Chapter 168
Chapter 168
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 168
Chapter Title: Bullshit Even on the 13th Regression
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- This guy just can't help himself, can he?
Nathaniel let out a bored sigh.
The bodyguards, frozen in shock from the events that unfolded in the blink of an eye, finally sprang into action.
“Mr. President!”
“Activate the anti-avatar field!”
Wooong!
A metal disc that tore through the conference room wall began vibrating intensely.
It was a device developed after twenty years of research, designed to destabilize avatars.
Moreover, the president and key figures from various nations were already dead.
The bodyguards aimed their guns without hesitation.
Muzzle flashes erupted, sending countless lead bullets toward Ju Gonghyeok.
Plip plip.
But not a single bullet touched Ju Gonghyeok's body.
Like the bullets stopping in midair as if drawn by a magnet—everyone knew the trick—the lead projectiles lost their momentum and fell harmlessly to the floor.
The bodyguards stuck to the floor were no different.
“Ugh, my gut, my organs hurt!”
“I feel like puking, my eyes... my head...”
The bodyguards' eyes were bloodshot red, capillaries bursting from the excessive gravity.
= Bro. I don't really feel like tormenting these poor bastards.
“I'm not killing them.”
Using the Mi Huwang King's mass manipulation ability, the bodyguards' weights had multiplied several times over.
The weight of their organs and blood exceeded the durability of their skin and flesh.
Ju Gonghyeok rubbed his cigarette butt against the anti-avatar field embedded in the wall.
“It might work someday. But right now, it's too primitive.”
The concept and principle weren't bad at all.
But it was useless even against B-rank avatars.
Bang!
A single bullet lodged into Ju Gonghyeok's temple.
It was from a pistol fired by a fallen bodyguard.
“Terrorism... cannot subdue the United States...”
With bloodshot eyes, the bodyguard pulled the trigger again.
Bang! The shot rang out, and Ju Gonghyeok precisely caught the sluggishly flying bullet.
“President Mike may have passed, but if the Vice President falls too, then the Secretary of Defense will, you...”
“Whoa, whoa. Calm down, folks.”
Ju Gonghyeok gentlemanly gestured toward the severed heads.
“The President isn't dead yet.”
“...!?”
The heads on the table, severed for twenty seconds already, were still mumbling with their lips.
Their wide-open eyes rolled around, taking in each other's horrific states.
- Sigh, don't use angelic powers for crap like this.
“Better than killing them.”
Clear streams of blood flowed from the necks and bodies of the severed leaders, reconnecting their circulatory systems and severed nerves.
It was a slight borrowing of the power of the Grand Archangel Gabriel from the second stage of the Sephirot—healing.
The presidents were barely clinging to life.
“I was thinking of how to show the difference in power beyond just destruction.”
Ju Gonghyeok picked up the heads of the national leaders one by one.
The heads in panic let out screams.
Gonghyeok placed President Mike's head on the body of the Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister.
The Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister was a woman in her fifties.
“Uwaaaaaah!”
Using Flesh Mending Flower to attach it directly, President Mike—now in the woman's body—screamed and rolled his eyes back.
The Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister, robbed of her original body, foamed at the mouth and fainted.
“Just match the blood types, heave-ho.”
Ju Gonghyeok freely swapped the heads and bodies of the leaders.
Heads of different skin colors and ages found new torsos.
“What the hell is that? This isn't a movie, right?”
“He's insane...”
The sight of a murderer with a grotesquely torn face swapping presidents' heads and bodies like Lego bricks was utterly grotesque.
The presidents and religious leaders, who had felt like distant foreigners, were bleeding and screaming—a sight that horrifyingly resonated on a human level.
All authority on Earth had crumbled to the ground.
Playing with the powerful like toys conveyed that Ju Gonghyeok was an unprecedented monster beyond law and authority.
“Shall we move to the next location?”
Crackle!
Screens worldwide flickered with a blue flash for viewers everywhere.
The scene changed.
A dark underground silo, faintly visible conical metal.
It was a nuclear missile embedded in an underground silo.
Ju Gonghyeok grabbed the warhead of the missile.
[Acquired 'Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Minuteman III.']
The nuclear missile that filled the silo vanished in an instant.
Into Ju Gonghyeok's inventory.
Inventory weight limits scale with the owner's strength.
With SA-rank strength capable of shattering continental plates with a single punch and wiping out humanity, weight limits were essentially meaningless.
Screens switched endlessly as nuclear and biological weapons across Earth disappeared.
From cabinet ministers to civilians, viewers could do nothing but watch.
* * *
Lush forest.
After collecting Pakistan's last nuclear weapons, Ju Gonghyeok sat on the bunker lid and lit a cigarette.
One hunter approached him.
“آپ سے مل کر اچھا لگا.”
Ju Gonghyeok wagged his finger.
“I don't speak Urdu. Speak Korean or English.”
The man composed himself briefly.
“Warrior Ju Gonghyeok, I respect you.”
He knelt politely on both knees.
“Our country has suffered from endless conflicts. I won't say they were meaningless wars. We had no choice but to rise against oppression and discrimination. But because of that, nuclear weapons fell on our land.”
He gazed into the distant forest.
“Several cities were destroyed, and my younger brother died from internal radiation after drinking contaminated water. It was an unavoidable war, but we couldn't expect it to stop now.”
“...”
He spoke to Ju Gonghyeok, who smoked silently.
“If you've eliminated nuclear weapons to bring peace to the world, I salute your will.”
Ju Gonghyeok exhaled smoke without looking at him.
“Nah, not really. I'm just taking them for my own use.”
“Pardon?”
“Your brother died from radiation exposure, right?”
Ju Gonghyeok grinned wickedly.
“I'll probably do something like that too. To even more lives.”
“...What the hell are you...”
Overwhelmed by the dry malice, the Pakistani hunter unwittingly stepped back.
Beep———!
The GM's alert rang in his ear.
“Business done.”
[Ymir has made contact with Russian Dr. Yelena Granat.]
“Yeah?”
Ju Gonghyeok turned his gaze toward the virtual camera.
“Ladies and gentlemen watching worldwide. The broadcast is now over.”
His ragged face skin twisted hideously.
“Until the day I return to Earth, please enjoy this brief peace.”
Setting aside his right face—where eyeballs and cheek skin had flown off, leaving only white teeth and gums visible—even judging from his relatively intact left side, Ju Gonghyeok was smiling.
Seeing that smile, people prayed.
‘May that devil and other trash, murderers, never return to Earth.’
* * *
Crackle—!
A mansion on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia.
Ju Gonghyeok's body landed in the garden amid lightning sparks.
At a tea table in one corner of the well-manicured garden sat tea and snacks, with a woman and a boy seated there.
The woman, Yelena Granat, looked quite troubled.
“Mother?”
Imir—Experiment Subject 75, Yuri Granat—asked with confusion.
“Mother, it's me. Number 75, Yuri Granat.”
“Imir.”
Yelena grabbed Yuri's shoulder with a stiff expression.
“Mother, my name isn't Imir.”
“Imir.”
“My name is Yuri Granat...”
“Imir—!”
She glared and pressed down on Yuri's shoulder.
“Don't attach my surname to your name.”
“...Mother?”
“Sorry.”
She closed her eyes and released the pressure on Yuri's shoulder.
“It's been over ten years already. I wasn't the only one who gave birth. Surrogate mothers were short, so other female scientists and interns were mobilized too.”
“Mother?”
She bit her lip bitterly.
“Yuri, don't come see me anymore.”
“Mother, I don't understand. Why, me?”
“I feel sorry for you. Everything done to you was regrettable. But...”
Her hesitant gaze mixed fear and disgust.
It wasn't the look a mother gave her son.
“Giving birth to you was the biggest...”
“Stop.”
Crackle!
Dazzling lightning struck down before Yuri.
The tea table and grass evaporated from the intense heat.
Even the hand pressing his shoulder burned white-hot.
“Mother?”
Yuri looked at the scorch mark on the ground.
A human who had been speaking and alive moments ago had turned into a meaningless black stain.
Ju Gonghyeok stood behind the dazed Yuri.
‘He shouldn't have heard that.’
A child's world is their parents.
A child abandoned by parents is no different from being abandoned by the world.
If he'd heard it, Yuri Granat would have...
met death by Ju Gonghyeok's hand.
* * *
A past long erased.
There was a time when Yuri Granat cleared Babel and returned to Earth.
Born as an agency appendage, he lived only following experiments and agency orders.
Then the First Great Summoning occurred.
At eight years old, he fell into Babel, fighting solely to reunite with his mother.
‘Finally, I can see Mother.’
Yuri met his mother with swelling anticipation.
Suppressing a bursting smile, Imir hugged his mother from behind.
The mother he met after twenty years recoiled as if seeing something creepy.
“Mother?”
“How did you get all the way here?”
To his awkward mother, Yuri shouted enthusiastically.
“I destroyed Babel! No one can threaten Mother Russia now! I'll protect you, Mother, and the homeland!”
“Good for you. That's great for our country. Freak.”
Yelena stroked Yuri's head.
Reminded of his old mother for the first time since returning from Babel, Yuri's face flushed.
But even after decades, Imir still had a child's body.
“Now I can play with Mother every day! We can live together! Build a birdhouse in the fields, eat borscht you make every day...”
She, who had been silent, spoke.
“Yuri. That's right. But it might be a bit tough right now.”
“Ah! Yes, Mother. I'll build a house right away. The homeland gave me land, so one day is enough. Even if late, a week max, so all your luggage...”
“No, Yuri. That's not what I mean.”
She gave an awkward smile at his rambling.
“If we're together, it'll be inconvenient for me.”
Yuri froze.
“Am I interfering with your lab work, Mother? If so, I won't at all...”
“Yuri.”
Yelena placed her hand on Yuri's shoulder.
“I'm your mother.”
“Yes, my mother...”
She shook her head.
“Yuri, I have a husband and two children I bore with him.”
“...”
Yuri blankly looked up at her.
Yelena continued.
“I feel sorry for you. I've only done regrettable things to you.”
She stroked the surgical scar on Yuri's neck.
Yuri had undergone countless surgeries to satisfy scientists' desires.
Transplanting other awakeners' organs or testing bone and muscle strength was routine.
“But giving birth to you was the biggest mistake of my life. It was unavoidable.”
She turned her gaze bitterly.
“The other newborns were disposed of, and you were the only one with an awakening response. Surrogates were short, so I was inseminated too, but I never thought I'd actually give birth to you.”
“Mother? What are you saying?”
Yuri couldn't comprehend his mother's words.
His warm mother wouldn't say such things.
“You know what I mean, Yuri.”
She smiled bitterly.
“You're like a son to me. But if we're together, we'll be unhappy.”
“Like a son?”
What do you mean, Mother?
I am... your son?
She pressed hard on Yuri's shoulder.
“You're grown up now. It's been twenty years already? Don't come anymore. It'll only hurt us both.”
Us both?
Imir spoke.
“Mother. I'm not hurting.”
“...I see.”
Creak—
“Mom~ What are you doing out there?”
A child opened the door and came out.
She panicked and stood.
“Pavel! It's nothing. Go back inside.”
“Who's that big brother?”
“Now!”
Frightened by her anger, the child scurried indoors.
She sat back at the tea table.
“So, where were we?”
“I...”
Yuri clutched his chest like he lacked oxygen.
“I'm not hurting, Mother. But do you not want to see me?”
“...”
“Can I not call you ‘Mommy’?”
She placed her hand on Yuri's shoulder.
“75образцов(75th Experiment Subject) Юрий Гранат(Yuri Granat).”
She continued tonelessly.
один за всех и все за одного.
One for all, all for one.
мы семья, товарищ и брат.
We are family, comrades, brothers.
Бедная Маленькая Звезда.
Poor little star.
Дева Мария рядом с вами.
The Virgin Mary is by your side.
Посмотрите на ее кончики пальцев.
Look at her fingertips.
Это путь для всех.
That is the path for all.
Yuri bowed his head and fell silent.
Observing his reaction, she cautiously said.
“Ваше имя Юрий(Your name is Yuri). Забудьте Елена Гранат(Forget Yelena Granat). Не найти ее.(Do not seek her).”
The powerful brainwashing suggestion the Uchilise agency had implanted in Imir.
She believed in it.
“Завершите создание(Completion of inscription).”
Yelena removed her hand from Yuri's shoulder.
Grasping the shoulder and everything said so far was the process of modifying the suggestion.
The sequence was flawless.
Yuri raised his bowed head.
“Mommy wants me to forget her?”
Yelena flinched at the unexpected words.
It wasn't the anticipated response.
“Because of your current family?”
“Yuri, that's...”
“Am I just a stain on Mommy's life?”
The boy burst into tears.
“The torment before was just an experiment too?”
“Yuri. Wait, that's not it.”
“Am I useless now?”
She stood with a grave face.
“Yuri, that's not what I meant. What I just said was...”
Crack—
White frost settled on the garden grass.
“Mommy, I did it all for you...”
The table began freezing from the end.
“I killed a hundred thousand demons and betrayed a million humans.”
Moscow's temperature dropped one degree.
A white world slowly spread from Imir.
“Eek!”
Terrified, Yelena hurriedly retreated.
Imir's tear tracks froze and scattered.
“To survive, I crawled on the floor, ate maggots, and came all this way!”
A blizzard of extreme cold raged.
Yelena screamed and knelt.
“Sorry, sorry, Yuri!”
Imir approached her.
With each step, icicles formed on her eyebrows and lips, and bits of her skin flaked off.
“It was my fault, Yuri.”
She trembled and begged.
“So please, our children, spare...”
Imir stopped.
A mother protecting not him, but another child.
His heart shattered; he couldn't advance.
‘A world like this... should have perished.’
Crunch!
Imir lay on the frozen garden floor.
No—better to say someone's foot had pierced his chest, pinning him to the ground.
His sternum and ribs jutted out in the shape of the foot, heart pulverized.
Gray cigarette ash fell atop it.
“Imir, I told you not to cause trouble.”
The 11th Ju Gonghyeok.
The strongest version yet, who tore the Demon King apart in just two hours.