Chapter 93
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 93
Chapter Title: Demon Worshippers, Urban Warfare - 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------
At 7 p.m., as dusk began to settle over the old city center of Mapo District, a power outage struck the area, and all the lights vanished at once.
However, one spot alone flickered with a ghastly blue light.
BZZZZT—!
There, a 15-meter-tall monster with sprouting horns stood towering over the street. It was a bizarre sight, like a demon from hell made manifest… but its limbs were tightly bound with electrical cables, and the pale blue sparks erupting from them pummeled its entire body, letting out loud thuds.
Normally, in a power transmission and distribution system, an overcurrent like this would blow a fuse and cut off the electricity supply. But Park Jun-mo’s power could forcibly draw out the stalled current while also minimizing its discharge.
“Aaargh—!”
Thus, he was controlling the electricity that should have been running wild and flowing into the ground—and was instead forcing it continuously into the monster’s body.
Soon, the surface of its body began to sizzle, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air.
‘Park Jun-mo, he’s become a truly useful weapon now.’
He was a talent Lee Hyun-wook had discovered, one that didn’t exist in his past life.
But…
‘…This alone won’t be enough to kill that monster.’
Just as even Lee Hyun-wook couldn’t kill a monster with ‘ordinary metal,’ Park Jun-mo, no matter how much ‘ordinary electricity’ he was supplied with, was bound to hit a limit.
That was a natural law of this era. A weapon not created with ‘magical power’ couldn’t break a monster’s ‘barrier’… especially not that of a level 90 demon’s incarnation.
‘Still, the electrocution is effective, so it’s enough to keep it tied down like this.’
Clack—
As the colossal body became thoroughly saturated with electricity, Lee Hyun-wook took out the ‘Black Rhino’ and strode toward the creature.
Its massive eyeballs rolled back and forth, trembling erratically.
In other words, it was, at least for now, completely incapacitated…
“Good, hold it down just like that! I’ll take care of it!”
Meanwhile, Seo Eun-ha and Kim Se-hee kept their eyes on the half-collapsed motel building. Knowing that Choi Tae-jun had been with other demon worshippers, they had no idea what those bastards might try to pull.
It wasn't just them; A.M.T. soldiers appeared on the rooftops of surrounding buildings and began preparing to snipe.
Also, drawn by the scent of a story, reporters had unknowingly gathered and were setting up cameras from a distance. For them, a scoop like Lee Hyun-wook was something they couldn't afford to miss.
With all eyes gathered on him,
Lee Hyun-wook raised the muzzle of his gun and pulled the trigger in succession.
KRA-KOOM—!
Clack—
KRA-KOOM—!
Lee Hyun-wook aimed for the monster's knees. Though its muscles and tendons were stiff from the electrocution, a single shot to each knee caused blood to erupt, and its thick legs buckled like chicken bones.
CRASH—!
Naturally, the muzzle was now aimed at the creature's head.
VWOOM—
- The ‘Black Rhino’s’ skill ‘Annihilation Spray’ is now available!
“This is the end.”
Before pulling the trigger, Lee Hyun-wook hardened his entire body, concentrating the thickness especially around his joints.
And as he pulled the trigger, he applied his Metal Control to his own body to prevent being thrown back, bracing for the recoil.
Then, he fired—
KRA-KA-KA-KA-KA-BOOM—!
Three magic circles bloomed as the remaining ‘shells’ in the ‘Subspace Magazine’ were all unleashed at once.
The hundreds of ‘pellets’ that spewed forth violently vibrated the air along their trajectory, creating a visible shockwave.
The scene, like a jet engine firing from the muzzle of a gun, could easily be called a ‘Steel Storm.’
PAT-PAT-PAT-PATTER—
The face of Moloch's incarnation, caught in the Steel Storm, was torn to shreds.
Its eyeballs were gouged out, pieces of its torn nose and ears were snagged on a nearby utility pole, and a spray of dark red blood splattered against the building wall behind it, leaving a bizarre graffiti.
But…
Squelch— Squelch—
With a grotesque sound, the monster’s wounds began to bubble and froth as its skin started to rapidly regenerate.
“Damn it, even this isn’t enough…?”
It had been his ultimate attack, yet this monster… receiving power directly from a demon, its defense and regenerative abilities were far greater than he had imagined.
Even for the ‘Black Rhino,’ with its top-tier firepower, it simply lacked the absolute ‘class’ to finish the job.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Lee Hyun-wook kept pulling the trigger. But now, with the ‘shells’ depleted, only flames from the ‘Agni Crystal’ sprayed out.
While that itself was immense firepower, it could do no more than singe the monster's fur.
Lee Hyun-wook finally lowered his gun.
It was a far stronger foe than he had anticipated.
‘Well, a form like that shouldn’t have appeared at this time anyway…’
Choi Tae-jun, who would later be known as ‘Dr. Bull,’ the vanguard of the Villains… this incarnate state was something that should have been completed nearly four years from now, after making immense offerings to Moloch.
But now, it had been forcibly drawn out through the Nectar.
In other words, it was overpowered, so it was only natural that it would be difficult to face at this point in time.
‘I suppose… I’ll have to try a different method.’
He activated his ‘Internal Furnace’ to its maximum capacity.
- The Internal Furnace has been activated, drastically increasing metal absorption efficiency. (+200%)
His stomach burned as if it were melting.
“Ugh…”
Before deploying for the operation, Lee Hyun-wook had requested 100g of Orichalcum from Commander Gwak Jin-cheol. He had, of course, swallowed it immediately upon receiving it and had been slowly digesting it since.
‘My Metal Control is just about to reach 500kg…’
And the moment it reached that point—
‘—I’ll have a weapon that can crush that behemoth.’
He had intended to keep this hidden and pull it out later, at a decisive moment, as what one would call a ‘trump card,’ but this was no time for luxuries.
Lee Hyun-wook glanced back at Park Jun-mo.
“Park Jun-mo, can you hold on for just a little longer?”
“—Ugh, yes! I’ll try!”
Lee Hyun-wook summoned an item from one of his AD-1s.
The greatsword Mogeley. It fell freely and embedded itself in the ground.
THUD—
Feeling his insides burn, Lee Hyun-wook gripped Mogeley’s hilt and turned to Seo Eun-ha.
“First Lieutenant Seo, could you please bestow your divine power on this?”
***
“Ugh…”
Inside the motel, which had been completely ravaged by Lee Hyun-wook’s indiscriminate assault, someone let out a faint groan.
“Damn it, to think I’d get hit by a blind attack like that…”
An elderly Japanese man with a graying beard sat slumped in the hallway, clutching his side. Next to him, a black youth was rummaging through a bag.
“Master, do not be disheartened. It was merely bad luck.”
“No, it’s because I’m old. You were clever enough to use the one-person shield skill on that bracelet, weren’t you?”
“That’s only because I’m an assassin Player, so my reactions are quick. If I were more skilled, I would have taken the bracelet off and put it on your arm, Master…”
“*Cough*—Don’t give me that bullshit…”
Just as Lee Hyun-wook had ravaged the fifth floor of the motel with his AD-1s, they had emerged from the mirror—the demon’s passageway.
Despite having been on guard as they came out, the old man had still taken a hit.
“Hmph, my organs must be damaged, the bleeding won’t stop… I might just die in a foreign land…”
The greatest weakness for those who had received demonic power and stood at the extreme end of the dark spectrum was their inability to heal through ‘healing’ magic. It was a natural mechanism, as the source of healing was ‘divine power.’
Of course, there were recovery-related black magics, but most required taking another’s ‘life force,’ making the process incomparably more complex than healing.
“Master, I found the life water! Ah… but the bottle… is broken… Still, about a third of it is left!”
“Yes, but since it’s an essence refined from the blood of a seven-year-old girl, *cough*—it should be enough to hold on to this old man’s life—*cough*!”
He drank the horribly concocted life water.
“Hah… the pain is subsiding a bit.”
He then conjured smoke from his index finger, summoning a winged insect.
It spread its wings and flew out of the building, and the old man was able to see outside through the bug’s eyes.
‘The controller of steel, Lee Hyun-wook… he’s a far more terrifying man than I thought.’
Choi Tae-jun, a servant of Moloch, had used the legendary demon brew ‘Nectar’ to directly commune with Moloch and become an incarnation.
The old man, knowing its power, had naturally assumed the monster would lay waste to the city.
In the meantime, he had planned to finish his recovery and find a way to escape.
‘But to think he would not only restrain it but also try to blow its head off… a fearsome man indeed.’
He looked down at the battered form of Moloch’s incarnation and clicked his tongue.
It felt unnatural to see a being of that caliber being beaten so helplessly. It was like watching a monkey toying with a lion…
“Hmph… no matter what, Moloch’s incarnation won’t die.”
He might be able to bind it, but he didn’t seem to have the power to kill it. That, too, followed the same logic: a monkey might toy with a lion, but it couldn’t kill it.
However, since there was always a chance another predator capable of devouring a lion might appear, he had to hurry and find a means of escape.
‘Come to think of it, I heard that woman, Kang Seo-yoon, is in this land—if it’s an arrow from that meddlesome bitch, even Moloch’s incarnation will have a hard time. I must hurry.’
It was then.
WHOOSH—
His shadow suddenly began to lengthen, and something shot up from it.
It was two people.
“Shadow Baron…”
A man in a gray mask. He was the infamous ‘Shadow Baron.’ And behind him stood a man with his hood pulled low.
“Hah! Old Man Shinshoku, good thing I kept a drop of your blood, huh? It’s a trade secret, but I can use it to find someone’s shadow, you see!”
“*Cough*—”
“Hm? But… why are you lying there looking so feeble? Did your arthritis act up?”
At those words, the old man called Shinshoku shook his head.
“Tsk, if only you had shown up a little sooner…”
“What? Weren’t all you customers supposed to be in the Demon Realm in Incheon? We’re the ones who made a wasted trip. I’m disappointed…”
The method the demon worshippers had prepared to help Choi Tae-jun escape was none other than the Shadow Baron.
He was famous as the express train for criminals, providing a very convenient means of transportation for a hefty fee.
And as it happened, the Villain factions had also been keeping an eye on Choi Tae-jun, so their interests aligned.
“Ahem… circumstances prevented us from going to the black market.”
At that, a chuckle was heard from behind the Shadow Baron’s mask.
“Ah—and did those circumstances, perhaps, involve getting caught in an unexpected ‘rain’ and getting soaked?”
He pulled out a metal fragment embedded in the wall. Indeed, the building was riddled with signs of having been swept by a steel rain.
“…Are you mocking an old man who’s bleeding? Your business seems to lack any sense of customer service.”
“No, that’s not it. I’m empathizing! We’ve taken a hit ourselves, so we know exactly how it feels! Right? Hehehe—”
He said this as he turned to the hooded man who had come with him.
“Shut that mouth of yours…”
The man ground his teeth and threw back his hood.
He was the Sword Saint, Okita Kaito.
However, his front teeth shone with gold.
“Ah, right, since ‘Mr. Steel Rain’ is here, I suppose you’re not in the mood for my jokes, are you?”
“I said, shut up…”
“Alright, but today isn’t the right time to collect payment for your teeth, so please, I hope you’ve locked away your hair-trigger temper so it doesn’t go off by mistake.”
In truth, Okita Kaito was desperately suppressing the urge to jump down and get his revenge on Lee Hyun-wook right now.
Just as the Shadow Baron said, getting swept up in personal feelings at such a crucial moment would be foolish.
“Yes… today, I will focus solely on rescuing Choi Tae-jun. Lee Hyun-wook’s head… I will take it later, without fail.”
“Uh… but look over there. Dr. Choi seems to have lost his mind a bit, don’t you think? Well, I’m sure those guys from <Black Door> will fix him up just fine, right?”
There was a fairly competent group of ‘scientists’ within the Villain organization, so they believed a way to reverse it could be found.
“Well, if not… we could just give him to the ‘Gravedigger’ kid, and he’d probably turn him into an even cooler work of art, don’t you think?”
“Damn it, cut it out with the talk about that creepy kid…”
Okita Kaito clicked his tongue, clearly annoyed by the topic.
“What, Sword Saint, feeling jealous of the kid? Didn’t he like you, though?”
“…Don’t talk nonsense. Asking me to bring him my corpse if I die, you call that liking someone?”
“Hehehe… it was a promise that the Prince of Death would grant you a knighthood upon his ascension to the throne! Anyway, if we bring him a big toy like that, the kid will be absolutely thrilled.”
Okita Kaito’s expression soured as he gripped the hilt of his sword.
“…Enough with the bullshit. Aren’t we going down?”
“Alright, shall we make a grand entrance and give them a surprise?”
With that, the two men leaped out of the motel.
‘Lee Hyun-wook…’
Honestly, Okita Kaito,
couldn’t promise that he would be able to hold himself back.