Heaven-Blackening Blade
Just the one, then?
I honed my senses to their limit. Within a thirty-meter radius around me, not a single presence registered — Ha Seonghwi excepted.
It was strange.
The engine behind the Nazi Empire's strength was its power of Concept Modification. Born of it were the Magic Soldiers — soldiers the Empire itself had steeped in demonic energy through pacts with beings of the outer planes.
Soldiers steeped in demonic energy were dangerous by their very existence. The stats they gained fell short of a demonkin's, but they never lost their reason. And a rare few among them surpassed the demonkin in power outright.
Their weapons were much the same. In this world, firearms were hardly useful weapons — but the firearms the Nazi Empire fielded were a different story. No, a vastly different one.
Guns had their uses, but their limits were brutally clear: bringing down even a lower-rank monster took an entire company on the move. Yet in the Empire, beings all the way up to upper-rank carried firearms. Because the guns they held packed enough force to butcher an upper-rank outright.
"Seonghwi. Any other presences nearby?"
"…No, Master."
At her words, an incredulous look crossed my face. Wilhelm really had come alone.
I looked down at the corpse. Half of it had crumbled to ash and was scattering on the wind — because half of what they were had been remade into Magic Soldiers through Concept Modification.
I bent down and lifted the man's emblem. An eagle crest, the very symbol of the Nazi Empire — gather enough of these, and some being nursing a grudge against the Empire would convert them into items.
Just in case, I pocketed the gun as well. The Empire's concept-modified firearms were built to be fired by Magic Soldiers alone — useless in my hands — but they were safer with me than at risk of falling back into enemy hands.
"But seriously — you're really going to fight the Commander?"
"Yeah."
"…The Commander is dangerous."
Ha Seonghwi fixed me with a flat, dead-eyed stare.
"Your power — your potential — is beyond the Commander's already. Might even touch the transcendent realm before long."
"Mind the honorifics."
"…You may well touch the transcendent realm before long, Master. But if you make an enemy of the Commander now, you will die. Here, and now."
"Probably."
Taking on the Brigade Commander with nothing at my back would be a steep climb.
The Commander stood at peak-rank. He was a monster beyond even that — a monster who could hold his own, to a degree, against Transcendents who had mastered the transcendent realm.
I stole a glance at Ha Seonghwi. She was giving me advice that genuinely helped. All thanks to the Absolute Command.
"The Commander is truly dangerous. He doesn't yield an inch even to Transcendents. He is a descendant of the vampire race — the one who tried to swallow the continent whole, long ago."
"I know."
Kim Ara carried the blood of the Giant race. Our vice principal carried the blood of the dwarves. Those in whom bloodline abilities had awakened were genuinely troublesome opponents.
That, too, was where the Retribution Brigade's strength came from.
The vampire ability raises another's latent potential by sharing one's own blood with them. And in the same breath, that person naturally swears loyalty to the Commander.
That was why they were strong even without borrowing power from outer beings. They had a well to draw from that stood in its place.
Anyway — that would be it for today's expedition. I was in the middle of thinking exactly that.
"And where do you think you're going."
A heavy man's voice. A familiar one.
I tightened my grip on Heukcheon and turned my eyes.
"Tsk. This is why you can't trust women. Look at him — that dopey look on his face, and he couldn't even see the mission through."
A long-haired man stood there, hair red as spilled blood scattering with every movement. His skin had been seared black, and his pupils held a deep crimson glow.
Harun. He was the one who had stood beside the Vice-Commander when they went for the Red Tower Lord's throat.
"Been a while, hasn't it?" Harun grinned, all teeth.
"I've got nothing in particular to say to you, but we're warriors. Only one way left for us to talk — blade against blade."
"Still a simple-minded brute, I see."
"Hmph. That's a warrior's heart for you. And deep down, you know what you've built, too. Your sword carries a killing intent thick enough to choke on."
Harun raised his greatsword. Qi condensed along the blade, gathering into a force wave; the wave-wrought qi sharpened into a second edge. And then it caught alight, burning like living flame.
Sword Flame.
A power usable only at the very zenith of upper-rank — the stage just before the sword-gang, that light of destruction reserved for peak-rank and beyond. When blades met, it had the strength to scatter an opponent's sword-qi; against anything that wasn't sword-qi, it gnawed away at armor and weapons alike.
Even the Guardian's Armor would be hard-pressed to withstand it.
Loosely speaking, I should be fine up to second-rank.
In that case, the old art of giving bone and taking bone would serve me just as well.
Harun whirled his greatsword through a full, whistling arc. Then he leapt.
"Here I come!"
Harun hauled his greatsword up in a savage sweep. I tore backward across the distance on the subtleties of the Black Flash Step; Ha Seonghwi fell back with me.
"You insane bastard!"
"Haha! That's not for a traitor of the brigade to say! And you, bitch — I've been waiting for the day I could finally kill you!"
Harun cackled like a man possessed.
"Lunatic."
Ha Seonghwi's reply was brief. Pink-hued mana gathered in her palm. Her specialty was illusioncraft — and while Harun had taken his share of internal damage in that domain, against her illusions he could punch through easily enough.
"Oh, I agree that Harun is a lunatic. But I can't exactly leave you to die."
A girlish voice cut in out of nowhere. A woman on the cusp of girlhood, dressed in a hoodie, looked our way as she blew a bubble with her gum.
"You weren't alone?"
"Hey, say it like that and it makes me sound like the one who always flies off the handle first."
"And? Are you wrong?"
"No. Can't argue with that."
Harun snickered. Watching the byplay, I turned the situation over in my head. If Harun and Nokcheong had shown themselves, the rest would come too. Six, at the very least.
If anything, this looked like the perfect chance to experiment.
I gave them a dead-eyed stare of my own. Conveniently, I had a failsafe in hand as well — the power to call the stars together, a gift from the Emperor. Five at the least. The more that gathered, the better; it would let me sweep up the whole lot of them in a single stroke.
I couldn't say why, but committing this many brigade members at once could only mean one thing — the Commander's patience was running thin.
"No one else?"
"Nobody. Is what I'd like to say — but on the Commander's orders, we've got this place surrounded."
True to his word, the others stepped out of hiding. A one-armed swordsman — the name escaped me, but he had once been a friend of Napakcheon the Sword Ghost.
And Parang and Magongnyeo, whom I had seen before.
Magongnyeo was watching me in silence.
— I told you to run.
Well, here we are.
— Surrender quietly, for now.
That was as far as Magongnyeo went. She seemed afraid the others might catch wind of something amiss.
I counted heads, quiet and careful. Five of them.
Clap, clap.
With the applause came a presence so intense it pressed against the skin. A masked figure had appeared at the center — and even to look upon him was to feel the air itself bend to his dominion.
True Heart (A+) proficiency is increasing.
"Honestly, mobilizing the members and appearing myself struck me as excessive. It was not excessive in the slightest."
"And you are—"
"The Commander who leads the Retribution Brigade — and the inheritor of the True Blood of the Clan of the Great Night."
The Commander's gaze settled on me.
"It's your youth that frightens me. A man who joined the brigade in his thirties would turn the world's head — and here you are, already at the point where slaying one of its members would surprise no one. Someday, you will ascend to the transcendent realm. That is the kind of existence you are."
"So? Do I get made a member too?"
"No. The beings who watch over you are far too dangerous for that. The Emperor and Paewang. Either one alone would make a perilous enemy — but making enemies of both is suicide. You will be a hostage. And—"
The Commander turned to Ha Seonghwi.
"I don't know what means you used, but you've bound our Seonghwi most thoroughly. A power that's a strict upgrade over my own — hm."
Interest thickened in the Commander's voice.
"Would you tell me what you bound her with?"
I tightened my grip on Heukcheon.
"Heh heh. No intention of telling me, then. And I doubt you intend to be a docile hostage either. But fret not. I shall treat you gently."
The tone of a man who did not consider me an enemy — and the Commander had the power to back it. He raised a hand, and the brigade members quietly readied for battle.
I drew the Heukcheon Demonic Sword. I did not call upon the power of White-Red.
Heukcheon — ready?
— Of course, my master.
Heukcheon's laughter drifted out, slow and languid.
I activated my internal skill.
Dokhon. One name, two meanings: to read a soul, and to conceal one.
Reading souls let me steal memories and absorb experience — that was how I had come to possess the Star Heart Eye. The power to conceal a soul, meanwhile, applied to one person alone: me. The Heavenly Demon had asked for nothing beyond that. It was a mechanism built for my safety, after all.
I hid my soul away from my body.
In the same instant, I felt something slip inside. Heukcheon.
— Receive it well, my master. The true power of the Black God's Dance.
The voice rang through me.
"Hm?"
The Commander felt the atmosphere shift. The blood handed down by the Clan of the Great Night was quietly warning him — leave this place.
No way…
Magongnyeo's eyes went wide. Power was erupting as though it had slipped its leash, spreading out from the center of Lee Seoha's body — a force that seemed bent on denying all things.
The energy of Defying Heaven. The power that symbolized the Heavenly Demon raged without restraint — until, at last, it settled under control, and Lee Seoha revealed himself.
Shhhk.
Lee Seoha's hair was growing. A long black mane, spilling down to his waist. Magongnyeo felt something deeply wrong. Set the hair aside, and he was still Lee Seoha himself, and yet… he felt like an entirely different person.
"Who are you." Harun's voice came in a low, rumbling growl.
Lee Seoha — no, Heukcheon — answered with a smile.
"You ask who this one is?"
One light step — that was all it took. The Retribution Brigade flinched as one. It was a single stride, nothing more, yet that black qi bore down on them all like the gaze of a predator fixed upon prey.
"I am the sword without equal beneath the heavens."
Mad. The word clawed through Harun's mind. This made no sense. How — how could mere qi bind us like this?
"And the one who shall dye even the heavens black."
The Commander stoked the blood-qi dwelling within his body.
This was dangerous. That being carried, at minimum, the standing of a Transcendent — which meant she was not one to fight. Not yet.
Danger. His instincts were screaming. Death. Fight that being here, and nothing would remain of them but death. He had inherited the Progenitor's blood, and with it a vitality fierce beyond measure — and yet the conviction that none of it would avail him against her pressed down like a weight. That power, seeming to deny all things and, if anything, turning the siege back upon its besiegers, was far too dangerous.
"The strongest being of past and present alike."
Ha Seonghwi thought, Unnie… you're so, so cool.
Heukcheon said it flatly, without a trace of heat.