The Unseen Killer
“He was an Invisibility-type Awaker... I couldn’t see him with the naked eye, but for some reason he was practically dripping presence, so pinning down his position wasn’t difficult. The problem was, the bastard had a movement skill too.”
“A movement skill?”
“In an instant, without a trace of presence, he got directly behind me.”
“He got behind you in a flash...”
Cheol-gamen stroked his chin, drawing up the databases of countless Awaker skills in his mind.
What kind of movement skill would a sloppy stealth-type Awaker—one who couldn’t even hide his presence properly—be likely to have? Blink. Shadow Step, a spatial shift that used shadows as a medium. Swift Step, Lightning Step. Illusion Switch, which swapped places with a phantom.
“And then, right in the middle of fighting me head-on, he...” Kim Tae-su swallowed hard before forcing the words out. “He took my brother Kyung-su’s neck in one go.”
As he savored Tae-su’s testimony, Cheol-gamen came to a cold conclusion.
“So it wasn’t Dark Shadow Step.”
If Kim Tae-su, a C-class Awaker, had lost track of the trajectory for even a moment, then it certainly wasn’t the kind of purely physical burst that Dark Shadow Step provided.
It had to be a skill of at least B-class. Which meant the killer possessed a higher-tier instant-movement skill like Shadow Step.
A murderer with a shabby stealth ability that leaked presence everywhere, yet also wielding a B-class-or-higher movement skill.
It was a contradiction so unbalanced it was almost absurd.
Through the pitch-black metal mask, a cold, mechanical laugh escaped Cheol-gamen’s lips.
“What a ridiculous bastard.”
“There was... something else, too. Something strange.”
Kim Tae-su swallowed the dry lump in his throat and spoke with visible effort.
“What was it?”
Cheol-gamen’s dry voice split the silence.
“My brother’s body... turned into black light dust and vanished. Not a single thing was left. Nothing at all.”
With those words, Tae-su slammed his forehead into the floor and began to sob like an animal.
Not only had he witnessed the horrific death of his own brother, but the corpse had completely vanished, making even a proper funeral impossible.
It was as if his brother had never existed in this world to begin with—erased perfectly, leaving not even a single splash of blood behind.
“Black light dust?”
Cheol-gamen frowned beneath his mask.
He couldn’t immediately picture it.
Dust... made of light? And black?
The contradiction of light and darkness was grotesque enough, but more than anything else, the notion that a dead body could crumble into powder and evaporate was a phenomenon he had never once heard of in his life as an Awaker.
“I saw it clearly... My brother was stabbed in the neck, blood pouring out as he fell, and then at some point his body broke apart into that bizarre black light dust and disappeared into the air without a trace.”
To Kim Tae-su, it had been nothing but an impossible sight.
There wasn’t a shred of deceit in his trembling voice.
Cheol-gamen’s formidable mind stitched the scattered clues together in an instant.
A perfect erasure that leaves no body behind.
A few days ago, Jo Gi-hoon and Kim Jong-chan, who worked at XX Club, had vanished overnight.
Then even Detective Lee Chi-sang, the narcotics officer backing Cheolsu-pa from behind the scenes, had lost contact. And most decisively of all, when the nine runners at the secret manufacturing plant disappeared without a trace, the scene was left without so much as a proper mark or bloodstain.
Not a single witness, not a single corpse—an unprecedented event that left nothing behind.
Only then did Cheol-gamen fully understand the reason behind every one of those perfect disappearances.
He’s not just some assassin with a superior movement skill. He has a bizarre ability that wipes corpses from existence without leaving a trace.
Even Kim Tae-su, the knife of Cheolsu-pa, was so terrified he’d lost all will to fight.
Kim Kyung-su, the brain of the organization, had been murdered without a trace.
This unknown enemy was not merely physically powerful; he held an off-the-books ability to erase a person’s very existence from the world.
“Looks like this might be beyond what I can handle alone.”
Cheol-gamen murmured under his breath.
It was the moment his usual arrogance, the pride that had always looked down on others, finally cracked.
If his opponent had only been a strong Abyss Awaker, he could have set a trap, swarmed him with numbers, and killed him somehow. But with that bastard’s unpredictable skills and behavior, even Cheol-gamen couldn’t confidently guarantee victory.
He might be a new class. And an A-class one at that.
One face surfaced in his mind.
The woman who had once saved him so casually when he’d been betrayed and left burning to death—her smile had been that of a predator, even in the middle of pitch-black darkness.
The face of the woman who effectively ruled Cheolsu-pa, a woman with power that defied imagination, came naturally to him.
“If it’s beyond my line...”
“You mean you’re going to report it to her?”
“Yes.”
Cheol-gamen slowly took out his phone and made the call.
While the line rang, he said to Kim Tae-su, “I don’t want to look at that bastard anymore. Clean him up.”
He pointed to Jo Tae-jun, who looked no different from a corpse.
Kim Tae-su bowed deeply and then hoisted the body over his shoulder, carrying it outside.
“So this is the place.”
As Kim Tae-su shut the door and stepped out, an unfamiliar voice reached his ears.
* * *
The narrow, silent twelfth-floor hallway of Changho Capital.
Just as Kim Tae-su emerged from the CEO’s office with Jo Tae-jun slung over his shoulder, a low, dry voice flew into his ear and struck like a nail.
It was a voice he had never heard before, a stranger he’d never even spoken to properly.
But human instinct could be terrifyingly accurate at times.
Kim Tae-su didn’t even have the chance to turn his head before gooseflesh erupted across his entire body.
His instincts were screaming that this was the voice of the unknown monster who had cut down his brother in the courtyard of the abandoned hospital and reduced the corpse to dust.
“Huh?! N-no way!”
Panicking, Kim Tae-su hurled himself roughly in the opposite direction of the voice.
The heavy body of Black Moon faction lieutenant Jo Tae-jun, which he had been carrying on his shoulder, floated up into the air for an instant.
Shrrk—!
Something cut cleanly through flesh, and the sound echoed down the corridor.
Thud! Roll, roll, roll!
Kim Tae-su, who had slammed onto his back on the floor, looked up and saw something grotesque.
Jo Tae-jun’s head, which had just moments ago been hanging from his shoulder, had fallen to the floor and was rolling away, spraying blood in its path.
Thump.
His legs gave out, and Kim Tae-su collapsed where he stood.
With eyes full of fear and shock, he scanned the empty air like a madman.
Nothing was there.
I can’t feel a damn thing... no presence at all!
Just moments earlier, when they’d been fighting in the courtyard of the abandoned hospital, he’d at least sensed something faint.
The bastard’s uneven breathing. The tiny rustle of fabric as it brushed against the wind. Footsteps.
Even that faint, sticky, bone-chilling aura had been there.
But not now.
In this cramped, sealed hallway on the twelfth floor, there wasn’t even the slightest hint of breath, no flow of air at all.
Kim Tae-su had no way of knowing about the Judge’s Robe, an existence that completely annihilated the sight of the living, the eyes of machines, and even the senses of Awakers.
“Where are you!! Come out!! You were screwing with me, weren’t you!!”
Kim Tae-su hacked and slashed wildly at the air with his bloodstained serrated daggers, roaring in a frenzy.
It was the desperate thrashing of a man driven to the brink by his terror of an invisible enemy.
It was rage at his own helplessness, unable to perceive anything at all, and at the same time a cry for rescue toward Cheol-gamen behind the steel door of the CEO’s office.
“Bring my brother Kyung-su back, you son of a bitch!”
Kim Tae-su’s beastlike howl ripped through the twelfth-floor hallway.
He prayed desperately that Cheol-gamen would hear this horrendous scream and come out to save him, and that he would tear this unseen monster—the killer of his brother—into pieces.
Did that desperate wish reach him?
BOOM—!
The tightly shut, thick steel door was wrenched open roughly, as though torn apart, and Cheol-gamen burst out.
A razor-sharp longsword was in his hand.
“Boss!!”
Without even a chance to fully assess the situation, Cheol-gamen swung the sword wide at the empty air of the hallway.
“Moonlight!”
Kwa-gagagag—!
The enormous crescent-shaped blade wave unleashed from Cheol-gamen’s longsword sliced horizontally through the cramped corridor.
As proof of the destructive power of a B-class Awaker, the hallway wall where the blade wave passed crumbled, and the marble floor was gouged deep.
An explosive roar and clouds of dust swallowed everything around them.
But even as he launched that devastating strike, cold sweat streamed down Cheol-gamen’s spine.
Can I hold out until the boss gets here...?
Cheol-gamen clenched his jaw beneath the pitch-black metal mask.
The all-out skill he’d just unleashed had only cut wall and floor.
There had been no sensation of striking a body. None at all.
Only the hollow feeling of having sliced through empty air remained in his grasp.
More than anything, what pressed down on him was the complete state of nothing.
No presence. No killing intent. Nothing.
An invisible enemy was frightening enough, but fighting an unknown enemy with no information whatsoever was no different from a death sentence.
The presence Tae-su said he felt... that wasn’t sloppy inexperience. He was deliberately leaking it to herd his prey. This bastard... he knows how to hunt.
Cheol-gamen realized he had completely misread Suhyeok’s abilities.
But though he was shaken, he did not surrender.
He tightened his grip on the sword and kept flinging blade energy in every direction without pause.
Crash! Clang!
Destructive skills flooded the narrow passage in relentless bursts.
It was a ploy to keep the unseen bastard from closing in on him or Kim Tae-su.
Invisibility-type Awakers have way more close-range assassination skills than long-range ones. If I keep a blade net spread out like this, he won’t be able to approach. And thrown weapons from a distance? I can deflect those easily with my dynamic vision.
It was a fatal misconception.
He had decided Suhyeok was just a standard invisibility-type assassin, one who fit within the bounds of ordinary common sense.
Between the billowing dust and the rain of sword energy, Suhyeok leisurely dodged Cheol-gamen’s reckless assault with Reaper's Steps.
There was no need to force his way into the blade storm.