Chapter 153
Chapter 153
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 153
Chapter Title: The Demon Awakens
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Kwa-duk!
It was a noise that made one's heart feel like it was being crushed just from hearing it.
A screech like chalk scraping across a blackboard.
A sound that sent chills crawling over every inch of skin.
Yet.
"Cap…."
To Yu Baek, it sounded like the trumpet of an angel.
"Captain!"
It was Go Yohan.
The noise of Go Yohan hunting demons and beasts amid the battlefield.
"Why are you so stubborn?"
From behind the torn-apart human forms, a man with silver-white hair revealed himself and spoke.
"If you're that cornered, it shouldn't matter."
"……!"
A voice that seemed to scold Yu Baek for not using his sins.
"……."
And the remaining players froze in place, unable to move.
'What just happened?'
They couldn't even easily comprehend the scene unfolding right before their eyes.
People being ripped apart whole.
And then.
"Have you awakened?"
"Yes. A little while ago."
Amid that scene, the two casually asking after each other's well-being.
Oso-so.
It was a sight terrifying enough to truly make one's skin crawl.
"What are you…."
In the meantime, a small voice whispered like a murmur.
"What are you doing-!"
But soon it turned into a shout.
"Kill him!"
And erupted as a command.
Only then did the players, stiff with fear, snap out of it and kick off the ground.
It was Go Yohan.
They didn't know how he, who was said to be dead, had appeared here, but what mattered was.
'We have to kill him.'
The fact that they had to somehow take down that monster.
Over ten players had been ripped apart in a single blow just moments ago.
A strike like that would naturally create an opening.
Tchwa-aek!
Dozens of swords charged at Go Yohan as if to shred him to pieces.
Kwa-du-duk!
But what rang out was exactly the same noise as before.
Hu-du-duk.
They hardened in midair and rained down.
In less than a few minutes, the players who had cornered even Yu Baek were utterly massacred.
Horrible?
Not even that thought crossed their minds.
The surreal scene simply felt like a dream.
"…Ah…."
Kim Yu-jung muttered along with the players now reduced to barely a handful.
"Demon…."
He wasn't wrong.
The man with silver-white hair and sky-blue eyes was no being that could be called human.
How could a human do this?
"Demon…!"
A man with albinism, unusual even among Koreans.
This was the price for finally realizing that it was truly a curse.
Jeobuk.
Toward the approaching Go Yohan.
"Don't come any closer-!"
Kim Yu-jung shouted.
"Don't come closer! You demon bastard!"
"……."
But by then, Go Yohan was already right in front of Kim Yu-jung's nose.
Pajit!
In that instant, electricity sparked.
A storm crashed in simultaneously, erupting into a massive explosion.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang!
It was a skill unleashing all his power.
A force that could be said to have expended every ounce of strength he once possessed—one powerful enough to shred even a Twin Head Ogre.
Pasit.
Toward the swirling smoke.
Tchwa-aek!
Kim Yu-jung swung his lightning-infused sword without respite.
"Die!"
Ever since Go Yohan appeared, his mind had long gone blank.
In the terror where only instinct remained, all he could do were these desperate flailings.
"Die…."
Within the smoke from the explosion and the domain swept by the storm.
Paat!
A pure white hand shot out and seized Kim Yu-jung's throat.
"Ah… you demon bastard…!"
Kim Yu-jung, throat gripped, shouted with all his might.
"See! You really are a demon! We are the true ones… chosen by God…."
He wanted to spew the words boiling inside him, but he couldn't.
Pu-hwak!
For Kim Yu-jung soon scattered as flying debris as well.
Silence descended in an instant over what had been a fierce battlefield moments before.
"Captain."
Yu Baek cautiously approached Go Yohan and spoke.
He knew how much Go Yohan hated demons.
'God.'
And how devoted he was to such an existence, so he wanted to comfort him, telling him not to mind Kim Yu-jung's words.
"A demon, huh."
But he couldn't.
Go Yohan spoke as he shook off the foreign matter from his hand.
"Chosen by God—it might not be entirely wrong."
"……."
"But what does it matter? Your god."
Go Yohan looked up at the sky and said.
"Is not my goddess."
It was then, as Yu Baek was overwhelmed by the changed atmosphere and couldn't easily open his mouth.
U-reureu-reung! Kwang!
The barriers encircling the area shattered.
*
*
*
Hwaruk!
Flames were rising from various spots in the city.
He had found it strange that no reinforcements had come, and even stranger that no civilians were visible nearby.
'It was a barrier.'
Only after the barrier broke did Yu Baek realize he had been unknowingly trapped inside it.
It was a form utterly different from any barrier he had experienced before.
Paaaaang!
In the distance, a horn blared.
"Guild Master!"
"Are you alright?!"
Members of the Sanctuary Union and Kim Cheon-seok, who had finally arrived, shouted toward Yu Baek.
"I'm fine."
As Yu Baek spoke, they spotted Go Yohan beside him, flinched, and hesitated to approach.
"We should control the area first, it seems."
At Go Yohan's words, Kim Cheon-seok nodded as he approached and directed the union members.
"From that side to this side. Lock it all down."
"Understood."
Only then did Kim Cheon-seok come over as well.
"You've awakened?"
Go Yohan smirked and nodded at Kim Cheon-seok's shifting speech.
"Weren't you attacked too?"
"……!"
At Go Yohan's words, Yu Baek looked at Kim Cheon-seok in surprise.
Indeed, traces of battle covered Kim Cheon-seok's body.
"I handled it quickly and came."
"Well done."
That wasn't it.
Unlike Yu Baek, who hadn't anticipated the worst-case scenario of a Sanctuary Union rebellion, Kim Cheon-seok had sensed the change, alerted the church, and prepared.
"Other places seem to be in chaos too."
Hwaruk!
Flames soared as if war had broken out across the city.
"What the hell is…."
"Attacks."
A casual tone, as if it were nothing.
"Some Sanctuary Union executives, the Black Specters, the Divine Union—all hit simultaneously."
Go Yohan glanced at Kim Yu-jung's fragmented remains.
"The Association too."
"How could this…."
No, the signs had been there.
Three weeks ago, when Go Yohan was said to have fallen and North Korean people flooded into South Korea en masse—the omens had been clear from then.
For all this to happen required various conditions and coordination, but the most important figure was.
"Min Jun-hyeok."
"The President."
The name from Kim Cheon-seok and Yu Baek's mouths.
"Yes."
Go Yohan didn't deny it.
"The President betrayed us."
It was a situation that could be called utter despair.
Pishk.
Yet Go Yohan was simply laughing.
*
*
*
"Wh-what… what happened…?"
Min Jun-hyeok barely suppressed his trembling voice as he spoke.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
His pounding heart was fiercer than when he had confirmed his presidential election victory.
Thump!
It felt like his heart would burst.
"What happened?!"
In the office, corpses littered the floor.
Ironically, they were dressed as bodyguards.
'The church.'
The ones they had sent to protect him—now reduced to corpses.
"Please wait a moment."
Instead, other men and women in bodyguard attire stood guard around Min Jun-hyeok, relaying news.
Wiiiiing!
Outside, sirens wailed as if martial law had been declared.
"……."
Min Jun-hyeok bit his nails, his face pale.
It had begun three weeks ago.
When Go Yohan erased the nation of North Korea from the world, and its people fled en masse to South Korea.
The news that Go Yohan had fallen.
That was when unease had gripped him.
-What are you afraid of?
One day, he had come and asked.
-Those demons whose existence you can't even confirm?
He had asked with such secrecy that even the church-sent bodyguards noticed nothing.
-Or are you afraid of Go Yohan, the demon who single-handedly erased a nation?
He had thought it a test.
-Do not doubt.
But it was different.
-Go Yohan is a demon too. Nay, the true demon.
Just hearing it washed away his anxiety and stole his trembling.
It was peace itself.
-Rejoice. The true servants of God have chosen you.
-Who are you?
-I am.
The voice said.
-We are angels sent to protect you.
Angels.
Beings like the demons from myths, dismissed as mere fantasy.
They told him many things, and what he must do.
He had been certain.
'Ah. They truly are angels.'
Undoubtable existences.
Yet.
Kkaduk.
Now, the moment he truly turned against Go Yohan, his heart was pounding again.
"The Divine Guild and Taehan Guild have been fully surrounded."
A report came in.
"……!"
"The Association has been secured."
Victories.
"Over forty presumed Black Specter players killed, thirty captured."
The simultaneous reports spoke to how much preparation had gone into this moment.
Kkwaak.
Min Jun-hyeok clenched his fist.
'I… I am not wrong.'
The incoming victory reports were proof.
Hadn't even Go Yohan's apostles, called the Shinzu, failed to appear since that day?
Without them now.
"We've frozen Greed's funds."
The forces Go Yohan had built crumbled in an instant.
"……."
Not yet. Not yet.
Something crucial remained.
"…The presumed headquarters…."
The final, most important news.
"We've pinpointed the Yohan Church and Yohan Orphanage locations. Surround successful."
Kwang!
Min Jun-hyeok slammed his fist down, unable to contain his excitement.
Success. Success.
"Now… exterminate…."
If they just wiped them all out, he could escape that tenacious shadow of Go Yohan—or so he was about to say.
"……!"
A panicked report followed.
"From Yu Baek's side… traces of Go Yohan have been found."