Chapter 474: Shadow (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 474: Shadow (4)
The rift had closed completely.
I scanned the spot where it had been, smacking my lips in disappointment.
“Tsk… I couldn’t kill him.”
Even magic cast from a distance has a certain feel to it.
And that feeling told me everything.
The jet-black spear I’d thrown had failed to pierce the enemy’s heart.
“Was it his side…?”
That’s what it felt like.
“Well… I guess that’ll do for the interest.”
He wouldn’t die, but it would hurt like hell.
Getting stabbed in the side is excruciatingly painful.
I know from personal experience.
A shame, but I’ll have to collect the principal next time.
“Hoo…”
I let out a short breath and turned around.
The office was shrouded in darkness and silence.
“The fact that he ran all the way here means…”
It was highly likely that this was a secret Hexagram hideout disguised as an ordinary office.
“I wonder if there’s anything here.”
I gave the office a quick look-over, but nothing stood out.
But that was fine.
The fact that there wasn’t a speck of dust meant someone visited regularly to maintain the place. If I could track that person, I was bound to find something.
“Should I head back for now?”
It was getting late.
My body wasn’t in great shape, either.
I’d managed to put out the most immediate fire by redirecting some of the energy roiling inside me into an attack, but my body was still flooded with energy I hadn’t dealt with.
If I couldn’t process all of this by the end of the day, my body might break down.
「Fly.」
I flew home through the night sky.
Yu-jeong and Jeong-hee would worry if they saw me like this, so I opened the door and slipped inside as quietly as possible.
“Heave-ho.”
As I tiptoed in, Kkamseul-i’s eyes lit up like headlights in the darkness as it charged toward me.
Hop!
Hop!
It closed the distance in two leaps, then soared high with a final jump, landing on my shoulder.
Heavy.
“You’ve gotten big, Kkamseul-i.”
Hop!
It really had grown.
I’d been feeding it all sorts of things, and it had been growing, little by little.
What was once the size of a child’s fist was now as large as a grown man’s.
It was still a manageable size, but…
“…You’re not going to keep growing, are you?”
I was getting anxious.
What if it didn’t stop and grew bigger than a building?
Hop, hop!
Whether it knew what I was thinking or not, the little guy just kept bouncing on my shoulder.
At this rate, my shoulder was going to collapse.
I stroked Kkamseul-i’s head once before sitting down in a corner of the room.
Slowly, I raised my concentration and observed the inside of my body.
“Hmm…”
My insides were still churning.
The heat released every time the energies collided was affecting my bones, organs, and even my muscles.
I paused to think.
“What should I do about this…?”
Two methods came to mind, and I weighed them against each other.
The easy and safe path, and the difficult and dangerous one.
Put like that, ten out of ten, a hundred out of a hundred people would choose the former. But the outcome was a different story.
What if the former was safe but offered little reward, while the latter was dangerous but offered a great one?
That’s when the answer would depend on a person’s character.
So, which one suited my personality?
“…Go big or go home.”
I had risked my life and barely survived, barely won.
But to put it another way, risking my life had been my only option.
In other words, I had been on the verge of a clear defeat.
A life-or-death gamble is always a long shot, with a success rate of less than 50%.
I got lucky this time, but I couldn’t be optimistic that the same luck would find me again.
“I’ll take this chance to overhaul my body one more time.”
The easy way to solve the problem was to simply wait for Gluttony to digest the energy.
Once Gluttony, who was dormant for digestion, woke up, I could just feed it more energy and repeat the process until it was all gone.
But all I would gain from that would be the minor benefits from Gluttony’s power.
So, what was the other option?
“Use this energy to reforge my body.”
The navy-blue mana I’d stolen from that man was fundamentally different from ordinary mana.
Unlike normal mana, which felt gaseous, this was so dense it was almost liquid, with a sticky viscosity that clung to everything.
Because of these properties, its pros and cons were much more pronounced than those of normal mana.
It was less diffusive than gaseous mana, but its high density made it far easier to shape and maintain that form.
I planned to use these properties to once again reforge my body.
Think about it.
The Secret Art of Metamorphosis, which reforged the body, worked by repeatedly breaking, healing, and setting bones and muscles.
But what if I added the viscosity and restorative power of the navy-blue mana to that process?
Wouldn’t the mended bones become far denser, and the healed muscles knit together much more firmly?
A body that was stronger, faster, and tireless.
That alone would be an incredible gain, but it wasn’t all I wanted.
A question that had been nagging at me through countless battles, big and small, had finally become a certainty during this last fight.
And what was that question?
“This body doesn’t suit my current fighting style.”
The metamorphosis itself had been perfect.
The problem was the direction I had set for myself back then.
At the time, I wanted only one thing.
To create a body perfectly suited for wielding a sword.
“That was a mistake.”
The soul of a man who had dedicated his life to the sword had met a body overflowing with magical talent.
Whether you called it a stroke of good fortune or bad, I didn’t know.
But it was fair to say I was destined to become a magic swordsman.
To achieve that, I needed to be able to combine sword and magic far more freely than I could now.
But that was difficult with my current body.
To be precise, it was sufficient for now, but I could feel its limitations if I wanted to reach the very peak.
“I’ll need to change the balance a bit… and the durability of my bones and muscles needs to be higher than it is now.”
The arrogance of trying to reach the pinnacle of two disciplines with a human body that was insufficient for even one.
To do that, my body needed to be sturdier, harder, and tougher.
That man’s mana should be able to enhance those very characteristics.
And besides, didn’t I have an Elixir that could significantly boost my body’s recovery?
So, I decided to try.
To create the ultimate physique I envisioned in my mind.
To do that, I…
“Hoo…”
Crack!
“Keoheuk…!”
…once again chose the path of suffering.
*
The man looked down at the Shadow Walker, who lay as if dead in the organization’s headquarters infirmary.
“Hoo… haah…”
His wounds had been treated, but he had yet to regain consciousness.
Shock, they said.
Caused by the immense pain from the spear lodged in his side.
“Pain…”
It was strange.
The Shadow Walker was an endlessly lazy and slothful man.
That was why he could become the Apostle of Sloth, but he was certainly no stranger to pain.
No, he had become that way precisely because he had suffered more pain than anyone.
And now he couldn’t even wake up because of a single spear in his side?
‘…There’s something more to this.’
Leaving the infirmary, he immediately reviewed the CCTV footage of the incident.
A rift materializing in mid-air.
The Shadow Walker hastily escaping from it.
And a jet-black spear that barely broke through the rift just before it vanished.
“Hmm…”
From the moment he’d emerged from the rift, his body had been trembling in fear.
Which meant he had already experienced a shocking defeat and had fled in a panic.
‘He was defeated by Kim Do-jin…?’
That, too, was hard to believe.
He was the Apostle of Sloth.
He was also one of the six leaders of Hexagram.
Of course, he was the weakest among them, and the role of a hitman suited him better than that of a leader, which was why they were looking for a replacement. But it was an undeniable fact that he was a powerhouse who far surpassed the public definition of an S-rank.
And yet, he was defeated by someone I thought was still a talented but green kid.
‘To think he already has the power to defeat the Shadow Walker…’
It seemed his opponent was growing at a pace that far exceeded his expectations.
‘Does this mean I could be beaten if I’m not careful?’
It was an unthinkable thought.
The moment when the ideal he longed for finally crumbled.
It was the same now.
‘Interesting.’
He still didn’t believe that boy was capable of ruining the grand picture he was painting.
This was confidence, and arrogance.
And so, while confident, he resolved not to be careless.
He decided to properly gauge him.
He would stop sending a few people to probe and test the waters.
‘It’s about time I warned that woman, too.’
He decided to make things clear on this occasion.
To the woman whose power and political influence he coveted enough to grant her the position of an ally, but who was still hedging her bets without revealing her true intentions.
And to the boy who appeared at every turn to interfere with the organization’s plans and even exposed its identity.
He would give them a clear warning.
That half-hearted obedience and foolish rebellion…
would only end in a gruesome death.
*
Jongno-gu.
A sinister sound spread through the crowds of people walking the streets.
C-crack!
At the same time, a clear crack appeared in the air.
The sign of a rift.
Alarms began to blare, detecting the rapidly increasing mana density.
BEEEEEEEEEP!
[A rift phenomenon has occurred in the vicinity. All citizens, please evacuate swiftly.]
[We repeat this announcement…]
“Ah, what the hell.”
“A rift, all of a sudden?”
“Aish… what’s going on now.”
People grumbled as they stopped in their tracks.
Then, as if accustomed to it, they slowly began to move away from the area where the broadcast was sounding.
They had learned from long experience.
The mere sign of a rift was no longer a major threat to them.
As long as they weren’t stubborn and simply avoided the area, no harm would come to them.
But this time was different.
C-craaack!
Crack!
The lines in the air spread with terrifying speed.
And finally.
KWA-JIK!
The air shattered along the lines, revealing a massive rift.
The mana density skyrocketed, incomparably higher than moments before.
At the same time, a red message window appeared before all the Awakened and Hunters in the area.
[The Gate of Hell and its gatekeeper have appeared.]
From beyond the rapidly widening rift, a loud, metallic clang could be heard.
Clang!
Krrrrrrk…!
It was a grating noise, like a thick iron chain being dragged across the ground.
The sound grew closer, and finally, another sound struck their ears.
Grrrrrrr…!
The growl of a beast.
Only then did people realize.
Something was terribly wrong.
“Hey, something’s weird.”
“I have a bad feeling about this. Let’s get out of here, okay?”
“Move!”
“Get out of the way! Stop blocking the path!”
Chaos began to escalate in an instant.
Association employees who had been urgently dispatched tried to control the situation, but it didn’t look easy.
In the meantime.
THUD!
Something shot out from beyond the rift, shaking the ground.
It was a foot.
A foot that was easily three meters long.
On it were five sharp claws that looked capable of tearing through dozens of people at once.
One foot of a beast, its red fur shimmering like flames in the wind.
THUD!
Another foot slammed down onto the asphalt road, shaking the very earth.
Grrrrrrr…!
Next to emerge was a head.
A dark red mane.
Red eyes filled with hostility.
A nose wrinkled in disgust, as if smelling something foul.
And thick, sharp teeth that looked like they could crush solid steel and spit it out.
A head in the shape of a giant dog emerged from the rift.
And there were three of them.
The Hunters who saw it stared, mouths agape, as they uttered its name.
“C-Cerberus…!”
The Hellgate dungeon, located in southern Greece.
Its boss, Cerberus, had appeared in the middle of Seoul.
Clang!
Ch-ch-clang!
And it was dragging the very ‘Gate to Hell’ it was supposed to guard, bound tightly in chains.