Bloody Knights

Bloody Knights.

A class that grew by feeding on human blood.

A hidden class of the Unique grade, no less.

'In my first life, I didn't awaken it until much later. Back then, I mostly hunted monsters, not villains.'

From his second regression onward, Dohyun had changed his career path (?). Villains became his primary prey instead of monsters.

Thanks to that, from the second life onward, Dohyun was able to rise effortlessly into the ranks of the world's strongest.

'Being able to grow on human blood instead of monster blood is a massive advantage.'

The reason was simple.

"P-please spare me······!"

Crunch!

Dohyun surveyed the bodies strewn around him.

Inside an abandoned factory in an industrial complex in Siheung, dozens of men lay dead in pools of their own blood.

Villains.

No — trash gangsters who didn't even deserve the name.

'Hunting humans is far easier and more convenient than hunting monsters.'

Monster hunting, setting aside the danger and difficulty, was an enormous hassle.

It was still Phase Zero. Gates, monsters — everyone saw them purely as opportunities to make money.

Unless a gate or monster was of a genuinely dangerous rank, hunters competed with each other to clear the ones of 'moderate' difficulty.

Hunting bad people, on the other hand, came with no such competition.

Everyone just postponed it, quietly looked the other way.

'For the next month, I'll rip every last root of Korea's villains out of the ground.'

If Dohyun simply left for America as things stood?

The Republic of Korea would meet the same horrific future as in his first life. Like most nations, it would fall under the sway of rampaging villains, and countless people would suffer for it.

He had decided to go to America, but that didn't mean he bore any particular grudge against South Korea.

So if he pulled up the villains' roots while he was at it, the country's future would become that much smoother.

Afterward, the Republic of Korea was turned upside down.

When Dohyun had first terrorized the Triads in Chinatown, few had paid attention.

They dismissed it as nothing more than a turf war between rival organizations.

But half a month later?

By now, there was no one in South Korea who didn't know the name Dohyun — 'Dark Knight.' He shed blood practically every single day; it was impossible for him not to leave a trail.

And yet, public opinion wasn't bad at all.

After the Cataclysm, the biggest headache hadn't been monsters. It had been villains.

Ironically, the monsters had been brought under control.

Because they made money.

Hunting villains, however, turned no profit.

The Awakener Police Agency and a handful of justice-obsessed 'heroes' were doing their best, but they were hopelessly insufficient to clean up the endless flood of villains in the world.

At the very least, the deranged villains who committed their crimes out in the open had improved somewhat.

The real problem was the intelligent ones.

The ones who flaunted a spotless image in public while committing atrocities behind closed doors.

Because these types typically showered enormous bribes on the right people, the state didn't even make a serious effort to root them out.

While the public sang Dohyun's praises as a righteous avenger under the name 'Dark Knight,' that was only the general population talking.

The government's position was, naturally, quite different.

To the government, Dohyun was nothing more than the worst villain to emerge yet.

And how many politicians were directly or indirectly entangled with the people Dohyun had already destroyed — or with the evildoers who stood to be destroyed next?

The full investigative power of the Republic of Korea began moving with the sole purpose of capturing him.

'I can't push my luck any further, I suppose.'

Dohyun munched on a pork bulgogi rice bowl at a kimbap shop, watching a tip-line broadcast on TV calling for information about him.

This kind of 'villain cleanup' was something he repeated with every regression. He'd done it so many times that it posed no difficulty at all.

Only, this was the first time he'd swept through it so intensively in such a short span.

'In previous lives, I paced myself carefully — cultivated the public opinion most favorable to me as I went.'

In past regressions, Dohyun's goal had been the seizure of power in South Korea.

He'd used villain hunting as a means to gain fame and authority.

'But this life, I'm heading to America anyway. No need to fuss over any of that.'

All he had to concern himself with was growing stronger on the blood of bad people.

'Which means I'm now roughly at the level of upper-tier A-rank, hmm? By the loose official criteria, I could probably pass for S-rank too.'

B-rank to S-rank in barely half a month.

Astounding speed.

And that wasn't all.

A new hidden class.

A 'Legendary'-grade class, no less — one that allowed for vastly accelerated growth with every evildoer executed.

'This is the first time I've awakened a second hidden class this early. Normally, no matter how fast I moved, this was hard to achieve during Phase Zero.'

Killing a thousand people while society's systems still functioned was no small feat.

It was only possible because he'd decided he was leaving Korea anyway and stopped worrying about the aftermath.

'Before I leave Korea, I'll complete my third class advancement too. It'll take at least this much preparation to bring America to its knees.'

Even with ten lifetimes of experience, he could never underestimate the United States.

It was where every superhuman of note in the world had gathered at this very moment.

Becoming the strongest in America, in itself, wouldn't be difficult.

But Dohyun's goal was not a mere game of King of the Hill.

Making America kneel before him.

That was a matter of an entirely different dimension.

'Just as I did in South Korea in my past lives, I must become the overwhelming absolute sovereign in America. And for that, the third advancement is essential.'

Ten Thousand Kills.

And beyond that, the execution of a single evildoer on a worldwide scale.

Those were the conditions for the third advancement.

A thousand kills had been an absurd feat already — but ten thousand?

And he had to take down a villain of global stature on top of that?

'There's exactly one candidate. Not in our country, though.'

Dohyun scrolled through the news feed on his phone.

Every outlet's feed was saturated with stories about the 'Dark Knight,' but other items were mixed in among them.

The place where he could fulfill the conditions for his third advancement.

North Korea.

'The further time went on, the more North Korea became a ticking time bomb for South Korea.'

After the Cataclysm, the Kim regime had collapsed.

An S-rank awakener in the North Korean military had staged a coup and become the new dictator.

It wasn't just North Korea — most of the third-world nations in Africa and South America had gone through the same thing.

And the fall of the Kim regime had hardly improved North Korea's situation.

It had become far worse.

'The entire country ended up consecrated to an Outer God.'

The third world was in much the same boat across the board.

The upstart dictators who had overthrown the old regimes found their positions precarious, and they capitulated all too easily to the seduction of the Outer God cults.

The other nations of the world paid little mind to whatever happened in backward third-world countries — and that indifference would later become a catastrophe of enormous proportions.

'I knew all this, and yet I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠never once managed to deal with North Korea early.'

Because of the potential backlash.

Dealing with North Korea could not be done quietly. It would inevitably be traced back to Dohyun.

In the end, only after he'd built a position strong enough that such concerns no longer mattered was he able to settle the North Korea problem.

'Well, it is convenient not having to worry about consequences.'

He passed the GOP guard post and set foot on North Korean soil.

Since the collapse of the Kim regime, the North Korean military had fallen into complete disarray.

Not that even a fully intact North Korean army would have detected the infiltration of a Dohyun wielding S-rank stealth skills.

Deep inside the border, he ran into a North Korean soldier.

"Who goes there?!"

One who had already sold his soul to an Outer God.

Snap!

He twisted the man's neck, disposed of the body, and stripped him of his uniform.

Moon phase differences aside, infiltrating North Korea was something he'd repeated every single regression, and he was consummately practiced at it.

He located a guard post and found several sentries along with an officer.

Snap!

'This one's just about the right rank.'

This time, after stripping a second lieutenant of his uniform, Dohyun invoked a skill commonly used by the Shadow Knights.

Face Shifting.

A skill that temporarily restructured the skeletal frame of the face to disguise oneself as another person.

He drove a Soviet-made military truck, a Shengli-51, toward the senior command post.

"Second Lieutenant, comrade? What brings you here?"

"I have urgent business to report to the commanding officer, comrade. It concerns the ones to the south."

"What matter could be so pressing?"

"It is a matter I must deliver to the commanding officer's ears alone. It may even be that we can finally accomplish the task our Dear Leader has set before us."

"Is that truly the case?"

"The details, I shall report to the commanding officer directly."

The commanding officer was a senior colonel, a general-grade man.

In the North Korean military, 'the Dear Leader, comrade' was a word of magic.

It opened the door straight to the command staff.

Not that he was welcomed with open arms, of course.

Clack—

The moment he entered the commander's office, gun muzzles swung toward him from both flanks.

Dohyun nearly laughed.

Depending on the era of his infiltration and the route he took, the commander he met was always different — but the proceedings were always roughly the same.

Dohyun played his part.

"C-comrade?! What is the meaning of this? I have found the very clue the Dear Leader, comrade, has commanded us to seek!"

"Report first. If your report proves empty, you will be summarily executed."

The opposite, in fact.

If Dohyun truly brought the information the current dictator of North Korea so desperately wanted? The man would kill him.

Why? To steal the credit for himself.

"I have found a s-sacrifice that matches the very conditions the Dear Leader seeks."

"Where? Speak, this instant."

"Right here. Your neck."

"······What?"

Thud. Thud.

In a flash, Dohyun's hand shot up and struck away the rifles aimed at his forehead.

And before the soldiers could react, he unleashed his physical abilities, evolved to S-rank.

Before a single shot could be fired, the necks of the soldiers on both sides were already broken.

"Y-you—?!"

The commander desperately fumbled for his pistol, but he, too, was too late.

Snap.

Having dealt with them all in short order, Dohyun settled into the commander's seat and picked up the old Soviet-made HF (shortwave) long-range transceiver.

It was originally reserved for emergency communication between Pyongyang and the forward command.

Dohyun turned the dial with practiced ease, sweeping the frequency.

To a frequency the US military used for classified traffic.

"Do you read me? This is the forward command of North Joseon. I have an urgent message to deliver."