The Worst Criminal
The prison raid this time had already been a plan sitting in Yong-ha’s head, yet for something he had kept postponing, parts of it had been executed with careless haste.
Just as the chief butler had guessed, Yong-ha had sensed the family’s surveillance net tightening around him of late and forced the breakout through.
But he had never intended to expose his own identity by doing so.
“That’s why I wanted to wrap it up quick and clean.”
Through the escape he meant to sow chaos through society and divert the family’s attention.
He never expected to have his tail caught like this.
“So, I know it’s a lot to ask of someone who just got his freedom, but can you go wild for me?”
After ending the call and hurriedly sketching out his next move, Yong-ha approached the Awakened quietly practicing the magic and martial arts he had taught him off to one side—the worst criminal of them all.
When he asked the criminal, Lee Chang-won, the man opened eyes that had been shut in concentration and simply nodded.
“……I don’t care. As long as I can take revenge on the bastard who locked me up.”
“If you go wild, he’s sure to show himself.”
With his overgrown hair and beard and gaunt frame, he looked more like a homeless man than a prisoner. The truth was that he was simply too dangerous; they had sealed him in solitary and no one ever came near, which was how he had ended up looking like this.
Three years had passed since his arrest, yet his eyes still brimmed with murderous intent.
The worst criminal who had burned an entire city with his superpower and slaughtered some two hundred thousand people—Lee Chang-won.
He was a monster who had climbed to SSS-class on raw talent alone, without any help from the family.
The reason such a monster incinerated a city was, absurdly enough, that one mid-sized guild had gotten on his nerves.
Korea officially possessed only three SSS-class Awakened, Lee Chang-won among them.
When an SSS-class of that caliber burned a city and massacred its people, the Korean government could do nothing.
In the end, one of the family’s own SSS-class had stepped in secretly, subdued him, and taken him into custody.
“That brat in the black suit and red shirt. I can burn that guy, right?”
“Uh…… was the one who locked you up that person?”
The outfit brought someone to mind at once, so Yong-ha shook his head.
Even he would not casually claim he could beat the strongest of the 12 Vassals.
Jeong Si-Min was the one who had caught him.
“I went down helplessly back then, but not this time.”
Recalling the man who had overpowered him, Lee Chang-won clenched his fist. Flames rose from his knuckles.
“Oh? You’ve reached that level in such a short time? Impressive.”
These were not mere flames born of a superpower. He had fused mana with his ability and elevated it into the realm of martial arts.
Not simple fire—blazing aura.
Blasted into Gwanghwamun Square by Yong-ha’s magic, Lee Chang-won sat leisurely before the statue of Yi Sun-sin and drew out his power.
Bubble. Bubble.
In an instant his superpower made the ground boil and run like lava.
The heat was so ferocious that the statues, symbols of Gwanghwamun Square, melted away without a trace of their original form.
People caught in that heat turned to ash before they could even scream.
At first the heat only made the square itself boil; then it spread, setting the surrounding buildings ablaze as well.
This was how he had carried out his massacre, and why the government had been forced to throw up its hands.
The immense heat burned everything around him while serving as his defense; even the military could not approach.
“Come out, Jeong Si-Min!”
Having learned from Yong-ha exactly which Awakened had captured him, Lee Chang-won ground his teeth and stoked his thirst for revenge.
From the moment he awakened he had already been S-class; to him the world was nothing more than a toy he could set alight whenever he pleased.
That arrogance only grew worse as his rank climbed.
So when a mid-sized guild rubbed him the wrong way, he simply burned the entire city.
He had believed that even after torching a city and two hundred thousand lives, the government would have no choice but to surrender.
A walking nuclear weapon. Beings who each received the treatment of a head of state.
That was what SSS-class meant. He had merely cleaned up something that annoyed him—what could they possibly do about it?
That was what he had thought—until Jeong Si-Min appeared.
The mid-twenties brat he had dismissed left him unable to move hand or foot and subdued him completely.
Restraint devices sealing his power hung all over his body as he was imprisoned—no, sealed—in the deepest cell of the Awakened-exclusive prison.
It was humiliating. He had believed himself the strongest among the SSS-class.
Yet he had lost without even putting up a fight, and Lee Chang-won burned with the need for revenge.
If he could only leave that prison and take his revenge on Jeong Si-Min, he would do anything.
And now the chance had come.
“If you don’t come out, I’ll burn all of Seoul!!!”
“Good grief. Still no patience at all. You haven’t grown one bit in three years.”
Before the declaration even finished, Jeong Si-Min was already walking slowly through the heat.
The moment the urgent report arrived that Lee Chang-won had appeared in Gwanghwamun Square, Jeong Si-Min had volunteered.
“Heh heh heh! You haven’t changed a bit. I’ve waited three years for this exact moment!!!”
“……I thought there was a chance you might reform, so I spared you three years ago. Looking at you now, that decision feels foolish.”
He already knew Jeong Si-Min was an eighty-something elder who had undergone rejuvenation, yet far from lessening the humiliation, the fact that he had been defeated by an old man waiting only for death made the shame burn even hotter.
But the chance was here at last. Lee Chang-won laughed aloud at the knowledge that he now possessed power that would not lose to the man who had humiliated him.
At that sight Jeong Si-Min slowly shook his head.
SSS-class strength was precious for protecting the world. That was why he had given the man one chance—and the result had been another catastrophe.
Regretting his judgment of three years ago, Si-Min let murderous intent rise in his eyes.
“There will be no forgiveness this time.”
“I have nothing to beg forgiveness for!”
Snapping back at Jeong Si-Min’s words, Lee Chang-won shot forward.
Once he learned how to handle mana, he finally understood how those of S-class and above truly fought.
Three years ago Lee Chang-won had simply scorched everything around him with the overwhelming output of an SSS-class.
But combat at S-class and higher was nothing like that.
You concentrated the omnipotent force called mana. You elevated every attack into a killing blow and made certain it landed.
The surroundings might be destroyed as a side effect, but that was always secondary. The essence was the concentration of power.
So Chang-won focused his mana, forged blazing aura, and drove his fist toward Si-Min.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The air itself ignited under the tremendous heat; the surroundings exploded.
“Still standing, just like I thought! That’s how it should be! Puhahah!”
Yet when his attack was neutralized by nothing more than Jeong Si-Min extending a single hand, Lee Chang-won burst out laughing.
This was the revenge he had endured three years for. Chang-won had no desire to see it end emptily in a single blow.
“Yong-ha, was it? That guy told me. My fire has reached the level of Samadhi True Flame. In other words—it can burn anything!”
Boasting of his power, Lee Chang-won poured even more mana into himself. Blue flames erupted from his body.
And they burned the very mana Jeong Si-Min was using for defense.
“Ugh!”
When the sleeve of his suit suddenly scorched, Si-Min’s expression twisted. He abandoned simple mana manipulation and activated his superpower.
Blink—to open distance. But Lee Chang-won’s blue flames set space itself ablaze and followed Jeong Si-Min.
“Now this is something!”
Clang!
Watching the flames chase him, Jeong Si-Min flicked his hand. A sound like shattering glass rang out as space cracked open.
The flames could not approach; they were swallowed by the broken space and vanished.
“Magic, is it?! Haha! Breaking space itself—what an interesting ability!”
“It’s not magic. It’s my superpower. This is exactly why a high rank is useless without knowledge!”
Chang-won formed blue flame spheres in alternating hands and hurled them in rapid succession.
Si-Min shattered space again and again, annihilating each one.
Blink was a superpower that moved through space, yet Jeong Si-Min, having reached the realm of complete bodily reconstruction, could apply it in ways like this.
He stood at the same SSS-class as the chief butler and Fernandez, yet only Jeong Si-Min had uniquely undergone rejuvenation—something deeply tied to his superpower.
The ability called Blink leapt through space; it was not earth-shrinking technique. It bored holes between spaces and passed through those gaps.
The burden that placed on the body while traversing space was enormous.
Even though the family possessed teleportation magic, they never used it lightly for the same reason.
Thus even for an Awakened, unless one had reached S-class and awakened mana, using it carelessly would collapse the body. It was little more than an emergency escape ability.
Yet Si-Min had climbed to SSS-class with that very Blink superpower.
As a result his body had been reconstructed to match the ability, constantly adjusting itself to its peak—its youthful prime—producing rejuvenation.
The price was that he could no longer use magic or martial arts. Attacks and defenses that contained mana remained possible, but nothing beyond that. So he had polished his superpower until he became the strongest of the 12 Vassals.
Applications like the ones he used now were, for him, no different from an S-class Awakened who had mastered martial arts firing aura.
“If you break space to stop my ability, then how about this?!”
Whoosh!
Lee Chang-won brought both hands together. An enormous sphere took shape.
Beyond blue, it burned white and radiated a brilliant light; everything around it ignited from the heat.
Gwanghwamun Square—no, everything within a five-hundred-meter radius of the square—went up in flames.
KRA-KOOM!
To stop the sphere, Si-Min linked space to space and shattered it.
He tried to sever the connection between Chang-won and the sphere.
Instead the very space Si-Min had deployed caught fire and exploded; Si-Min took the blast full-on.
“Kh… this is definitely getting dangerous.”
Looking down at the charred holes riddling his entire suit, Si-Min frowned.
Flames that distorted space itself. That was why his superpower no longer worked.
Wielding fire like this meant only one thing.
Lee Chang-won had fully grasped the handling of mana and reached the true realm of SSS-class.
The fact that Si-Min’s superpower could no longer interfere with those flames—the Samadhi True Flame that burned everything—was the proof.
“I’ve got a lot more to show you, so don’t die on me yet, okay?”
Throwing the white sphere and mocking him, Lee Chang-won watched as Si-Min scowled and swung his arm in a wide arc.
A massive, wavering gray barrier rose before Si-Min.
The ultimate application of Blink that crossed spaces.
He deployed a barrier capable of leaping dimensions to oppose the white sphere.
Even if he simply blocked it, the moment the sphere fell a radius of several kilometers would burn.
So by creating a barrier that transcended dimensions, Si-Min intended to fling the flames as far away as possible.
Crrrack!
The flames that struck the barrier did not pass through it; they began cracking the barrier itself as if to smash it apart.
Si-Min immediately poured more mana into strengthening his superpower.
“Hahahah!!! Yes! Let’s settle it with this. Puhaha!!!”
Believing this was the final resistance, Lee Chang-won poured still more mana into the sphere.
Its radiance grew even more intense.
Light strong enough to blind the two combatants flooded Gwanghwamun Square.