The Assault (1)
Warm sunlight seeped through the castle city of Bushin.
A middle-aged man clad in medieval-style armor recited his grievances to Lee Jeonghoon, his face carved full of displeasure.
"Kim Baekcheong was to be handled separately by those above us. If something like this happens again, report it in advance. Honestly, this is exactly why I can't stand you heroes. You'd even read the Golden Letter—you should have known well enough to let it slide on your own."
The man was a high-ranking official of Bushin, and clearly Lee Jeonghoon was not to his liking; he grumbled his way out the door.
Lee Jeonghoon answered with a vague nod and stepped outside. He'd taken a scolding, but there was no anger in him—nothing of the sort.
He simply stared at the message floating before his eyes.
Tiring—
[Master]
— Maintain continuous surveillance. Should anything unusual arise, report it immediately.
Lee Jeonghoon dismissed the message and sank into thought.
"Who on earth is that man..."
He had sent a message to Hwa Minseo the moment Woobin produced her handwritten letter. The reply that came back had exceeded anything he expected.
[Hwa Minseo]
— He is a person of interest I have marked. For now, accommodate his demands to the fullest extent possible.
Marked. Never before had the Master shown this much interest in anyone.
His beggarly getup was one thing, but the flow of his mana had unsettled Jeonghoon—a chill keen as a blade's edge, an eerie sensation like needles pricking the skin.
It resembled the distinct aura a hero gives off on the brink of corruption. But the Master's orders were absolute.
Lee Jeonghoon had detained Kim Baekcheong braced for the flak, and the result was the dressing-down he'd just endured.
Just who was this man, that the Master would concern herself to such a degree?
Perhaps I'll go have a look at him.
Fwoosh—
His mind made up, Lee Jeonghoon unfurled his mana across a wide area.
Jeonghoon's specialty was detection. Picking a single person out of a crowd of thousands was no chore at all.
Through his widened senses, hundreds—thousands—of mana signatures came flooding in. Every individual's mana was unique; the closest analogy would be a fingerprint.
The one he sought bore the mana peculiar to heroes, a sharp-edged power coiled as if it might detonate at any moment.
Found him.
In less than ten minutes, Lee Jeonghoon had pinned down Woobin's presence. The location was the gambling den—holy ground among players.
But what is this?
While he was reading that presence, a strange energy surfaced near the gambling den. This viscous, flesh-crawling aura...
Demonic energy?
Bushin was a city of respectable order. Its walls sealed it off on every side, and the entry process was deliberately rigorous.
So how had a being carrying demonic energy slipped inside them?
Thump. Thump.
A faint pressure began bearing down on his chest.
It couldn't be. Surely not.
Jeonghoon's body shot forward at a breakneck pace, and he reached the gambling den in the blink of an eye.
"What is that..."
Lee Jeonghoon's expression froze solid.
Grrrrr—
A breath more befitting a beast than anything human rumbled through the air. A colossal frame pushing three meters, a human shape swollen with muscle.
And in that very instant, the horns and black wings unique to demonkin burst from its body with a pop—
Tiring—
A minion of End Adros has appeared in Bushin!
—UAAAAAH!!!!!!
A monstrous roar erupted.
Krrrrrr—
Between breaths, its footsteps—thud, thud—beat the earth with a low, quaking resonance.
"A m-monster!"
"How did it get into the city... Run!"
The residents scattered in blind, soul-forsaken panic.
Ten years ago, monsters tearing into the city had been commonplace. The monsters bred without end, while the knights who might have culled them died off one after another. But those days were gone.
"What? Adros? Isn't Adros the World Boss we first cleared five years back?"
"There was a runt like that? And how the hell did it even get in here?"
Because with the heroes' arrival, the region's monsters had been exterminated root and branch. Proving the point, the only souls fleeing the gambling den were Elid's native residents.
The heroes mid-game, far from startled, had eyes shining as they smacked their lips.
"Boss died, so this is a survivor. Bound to be something juicy off it."
"It's mine. Hands off."
"Since when did we ever honor that rule?"
It was a free-for-all, everyone clamoring to be the one to take the monster down. For all their shouting about ownership, the heroes knew the truth of it—that a monster belonged to whoever killed it first.
They were eyeing one another, each angling to strike first, when—
Shing—
A clean sword-stroke drew its line and shaved flesh from the demon's body. Before it, a figure stepped into view.
A white t-shirt, without so much as a breastplate. Thick muscle carved its lines across the fabric.
"I called dibs. Any bastard who gets in my way, I'll remember your face and take real good care of you. Step up, if you're feeling confident."
At the man's warning, the heroes' faces stiffened one by one.
"That's Lee Jonggoo."
Former rank 152, a hero under Shinwha Guild.
He'd fumbled last year's ranking matches and so held no current rank, but as a hero of the 5th batch, he remained a heavyweight whose influence ran deep.
"Dibs, my ass! There's no yours and mine with a monster!"
"Count me out. That bastard's famous for being vicious. Get on his wrong side and you can forget raids for the rest of your life."
At Lee Jonggoo's growl, the heroes who'd raised their weapons lowered them one after another. His influence carried that much weight.
That settles the ownership question...
Lee Jonggoo knew the weight of his own name well enough. All that remained was the matter of how to dispose of this monster.
His gaze swung to it.
End Adros...
A humanlike, bipedal silhouette. Muscle swollen to the point of bursting, crowned by the horns and wings that marked its demonkin blood.
We killed it. I'm certain of it.
Five years ago, the ten great guilds had joined hands—more than three hundred participants in a single World Boss campaign. Lee Jonggoo had been among them; he knew Adros intimately. But back then, no minion of that sort had existed.
A specimen newly spawned in the wake of Adros's death?
A flicker of doubt rose—but one thing was certain. It had punched through the city walls and triggered a system message besides; the rewards it would drop were bound to be rich.
—UAAAAH!!!!!
Lee Jonggoo was still taking the monster's measure when Adros's minion shrieked and drew its claws to razor points.
He took his sword in both hands and sank low into his stance.
His first blow hadn't so much as parted the thing's hide. The demonic energy seeping from it was considerable too—this one read as genuinely high-level.
A runt all the same.
Judgment rendered, Lee Jonggoo planted his legs wide and fired off his skills.
Tiring—
Undine's Blessing — Reaction Speed increased by 50%
Gladiator's Resolve — Damage increased by 50%
......
Power came seething up through his entire body. The first strike had been turned only because he hadn't committed his full strength!
The instant Lee Jonggoo finished readying himself for battle—
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Right on cue the minion came charging like a maddened bull, and shing— Lee Jonggoo's sword split its flesh.
The blade in his two-handed grip embroidered the air. Each pass cut and rent the demon's body, blood flung in every direction, until a crimson haze hung thick around Lee Jonggoo.
—UAAAH!!!
The minion screamed through its agony and loosed its massive claws. Yet not one blow found him. It was a hunt approaching perfection.
"Wow... he really is strong."
"No wonder he climbed all the way to ranker."
Awe settled over the faces of the heroes looking on. But on one man alone—Lee Jeonghoon—his expression was stiffening by degrees.
Temporary guard captain or not—a post that had come with joining the UN—Lee Jeonghoon was duty-bound to defend Bushin. The only reason he hadn't stepped in was that he knew precisely what Lee Jonggoo could do. The two of them were rivals who crossed blades in the ranking matches time and again; no one understood their respective abilities better than they did.
This is dangerous...
Lee Jeonghoon's eyes narrowed as he watched the fight.
To the eye, Lee Jonggoo's hunt certainly looked near flawless. As the exchange stretched on, he read his target's every movement, methodically hammering its joints to grind its mobility down. Then, threading through the openings that created, he went for the vitals. The accumulated damage looked substantial—the blood soaking the ground said as much on its own.
And yet something was wrong.
—UAAAAH!
Swish—
Blows that Lee Jonggoo had been evading outright were, little by little, beginning to land. And each time, his movements slowed by a hair's breadth.
That was just like...
Dregma...
There still existed a World Boss no one had ever put down—a blood-drinking monster. It drank blood to fuel endless regeneration, bound slain heroes to its service as thralls, and was swelling its domain at the far edge of the known world—the strongest existence in the outer reaches today.
Its fights looked exactly like this. A tenacity that kept it rising no matter how certain the fall. And the wellspring of that power was the very blood of the one it faced.
Yet this thing looked more dangerous than Dregma. Dregma's growth could be starved simply by cutting off its access to blood—but this creature drank in strength from the mere graze of a touch.
The worst possible conditions.
Monsters of that breed were a nightmare to raid. A raid, by tradition, meant burying the target under sheer numbers—but against a blood-drinking type, a large force could never be committed. The more heroes on the field, the more fodder you were laying out for it.
Just as Lee Jeonghoon's thoughts were grinding themselves into knots—
Krunch—
The minion's claws slammed into Lee Jonggoo's body.
"Ugh!"
His stance crumbled and he dropped to one knee. The minion wasted not a heartbeat of it, setting about carving him up where he knelt. Lee Jonggoo fought to block with his sword, but skin split, muscle showed white, and his arm was mangled nearly to the point of tearing free.
"Fuck! Quit standing there and help me!"
Death at his heels, Lee Jonggoo roared. The onlookers faltered for a beat—then the corners of their mouths curled up.
"What happened to 'I called dibs'? All that big talk, and look at him now. Unbelievable."
"Boss-tier, huh... Yeah, nobody solos a boss-tier."
Boss-tier prey was, by convention, taken by a party of no fewer than four. However strong the individual, limits existed.
Having read the situation, the heroes began raising their weapons, none needing to be told twice.
"Hold on! Wait, all of you!"
Lee Jeonghoon threw himself into stemming the tide, but the answers came back ice-cold.
"What now?! He called dibs, so we should queue up like good little boys? Get greedy and that's what you get."
"I'm starving half to death—haven't even had lunch. Let's just kill it fast and be done."
"I said wait!"
Lee Jeonghoon pleaded until his voice frayed, but not a soul heeded him, and the tranquil streets of Bushin were turning into a battlefield.
"Fuck! It's getting stronger!"
"Uwagh! My arm—Heal! Cast Heal, damn it!"
Buildings caved in; the explosions kept coming. This was the very heart of a screaming pandemonium.
"Mr. Woobin, what do we do?"
Min Juhee called to him in desperation, but Woobin gave no response at all. He only clutched the slip of paper she'd handed him, smiling in a way that chilled the skin.
So you're here.
Woobin's lips curled into something wicked.
Thump. Thump.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
How shall I make you suffer? First I'll split open your belly and draw the guts out where you can watch. Then I'll sear them slow over a flame. But what if the bastard dies on me at the wrong moment? Ah, right—there's the workshop. He doesn't get to die comfortably. Not ever.
"Mr. Woobin!"
Min Juhee's shout shattered Woobin's reverie. A head brimming over with fury, in that instant, cooled to ice.
Stay calm.
Now that he knew that bastard was here, there wasn't a single reason to rush. Decision made, Woobin turned his back on the battlefield.
"Where are you going?"
"To get a meal, I think."
"What?"
"We've been going hungry this whole time, haven't we? My treat."
Dozens of heroes hurled everything they had at Adros's minion. Each blow burst its flesh and ground its bones as if to crush them—and yet, somehow, power came pouring in without end.
This is my strength...
Adros's minion—Kim Baekcheong, to be exact—could hardly contain his joy at the power flooding through him.
When the potion had first been pressed into his hands, he'd taken it for a trap. But that had been a colossal misjudgment. To think a single potion would leave him overflowing like this.
Tiring—
End Adros is consuming your body.
If anything chafed, it was only that the maddening demonic energy kept churning through his skull. He couldn't have cared less about that.
"Hah—"
"Fuck it, fall back! Run!"
The heroes pressing the attack began peeling away one by one.
Yes. Run.
It was a superiority he had never once tasted. A power no one alive dared lay a hand on. The ability he had dreamed of all his life.
The very moment Kim Baekcheong intoxicated himself on that surging strength, a man's figure slid into his field of view.
The close-cropped hair. The pair of daggers. That cursed, unlucky face—
Lee Jeonghoon...
Every last bit of it had happened on that bastard's whim. Being beaten like a dog. Groveling in the dirt. All of it. It had all come from that bastard. And that bastard, above all others, had to be ground underfoot—whatever it took.
—UAAAAH!!!!
Kim Baekcheong loosed a roar and hurled himself at Lee Jeonghoon. A ferocious battle followed. Again and again his consciousness blurred at the edges, threatening to slip away entirely, but Kim Baekcheong ground his teeth and clung to his mind.
And when he came to—
"Hah—hah—"
The man who had radiated such confidence, Lee Jeonghoon, was retching blood and gasping at his feet.
Kill him.
He didn't know why, but ever since drinking the potion, striking down heroes no longer moved his Good-Evil Value at all. Which meant killing one shouldn't matter either—should it?
Kim Baekcheong's face crumpled into a demon's grin.
I wonder.
What would this bastard's groveling look like? He wanted to see it—the sight of him begging for his life.
Yes. I'll kill him.
Just as Kim Baekcheong's massive claws closed in to rend Lee Jeonghoon limb from limb—
"You're ruining my appetite."
A familiar voice drifted in from beside him, and then—
Tiring—
Fist Strike
Pwak—
A crisp, percussive burst tore through the air.