Chapter 169
Chapter 169
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 169
Chapter Title: The Eleventh Ju Gonghyeok
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The eleventh Ju Gonghyeok.
He was the strongest Ju Gonghyeok in history, the one who tore the Demon King apart and killed him in just two hours.
“I told them while holding the Demon King’s head. If even one of you doesn’t obey, this is what’ll happen to all of you.”
Crunch—
Ju Gonghyeok twisted his foot.
Hot blood from Imir soaked the frozen grass.
The fallen Imir rolled his eyes.
“So.”
“You misfits think the Earth will shatter if you throw even a little tantrum.”
Imir let out a chuckle.
“No need to save it.”
“Huh?”
Imir’s blood turned black.
“A world like this? It would’ve been better off just perishing.”
Crunch—
Ju Gonghyeok roughly grabbed Imir by the hair.
“Hey. I get that you’re pissed right now.”
The tip of his cigar scorched Imir’s throat.
A face twisted like a ferocious deity filled Imir’s vision.
Crack!
Bits of dry tobacco leaves and white tooth fragments scattered.
“Fuck, in front of the guy who’s busting his ass, sweating blood to keep this goddamn world from falling apart, if you spout that shit…”
Every time his words broke, the sound of tearing flesh rang out, and Imir’s body convulsed.
“I’m really fucking pissed.”
He let go of the hair.
The mangled chunk of meat, with half the hair ripped out, thudded to the ground.
“Kyaaahhh!”
Ju Gonghyeok approached Yelena Granat, who was screaming.
He wiped his blood-soaked fist on her skirt hem.
“Y-You…”
Yelena steadied her trembling body and replied.
“The Avatarless Executioner, Ju Gonghyeok…”
“Yeah, that’s me. Came close to a real mess. Without an avatar, it’s hard to track you down right away.”
If he’d arrived just a few seconds later, the world would have plunged into an unprecedented ice age.
In this life, Ju Gonghyeok had lost all his avatars in the battle with the Demon King.
That made sense, since he’d only had two to begin with.
The Demon King’s authority was 「Law Annihilation」, which erased avatars.
The eleventh Ju Gonghyeok had benchmarked the Dragon God and rendered 「Law Annihilation」 useless.
The Dragon God had defeated the Demon King without avatars or the beastkin realm’s privileges.
Ju Gonghyeok focused everything on strengthening his true body, just like the Dragon God.
He absorbed Liang Xian’s teachings and all the beastkin legacies, then used the god-slaying weapon 「Mistilteinn」 to convert his ten avatars into traits and stats.
Abandoning avatars was an enormous risk.
It meant losing every ability he’d built up until then.
In his previous life, he’d failed at risk management and gotten crushed by the Dragon God, but this time, Ju Gonghyeok smashed the bastard’s chin.
After grabbing and tormenting the Demon King, he went on to kill off countless hard-to-detect hunters under various pretexts, earning him the moniker “Avatarless Executioner.”
“Dr. Yelena, you went way too far. I can tell just by looking.”
Ju Gonghyeok glanced sidelong at the chunk of meat he’d personally pulverized.
“With stats like yours and all those traits? No way some childhood brainwashing hypnosis would work on you.”
The brainwashing from his Earth days had been undone from the start.
Even so, the reason he’d obeyed the Babel Uchilise Agency’s orders was simple.
He’d followed his mother Yelena’s words, not the agency’s.
‘Whatever. Not my problem anymore.’
With Babel gone, she was useless.
Might as well have killed her before she caused trouble waving the Russian homeland flag or whatever.
“Director Ju Gonghyeok, good work out there.”
Three hunters appeared around him.
“We’ll handle the cleanup.”
“We’re adjusting Moscow’s temperature back to normal. Should be done in 15 minutes.”
“Yeah, get to it.”
Ju Gonghyeok looked at the skirt hem he’d wiped his blood on.
Red blood had turned into ashen residue.
He turned back and touched Imir’s eyes, steeped in that blood.
It wasn’t ordinary blood—it was pitch black.
“Call in some analysis hunters to investigate. Check if he got some chimera organ transplant or what.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ju Gonghyeok stretched his body wide after giving the order.
“Alright, bit of a hiccup, but time to get to work.”
He’d eliminated the threats, but plenty remained to stabilize Earth.
He had to impose limits on U.S. and Chinese hunter manpower usage and establish new principles of political neutrality.
Ju Gonghyeok moved to carry out his scheduled tasks.
Imir’s translucent eyeball on the grass captured Ju Gonghyeok’s departing back.
= Keekee.
Something born from despair let out an eerie first cry.
* * *
“Director, Dr. Yelena has passed away.”
His secretary, Yulia, reported to Ju Gonghyeok.
“Yeah?”
Ju Gonghyeok signed documents calmly.
“So, the next Scandinavia Peninsula Hunter Rights Expansion Conference…”
“Yelena Granat died from the smallpox virus.”
At the unexpected words, Ju Gonghyeok frowned and looked up.
“Smallpox?”
Smallpox had been eradicated decades ago.
In the 21st century, smallpox felt like an anachronism—something didn’t sit right.
“Yes, a mutated smallpox virus.”
Yulia continued her report.
“It started with the first case, Yelena Granat, and is spreading through downtown Moscow.”
“Hmm.”
Ju Gonghyeok stroked his chin.
No pandemic like this had ever appeared in the worlds he’d experienced so far.
Sensing something off, his eyes sharpened.
“You came because you’ve got a hunch, right?”
“Yes.”
Yulia pointed to the world map in the director’s office.
“Moscow, visited 47 days ago. Then LA, Gaza Strip, Athens, Styria, Luxembourg, Cape Town, Calcutta, and now here in Seoul where you are.”
“No way.”
“All of them have confirmed new infectious diseases.”
Yulia spoke as professionally as possible, gauging Ju Gonghyeok’s reaction.
“It’s not just smallpox. Mutated prions and all sorts of diseases are rampant.”
“What a fucking mess.”
It’s that Imir bastard.
First victim: Yelena Granat.
He knew it instantly.
“I told you to inspect the body—bring the report!”
“The results just came in. Microbe and virus mutations via avatar—clear biochemical attack.”
A style and form of attack he’d never seen before.
Ju Gonghyeok clutched his head.
“Goddamn it. With even the GM gone, I’m totally screwed.”
“The Eurasia Monitoring Committee submitted records. Around 5:55 PM on August 23rd, when you killed Imir, they detected an SS-rank avatar manifestation.”
“Yeah? The report?”
“Team Leader Jeong Hyeondo handled it.”
“Execute that fucker.”
Ju Gonghyeok casually discarded Jeong Hyeondo’s life and received reports from the analysis hunters.
“It’s a rare avatar. Not poison or curse, but a more specialized disease-type avatar.”
“Usually, such niche concepts or gods have low ranks, but this one’s estimated at SS-rank.”
Crack!
The office desk shattered noisily.
“I don’t want expert opinions. I want to know ‘how to hunt the bastard down.’”
“…We’ll deploy the Monitoring Committee’s full resources to track it.”
Once the reporters left, Ju Gonghyeok pressed the throbbing vein on his forehead and picked up his pipe.
“Ha, ending with some bullshit like this again?”
As Ju Gonghyeok instinctively sensed, the seeds of humanity’s extinction were already rolling.
Much faster than he’d imagined.
“Fatal human papillomavirus detected!”
“A new encephalitis outbreak—34% of Kyushu’s population infected!”
“Buffing civilians’ resistance has its limits. Their base stats can’t handle it, so resistance drops!”
“Typhoid mutation…”
In just one year, half of humanity died from infectious diseases.
More than when Babel unleashed the monsters.
Monsters were visible enemies, but disease was not.
Hunters maxed out holy skills and collaborated with scientists to analyze viruses, but time was absolutely short.
“This won’t do.”
Ju Gonghyeok made his final decision.
“List the bacteria and microbes essential to the ecosystem.”
“Director? A list of microbes—even the unconfirmed ones number…”
Ju Gonghyeok said nonchalantly.
“Everything else? Sterilize the entire Earth.”
“Director! That’s…”
Hunters and scientists with any common sense opposed it.
Not a small room or operating theater—sterilizing the whole planet was absurd.
Of course, it wasn’t impossible.
But the ecosystem afterward would collapse uncontrollably.
“Do it.”
The opposing hunters became horrific abstract paintings on the conference room wall.
“Or you die too.”
2,800 confirmed mutated pathogens.
Ju Gonghyeok had no more room for mercy.
At this rate, hunters survive, but humanity goes extinct.
The regressor’s eyes bulged red.
“Do it, you fucks.”
Perish this way or that—same difference.
Might as well try something.
Two months later.
Hunters “purified” the entire Earth.
Sacred flames enveloped the planet, wiping out everything humanity deemed unnecessary.
The survivors evacuated to sterile shelters until the ecosystem rebalanced.
Built like mad by construction hunters.
From a northern Korean shelter, Yulia reported.
“No hunter infections reported yet. High-risk individuals disposed of. Remaining humans passed naked sterile checks. Personal items and anything that could spread infection—all incinerated. No external infection vectors left.”
“Good.”
They never found the pathogen-creating avatar.
Two hypotheses.
Each virus and bacterium was that avatar.
Or it shrank to nanometer size, undetectable.
“With GM or Argos, we could do something. No choice.”
No smoking in the sterile shelters.
Plant ability users grew food for self-sufficiency.
Minimal setup for smooth living for months.
A child tugged Ju Gonghyeok’s clothes.
“Mister… my tummy hurts.”
The child’s face twisted in pain.
Yulia rushed over.
“Director! New patient!”
Ju Gonghyeok slowly approached the fallen people.
Several hunters were already sweating bullets, deep in analysis.
“Cause?”
“Well…”
The analysis hunter spoke with difficulty.
“Looks like mutation in gut microbes.”
“Gut?”
“Yes. Normal digestive lactic acid bacteria and gut flora mutated into something else.”
“Changes in gut oxygen and pH causing abdominal pain…”
“Can it be stopped?”
The hunter’s face darkened.
“Not just gut microbes—mitochondrial mutations in cells too. Blocked viruses and pathogens, so now it’s targeting basic human components…”
It’s over.
Everything’s done.
“Kuaaaah!”
Red entrails dangled from Ju Gonghyeok’s hand.
He whispered to the freshly extracted guts from the patient.
“Next time we meet, I’ll kill you before you’re even born.”
The shelter turned into pandemonium.
Soon after, humans in shelters worldwide were wiped out.
Even hunters started falling ill.
Humanity met its eleventh extinction.
The future where Yuri Granat was abandoned by her mother.