Field Boss Monster (2)
Its form was that of the Buddhist Thousand-Armed Guanyin.
But corrupted.
Instead of a merciful halo, pitch-black demonic energy swirled around it.
Creak— crack—
The thousands of arms sprouting from its back twisted and bent at every joint.
“All that racket, and it turned out to be a decent one after all.”
The thing raised its head.
Dozens of eyes locked onto Hanul at once.
A face gleaming with madness and murderous intent twisted into a wicked smile.
Anyone else would have had their mana circuits rupture just from meeting that gaze.
“Perfect for a little demonstration.”
Hanul smiled back at the corrupted Thousand-Armed Guanyin and flicked his fingers.
Space warped.
Splitter
The first slash carved through the air.
At the same instant, a line of mana erupted—faster than light.
The corrupted Guanyin had no time to react.
Crack— KRAAAAAAANG—!
The explosion shook all of Gaeseong and the surrounding region.
That single line of light punched straight through the Guanyin’s colossal frame.
Golden armor tore apart like paper.
Snap— black demonic energy sprayed like a fountain from the severed neck.
“Grrrooooh—”
The Guanyin, now on the brink of death, let out something that sounded like a Buddhist mantra.
The world-ending majesty it had displayed upon arrival was already gone.
The chanting seemed to be a recovery formula, but Hanul’s slash forbade even that.
The massive statue was already sliding apart left and right.
A thousand arms dropped to the ground with wet thuds.
Whoosh— FWOOSH!
Violet flames erupted from the severed surfaces.
Not ordinary fire.
Hell Flame
Dark fire that burns mana circuits themselves.
Output far higher than what he had used on the Slender Rakshasa.
The Guanyin’s face, which had worn a wicked smile at first, now twitched with convulsing pupils.
The madness directed at Hanul had turned to pure terror.
“Already over?”
Hanul’s voice was dry.
He did not stop there.
He flipped his palm, stacked his hands, and swept the empty air once more.
Splitter-Strike
A rain of lasers poured from the sky.
This was no simple mana bombardment.
These were guaranteed-hit slashes guided along dimensional trajectories.
KRAAAAAA—! CRACK! CRASH—! KRAAAAAA! BOOM! KRAAAAAA—! KRAAAAAAAAA—!
The earth flipped as if evaporating.
Thousands of lasers slammed into the already-split body of the Guanyin.
Even its screams were buried under the roar of mana.
That supposedly solid body?
It shattered into pieces and flew in every direction from the blast.
Those fragments became massive shrapnel scattering everywhere.
Mana-infused flesh and golden shards filled the air.
SHHHHHHUK—!
BOOM! KRA-BOOM!
Each fragment carried the destructive power of a small missile.
The remaining Slender Rakshasa nearby were hit by the shrapnel and exploded.
Hanul stood at the center of that horrific spectacle.
Not a single fold of his clothes or strand of hair was out of place.
A moment later, the crushing pressure the boss had exerted on space at its first appearance simply dissipated.
Only the ground continued to tremble—from the aftershocks of the mana Hanul had unleashed, not from the Guanyin.
Eventually the vibrations faded, and the remnants of mana drifted through the air.
“Still hanging on, were you.”
The boss’s core.
Its mana nucleus.
No—calling it mere mana was insufficient for a corrupted Thousand-Armed Guanyin.
Its caliber was on another level entirely; “dimensional core” was far more accurate.
Proof of that: the gate still had not closed.
Crush that, and the gate would seal completely.
In other words, the boss monster’s core had effectively become identical to the dungeon core.
“Surviving the second slash was respectable enough.”
Black gravity swirled at Hanul’s fingertips.
The mana that had been pressing down on the earth concentrated into a single point.
“Now I’ll finish it for real.”
Crack— crackle-crackle—!
Space fractured again.
At Hanul’s will, the laws of the world twisted.
KRA-WANG— TSPAAAAAAT!
The third slash crashed into the Guanyin’s core.
Violet lasers scattered like a prism.
Countless new lines layered over the ones already carved into the broken pieces.
Like perforated tear lines.
The Guanyin’s core split so many times it was no longer recognizable as a shape.
The tremendous wind pressure from the cascading slashes turned the shattered mana core and remaining fragments into yet more shrapnel that blanketed the ground.
“······.”
Even the screams of the Slender Rakshasa had ceased.
Only silence settled.
Crack— crackle— nothing but the sound of the burning earth breathing.
And the gate slowly closing.
Hanul carefully sealed the dimensional rift.
Violet mana stitched the tear shut like rough sewing.
From a distance, Hanul could be seen casually waving his hand.
“Now’s the time, yong!”
As if she had received some prior signal, Hatchery guided a portion of the shrapnel like a spotter.
The Guanyin’s fragments scattering through the air all changed direction at once.
SHHHHHHUK—!
With a sharp tearing sound, violet-trailed projectiles poured down onto the cliff top.
The targets?
The Chinese personnel lined up like puppets.
The fragments skimmed over the cliff.
Not direct hits, yet the power of a mere graze was terrifying.
Who had been standing there?
Special Envoy Wang Lei.
Secretary Chen Wei.
Zhou Liang and the elite hunters.
KRAAAAAANG—! BOOM! KRAAAAAANG!
After the fragments passed, their upper bodies were simply gone.
Hiss— only steam rose where the superheated air evaporated.
On the ground remained nothing but lower halves, like discarded mannequins, smoke still rising from the clean-cut surfaces.
That meteor shower of ultra-destructive fragments left the cliff terrain completely unharmed—erasing only the upper bodies and leaving the lower halves behind.
A joke straight out of hell.
Except for one man.
Fang Tian alone still had his upper body attached.
“······.”
Behind the vacant-eyed Fang Tian, the Thousand-Armed Guanyin’s mountain-like body was fully collapsing as its core detonated from the final strike.
Beyond the closing gate, the wreckage sank like a shipwreck—some of it remaining here as dust, the rest flowing into the shrinking dimension.
“Okay! Filming complete, yong!”
Hatchery clapped her hands and shouted.
She retrieved the smartphone she had fixed among the trees and checked the video—perfect confession and miserable end, all captured.
“Waaah! Bravo! Master was the absolute best, yong!”
While Hatchery hopped up and down cheering, several spirit forms seemed to be drawn in by the violet mana.
—S-save us! Please!
—I was wrong! I’ll confess everything! Please don’t take us like this!
Crackle— crackle!
At the same time, a dimensional rift connecting to the Demon Realm opened.
—Aaaagh! No!
—Save me! No! I said nooo!
The souls of Wang Lei and Zhou Liang thrashed in midair.
Formless spirit bodies screamed in terror.
Coming to greet them were the merciless hands that inhabited that inhuman hellscape—the Demon Realm.
Crrrrrack—
The dimensional gate widened further.
A massive middle-aged man briefly revealed himself, radiating heavy presence from beyond.
“Hey, kid. Where’s the Master?”
It was Lucifer, one of the Seven Archdemons of the Demon Realm.
Neatly trimmed beard, black suit, and oppressive eyes were his trademarks.
“Master’s busy, yong! Don’t loiter around for no reason—I’ll take good care of things here, so just stay stuck in the Demon Realm and collect souls properly, ajo-ssi!”
“That mouth of yours, I swear. Anyway, it’s unfair that only you get to serve the Master!”
“Ah, just get lost already, yong! Master doesn’t like dimensional rifts opening, yong!”
“Tch, fine for now. More importantly, these are truly low-grade souls.”
Collecting the Chinese souls had been Hanul’s order.
Lucifer followed that command without mercy, seizing the Chinese souls and returning to the Demon Realm.
In the process, one person got an unintended glimpse of the Demon Realm.
Fang Tian.
A blood-reeking crimson sky.
Endless abyss and hellfire writhing across a land of pure terror.
“Hiiik······!”
Fang Tian let out a short scream and fainted on the spot.
Hatchery clicked her tongue and approached.
Thud! Thud! She kicked him.
“Wake up, ajo-ssi! It’s not quitting time yet, yong! Get up, yong!”
She kicked him, then healed the shattered ribs.
Fang Tian’s eyes snapped open.
His whole body trembling, he tried to grab Hatchery’s clothes.
Hatchery firmly pressed the phone into his hand.
“Now go confess.”
“Uhh··· what?”
Hatchery beamed and patted his shoulder.
Outwardly, Fang Tian’s body was completely unharmed—thanks to Hatchery kneading him back into shape.
“Confess, yong! What you people tried to do to Korea. Haa, you don’t get it, yong?”
“N-no, I understand everything. Please don’t hit me again.”
“Just saying it with your mouth, right? I hate lies, yong.”
Hatchery’s finger brushed Fang Tian’s forehead.
A cold mana sensation ran down his spine—the same grotesque feeling from when his body had been crumpled into a cube and unfolded again and again.
“Otherwise I’ll turn you back into a cube when I throw you into the Demon Realm. Got it, yong?”
“H-hiiik!”
The moment the word “cube” left her lips, Fang Tian’s eyes rolled back in a seizure.
“H-hiiik! N-no! I’ll do it properly! I’m not just saying it!”
Fang Tian wailed while checking that his arms and legs were still attached.
Better to die than become that lump again.
But something even worse?
The inhuman hellscape he had just seen.
Being thrown into the Demon Realm like Special Envoy Wang Lei, Secretary Chen, and Zhou Liang was more terrifying than death.
“If you understand, then go, yong. If the confession isn’t pretty, I’ll come find you, yong.”
Hatchery waved goodbye.
Fang Tian nodded frantically instead of answering.
Face a mess of tears and snot, he clutched the phone to his chest and staggered south on a body that had lost all its mana.
Minister Kang Eunha stepped onto the podium.
The press conference on the Gaeseong Field Boss appearance and Dungeon Impact.
It was being broadcast live with a real-time chat window.
Eunha took the microphone.
The first piece of evidence appeared on the screen—footage captured near the Gaeseong Gate.
“This incident is clear national terrorism.”
On the screen was the Chinese Dragon-rank Hunter Fang Tian.
“I-it was an order from the Chinese government! W-we forcibly opened the gate!”
He poured out the words in a frenzy, staring at something beyond the camera.
“We tried to throw Korea into chaos and seize the northern territory! Please, please spare me! I’ll tell you everything! The entire plan came down from the Party!”
Chinese leadership involvement.
The gate rampage plan.
Every truth spilled from his mouth in full.
Next came the footage from the hills near Gaeseong—Special Envoy Wang Lei, Secretary Chen Wei, Zhou Liang, and the Black Dragon Guild hunters.
“—Daring to oppose the great nation. This time······.”
“—Perfect! If the Field Boss pushes all the way to Seoul······.”
“—Those stupid Koreans······.”
Irrefutable, naked evidence video was released.
The chat exploded.
The video ended.
Eunha continued the press conference.
“Following this incident, we will now announce the entity that descended from the gate. The Field Boss Monster has been designated the Corrupted Thousand-Armed Guanyin, and will hereafter be referred to simply as the Thousand-Armed Guanyin in subsequent briefings.”
Another data screen played.
“According to expert analysis, this entity far surpasses existing SSS-class.”
“While no international consensus has yet been reached, we are provisionally estimating it at SSS+ class.”
The reporters in the hall stirred at the Minister’s words.
SSS+ class?!
“Just a moment! I understand that Field Boss Monster was dealt with!”
“Who handled it? We obtained information regarding Sarah Cameron’s entry into the country—”
“The one who eliminated the Thousand-Armed Guanyin is a Korean national Hunter.”
“A Korean national···?!”
The hall erupted again.
Of course it did.
SSS+ class.
Footage of that Field Boss Monster dying had already been recorded and reached the media.
It had spread across the internet and SNS as well.
Whatever skill it was, the mana waves flashed so brightly that the video quality was heavily degraded—but only one person had been standing near the Thousand-Armed Guanyin.
And that person was Korean?!
“Who on earth is that?”
“As a classified matter, we cannot yet reveal the name.”
“I heard Korea has an SSS-class examination scheduled soon—is this related?”
“Yes, it is the individual scheduled to take the SSS-class promotion examination in the near future. That will be all for questions.”
Minister Kang Eunha ended the press conference and left the stage.
And the chat went completely wild.