The Judge’s New Edge

In the middle of the yard, Team Leader Park lay with both wrists severed, crawling along the ground without even the strength to twitch. He was in no state that should have left him alive after such blood loss.

A shallow, ragged breath escaped him, so faint it sounded as though it might stop at any second.

Kim Tae-su rushed over.

“Talk. Don’t die. Not yet. Did you see him? Did you see who it was?”

He was so far gone that he was asking Team Leader Park whether he had seen Suhyuk—the man even he himself hadn’t been able to catch.

“I told you not to die!”

In a panic, Kim Tae-su clamped both hands over Park’s severed wrists, trying to stop the bleeding.

But Park’s breath was already hanging by a thread.

Instead, the Awaker’s crushing grip snapped his arm with a sickening crack, and the man died on the spot.

“Aaaagh!! You son of a bitch!! I told you not to die!!”

Kim Tae-su screamed, tearing at his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own hair, then bolted into the abandoned hospital.

At the entrance, the only things waiting for him were the corpses Suhyuk had cut apart.

He ran up to the second floor.

There, in one of the rooms, lay Jo Tae-jun, the Black Moon gang’s deputy boss, bound hand and foot, staring wildly with only his eyeballs moving.

“It was you. You have to be the source of all this.”

“Mmmph! Mmmph!”

Jo Tae-jun struggled to protest through the gag in his mouth.

Clatter-clatter.

The sound of his body jerking against the restraints rang out, but Kim Tae-su ignored it. He seized Tae-jun hard by the cheeks and forced him to meet his eyes.

“Go tell the boss this was all your fault. Tell him my brother died because of you too. The factory, the workshop, Team Leader Park—everything. It was all you. Got it?!”

Unable even to turn his head, Jo Tae-jun desperately shook his eyes side to side, but it was useless.

Kim Tae-su hoisted him onto his back, carried him downstairs, and loaded him into the SUV they had come in.

“I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die. I’m not dying.”

He looked terrified out of his mind.

Repeating the same words like a lunatic, he fled the abandoned hospital.

From the woods, Suhyuk watched that scene with quiet amusement and smiled.

“Looks like I finally get to meet Iron Mask.”

This was why he had left Kim Tae-su alive.

Suhyuk stared silently at the abandoned hospital yard where the SUV had disappeared, taking in the aftermath.

The thick stench of blood blown in on the night wind stung his nose.

His gaze drifted to the yard and the entrance to the hospital’s first-floor lobby.

There lay twenty corpses, all butchered mercilessly by the Reaper’s scythe, and Team Leader Park, who had died from blood loss with both wrists hacked off, sprawled in a grotesque heap.

“Time to clean up.”

Suhyuk muttered in a dry voice and stretched out his hand.

Judgment Punishment.

The instant the command fell, a seething black force surged up from the floor and ravenously swept over the twenty-one bodies.

Like the maw of hell opening wide, the dark shadow swallowed not only bone and flesh but even the bloodstains that had soaked the marble floor.

The horrific slaughterhouse at the entrance of the abandoned hospital was wiped clean in an instant, as though nothing had ever happened.

The trash of this world had been erased perfectly.

A system message rose over his retina.

The price of sending twenty-one ordinary people to hell.

But that wasn’t the end.

More messages poured in one after another, filling Suhyuk’s vision.

Suhyuk’s eyes widened.

He had expected the usual ten Hell Points for leveling up, but he hadn’t anticipated a new achievement being awarded at level five.

Not only that—he’d obtained a skill that would normally cost a fortune in the shop, and gotten it for free.

Suhyuk immediately checked the skill’s detailed description.

If this is real, I don’t have to rely on point-blank combat anymore.

Suhyuk tightened his grip on the scythe in his right hand.

At last, his fatal weakness—having to close to within arm’s reach of every opponent—had been patched.

As he marveled at the achievement and the new skill he’d gained, the system’s messages still weren’t done.

Ding—!

“⋯⋯?!!”

A stunned breath slipped from Suhyuk’s lips.

Four hundred Hell Points.

With Hell Shop prices soaring higher and higher, it was an enormous reward that landed like a lifeline.

Kim Jong-chan, the boss of the Yacha gang, the deputy boss, and now Kim Kyung-su, whose throat he had just cut.

The reward for sending four Abyss criminals to hell was beyond imagination.

They’ve only been giving me ten Hell Points for leveling up, and now they’re springing this on me like some kind of surprise gift.

Suhyuk clicked his tongue.

The meaning of the achievement and the huge reward pouring down afterward was obvious.

The system was blatantly urging him to hunt down more sinners—especially awakened sinners—and keep sending them to hell without pause.

“I was already chasing the end of my revenge anyway.”

Suhyuk spat coldly into the air, as though speaking back to the system itself.

Without delay, he called up his status window.

“Eight hundred Hell Points.”

He had accumulated a substantial amount so far.

Enough to start eyeing the Hell Shop’s expensive merchandise.

If I save a little more, I can buy the 1,000-point Shackles of Sin.

Suhyuk stroked his chin, caught in thought.

The items he could buy right now were the 500-point Enhancement Stone (Judgment) and the 600-point Reincarnation of Karma.

It was a crossroads.

Should he hunt a few more days and buy the shackles, or strengthen his combat power right now?

I’ll be fighting Iron Mask soon—the one who’s got Kim Kyung-su and Kim Tae-su shaking in their boots. I’ve got Dead Man’s Severance now, so I can pressure him from range, but I need a decisive weapon that can finish him for good.

The fierce battle he’d just fought with Kim Tae-su flashed through his mind.

The bastard had dodged his attacks with infuriating ease and mocked him all the while.

What’s the point of hiding your body if you’re leaking your presence all over the place?

No matter how much he erased his appearance with the Reaper’s robe and blinked through space with Reaper’s Steps, the faint presence that still leaked from him to awakened senses remained Suhyuk’s most fatal weakness.

Suhyuk’s eyes hardened.

He opened the Hell Shop window and pressed the purchase button for the Enhancement Stone (Judgment) without hesitation.

After checking the message, Suhyuk shoved his hand into the Reaper’s pouch stitched with the character for hell, tucked into his pants pocket.

Unlike before, when purchases were delivered to his house, the system now had the item inserted directly into the pouch.

His fingertips touched a rectangular paper box.

“What is this?”

What he pulled out of the pouch was a delivery box bearing the Hell Shop’s distinctive symbol.

It was absurd—they’d even gone to the trouble of wrapping a delivery box for an item meant for an extradimensional pouch—but the convenience of being able to receive items anywhere was overwhelming.

Suhyuk ripped the packing tape off roughly and took out the round enhancement stone flashing with crimson light from inside.

Then he brought it to the worn, frayed Reaper’s Robe he was wearing.

At the question floating in the air, Suhyuk extended a finger.

Y.

That was the moment.

The enhancement stone in his hand crumbled apart, and a blood-colored surge of dark red energy burst outward.

Like a living snake, that force coiled all around ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Reaper’s Robe and sank into the old cloth.

Wherever the energy passed, geometric, icy lines carved themselves into the fabric like veins, and the robe’s shape began to change.

At last the black light settled, and the updated item information appeared.

“⋯⋯?!!”

A cry of shock and delight burst from between Suhyuk’s lips as he read the description.

All the humiliation he’d endured from awakened beings sneering that he leaked his presence everywhere seemed to wash away in a single surge.

To erase presence like a Reaper that never existed in this world.

One sentence. That was all it took to define something absolute.

“Perfect.”

Suhyuk clenched the hem of his newly transformed Judge’s Robe.

Now Kim Tae-su, and Iron Mask too, would not notice a thing until Suhyuk had the scythe pressed to their throats.

The true Reaper, the perfect concealment and slaughter, was ready.

A deep, cruel smile spread across Suhyuk’s mouth.

＊ ＊ ＊

The man called Iron Mask.

Because he always wore a pitch-black iron mask that covered his entire face, people called him Iron Mask.

To trace the origins of when he first began draping that heavy, stifling lump of metal over his own face, one had to go back to the period when he was roaming gates as an awakened one and gradually making a name for himself.

In order to enter a gate, one had to register as an Awaker and obtain a license, and for the sake of survival and safety, entry was only permitted in parties of five or more.

Iron Mask had also formed a party with four other B-class Awakers under government policy.

For more than a year, they ran countless gates together, sharing life and death, and became as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠close as blood brothers.

They watched ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠each other’s backs on the front line, and after clearing gates soaked in monster blood, they would clink glasses through the night and dream of a golden future.

At least, that was what Iron Mask believed with complete conviction.

But over that year, what had grown between them was not only friendship.

Buried beneath that thick layer of trust, a black knot of inferiority and jealousy had been festering, ready to burst.