Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 006
Chapter Title: The Gap in Realms
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"Clear away the insects."
As soon as Kairon's command rang out, six Death Knights charged toward the Hwarang Guild members.
The B-rank veteran tanker at the guild's vanguard, Park Jin-su, gritted his teeth and shouted.
"I'll hold them off. Cover me from behind!"
"Ironclad Defense!"
With his cry, layers of blue mana barriers stacked across the surface of his massive shield.
The Death Knight rushing at him swung its longsword down in a trajectory so heavy and fluid it was hard to believe it belonged to the undead.
The moment the black energy cloaking the blade tore through the surrounding air—
Kaboom!!!
A deafening roar that shredded eardrums erupted, shaking Park Jin-su's entire body as a flash of light and dark energy exploded from the point of impact between shield and sword.
"I... have to hold..."
His shield crumpled with a horrific screech, and the shockwave transmitted straight through his arms and into his body.
Amid the agony of his arm bones shattering, he was flung backward like a cannonball, crashing several meters away into the asphalt.
Thud—
"Kuhk...!"
Blood sprayed from Park Jin-su's mouth.
His arms hung limply, and the shield he'd barely managed to block with was already half-caved in.
The top B-rank hunter had been rendered combat-ineffective in a single blow.
"Brother Jin-su!!!"
With the frontline tanker neutralized in an instant, immediate danger loomed over the dealers in the rear.
"Scatter! Seal off that thing's movements!"
The guild's ace dealer, A-rank hunter Lee Ha-na, shouted as she unleashed a barrage of blue flashes from both hands.
Her signature move as an A-rank dealer: Lightning Pierce.
Three mana bolts traced different paths, precisely targeting the Death Knight's knee, shoulder, and the gap in its helmet.
Even a typical B-rank monster would have its nervous system paralyzed by a mere graze, but the Death Knight moved beyond that.
Tssszzt, tssszzt.
Sweeping its longsword with minimal motion to bat away the mana bolts one by one, eerie sounds rang out as the mana scattered upon hitting the blade.
Not content with mere defense, it used the recoil to close the distance step by step.
'Danger!'
Lee Ha-na instinctively leaped backward to prepare a follow-up, but the Death Knight's attack had already begun.
As if perfectly predicting her evasion path, the longsword arced in an unexpected trajectory, grazing her shoulder.
Crack—
"Kugh..."
A sharp ripping sound echoed as her reinforced combat suit tore like paper, a red line drawn from her shoulder downward.
Her face paled from the excruciating pain that felt like it scraped bone. She staggered back without even screaming.
If a comrade hadn't hurriedly blocked in front of her, the next strike might have taken her head.
In mere dozens of seconds, Hwarang Guild's frontline tanker and core dealer were both incapacitated, despair etching onto the remaining members' faces.
They fought desperately, but before the undead's precise and merciless swordsmanship—knowing no death—they were pushed back helplessly.
The clash of steel and screams mingled, turning the battlefield into pandemonium.
Choi Kang-hyuk bit his lip as his comrades' screams pierced his eardrums.
He tasted blood.
'Move... I have to move!'
He tried to draw up mana to summon his signature Sword of Light.
But his body wouldn't obey.
It felt like thousands of tons of molten iron were crushing him down.
Kairon merely stood there, yet his mere presence was a colossal gravitational field, sealing all of Choi Kang-hyuk's movements.
"Grraaah..."
Making sounds like his bones were grinding, he forced his sword-gripping hand upward, but pain like tearing muscles engulfed him.
Lifting a single arm felt like hoisting a mountain.
This wasn't mere mana suppression.
It was an irresistible hierarchy.
A sense of utter powerlessness, like being an insect—something the SS-rank hunter had never felt since awakening.
"This is insane... impossible!"
As if mocking his desperate resistance, Kairon's Sword of the End slowly sliced through the air.
In that moment, Choi Kang-hyuk witnessed it.
The sight of every concept in the space the sword passed through—ending, light dying, sound ceasing, mana flow severing.
Not a mere crack in his Absolute Guardian.
The technique itself was being erased from existence.
"Kuhk..."
Choi Kang-hyuk clutched his heart and stumbled back.
It wasn't an attack armor could block.
The sensation of his mana circuits, his mind, his very being denied.
His legs nearly buckled from the unprecedented helplessness.
Then Kairon's blade tip turned toward him again.
This time, it wasn't simple annihilation.
In Choi Kang-hyuk's eyes, he saw his future.
Impaled through the heart, soul shattered.
An inevitable conclusion no method could evade.
As his consciousness began to fade, Kairon withdrew his sword.
"My liege does not yet desire your neck."
That was the only thing Kairon left behind.
He turned without lingering and vanished back into the barrier, and the Death Knights pressuring the guild members scattered like mist.
The battlefield was left with shattered gear, groaning guild members, and Choi Kang-hyuk's dazed expression.
Looking down at his palm, the hand once filled with SS-rank pride trembled faintly.
"Retreat."
"Everyone, take the wounded and fall back immediately."
His voice cracked harshly, but his mind was no longer filled with the bitterness of defeat.
Instead, a fundamental question: 'What the hell are those things?'
The air inside Hwarang Guild's temporary command tent was icy cold.
Choi Kang-hyuk tossed aside his shattered gauntlets, breathing raggedly.
Around him stood the guild's key executives with grim faces.
Outside the tent, the moans of injured members and urgent cries from medics never ceased.
For Korea's elite guild, a single clash had produced over thirty casualties.
Two were critically wounded.
"Report."
At Choi Kang-hyuk's low voice, guild brain and A-rank artifact analyst Yoon Seo-jin stepped forward with her tablet PC.
"To cut to the chase... it's beyond our common sense to analyze. The attack that neutralized the guild master's Absolute Guardian is stronger than any high-ranker's we've seen."
"Wait... so that overwhelming presence swinging the sword is just one summon of some Lee Jung-woo?"
"Based on current intel, yes. And that's not the only issue. The six Death Knights that black knight summoned on-site. Their gear and movements are incomparably refined to any undead from gates. They moved organically, like living knights. Guild reports say they even learned and adapted to our attack patterns in real-time."
One executive in the tent asked incredulously.
"Necromancer? But records show necromancers are..."
All nodded in agreement.
Since the awakening system emerged, necromancers had been observed rarely.
But they were synonymous with the most inefficient summoning class.
Using sluggish zombies or skeletons as bullet sponges at best, and even that required massive mana for summoning and maintenance—no high-rankers were necromancers.
A class with clear limits.
Yoon Seo-jin shook her head.
"It's on a different trajectory from known necromancers. Can't even call it the same. It's an unknown entity we don't recognize."
"Our classification as necromancers might even be an insult to them."
Choi Kang-hyuk closed his eyes.
The sensation of doom from Kairon's blade tip washed over him again.
If that was just one knight—a subordinate serving his lord—what power did that lord possess?
"Fall back for now. Report this straight to the government and association. This isn't something our guild can handle alone."
Choi Kang-hyuk's cracked voice echoed through the command channel.
The panicked Hwarang Guild members finally snapped to attention and moved with disciplined precision.
"Medical team, evacuate criticals first. Agent Park Jin-su and Agent Lee Ha-na—severe shoulder fractures. Prep immediate transport."
"Alpha Team, secure retreat path while watching the rear. Prepare for enemy pursuit."
Choi Kang-hyuk glanced regretfully at the broken shields and weapons before approaching the Awakener Association liaison on-site.
"Report to the Association: target's threat level unmeasurable. Can't respond with conventional means."
"Transmit situation to all guilds and government branches immediately. Secure absolute safety zone within 5km radius."
The liaison nodded, face ashen.
Hwarang Guild's orderly retreat, supporting their wounded, was vividly relayed to the other guilds watching the scene.
2km back, on the rooftop of a large shopping mall where Genesis Guild had set up a temporary camp.
Han Yu-ra bit her lip while watching Hwarang Guild's defeat through binoculars.
"Choi Kang-hyuk got utterly crushed. His skill tore apart like paper."
Vice Guild Master Kang Tae-min said anxiously.
"Guild Master, it's too dangerous. Rash contact could wipe out our entire guild..."
"Yeah, reckless force is suicide. From now on, we're observers. Prioritize figuring out what they want, their goals. Keep pressuring through government and association channels. If possible, arrange dialogue."
Meanwhile, the mood at Black Forest Guild, positioned in a park parking lot opposite Hwarang's retreat path, was entirely different.
Seo Jun chuckled inside his bulletproof limousine, watching the spectacle.
He took a deep drag from his expensive cigar, then exhaled smoke.
"Serves you right, Choi Kang-hyuk. First time seeing that shit-eating look on him. Hey, hear that earlier? That monster called him 'my liege.' And the liege spared Choi Kang-hyuk? It's a message. 'Don't piss us off, and we'll let you live,' something like that."
His vice guild master swallowed dryly.
"Then what do we do, boss?"
"You idiot. Can't you hear the world shifting? Mobilize all of Black Forest's intel network. Dig up everything on that Lee Jung-woo in the apartment, and everyone around him."
"Yes, boss."
"What he did before, hobbies, likes—even what side dishes he had for breakfast today. Crazies like that often have unexpected weaknesses in the small stuff."
Seo Jun eyed the barrier with greedy eyes.
His mind, reveling in the chaos, was already calculating how to maximize his gains from this crisis.
As communications between the government and guilds flared, the apartment complex with the barrier sank back into eerie silence.