destroying everything with each attack. This was Bellion, the soldier who wasn’t left wanting for anything as the Grand-Marshal of the Shadow Army.
‘….Still, one should never let one’s guard down.’
It was a wee bit uncool to talk about one of his soldiers in this manner, but well, the truth was, the biggest plus point of an insect was its tenacious vitality.
Sure enough, Beru suddenly expanded its body size even with a sword stuck to his belly. He swung his humongous fist down on the head of his opponent.
KWA-BOOM!!
The power behind that punch was so great that a part of Bellion’s helm broke off and scattered black smoke in the air.
“Kiiieeehk!”
Almost right away, Beru followed up with his second attack. No, he tried to.
Beru’s wrist was caught by Bellion’s powerful grip just in time. The ant soldier tried to use his physical strength to yank his arm out, but too bad, the Grand-Marshal didn’t even budge an inch.
In the meantime, Bellion cocked his free arm backwards. An enormous amount of Mana quickly gathered in that cocked arm.
A moment later.
BOOM-!!!
Beru’s chest was punched powerfully and he flew backwards in a straight line. The shockwave generated at the same time from his flying figure swept up the forest surrounding him, and the trees were yanked out of the ground from their roots and all, before being flung away to the sides.
A long and straight path suddenly got carved out within the sea of trees.
“Kiiiieeehck!”
Beru hurriedly unfurled his wings to stop his body from being flung away endlessly. Unfortunately, just as he somehow managed to steady himself, Bellion had already arrived right before his face.
That was followed by a powerful slam towards the ground!
KWA-BOOM!!
Like a meteor crashing into earth, a huge crater caved in on the ground and Bellion lightly landed inside.
In the middle of this crater, Beru was hurriedly getting up to respond to his opponent. Now normally, any ol’ regular enemy would have been torn to bits and shreds by now, but he had managed to withstand several of these attacks already.
Swiiiiish-!
Bellion used the back of his hand to slap away Beru’s claws and just like that, smacked the ant soldier right on top of his head.
BOOM!!
That was the beginning of a dogfight.
Boom! Bang! Boom! Boooom!!
Beru’s attacks were only on the level of briefly disrupting Bellion’s balance, but…
BOOM-!!
….Bellion’s attacks each carried fatal power behind them.
Craaaack, crack!!
Cracks formed on Beru’s exoskeleton as if they were about to shatter at any given moment.
“Kiiieehk!”
Even then, Beru desperately resisted until the end, not showing any hints of giving up on this fight. He tried to chomp down on Bellion’s shoulder, but the latter simply pushed away the former before grasping Beru’s neck.
Kwa-jeeck!!
Now rendered immobile, Beru writhed his entire body to free himself, but Bellion remained unmoved. The latter simply concentrated Mana once more on his free arm so he could attack for the last time and end this fight.
A horrifying amount of Mana, more than enough to easily shatter the head of a Dragon in one hit, gathered around and distorted the space around his arm.
With this, it’d be the end.
Bellion’s cocked fist soon flew out towards Beru’s face.
But, Jin-Woo reached out and grasped the deadly fist before it did, since he didn’t want to see Beru’s head explode today.
Grab!
“That’s enough.”
Bellion realised that it was his liege stopping his fist and quickly withdrew his attack.
“My liege.”
The Grand-Marshal hurriedly knelt down and bowed his head.
‘….You did well.’
Jin-Woo praised Bellion with his eyes for not holding back anything and displaying his prowess like that. He then walked over to Beru collapsed on the ground.
“Kiieehhk, my king, I, I… kiieehk! I can still….”
“…..”
Jin-Woo studied the faltering, unsteady Beru with pitying eyes before asking him out of genuine curiosity.
“Hey, Beru. Why are you so dead-set on the position of the Grand-Marshal?”
“Kiiehk, I, only, I wish to, become the Grand-Marshal and always stand next to my liege…”
Beru couldn’t continue on due to his grief-stricken mind. Jin-Woo scratched the side of his head and offered up his reply.
“The Grand-Marshal can stand to my right, while you can stand to my left, right?”
“…!!!”
Only then did Beru realise that he could still stand next to his liege without being the Grand-Marshal, and his eyes opened up extra-round.
“….I am honoured by….”
“Stop it.”
Leaving behind Beru and his emotion-induced tears filling up his eyes, Jin-Woo stood back up and spat out a helpless sigh. But then…
Another Shadow Soldier silently approached him. It was none other than Igrit, who had been listening to the conversation between Jin-Woo and Beru without saying anything.
“My liege, may I be granted an opportunity to challenge….”
As Igrit cautiously asked, Jin-Woo quickly replied as if he was expecting this already.
“You can stand behind me.”
“….!”
Igrit couldn’t finish the rest of his sentence due to his liege’s keen insight.
***
“Is that so… In the end, the Shadow Sovereign has become our enemy.”
The Dragon Emperor, currently in a humanoid form, was receiving the reports from the Sovereigns that had already descended to Earth. Only their voices softly echoed within this eternal darkness.
“I see. Fine. I shall deal with him personally. None of you make a move. We must prevent any further losses.”
The Dragon Emperor had fully analysed the situation and ended the connection to the Sovereigns.
Soon, there was no more sound.
This world, the gap between dimensions where nothing existed, was quickly filled up by empty silence. To the Sovereigns, this place was no different from hell itself, as there was nothing here to destroy.
That was why…
That was why, the Sovereign of Destruction, born from the darkness with a singular purpose of destroying every single existence, did its hardest to escape from this place.
And finally, the day it’d taste the fruit of its labour was literally around the corner.
The Dragon Emperor turned around and issued its command towards the darkness behind it.
“My troops. Ready yourselves for war.”
When it did, dozens of Ancient-grade Dragons, hundreds of Dragons, and tens of thousands of Dragonewts hidden within the darkness shot out heated glares from their eyes and roared out in unison.
Waaaaaaahhhh-!!
Chapter 229
Late at night.
Jin-Woo climbed up a nameless hill and settled down on its summit. The bright moonlight illuminated the sea of trees below.
Under this pale light, he could see the Shadow Soldiers going about their business after he granted them free time to do whatever they wanted.
The first thing that caught his attention was Fangs who had already gigantified himself, and the three Dragons.
Dragons, carrying serious expressions, conversed in hushed tones with Fangs for a bit, before whispering something else amongst them. And then, the biggest Dragon stepped out of the group.
‘What are they trying to do now?’
He could see that every other Shadow Soldier in the vicinity of the four giants scatter away in panic and thought that the mood was getting a bit suspicious over there.
Soon, though, that big Dragon spat out a long pillar of flames into the sky.
Kuwaaaaaaaah-!!
Fangs smirked after checking out the thickness of the flames and took a step forward as well.
Kuuuuooooooh-!!!
An enormous pillar of flames exploded out from his mouth and rose up high to brightly illuminate the dark night sky. While the High Orcs were whistling and cheering on from the distance, the Dragon’s shoulders sagged visibly as he turned around to slink away.
It seemed that they decided to bet on who possessed the stronger flame attack.
However….
‘Isn’t it cheating to use the Bead of Avarice during such a bet?’
Perhaps knowing that he was in the wrong, Fangs was trying to sneak his Bead of Avarice back into his pocket. His gaze met Jin-Woo’s at the last second, though, and he began scratching the back of his head as a sheepish grin formed on his face.
Jin-Woo chuckled good-heartedly at Fangs’s thick skin and waved his hand about to signal that there was nothing to worry about.
Fangs grinned and bowed his head towards his liege several times.
What a peaceful sight this was.
Too bad, Jin-Woo wasn’t feeling as content as his outward facial expression implied.
‘…….’
He raised his head towards the sky. He could faintly sense the beings from another world getting ever closer to this planet.
He felt their ominous intentions.
He also sensed their strengths.
Jin-Woo’s perception, now pushed to unfathomable heights, buzzed and stung from the stimulation received – even if it was only on the level of perceiving blurry, indistinct things beyond the thick veil of fog right now.
‘It’s unknown just when their approach will become distinct enough for me to see.’
The fact that the battle against them couldn’t be avoided weighed heavily on his mind. Jin-Woo fell into deep thought before raising his head again.
Something kept tugging at his mind so he took a closer look, only to find his ant soldiers busy carrying stuff like lumber or stones around.
‘….And what are they trying to do now?’
Before he could summon Beru here to ask for clarity, a voice came from behind first.
“It seems that they wish to construct a small-scale lodging that my liege can use to rest more comfortably.”
This voice, too smooth for a dude with such a huge physique, belonged to the Grand-Marshal Bellion. Jin-Woo didn’t look back and simply nodded his head.
“I guess it was Beru’s idea.”
The only Marshal in the Shadow Army capable of passionately doing something that no one asked him to was Beru. On the other hand, Igrit did everything asked of him perfectly. As for Bellion….
‘….I wonder.’
Jin-Woo knew practically next to nothing about Bellion. The sole bond tying him to Jin-Woo was the former Shadow Sovereign.
Naturally, he was inclined to learn more about his new Grand-Marshal in depth. Perhaps his thoughts had been transmitted, because Bellion wordlessly approached his master and stood behind him.
“My liege. May I inquire as to why you haven’t recalled the soldiers back into your shadow?”
Jin-Woo replied, his eyes still surveying the soldiers.
“I figured that they might be feeling too caged up. I mean, you guys had been stuck inside the place called the gap between dimensions for a long time before arriving here, right?”
“…..”
Bellion didn’t say anything for a while as if that answer was a bit beyond his expectations. So, Jin-Woo spoke to him first, instead.
“Aren’t you saddened by the fact that you won’t be able to meet the former Shadow Sovereign…. Osborne, again?”
Jin-Woo was painfully reminded of what it felt like to lose someone precious to you only a few days ago while watching his father disappear.
Bellion’s emotions should be similar to that. It wasn’t difficult for Jin-Woo to understand the sense of loss the loyal Grand-Marshal must’ve been feeling.
“I’ve been protecting the former liege’s side from the moment he decided to stop the Rulers rebelling against the Absolute Being. And after he acquired the power to rule over death, I was the very first one to volunteer to become his loyal soldier.”
Bellion explained himself in a calm manner, his voice unwavering.
“I have spent almost an eternity acting as his support, but not even once have I ever questioned his decisions.”
“That’s not what I was asking you about.”
Jin-Woo pointed out accurately to his soldier that he was asking about something else. Bellion took a bit of time to ponder his answer before revealing how he felt with a bit of hesitation.
“I haven’t yet given any thoughts on how I feel, my liege.”
“That’s why I’m giving you this chance. Come on. Take your time and think about it.”
“…”
What ensued was a lengthy, weighty silence.
From this silent answer, Jin-Woo could sense Bellion’s true feelings. Although no words had been spoken, he heard enough to know already. Only then did he look behind at Bellion.
“I wish to know more about Osborne from your perspective. Would you like to tell me?”
“But, my liege. It might be a very long story.”
“That’s perfect. I was actually in need of a long story to kill some time until I felt sleepy, you see.”
Jin-Woo returned his gaze to his front, and Bellion quietly settled down next to his Sovereign.
“This event happened back when I was still a fruit of the World Tree.”
“A fruit?? You were… a fruit?!”
“Every single soldier of the heavens is born as a fruit on the branches of the World Tree. It is a truly gigantic tree large enough to blanket the entire sky with its branches alone.”
“Huh-uh…..”
As Jin-Woo focused on the story with an incomparably grand opening, the night continued to wear on.
***
Just before sunrise.
Before the darkness had the chance to completely lift up, Jin-Woo was leisurely jogging within the forest. He had developed the habit of running for ten kilometres every morning since from a long time ago.
He knew very well that there was no more Daily Quest available to him, yet his body moved on its own volition regardless.
While drinking in the crisp, cool air of the forest draped in the dawn’s light, Jin-Woo finally finished sorting out his thoughts.
‘….I should go back.’
He should inform the world on the existences of the eight massive armies that might arrive on this planet at any time now. He needed to tell them that the real war was just around the corner.
Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to guarantee the safety of everyone. He also couldn’t promise whether the world would be able to retain its former appearance or not, either.
That was how stupendously powerful the Dragon Emperor was, as seen from the memories of the former Shadow Sovereign.
The Dragon Emperor and the Army of Destruction led by that guy reduced just about everything before them to piles of ashes. And such creatures set their sights on Earth as their next target to destroy.
That was why, not only him, but the entire world needed to prepare themselves.
The System didn’t need to inform him but he still stopped his running precisely on the tenth-kilometre mark. This was yet another habit ingrained in his flesh after doing the Daily Quest almost every single day.
The truth was, though, habits weren’t the only things ingrained in his body now. He learned so much about fighting, and also, inherited incredible power to boot.
The final gift left behind by the Shadow Sovereign, who yearned to return to the eternal rest, had now transformed into ‘opportunity’.
Jin-Woo turned towards the direction where the rising sun’s rays were pointing at. From the ridge of a distant mountain, the morning sun was greeting yet another day.
***
Jin-Woo was now able to use Shadow Exchange freely. The first place he headed to was inside the building where the Ah-Jin Guild was located.
He chose not to enter the offices straight away, in consideration of his employees’ hearts tumbling down to their pits in shock, but thanks to his actions, he ended up running into an unfamiliar woman stepping outside the office’s entrance, instead.
Although she was unfamiliar to him, it was as if he had seen her somewhere before, too. She must’ve felt the same, because, just as they were about to brush past each other, she abruptly turned around and engaged Jin-Woo in a chat.
“Uhm, excuse me. By any chance….”
“…?”
He wordlessly stared at her. She flinched for some reason and while saying “Never mind” she hurriedly escaped out of his view.
‘Well, she was a bit anti-climatic, wasn’t she?’
Jin-Woo entered the Ah-Jin Guild offices next.
“Uh?”
“Eh???”
Every single employee froze stiff with their eyes wide open as if they had just seen something they shouldn’t have.
‘Should I have said good morning while walking in or something?’
With things being like this, there was no point in him entering from the outside of the offices, now was there?
Even before someone had the chance to scold these wayward employees for making such faces when their boss had stepped into the office….
….Yu Jin-Ho finally discovered Jin-Woo and rushed towards him with a bright expression.
“Hyung-niiiim!!”
Before sharing that welcoming greeting, though, Jin-Woo decided to solve his curiosity first.
“Who was that lady walking out of the office just now?”
He was about to add “She seemed way too familiar”, but then, Yu Jin-Ho’s reply easily solved the mystery and there was no need to say anything else.
“Ah, her? She’s my older sister, hyung-nim. I’ve been avoiding answering my family’s phone calls, and she barged in here as a result. By the way, did she inconvenience you or some such….??”
“No, nothing like that.”
That was why she came across so familiar – she was Yu Jin-Ho’s sibling. Jin-Woo glanced back at the office’s exit and nodded his head before asking again.
“What brought her here, though?”
“Oh, that….”
Yu Jin-Ho hesitated for a bit before speaking up while cautiously studying Jin-Woo’s reactions.
“Remember, hyung-nim? I was standing next to you just before the super-massive Gate opened up.”
“Yeah, you were.”
“Looks like that scene was caught on camera, hyung-nim.”
Jin-Woo roughly figured out what happened next in his head.
“My family wants me to hand in my Hunter licence and quit doing dangerous stuff since I’ve become the Vice-Chair of the Ah-Jin Guild.”
As he thought. Since the Guild’s Master, Seong Jin-Woo, was already a Hunter, there was no strict need for its Vice-Master Yu Jin-Ho to stay as a Hunter, as well.
There was a point to what the boy’s family said out of a genuine concern for his welfare. However, Jin-Woo already knew what was on Yu Jin-Ho’s mind, so he didn’t even try to convince the kid.
‘I’m sure he’d say something similar to him wanting to remain as a Hunter and stand next to me.’
Sure, Jin-Woo was responsible for sorting out most of their troubles, but still, they had gone through many life-or-death struggles together and that made Yu Jin-Ho come across as quite praiseworthy in Jin-Woo’s eyes. He reached out and quickly ruffled up the boy’s hair.
“H-hyung-nim?”
Jin-Woo left behind the flustered Yu Jin-Ho and headed into his office so he could change out of the clothes he’d been wearing for the past few days.
“Hey, I’m gonna use the company car for a bit.”
“Oh? Should I drive for you, hyung-nim?”
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll be quick.”
“Where are you headed off to, hyung-nim?”
“The Hunter’s Association.”
Yu Jin-Ho urgently tried to stop Jin-Woo as the latter took the keys, but…
“Huh? Hyung-nim, there are reporters camping outside….”
‘….So it might get really annoying’ – that’s what he wanted to say, but Jin-Woo had already escaped out of the office by then.
And sure enough, reporters sacrificing their sleep and food for that one chance at a scoop were camping outside the building and waiting for Jin-Woo to show up, their faces looking wane and gaunt like a crowd of zombies.
Just as their wait had been long, their reaction after discovering him was unbelievably explosive as well.
“Hunter Seong!! It’s Hunter Seong!!”
“Hunter Seong Jin-Woo has shown up!”
“Is the camera on??”
However, they couldn’t continue yapping for long.
“Uh, uh??”
“Eh, ehhh??”
They all looked down at themselves with expressions of someone not understanding what was happening to them, before shifting their gazes this way and that.
Only then did they realise what was going on. They realised that, not just themselves, but everyone nearby was floating up in the air about ten centimetres off the ground.
“B-but, what the….?!”
Fortunately, this sudden bout of suspicious flight didn’t last long.
“Heot!!”
The reporters were all settled back down on the ground at the same time. Too bad for them, Jin-Woo was long gone by then. They quickly exchanged flustered gazes with each other, before waves of helpless laughter broke out.
“Ha, hahah….”
“Well, I’ll be.”
A phenomenon that rendered them speechless; they now had one more thing to add to the article about Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.
***
Jin-Woo drove ‘Bonggo’ straight to the Hunter’s Association.
He had called Woo Jin-Cheol ahead of setting off, so he wasn’t surprised to see the Association President and the employees waiting for his arrival outside the building.
But, then…
‘….What’s going on here?’
The look on Woo Jin-Cheol’s face was rather suspicious. It was the same story for the employees next to him.
While Jin-Woo was climbing out of the van, Woo Jin-Cheol urgently walked over to him and asked with a trembling voice.
“Seong Hunter-nim…. By any chance, have you heard of the breaking news yet?”
Chapter 230
‘….This is so strange.’
Yu Jin-Ho’s older sister, Yu Jin-Hui, was returning home empty-handed due to her little brother’s stubbornness. As she was driving home, though, she suddenly pulled up to the side of the road and cautiously parked her car there.
Screech.
That man she ran into while exiting the Ah-Jin Guild offices…
‘….Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.’
There should be no one in South Korea who didn’t know what he looked like. So, even though she had never met him in person until now, it was easy to explain why it felt as if she did.
Someone who didn’t sweat over such things would have accepted that explanation and move on. However, she was the eldest daughter of Chairman Yu Myung-Hwan, a man famed for never forgetting a face after meeting a person only once. Although not as sharp as her father, she too didn’t forget a person’s face that easily.
The contour of Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s face, the one she briefly glimpsed while raising her head as they brushed past each other, came across as distinctly familiar.
‘Just when would that be….?’
She combed through her memories until her eyes inexplicably grew extra large.
‘Could it have been then?’
Back then, in front of the hospital.
There was that time near the entrance of a certain hospital where her father had been admitted to, when a man possessing the same facial contours brushed past her.
Why didn’t she recognise him back then?
Could it have been because her mind was in a mess after her father had collapsed earlier in the day?
‘Right, definitely.’
The man leaving the hospital that day simply had to be Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.
And a short while later, she received a phone call telling her that her father, diagnosed to never open his eyes again, had precisely done just that.
Was she even allowed to treat this as a mere coincidence?
Yu Jin-Hui’s entire body was suddenly overcome with a case of powerful goosebumps. She quickly pulled out her smartphone and began dialling her father’s number.
Beep, beep, beep…
But, before she could finish dialling his number, her fingers came to a stuttering halt.
‘What am I even trying to do here….?’
Just because she ran into Hunter Seong Jin-Woo in front of the hospital that day, she somehow ended up linking him to her father’s miraculous recovery.
What a grand delusion this was.
Yu Jin-Hui could only scold her logical reasoning that seemed to have taken a leave of absence for a moment there with a long, long sigh. She was about to start the car again, but then…
….With excellent timing, her phone went off.
[Secretary ahjussi.]
After confirming who it was, a smile floated up on Yu Jin-Hui’s lips. Without a doubt, her dad became curious about the result of her visit to the Ah-Jin Guild and asked the ahjussi to find out from her.
‘Back then or even now, Father just can’t be honest with the matters of his kids, can he?’
Yu Jin-Hui swallowed back her laughter and answered her phone.
“Hello?”
– “Hello, miss. It’s Secretary Kim.”
And so, the conversation proceeded exactly as she imagined it would. But then, just before it was about to end, Yu Jin-Hui thought it’d be a good idea and quickly asked Secretary Kim.
“Ah, ahjussi? By any chance, is dad a close acquaintance with Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim?”
– “I beg your pardon?”
Secretary Kim’s surprised voice came out from the phone’s speaker next.
– “May I inquire as to why you’re suddenly asking me that question, miss?”
At this unexpectedly intense response, Yu Jin-Hui panicked slightly and ended up replying while feeling a bit lost.
“It’s nothing in particular, but, I remember seeing Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim exiting from the hospital on that day, you see. I was wondering if he was also there to visit dad while he was admitted there.”
– “Are you saying that Seong Hunter-nim was in the hospital the day the Chairman collapsed, miss??”
“Y-yes. Just before I got the call to inform me that dad had woken up, we brushed past each other in front of the hospital.”
– “Are you sure about this, miss? Could it have been someone else, or maybe it was on a different day?”
“No, I’m pretty sure. I couldn’t remember who it was because I wasn’t thinking straight back then but now…. But, why do you sound so agitated like that, ahjussi?”
– “N-no, miss. It’s nothing to worry about. I shall give you a call again later on.”
He didn’t say the usual ‘goodbye, speak to you soon’, but ‘will call again later’?
‘Did I say something wrong?’
Yu Jin-Hui tilted her head in confusion. Before she could put her phone down, though, it rang noisily again. She confirmed who the caller was and her brows rose up just a little.
‘….Dad is personally calling me?’
Only after seeing the number for Chairman Yu Myung-Hwan on her phone’s screen did she realise that this matter couldn’t be simple at all.
Could it be that her father’s recovery and Hunter Seong Jin-Woo were related in some way, just as she imagined earlier?
She cautiously answered the call.
“Dad?”
***
Beijing International Airport.
The biggest and busiest airport in the whole of China was now bustling even more than ever before, all thanks to a huge throng of people present today.
There was only one reason for this. The best of the best Chinese Hunters that went to lend aid to the Koreans were coming back home today, that was why.
It would be the same story in other countries as well, but at least in China, the highly-ranked Hunters were treated as superstars famous enough to summon up a sea of adoring fans wherever they showed up.
And it went without saying that the leader of the support team, the Hunter ranked as Seven-Star, Liu Zhigeng’s popularity couldn’t be described with mere words alone.
One of the reporters doing her job surveying the atmosphere of the airport spotted Liu Zhigeng and raised her voice.
“Ah! There he is! Liu Zhigeng Hunter-nim has entered the airport’s interior!”
Waaaaah-!!
His fans filling up the airport cheered on loudly. While holding his now-trademark pair of longswords in one hand, he waved his other hand lightly towards his adoring fans.
Kyaaaah~!!
Liu Zhigeng’s dignified atmosphere that simply oozed the charm of an older man caused the much-younger female fans to bounce up and down and even scream in uncontrollable excitement.
The special team of Hunters followed after their leader and quickly entered the airport next.
Waaaah-!!
The gasps and cries of awe emitted by many onlookers, moved by their emotions after witnessing the Hunters they only got to see through TV screens until then, quickly filled up the airport’s vast interior.
Meanwhile, the reporter looked into the camera with the green light switched on.
“Our proud Hunters are now entering the airport, having returned from their trip to support South Korea.”
As her bright expression alluded to, the overall result of this trip was being seen as satisfactory from the Chinese government’s point of view.
They got to claim that they didn’t forsake their neighbouring nation’s troubles and also got to save their face when their elite Hunters volunteered to fight against the super-massive Gate in Seoul’s skies.
Was that all?
With this particular matter resolving in the way it did, not one Hunter from the special team travelling to lend their support got hurt. They saved face, and also earned some practical benefits, too. Two things rolled onto their lap, so to speak.
Many Chinese clapped their hands in admiration at Liu Zhigeng who personally persuaded China’s top Hunters and formed this special team.
However, there would always be those with dissatisfaction regardless of where it was. There were quite a few who tried to slander Liu Zhigeng or South Korea through the anonymity of the internet.
– That Liu Zhigeng b*stard, the Chinese government supported him financially so he can protect China, yet look at him, busy rushing off to Korea instead.
– Does anybody know where Liu Zhigeng’s ancestors come from?
– Will someone please go through Liu Zhigeng’s bank account? Better make sure that no Koreans paid him off.
– Why would a great nation like ours help out a small country that won’t even remember this debt in the future, anyway? We must make sure that an event like this one doesn’t happen ever again.
– Good sir, you’re so right!
– There’s no need for them to go, but since they did, we gotta get compensated properly. I mean, just what is the value of these Hunters making up the special team? How can them going on a volunteer mission even make sense?? Calculate each Hunter’s daily wages properly and make the Koreans pay!
– I hear Seong Jin-Woo made a sh*t ton of money after killing Giants in Japan, so he can pay out of his own pocket, then!
Comments that contained rather toxic contents even at a casual glance filled up the live broadcast’s ticker tape being updated in real time at the bottom of the screen.
The reporter, subbing for many people and their curiosity, stood before Liu Zhigeng to do her job.
“Many people are cheering you on for your brave decision, Liu Hunter-nim. On the other hand, those questioning why we had to aid the Koreans are also quite a few in number as well. By any chance, do you have anything you’d like to say to them, Liu Hunter-nim?”
Liu Zhigeng took his sunglasses off and glared at the reporter.
“Who is walking around spewing something that stupid?”
“Pardon?”
Not paying any heed to the reporter and her wide-open eyes, Liu Zhigeng continued on with what he wanted to say.
“Are their heads nothing more than decorations? Can’t they read a map? Don’t they know which country is next if you move your eyeballs up from Korea?”
“Ah….”
“One Giant monster that wasn’t stopped in Japan crossed the sea and almost made it onto the Chinese mainland. I heard that the audience rating back then rewrote the history books, so surely, they must’ve seen it, too.”
Liu Zhigeng glared straight at the camera next.
“What I am saying here is that something similar could’ve happened, but on a far, far greater scale. I and my comrades agreed with that notion and we went there to prevent that from happening.”
Liu Zhigeng’s torrent of harsh language put an immediate end to the stream of toxic comments.
He continued to speak, his voice rising up higher and his glare getting sharper as if he was addressing the toxic commenters directly.
“If there are people still spewing crap like that, then tell them this. I, Liu Zhigeng, am not confident of stopping an event that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo also failed to stop. That’s why we went there to help him out, so if you’re unhappy about that, why don’t you try and catch monsters with your own….”
Liu Zhigeng continued with his tirade which made his supporters really happy, but then, he abruptly stopped talking for some reason. Could it be that he finally realised the camera was rolling?
Of course not.
Liu Zhigeng was probably the only person in the whole of China capable of pouring out insults and swearing on live TV without worrying about repercussions. But then, someone like him had been rendered utterly speechless as he took a look outside the airport.
Just what could have happened?
The first person to look was the reporter. Next up were the Hunters and their supporting staff behind Liu Zhigeng. And eventually, everyone gathered here in the airport – their gazes all shifted to the outside.
And after witnessing the change, their eyeballs began quaking greatly.
Liu Zhigeng would never get shocked by any ordinary little thing, but he couldn’t stop a soft gasp of surprise leak out of his mouth.
“Oh, my god…..”
Above Beijing’s skies, a massive darkness was slowly descending.
***
“Seong Hunter-nim…. By any chance, have you heard of the breaking news yet?”
Jin-Woo shook his head.
After the ‘raid’ of the super-massive Gate, he headed straight to Japan and made it back to Korea only a little while ago before coming to the Hunter’s Association straight away. He didn’t have any opportunity to check out the news or any mass media coverage, really.
Besides that, if something serious happened while he was away, Yu Jin-Ho would’ve informed him the first thing after he entered the office.
Seeing how grave the expressions on the faces of the Association employees, even Jin-Woo’s own expression hardened.
“Did something happen?”
Woo Jin-Cheol pulled his phone out and showed him the real-time footage being recorded right at that moment.
– “Jesus Christ!! Can you see that??”
– “Holy cow!!”
– “Doesn’t that Gate look even bigger than the one generated in Korea?”
Eight super-massive Gates all revealed themselves in various parts of the world. Half in fear and half feeling mystified by this development, people were filming these Gates and uploading the footage on social media. Breaking news poured in from all parts of the world.
Gulp.
The sound of Woo Jin-Cheol swallowing his saliva rang out loudly from Jin-Woo’s side. He didn’t mind that and continued to watch each and every one of the video clips.
“Hunter-nim… Could these be also….?”
“No, definitely not.”
Jin-Woo quickly cut him off. He made sure to drill home the point that these new Gates had no relations to him whatsoever.
Woo Jin-Cheol had been secretly hoping that these Gates would also end up as nothing too serious, so his complexion darkened fast enough to be noticed in real time from that grim reply.
What if hundreds of thousands of monsters poured out from all those Gates, just like how it had been with Seoul?
Isn’t that the same thing as announcing the end of humanity?
While Woo Jin-Cheol shuddered from the enormity of it all, Jin-Woo finished watching the footage and spoke to him.
“Let’s change our location first.”
“Ah, yes.”
They quickly got to the Association President’s office and settled down on the couches facing each other.
“You said you had something to tell me….?”
Woo Jin-Cheol cautiously spoke, and Jin-Woo replied to him immediately.
“Association President. Do you trust me?”
Woo Jin-Cheol nodded his head.
“Yes, of course, I trust you.”
“In that case, I hope you will believe everything I’m about to show you.”
“Excuse me?”
Just like how the former Shadow Sovereign had done, Jin-Woo reached out with his index finger and placed it against Woo Jin-Cheol’s forehead. The moment his finger touched, darkness filled up the older man’s eyes, and countless images brushed past within his vision.
“Heok!!”
Jin-Woo showed the necessary amount of information to the Association President and nothing more. That would be – the Rulers and their plans, as well as the Sovereigns. And then, the armies those Sovereigns were summoning to this world, as well.
“Pant, pant, pant….”
Woo Jin-Cheol had witnessed the powers of these Sovereigns with his own eyes now. Once the images stopped flashing by, he began gasping out breathlessly.
“This, this can’t be…. Just how can such a thing….”
Woo Jin-Cheol had believed ‘it’.
He believed that God had gifted special powers to a small number of selected individuals in order to safeguard humanity. He believed that this was precisely the reason why Hunters had to fight against the monsters and protect other people.
But, if everything Hunter Seong Jin-Woo had shown him was true, then….
He had been too arrogant. He had made a grave mistake.
Hunters, no, the ‘Awakened’ were simply the process of cultivating a small number of humans that might survive the aftermath of the true war about to take place.
This was not a war between humanity and Sovereigns. It was a war between Sovereigns and Rulers, two organisations boasting unimaginable might. Indeed, it was they who were going to fight.
However, a huge variable entered into this fray in the form of a certain man.
And now, with the armies of the Sovereigns arriving much faster than expected to this planet, mankind had only one being they could place their hopes on – the unexpected variable.
“How can this be….”
Woo Jin-Cheol’s fingertips trembled as he raised his tear-filled gaze.
“Seong Hunter-nim…. Are you planning to fight these things? All by yourself?”
Even if the enemy possessed a powerful force, he couldn’t just give up without trying something first now, could he? At least, Jin-Woo had never lived his life in that manner.
That was why he quietly nodded his head.
“Yes.”
Woo Jin-Cheol wanted to help him in any shape or form, so he quickly asked.
“In that case, what should we… No, what should I do to help you, Hunter-nim?”
Now that the expected question came out, Jin-Woo calmly replied with the answer he had thought of before arriving here.
“Can you gather the representatives of the world in one location, please?”
💖 Support My Work, Please Donate Here👇
![AN UNDERSTATED DOMINANCE [Original Version]](https://i1.wp.com/ethiclearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Add-a-heading-1.png?resize=85,105 "AN UNDERSTATED DOMINANCE [Original Version]")
