The Nest (2)
“Hahaha! You idiot. You dug your own grave walking in here!”
The man with the severed wrist screamed and staggered backward. The organization member beside him slammed the emergency button mounted on the wall.
Weeeeing—!
A piercing alarm tore through the entire slaughterhouse.
“Dozens of Hunters are stationed here permanently. Every last one of them is a monster who raised their realm through cultivation. Pure combat power? They’re all S-class to A-class!”
Iron doors on every side slammed open and heavily armed awakeners poured out in a flood.
“Director, we’ve been made! There are too many of them!”
“I left it that way on purpose.”
Kang Hanul stepped out of the darkness into the center of the light-flooded corridor. The Hunters charging toward him froze mid-stride.
“······Huh? That face—could it be?”
“SSS-class······ Kang Hanul?!”
A massive wave of agitation swept through the slaughterhouse. The pressure carried by those three syllables—Kang Hanul—was beyond anything they could have imagined.
“D-don’t panic! Even if he’s SSS-class, we still have dozens of S-class and A-class fighters!”
“Exactly! Doping with elixirs pushes our realms even higher!”
“If we activate the formation of this place, we can more than handle him···kuh!”
They never finished the sentence. Every man clutched his head and crumpled to the floor at once.
Abyss Spectrum
Hanul’s eyes flooded with the purple of the abyss. He began forcibly ripping through their minds, extracting memories by force. Yet just like the cultivators he had met in Beijing, powerful seals were locked onto their souls as well.
Sizzle—!
The deeper he peered, the more black smoke billowed from their skulls. A grotesque sound of brains cooking filled the air. The seals had been designed to annihilate the soul the moment information was about to leak.
Can’t read any further.
It had only been a brief instant, but it was enough. The terror of countless people kidnapped as raw materials for elixirs. The memories of trampling those who begged for their lives while shoving them into the slaughterhouse. Hanul’s gaze went cold. He looked down at the trash writhing and clawing at their own heads on every side.
“You enjoyed crushing people who begged for mercy. Now it’s your turn to feel it.”
Space warped behind Hanul’s back as black energy began to writhe.
“Learn what the pain of absolute powerlessness feels like—when even struggling is useless.”
The slaughter tools scattered across the floor rose into the air as one. Rusted disassembly knives and meat hooks gathered toward a single point as if drawn by a magnet.
Kkagagagagagak—kkagang!
Abyssal mana poured life into the mass of metal. In an instant hundreds of blades tangled together. What took shape was a colossal steel sphere bristling like a hedgehog.
Summoned Beast Creation
Iron Halberd Beast — Iron Hedgehog
Kakakakakak—!
The metal beast began to vibrate and spin with ferocious speed, shrieking as if alive. A powerful suction force erupted from its core, devouring the surrounding air. Organization members who tried to flee were dragged in like iron filings to a magnet.
“Th-this pile of scrap metal! Thunder Palm!”
One cultivator screamed and wrenched up his spiritual power. A palm wreathed in blue lightning smashed into the spinning sphere. The lightning was absorbed the instant it touched the metal surface, vanishing without a trace.
“No! My arm—my arm won’t come free! Uwaaaah!”
The scream ripped through the slaughterhouse. The whirling mass of blades reeled his arm in up to the shoulder in a single heartbeat—exactly the way they had butchered their victims. Blood sprayed from the mangled flesh like a fine red mist.
“Save me! Please! I’ll give you elixirs, just spare me······ kuh!”
Like meat dropped into a grinder, the scream cut off short and clean. The wet crunch of bones pulverizing and flesh being minced ravaged every eardrum. The Iron Hedgehog spat out a wet lump of blood-soaked meat. Nearby metal implements immediately tangled together, birthing a second sphere. Metal demons that proliferated endlessly, self-replicating without limit. The elite Hunters who had just filled the corridor skidded to a horrified stop.
“H-hiiik! Wh-what the hell is that monster?!”
“Crazy—our weapons are all getting sucked in!”
“He’s even using summoned beasts!”
Before anyone realized it, the Iron Hedgehogs had already multiplied to three.
“Go around and clean them up. Leave not a single one breathing.”
Kwagagak—
The metal answered the order with a grinding shriek. The steel spheres began sweeping through the slaughterhouse corridors. Newly arrived elite Hunters raised defensive skills in desperation, but it was useless. Steel spines tore through their barriers like wet paper and burrowed in.
“The barrier······ the barrier doesn’t work! Kuaaaah!”
“My leg! Give me back my leg, you monster bastard!”
The corridor became a slaughterhouse in the truest sense within seconds. Blood sprayed in every direction; severed limbs rolled across the floor. Screams and the wet sounds of crushing flesh mixed into a hellish symphony.
Hanul left the noise behind and walked on at a leisurely pace, heading deeper—toward the heart of this horrific nest, where the facility director was hiding.
Deep within the nest, inside the elixir manufacturing chamber, Facility Director Im Seok-hun stared down into a cauldron with bizarre eyes that flashed like a predator’s.
He was one of Myojin’s direct disciples—a gaunt man with bloodless, corpse-pale skin. Dried black blood from his victims was always caked under his fingernails. The day he would have to present completed elixirs to his master Myojin was drawing near.
“Why is the quota short?”
The disciples trailing behind him bowed their heads, trembling like aspen leaves.
“S-sorry, Master. The supply of awakeners hasn’t been smooth lately······.”
“Tsk. Learn from Han Seung-woo. That bastard fills the quota by any means necessary.”
“Actually, Team Leader Han Seung-woo was supposed to deliver a batch today, but there’s still no word.”
Im Seok-hun’s eyebrow twitched.
“What? Contact him right now.”
“We can’t reach him. He said he was going to swat a bothersome fly earlier.”
Weeeeing—!
A sharp emergency alarm screamed through the depths. Im Seok-hun’s head snapped up.
“Alarm? What the hell is going on?”
“An intruder, they say. It’ll be handled shortly—no need to worry.”
The disciple’s bold claim was immediately proven hollow. The noise coming from outside was anything but ordinary.
Kwaang!
An explosion from far away traveled through the floor. The tip of Im Seok-hun’s shoe trembled faintly.
Kwaaang!
The sound grew louder. The scream of tearing steel rode the walls and stabbed into their eardrums. What followed were the desperate death cries of Hunters.
“Kuaaaah! Save me! Please!”
The screams did not end with single bursts. Sounds of tearing, grinding, and something being crushed rolled in like successive waves.
Kwaang! Kwaaang! Jjigeogeok—
The noise drew closer and closer. The bulkhead of the adjacent sector bulged inward with a deafening roar.
“Th-this sound—what is it?”
“What the hell is happening out there?!”
The disciples standing beside him had already gone deathly pale and were backing away. It was the primal terror of an absolute predator approaching while swinging a giant scythe. Im Seok-hun felt the same instinctive crisis. He wrenched up his spiritual power, preparing to activate the defensive formation carved into the floor.
“I don’t know who you are, but the moment you step into this formation······!”
Kwaaaaang—!
He never finished the sentence. The final bastion—the double-layered steel bulkhead—crumpled like paper and exploded outward. Through the smoke a man walked in at a leisurely pace.
“So you’re the intruder···what?! The one who just became SSS-class?!”
“Tsk. Getting famous makes this kind of thing a little bothersome.”
“Hmph. Even if you’re SSS-class it doesn’t matter. Corrupted Thousand-Hand Guanyin? Master could catch something of that level!”
Hanul let out a short, amused snort.
“I think we should hear your so-called master’s opinion on that first.”
“Don’t make me laugh! Do you even know who my master is?!”
“We’ll find that out soon enough.”
Instead of answering further, Hanul glanced back at Park Dojin. He pointed at Im Seok-hun with his chin and spoke with casual indifference.
“That’s the one.”
“Yes?”
“The man who disposed of your sister.”
Park Dojin’s pupils shook. Hanul shifted his gaze back to Im Seok-hun.
“Do you remember the name Park Seo-jin?”
“Park Seo-jin?”
When Im Seok-hun frowned, the disciple beside him helpfully supplied the answer.
“The Special Affairs Bureau bitch Han Seung-woo offered as a sacrifice when he entered! Pretty decent elixir material···eup!”
The disciple’s mouth sealed shut mid-air as if pressed by an invisible hand. Lilith’s light gesture had done it.
“Lilith, still unnecessarily kind.”
“Hehe. When I see a weak man, somehow my heart goes out to him.”
Lilith smiled faintly. Hearing any more about his sister being turned into an elixir would only poison Park Dojin further. She had sealed the mouth out of consideration.
“Park Dojin. I’ll give you the chance to handle it yourself. Or are you incapable of killing?”
“No. Thank you for granting me the opportunity.”
Park Dojin stepped forward. Im Seok-hun looked at him and sneered with open contempt.
“Hahahaha! A guy who looks like mere B-class thinks he can face me? My realm already exceeds S-class skill!”
Hanul let out a hollow laugh of pure disbelief.
“Every last mongrel these days claims to be S-class. Well, in China those ‘Heaven 3rd Rank’ types were as common as trash underfoot.”
But even if the man looked halfway presentable on the outside, in Hanul’s eyes he was nothing but a monstrosity—a scarecrow of existing Hunter abilities forcibly stitched together with immortal arts. Hanul pressed down lightly with one finger. Absolute mana crashed over Im Seok-hun’s entire body like a waterfall.
“Kuhak!”
Im Seok-hun’s knees slammed into the floor. Every freedom of movement was stripped away at once. Overwhelming pressure left him unable to so much as twitch a finger.
Hanul drew a magic sword from subspace and tossed it to Park Dojin.
Clang—
“Here. Whether that bastard is S-class or SSS-class, with him bound like this you can do whatever you want. Play with him or kill him—your choice.”
Park Dojin re-gripped the magic sword he had received. Eyes burning with pure hatred locked onto Im Seok-hun crushed against the floor.
“How dare you treat me like a toy···kuh!”
Im Seok-hun thrashed and squeezed out every drop of spiritual power, but it was useless. Hanul’s mana pressed down on his shoulders like a mountain. Park Dojin’s blade sank deep into Im Seok-hun’s shoulder.
Seogeok!
“Kuaaaah!”
Park Dojin twisted the sword, pouring out every ounce of his resentment. His eyes swept the surroundings and caught the grotesque elixir cauldron and the bloodstains ground permanently into the floor. Sister Park Seo-jin must have been disassembled in a hell exactly like this. She had been a gentle sister who worried only about her little brother until the very end. The vision of that sister dying while calling his name under cold blades tore through his mind.
“Die······ just die already, you vermin bastard!”
Thick tears burst from Park Dojin’s eyes. The blade butchered Im Seok-hun’s thighs and flanks without mercy.
“Keok···keuheoheok!”
Im Seok-hun writhed and screamed in agony, but there was nowhere left to run. Sobbing, Park Dojin poured his last strength into one final thrust.
Pook—!
The magic sword’s tip punched cleanly through Im Seok-hun’s heart. The man’s pupils rolled back as convulsions wracked his body. A moment later his head lolled and the flame of life went out.
“Huff···huff······.”
Park Dojin dropped the sword and collapsed. He stared blankly at his blood-soaked hands, then slowly bowed his head.
“Good work. Keep the magic sword.”
“······.”
“You’ll need it if you keep working at the Special Affairs Bureau.”
Even under Hanul’s encouragement, Park Dojin’s face remained clouded with unease.
“Why? Didn’t you say you felt no guilt over things like murder?”
“······I think my emotions got ahead of me for a moment. If it were my sister, she would have scolded me to punish him according to the law.”
Tsk. Soft-hearted thinking.
Yet because he himself had once had a brother, Hanul could understand the feeling.
“Not just me and my sister—the resentment of every person sacrificed in this place still hasn’t been resolved······ and I ended it with my own hands.”
Moreover, the child his brother had left behind—Eunha—held a similar way of thinking. Hanul let out a short snort of laughter.
“Don’t worry. I was planning to revive him anyway.”
Hanul extended a hand toward the corpse. Abyssal mana swirled and wrapped around the dead body of Im Seok-hun.
“As an undead, of course. This case needs to be made public. Having a living witness—no, a living criminal—will make things cleaner.”
Black Magic Formula
Revive
“Keok!”
Im Seok-hun’s stopped heart began to beat once more.