Chapter 62

Chapter 62

“So it really is Head Breaker.”

The woman watching me curved her eyes into crescent moons. There was a strange charm to her. Once you looked, you couldn’t look away. She wasn’t especially beautiful, nor could you call her looks top-tier.

A mental-type gift? I lightly circulated my Force, but there was nothing. It must have been a different kind of gift. If it could affect me this invisibly, it had to be a considerable one.

I could be certain this woman was the Belus that Heartworker had mentioned.

“If Head Breaker came all the way here, then my Jonghyeon must be dead.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I don’t feel anything.”

Heartworker would wail in hell if he heard that. Right up until he died, he’d said Belus seemed deeply taken with him and showed lingering attachment.

“I don’t hold onto feelings for the dead. Instead, I take interest in someone else.”

A subtle gaze turned toward me.

I felt my eyes being pulled in again. It wasn’t a mental-type gift, but I could be sure the gift had activated.

Belus. A name I’d never heard in my past life.

That I didn’t know her didn’t mean she wasn’t famous. With that ability to draw anyone’s gaze, she must have been pulling strings behind the scenes all along.

“Are you with the League too?”

“Guessing outright? No—it must have been Jonghyeon. I gave him a few hints, after all. I thought he was an idiot, but he was using his head in his own way.”

A faint admiration threaded through her flat voice. I wanted to fill that blank canvas with feelings of my own.

…Any ordinary man would have thought that.

I walked up to Belus. Her eyes widened as she looked at me standing right in front of her.

“So then.”

“Hm?”

“Are your last words finished?”

I grabbed Belus by the throat. The cold texture of her skin traveled through my hand.

Her face drained of color as breathing became difficult. Even so, her expression was calm.

“You’re going to kill me too?”

A face with no attachment to life whatsoever.

Was she certain I wouldn’t kill her? I couldn’t tell what she was thinking or what she intended by acting this way.

At times like this, the simplest method was to kill first and see.

“Die.”

“······!”

I seized Belus’s heart with my left hand and crushed it on the spot. The light vanished from her shocked eyes, and she went limp, losing all strength.

I tossed the corpse to the floor and licked the blood off my left hand.

Blood Devour activated, and Belus’s gift began to copy over.

A moment later, Belus’s gift revealed itself.

[Absolute Seduction of Men]

…Trash.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I deleted the gift and headed for the harbor.

*

**

The harbor, which should have been wrapped in darkness, was lit up by floodlights.

A mix of foreign languages drifted through the air. English, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish—the variety told me just how many nationalities had gathered at this harbor.

The League’s remnants.

They were laughing and chatting as if they had no awareness that they were prey.

“Dying without knowing why you’re dying isn’t so bad.”

I drew my sword in the place the lights didn’t reach. Despite it being the dead of night, the blade shone pure white.

It was the sword I’d received from Lee Sehee after the showcase ended not long ago.

A bone sword made from Nuri’s bones, forged with the full capability of the Shinseong Guild’s research institute.

Overwhelming output, Force transmission speed, sturdy durability—it was top-tier in every category.

Personally, I liked this sword. Its pure white blade especially seemed to prove that my resolve not to live as a villain hadn’t been tainted.

I named this sword Nuri, to honor the one who had given everything without reserve even in death.

“@%^$#*”

The men didn’t notice my presence until I drew close.

Up close, I could see they were loosely formed into ranks.

They went around proclaiming they would change the world, but the reality was they were nothing more than anti-state, anti-government villains.

The moment I stepped into the light, they finally registered my presence. By then, I was already using blade storm.

Force poured out, spiraling along Nuri’s blade and whipping up a storm of Force. It expanded in an instant, sweeping over everything around.

Over a dozen villains within range were caught in the blade storm.

Torn, burst, disassembled—every villain caught in it died.

“&*^%$@!”

Those watching from behind drew their weapons in shock, but I cast blade storm once more. Quickly assessing the situation and gauging when to retreat was a skill too.

Thud-thud-thud!

In an instant, I killed over thirty villains. Fewer than I’d expected.

The number gathered at the harbor was around fifty. I’d thought two blade storms would be enough to kill them all, but they reacted faster than I’d anticipated.

They sent decently skilled ones, it seemed.

Not that it mattered.

If two slashes weren’t enough, I’d just slash three times. And if it became four, then five, that was fine too.

The result was the same—everyone dies.

The ashen-faced villains shouted in foreign languages, trembling, scrambling to put distance between us.

Then it happened.

“Run away!”

The moment those words landed, every villain started running without looking back. Not that it would do them any good.

The reason I’d killed Nuri and taken blade storm was that it let me efficiently kill large numbers of enemies. That applied to fleeing enemies too.

If even Zhang Zidong couldn’t dodge it, a bunch of small fry had no chance.

I was about to raise the bone sword.

From among the fleeing crowd, a massive black figure burst out and came charging at me at ferocious speed. The speed was astonishing.

I swung Nuri and unleashed blade storm. Dozens of Force blades clawed at the black figure.

Then something astonishing happened. Blue Force that had been shimmering like heat haze from the black figure’s two fists erupted explosively, and he swung it, shattering the entire momentum of the blade storm.

For blade storm—which had shredded even Zhang Zidong—to be blocked this easily.

He was no ordinary opponent.

The figure broke through the blade storm and reached me, throwing a punch as I swung Nuri.

Kwang!

I stepped back several paces to disperse the force transmitted through the sword’s tip.

Sometimes idiots resist retreating because it wounds their pride, but yielding to a strong force and letting it flow is what protects me and lets me kill the enemy.

“······.”

Still, I was fairly surprised.

How long had it been since I’d been pushed back like this? I wasn’t assigning great meaning to it, but it had been a while.

The clash just now—if I had to put it into words—felt like a massive monster ramming into me with its full body weight.

So there were people like this too.

The figure, now halted, seemed surprised as well and was watching me with astonishment in his eyes. He was a black man, nearly 2 meters tall, wearing a black special forces uniform.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Black Hound.”

Hound meant dog? So, a black dog?

“What kind of epithet sounds like a mutt?”

Head Breaker was better, honestly. The more I turned it over, the more Head Breaker didn’t seem so bad either.

“······.”

The man looked puzzled, but when I sheathed my sword, he relaxed slightly—then saw the Arc Mine crawling over my hand and tensed up again.

“I’m messenger. I don’t want to fight.”

“Why do foreigners keep coming to Korea and speaking in foreign languages? Speak Korean.”

The irritation that surged in that instant turned into killing intent.

“I’m messenger. I’m messenger. I’m messenger.”

He just kept repeating the same words. Messenger, what? Was he asking for my messenger ID?

“I’m messenger!”

“What are you saying? Die.”

As I reached out, the mutt raised both hands into a guard.

“Boxing? No, it’s mixed martial arts.”

The way he held his stance told me his base was MMA. A body trained to the extreme and Force stacked solidly, layer upon layer, interlocking to produce maximum power at optimal efficiency.

This one was no ordinary madman either.

He swayed to dodge my hand and threw a punch. I deflected it with my opposite hand, and a front kick shot out.

Its power was extraordinary, though.

Every speck of dust kicked up from the ground carried Force. I stepped back to avoid the kick and blocked the pouring Force storm with a Force barrier. But since I only protected my body, my clothes were torn and shredded all over.

It had been a favorite outfit, and now it was a complete mess.

His attacks didn’t stop there. Like a boxer in a match, he used his longer reach to throw punch after punch.

Dodging the attacks wasn’t difficult, but the accompanying Force storm clawed at me in a filthy way. I wasn’t injured, but my clothes were in tatters within moments.

After evading all ten-odd punches and kicks, I finally succeeded in grabbing his arm.

“Got you.”

I pushed Arc Mine in without reserve, beginning to shatter the bones in his hand—

Kwa-dududud!

“You endured this?”

The Arc Mine didn’t pierce through his skin. His muscles were packed tight like armor, and Force was acting as a shock absorber. Flesh and blood had become as solid as plate armor.

“······.”

His arm wasn’t broken, but he must have felt considerable pain—his brow twitched, and he hurriedly pulled free and counterattacked.

Kwang!

That was a trap. I pretended to let go and grabbed his other arm.

“Can you endure this too?”

Let’s see how far he can hold out. I began pouring in Force without limit.

Bzzt! Bzzzzt!

An enormous amount of Arc Mine burrowed in. He must have felt he couldn’t be pushed back either, because he began drawing Force together to resist. I paid it no mind and started forcing my way through the layered muscle and Force cushioning with near-infinite Arc Mine, breaking through.

“······!”

For the first time, a crack appeared in his expression. His brow furrowed, and he clenched his teeth, beginning to endure.

A contest of strength unfolded between him desperately trying to push out the Arc Mine and me trying to shatter him. And I had never once lost a battle of attrition fought with Force capacity.

The fact that my Arc Mine had burrowed in at all meant, in siege terms, that I’d opened the castle gate and entered. It meant I’d seized the advantage.

The mutt’s bones, which he’d been desperately enduring with, finally began to break.

Kwa-duk! Kwa-deu-deuk!

The arm that had held firm shattered and lost its strength. The mutt, who hadn’t lost his senses even at the end, tilted his body and pushed me away with a shoulder attack, then barely regained his balance and retreated.

Then something astonishing happened. The arm that had been broken in the wrong direction twisted back into its original position and, in the blink of an eye, returned to normal.

“Super regeneration.”

A gift that could instantly heal even severed parts just by holding them in place.

A man with this level of skill and this kind of gift, and I didn’t know him? Wait—Blackhound? Blackhound? I recalled what Jung Dahyun had told me in the past.

The three transcendants who first founded the League.

Argos, Hell Master, Blackhound.

One of them was this man.

Only then did I understand why he’d deflected the Arc Mine and why he’d recovered so easily from what should have been a fatal wound.

So he was one of the world’s strongest villains.

To me, he was nothing more than the world’s strongest mutt.

“I’m messenger.”

Perhaps seeing my expression, the man spoke again. He kept saying that—was he asking for my messenger ID?

Berserker alone was already a headache; I had no desire to add another madman to the mix.

“······.”

“Shhp, you bashtard!”

The mutt, spitting out a curse in heavily slurred pronunciation, pulled something from his coat.

The moment I saw thick smoke rising, he was already wearing a gas mask.

I immediately wrapped myself in a Force barrier and sharpened my senses, preparing for an attack.

But he didn’t attack. Through the smoke, I saw the massive figure moving away rather than closer.

He’s supposed to be one of the strongest villains? And he’s running?

Watching him recede quickly, I concluded that when it came to running, he was the world’s strongest.

“If only I had Immunity to All Poisons.”

I would have fed him a blade storm the moment he bolted.

I chased after him and saw his back as he leaped into the sea and submerged, along with the boat carrying the fleeing League remnants.

I immediately cast blade storm at the mutt, but there was no response. Dead or alive, I couldn’t tell. It seemed I’d let him get away.

All that was left was the consolation prize.

I sank the boat carrying the League remnants with blade storm.

“#$^%!@*”

As I snuffed out the lives of the ones thrashing in the water one by one, the sea began to stain red with blood.

Time had passed quickly, and the sun was rising. I stood on the water waiting for Blackhound to surface, but he never showed himself.

Should I dive in and chase him? I considered it briefly, but finding him in this vast ocean seemed impossible.

Should I have lured him out by offering to give him my messenger ID? Next time, I’d learn English and foreign languages and use them to kill these guys.

That aside.

I fixed my gaze on the tennis-ball-sized eyeball that had been floating in the air for a while now.

It had been there since I started chasing Blackhound.

“What are you?”

At my words, the closed eyeball quivered, and the shut eye opened. It emitted a gleam as a blue pupil revealed itself.

Zzt! Zzzzt!

At first, strange English came through, but before long, fluent Korean flowed out.

—Nice to meet you, Choi Junho. I am Argos of the League.

“So you’re the villain who founded the League.”

—I am that Argos.

I remembered what Jung Dahyun had told me. The villain called the pinnacle of the League.

They said his eyes were sown across the entire world. I stared into the blue pupil.

“So what do you want?”

—I sent Heinz, but a fight broke out. I apologize. I want to make clear that we had no intention of antagonizing you, Choi Junho.

So he hadn’t wanted my messenger ID after all.

Only then did I understand why Blackhound had fled instead of fighting to the end.

“Fine, let’s say that. So why are you shoving that creepy eyeball in my face?”

—As expected, you’re direct.

“Just talk.”

—I’ll get straight to the point. The League wishes to recruit you.

“Why?”

I’m a state-certified transcendent. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I’m the League’s enemy.

Looking at my record, am I not on the righteous Hunter path, affiliated with the state?

If anything, shouldn't I be the League's number one target for elimination?

—Choi Junho, you are a man born to become a villain.

…Is this some new way of picking a fight?