The Charge Barrier
He already knew the power of that crossbow through Seo Rin. A bolt packed with cellular extract could inflict catastrophic strain with a single hit. The projectile velocity was laughably slow compared to a bullet — but that didn't mean you could dodge it.
"I hate John Woo movies."
Han Se-gun said it dryly, nodding at the mutual standoff of weapons trained on each other. Giovanni snorted a laugh.
"I like them. Shame for you."
In that instant Giovanni pulled the trigger. The crossbow did not fire. Han Se-gun's Glock had already jammed the arrowhead still seated in the groove; the string simply snapped free with a useless twang.
"What—?"
Giovanni saw Se-gun's eyes blaze blue as the man stared him down without flinching. The moment he met that hatred burning up from the depths of those pupils, a chill raced down his spine. A gaze of pure killing intent and malice that overwhelmed even a vampire — no wonder they called this creature the Beast.
Thung!
Se-gun slipped sideways and the bolt sprang free, burying itself in the wall. An ordinary bow or crossbow drew around forty pounds; a woman's model was usually closer to twenty. The crossbow in Giovanni Vantero's hands, however, was strung at a monstrous hundred and thirty pounds — a draw no human strength could manage — and the bolt smashed straight through the concrete wall and lodged there.
Se-gun pivoted as he moved, bringing the Glock to bear on Giovanni. The moment he squeezed the trigger, Giovanni raised an arm and caught the round. The massive vampire, armored head to toe in ballistic material, stopped a 9mm Parabellum with a padded arm guard and charged.
Kaaah!
A high roundhouse kick exploded. The concrete wall caved in, punched clean through. Se-gun slid sideways like water and let the blow pass. Without even glancing at the figures bursting through the doorway behind him, he twisted his arm back and fired.
Tung-tung!
The mage charging with a body bunker raised the shield and easily stopped the Glock rounds. With gear like this, with proper preparation, even Han Se-gun was nothing special! Kill a Jinma hunter here and make a name for himself — the mage leveled his shotgun at Se-gun's back.
Shhk!
Darkness streaked across his vision. In Se-gun's hand, as if it had always been there, was a black two-handed sword.
Kwajik!
The body bunker sheared clean in two as if cut by a saw and fell away.
"What—?!"
Blood ran down the mage's chest. The cut wasn't deep, but his heart lurched. This bastard—!
Still, he sneered. The man still had his back turned. A shotgun blast into that spine would kill anyone. He swung the barrel toward Se-gun's back.
Chwaak!
But what was this? The hand gripping the shotgun flew off in a spray of arterial blood.
"Aaaagh!"
Se-gun ignored the screaming mage behind him and swept Noctis at Giovanni. Giovanni teleported clear of the cut and loosed another bolt from the crossbow. Se-gun's hand had fully regenerated — and Giovanni had already read the cost of that recovery.
Even from this brief exchange, Se-gun's pulse was irregular and he was breathing hard… Anyone walking the line between human and vampire could not afford to burn regeneration so freely.
Kak!
Se-gun caught the incoming bolt on the flat of Noctis. The bolt glanced off the blade and shattered a framed picture on the wall. A thin line opened across Se-gun's cheek where it had grazed him, and blood welled.
"Aaaah!"
Seo Rin kicked off the floor and launched himself at Giovanni. Giovanni laughed under his breath. Not Se-gun coming at him, but a greenhorn like Seo Rin? The sheer absurdity of it made him throw a lazy kick — and in that same instant Seo Rin's tonfa smashed into Giovanni's ankle.
Beok!
They traded blows at the same moment. Seo Rin spun in midair and landed against the wall; Giovanni's ankle snapped clean through.
Had he been too focused on Han Se-gun? Or had Seo Rin's skill leapt forward in the meantime? Giovanni snarled, space-shifted sideways, and in one fluid motion reloaded and fired the crossbow.
Puk!
Seo Rin raised his tonfa into a guard, but the bolt glanced off the weapon, raked his side, and punched into the sofa. Even ballistic stab-proof fabric couldn't stop a hundred-and-thirty-pound crossbow bolt; the material tore and blood sprayed. A graze was still a mercy — a clean hit would have triggered the cellular extract's absorption gelification.
"Aaaaah!"
Seo Rin charged Giovanni in a fury. A brat like this, coming for revenge now? Giovanni's mood soured; he drew a SOCOM handgun.
"Gyaah!"
Meanwhile, the mage who had forced his way through the front entrance went flying back in a spray of blood. Han Se-gun slipped their sightlines as easily as a ghost. Dodging bullets was impossible even for him — but at this range, vanishing from a human's field of vision was trivial.
Vampires couldn't dodge bullets either, and yet they still crushed armed humans with ease for exactly this reason. Of course, these men were no longer ordinary people. With Psychedelic Moon in their systems, their perception was already on par with a vampire's.
But what good was that? A sudden surge in sensory acuity did not grant combat instinct. Se-gun ran the walls of the cramped house, kicked off ceilings, moved in three dimensions — while the mages still fought on a flat plane.
Cheolkeok!
Se-gun seized one mage from behind, locked an arm around his throat, and used the man's own gun to cover the others. The startled mages swung their weapons toward him. Even with a human shield in front of him, there were plenty of places to shoot — and with Psychedelic Moon sharpening their senses, they could hit those places easily.
But while they were still flinching, Se-gun had already dropped them with a lightning-fast burst of successive fire. That was the difference experience made.
Faced with the unfamiliar, the inexperienced man still wonders whether he can or cannot. In the world of the night, that much hesitation is already enough to decide the fight. Se-gun had drilled one-handed rapid fire against five or more simultaneous targets; anyone who dithered in front of him went down in an instant.
And then—
Bajijijik!
Electricity suddenly surged through Se-gun's body.
"Ugh!"
He rolled hard to the side — and for no reason he could see, a line opened across his cheek and blood ran free.
"Damn it!"
Sa Jun strolled casually into the front yard. The house had been built with its first floor well above ground level against flooding, the half-basement given over to storage. Se-gun launched himself from the entrance and opened fire on Sa Jun standing in the yard.
Chiiiik!
The light 9mm Parabellum rounds evaporated on contact. Of course — the bastard was wrapped in a Charge Barrier.
"My, my. To meet again like this is truly sad. If only you'd opened your heart a little, we might have understood each other."
For the man who had struck first, the line was shameless beyond belief. What they were living through was pure emotional escalation: one side commits an atrocity, resentment climbs, and before long there is nothing left but irreconcilable blood feud. Sa Jun knew that as well as anyone — and still said it with a smile. But the power of that Charge Barrier was no joke.
"I'm sad too. When you die, who's going to feed your dogs?"
Se-gun said it and snatched up a combat knife. Even a Charge Barrier this strong shouldn't be able to vaporize that much mass. He threw — and the knife stopped dead in midair.
"Oh?"
Stones rose into the sky. Knives tore free from the bodies of the mages who had just been thrown into the fight. Sa Jun still hadn't moved a single fingertip; he only sighed.
"Honestly, such a haughty beauty. Wouldn't it be better to play hard to get for a bit and then just let yourself be caught? Se-gun? Keep trading blows like this and all you'll have left is hate."
Cheolkeok!
Se-gun answered by raising his gun and firing into the floating knives. Punching through Sa Jun's Charge Barrier with bullets was hopeless — but the knives themselves were unprotected. There was no way the man had wrapped every single blade in a barrier that powerful.
Ta-ta-ta-tang!
The knives hanging in the air took the rounds easily. Some snapped; others bent. For the first time, Sa Jun's expression changed.
"Incredible. I've never seen an ability like that. Makes me fall for you even harder."
Se-gun said nothing. Sa Jun tore his shirt open with his bare hands.
"Stripping all of a sudden… You a pervert?"
"It's a transformation."
In that moment Sa Jun's body boiled and seethed like red-bean porridge, and scarlet fur erupted across his skin. So this bastard was a lycanthrope too — and the same giant red bear as his brother.
"Tch."
With the Charge Barrier up, Se-gun had no clean way to attack. Half-measures only got him electrocuted, and now the man had transformed on top of it. At this point he had no choice but to trust the Beast. With that revolver's velocity and grain weight, even a Charge Barrier should give way.
Thinking that, Se-gun dove back into the house. But Sa Jun finished his transformation first, launched himself, and smashed straight through the glass and wall into the interior ahead of him.
"Grrrrrrr!"
Sa Jun planted a foot on the Beast's barrel where it lay on the floor. The Charge Barrier sparked once and melted the barrel clean through.
"Hmph."
Se-gun grabbed a fallen mage's corpse and hurled it at Sa Jun. A Charge Barrier was a grand working that burned enormous mental force; it couldn't last forever. The thrown body turned to ash and vanished.
"Wow. Really putting my stamina to the test, aren't you? Fine by me! Send more! I'll burn them all!"
Sa Jun laughed and charged. In a house this cramped, there was nowhere to run.
Cheolkeok!
But Se-gun raised Noctis and met the charge head-on. A rare masterpiece of a blade — yet against the Charge Barrier, metal was still metal, and useless. Even so, that much mass wouldn't evaporate in an instant. Sa Jun would take serious damage too.
Startled, Sa Jun checked his rush and swung a forepaw to smash the black sword. Se-gun had expected exactly that. He lifted Noctis clear of the paw, stepped in, and cut down in the same motion.
Kakak!
Sparks of electricity flared as Sa Jun's arm sheared off in a spray of blood. But in that same instant the storied demon blade Noctis snapped clean in two. It had failed to withstand the Charge Barrier; the sword itself was destroyed.
"Damn it!"
It had broken far too easily. Worse, it had snapped while Sa Jun was still raising his arm to block, so all Se-gun got was the arm. If the blade had held a fraction longer, a single stroke could have killed him. A miscalculation.
Sa Jun slammed his remaining hand into the floor.
Bajijijik!
A violent current surged up through Se-gun's feet. As electricity locked his body, Sa Jun put everything he had into a sweeping forepaw.
Taang!
From behind, where she had been watching, Kim Seong-hui put a round from her Colt Python into Sa Jun's scapula. Even a werebear's monstrous defense and regeneration still ran on the same mechanics: sever the shoulder blade and the surrounding muscle, and the arm stopped working properly.
"Ugh!"
Se-gun used the opening to slip the paw by a hair. The bear's claws raked his chest and blood poured free.
"Keuk!"
Sa Jun clamped his severed arm back into place and charged Se-gun with bared fangs. Se-gun shoved off the wall, changed direction mid-stride, and let the rush pass.
"Hah… hah…"
His body was already far from whole, and the strain on his heart made electricity the worst possible attack. Strength wouldn't answer; his heart stuttered. Even so, he had no intention of losing.
Kao!
Sa Jun roared and shifted his spell. Flames bloomed in empty air. On a hunch Se-gun rolled, snatched up the broken Noctis, and flung it — but the Charge Barrier was still active. Maintaining a Charge Barrier that ordinary mages could barely sustain, and casting another spell on top of it—?!
Bajijijik!
Noctis melted under the discharge even as it punched through the barrier and buried itself in Sa Jun's gut. Sa Jun only snorted, knocked the blade free, and hurled a mass of flame at Se-gun.
Se-gun answered with Detonating Cord. The cord detonated; the blast wave shredded the fireball apart.
Sa Jun re-engaged the Charge Barrier and charged again.
"Kaaaaah!"
Se-gun rolled backward and let the first blow pass. As the mountain of a werebear barreled through, the plywood roofing tore free and the ugly skeleton of the house stood exposed. Se-gun snatched a fallen board, flung it into Sa Jun's eye line to break the charge, and dove for the kitchen.
Kwajik!
Running the wall, Se-gun smashed the kitchen faucet and turned the jet of water on Sa Jun. Water hit the Charge Barrier and electrical sparks erupted.
"What—!"
While Sa Jun reeled, Se-gun had already kicked off the wall and circled behind him. A Charge Barrier was not an infinite reservoir of power; keep the water pouring and Sa Jun would cook himself dry trying to maintain it. Without even checking whether the barrier was still up, Se-gun drove a high kick into the back of Sa Jun's skull.
Bbagak!
The angle was off; the rebound lifted Se-gun's own body into the air. Sa Jun, weighted by his enormous mass, barely flinched.
He twisted and raked his claws at Se-gun.
But Han Se-gun was a professional at brawling with monsters. He dropped low as if kissing the floor, planted a hand, slipped under the swipe, and launched himself forward — elbow first, his whole body behind the strike.
Kwajik!
Sa Jun's bulk lifted and smashed through the wall, tumbling out into the yard.
"Se-gun! Here!"
Kim Seong-hui threw him a sword. Even a fighter of his caliber would struggle to beat a werebear to death bare-handed. With the Charge Barrier down, a blade through the heart was the cleaner answer. Se-gun caught the sword and charged.
"Om!"
But Sa Jun was already chanting, slamming his palm into the ground again. Another discharge? Se-gun jumped on instinct — and it was a feint. Sa Jun rose onto all fours and lunged at Se-gun hanging in midair.
Shhk!
Se-gun threw the sword from the air. The reason the earlier spell-feint had worked was that the opponent had actually used magic; he needed to know whether the Charge Barrier was back up.
Bbajik!
Damn it!
Watching the Charge Barrier reignite, Se-gun cursed inwardly. Sa Jun turned his head and dodged the thrown blade — but the sword, already melting under the current, still punched into his shoulder.
"Grwaah!"
Sa Jun roared and swung a forepaw at Se-gun, charging into melee with a barrier that could vaporize metal on contact.
Shhk!
As if toying with him, Se-gun stepped on empty air and vaulted the other way, clear of the blow. Using the technique of the Black Shadow Binding, he had woven a chain of sorcery in midair, kicked off it, and reversed direction.
"What—?!"
Sa Jun stared up at him like a dog that had chased a chicken onto a roof. A double jump in midair? He had gathered plenty of intelligence on Han Se-gun, but he had never known about a trick like this.
"Damn it!"
Shwiiiik!
Next came Detonating Cord raining down like a cloudburst. The cord detonated the instant it touched Sa Jun's Charge Barrier, of course — but Se-gun poured it on as if he didn't care.