The Dragon's Domain
As soon as the elevator doors opened, the entire first floor appeared completely frozen over.
A bone-chilling cold rushed forward, cutting at the skin, and beyond it stood a man. He wore a hood pulled low, hands casually stuffed in his pockets, while the Black Tiger Gang members around him—what had to be his underlings—were all frozen solid.
Gulp.
Lee Deok-chun thought the sound of his own swallowing echoed far too loudly.
He was that tense. That afraid.
‘A returnee? Why the hell would a returnee raid our place?’
As the field leader and second-in-command of the Black Tiger Gang, Lee Deok-chun was a natural awakener. He could wield mana, and the sheer power of his axe swings was strong enough that even other awakeners acknowledged it. But fighting a returnee? That thought never crossed his mind.
Unlike himself, who had awakened a pitiful amount of strength on Earth, returnees were people who had properly trained and honed real power in another world.
“Sir, may I ask where you’re from? If my brothers have been rude, I’ll apologize on their behalf.”
Lee Deok-chun spoke with extreme caution.
“Our Black Tiger Gang only moved into this building recently, so we had no idea it belonged to someone like you. If we’d known, we would have come to pay our respects immediately. Haha…”
Even while forcing out a laugh, Lee Deok-chun kept scanning his surroundings, never letting his guard drop for a second.
‘He looks like a returnee who uses magic or psychic abilities. If I want any chance at all, I need to close the distance.’
The first floor was a solid block of ice. It didn’t seem like a few bribes would make this man back off. And with the amount of product they had prepared for distribution right now, failing to stop this monster could mean losing everything.
Returnees were terrifying, but going bankrupt and becoming a beggar was worse. If death was the outcome either way, he might as well resist with everything he had.
“How about meeting our boss first? He’s upstairs. I can escort you myself.”
It wasn’t completely hopeless. Returnees were usually arrogant and often treated natural awakeners like ordinary civilians. He would let his guard down. If Lee Deok-chun could land even one solid hit in that opening, he might have a chance.
The moment he mentioned his boss, Lim Dojun’s gaze shifted subtly upward. He was clearly thinking about the Black Tiger Gang’s leader on the upper floors.
‘Now!’
Lee Deok-chun didn’t miss the opportunity.
“U-uaaaaah!”
He yanked the axe from his back, kicked off the ground with all his courage, and charged.
Run fast. Smash the skull with the axe. That single goal burned in his mind as he sprinted out of the elevator.
Crack!
The instant his foot crossed the elevator threshold, ice began to form—from the sole of his boot upward—freezing his entire body solid.
Dragonian Intermediate Combat Technique.
Dragon’s Body.
These were the new skills Lim Dojun had obtained.
I knew they were impressive even when I absorbed the knowledge, but actually using them is on another level.
Dragons cast magic through sheer will, drawing on infinite mana. That magic could alter natural phenomena and dominate space itself. They called this power a Domain.
It was an authority-like force that let them manipulate the very space imbued with a dragon’s will, bending it to their desires. The Dragonian combat techniques that handled a dragon’s power contained the knowledge to deploy such a domain.
He could have dealt with these underworld thugs easily even without it, but freezing them all without lifting a finger was entirely thanks to the domain. From the moment it spread, everything inside it could be frozen by his will alone.
Of course, it wasn’t perfect.
No. Perfect? It’s nowhere near enough.
A true dragon would probably scoff at this domain. Because it was built on incomplete dragon-style magic, the cold was weak, the duration he could dominate the space was short due to insufficient mana, and the range itself was narrow. Honestly, it was nothing more than a degraded imitation.
If the last man—the one who looked like an awakener—had been even slightly stronger, the domain likely wouldn’t have affected him. He would have resisted the freezing force and fought back.
Well. Even if we had clashed, I would’ve ended it quickly anyway.
He was confident he could defeat men like that without resorting to magic at all.
In any case, he was quite satisfied with how well he had tested his new power.
Crunch. Crack.
Lim Dojun walked toward the elevator, stepping over the ice crystals. It was time to meet the Black Tiger Gang’s boss upstairs.
Korea was one of the few countries where democracy survived through a delicate balance between awakeners, returnees, and government institutions. Because of that, hunter-related crimes were strictly policed. The moment word spread that something had happened in the back alleys of Jongno, the Awakened Crime Investigation Bureau mobilized immediately.
The sirens wailed as investigators secured the perimeter and began their cautious examination.
“Can someone turn that off? It’s too loud to think.”
“Yes, Team Leader. Right away.”
At the sharp command from the short-haired woman with the piercing gaze, one of the nearby agents hurried off. Though she was young, everyone on site watched their step around her. She was a team leader in the Awakened Crime Investigation Bureau, responsible for countless crime scenes, and one of the agency’s finest talents.
Jin Bora herself hated being in this position. Other team leaders were gradually shifting to desk work, yet she was still running around crime scenes simply because she was too capable.
“The organization that originally used this building was called the Black Tiger Gang. They were involved in multiple crimes and had recently started dipping their toes into drug distribution. As of today, though, they’ve been completely wiped out.”
“Trash. Was this the work of a rival group?”
“We’re not sure yet. It doesn’t appear to have been a large-scale fight between organizations.”
“Really? A small team of hitmen, then? What evidence is left?”
“No hair, no fingerprints, no traces of any kind.”
“Tsk. Thorough.”
Jin Bora ruffled her hair in irritation.
“This won’t be easy. I can read residual mana traces, but it’s difficult and the accuracy drops.”
Her ability was psychometry. As a returnee from another world, she had trained it in a place where people awakened and refined psychic powers. After returning to Korea, she had joined the crime investigation bureau out of a sense of justice and patriotism—the perfect place to make full use of her talents.
The problem was that this job burned people out. Most crime scenes could be solved the moment she arrived, so every department demanded her presence. She had earned the rank of team leader at a young age thanks to her results, but that was exactly why she was constantly sent into the field.
“Ugh, this is so annoying. Reading mana always drains me, and I really don’t want to do it right now.”
“I’m sorry for not being more helpful, Team Leader.”
“You should be sorry. You’re completely useless.”
Jin Bora clicked her tongue, but no one dared talk back. It would have been easier if there were more psychometry users to assist her, but sadly, there weren’t any.
“Just make sure the perimeter is secure.”
“Not even an ant will get through!”
“At least you talk a good game.”
Jin Bora stepped into the frozen building. She placed her hand on the ice covering the floor and closed her eyes. Her psychometry activated, and her third eye began tracing the mana remnants in reverse.
Before long her surroundings were swallowed by pitch-black darkness.
He must have been quite skilled.
This was the first time reading a mana trace had pulled her into another world entirely. Freezing an entire building floor suggested considerable power.
Let’s see. Maybe she could catch a glimpse of his face.
As she looked around, the darkness lightened slightly and a scene emerged—a world completely covered in ice.
The moment she saw it, an overwhelming chill struck her. Goosebumps ran down her arms and she instinctively hugged herself. Then a shiver of pure terror ran down her spine.
Beyond the darkness, a silhouette waited. Its size was impossible to measure, radiating an infinite, violently oppressive energy. The instant she sensed even a fragment of it, Jin Bora snapped her gaze downward.
Don’t look at it…!
Her instincts screamed that facing it directly would burn her mind to ash. It was not an existence she could withstand.
Desperately staring at the floor, Jin Bora frantically tried to end the psychometry. She had to escape this deadly world immediately.
Shhhhh.
As she stopped reading the mana remnants, the darkness slowly began to recede. Just as she thought she had survived—
!!!
The enormous presence beyond the darkness looked at her.
Its eyes, which had been staring into empty space, now fixed directly on Jin Bora. The moment that gaze touched her, her mind went completely white.
She barely managed to terminate the psychometry before her brain burned out.
“Glurk…”
Jin Bora’s eyes rolled back and she collapsed, unconscious.
“T-Team Leader!”
“Team Leader! Are you all right?!”
“Call an ambulance! Hurry!”
“I’m back.”
“Hyung-nim! Are you hurt anywhere?”
When Lim Dojun returned to the Happy Service office, Park Daecheol rushed over immediately.
No matter how much he trusted his boss, raiding an entire organization alone was bound to cause worry.
“I’m fine.”
The returning Lim Dojun didn’t have a single scratch. His expression and breathing were completely relaxed. Only then did Park Daecheol breathe a sigh of relief.
“Thank goodness. Were there any results?”
“The Black Tiger Gang no longer exists as of today. With no traces left behind, it will be recorded as destruction by an unidentified person of unknown origin.”
Lim Dojun knew exactly what happened after incidents like this. The Awakened Crime Investigation Bureau would dispatch agents right away to verify the scene.
I wonder if Team Leader Jin Bora is still running around crime scenes.
They hadn’t spoken much privately, but he knew her psychometry well. After the Special Counter-Abnormal Team cleared a site, the bureau would provide support to gather precise evidence. That was why he had been extremely careful.
He had wrapped his body in mana so tightly that not even a single hair remained, and he had covered himself with mana every time he touched anything. Since he left no physical traces, the only thing she could read was residual mana. Jin Bora might be able to learn something from that, but identifying him personally would be impossible. That was acceptable.
“Also, I left him outside.”
“Huh? Left what?”
“The Black Tiger Gang boss.”
“!”
Park Daecheol’s eyes widened and he hurried outside. There he found a middle-aged man wearing handcuffs and a gag made entirely of ice, unconscious on the ground.
“Wake him up and extract whatever information you can. You can handle that, right?”
After destroying the entire Black Tiger Gang and dragging their boss back, the cleanup was naturally Park Daecheol’s responsibility.
“Leave it to me!”
Park Daecheol nodded firmly, then picked up a hammer. There was no better tool for hearing the truth.