Divine Wind
Kwon Taejun desperately shoved the pills into his mouth, fighting for his life.
Bulge—bulge—
His muscles swelled to grotesque proportions. Blood vessels ruptured one after another, dyeing his entire body a vivid crimson.
“Kehaha! You idiot! You’ll regret that choice you just ma— Ghk!”
Kang Hanul seized Kwon Taejun by the nape of the neck.
“Eat more. You think that’s enough?”
“Uuurgh! S-stop! My body’s going to burst!”
Hanul forced more elixir pills down Kwon Taejun’s throat while carefully observing the flow of energy inside the man’s body. At last he identified the source of the wrongness he had sensed.
The pills were generating temporary dimensional rifts within the body. Humans were said to be microcosms of the universe, after all. The pills lowered the dimensional barrier inside a human vessel, allowing a fine stream of power from the Immortal Realm to seep in through the cultivation arts the user had already mastered. That was why one’s realm skyrocketed after ingestion.
But that was only the surface effect.
The more pills one consumed, the more those temporary rifts remained open even in daily life. Through those cracks, the user’s life force and energy were being siphoned away, little by little, to somewhere else.
These aren’t pills. They’re straws connecting the user to the Immortal Realm.
“Ghk… grrrk…”
Kwon Taejun frothed at the mouth and blacked out. Hanul tore open the air and opened a dimensional gate.
“You called for me?”
“Take this one as well. Shake him down for anything else he knows.”
“Yes! I shall entertain him most thoroughly.”
Lilith smiled in rapture as she snatched Kwon Taejun by the scruff. The gate closed, and silence returned.
Crack!
In that instant, a single eyeball floated in midair, staring straight at them. Hanul dissected the structure of its spell formula in a heartbeat. It appeared to be a surveillance tool, yet it also regulated the connection whenever an elixir-pill user’s energy linked to the Immortal Realm.
Crunch!
Hanul reached out and crushed the floating eye. With a sound like shattering glass, the grotesque orb burst apart. He immediately began reverse-tracking the dispersing mana residue.
Whoooosh—
But blood-red mist poured in from every direction. Thousands of crimson threads wove together like a spider’s web, severing the path of his tracking formula.
“Interesting. Shall we settle this? Whether your deception arts are superior… or my tracking arts.”
A penthouse atop a skyscraper in the heart of Seoul.
Seomun Gyeol, eldest son of the Ilseong Group, stood watching his master’s face. The usually serene, immortal-like features of Myojin were twisted into something grotesque.
“Master, what is wrong?”
“Kh! Kang Hanul… what kind of monster is this man?!”
Myojin swept his hand through the air, spewing blood-red mist in a desperate attempt to shake off Hanul’s pursuit. He tangled thousands of threads of causality into a labyrinth, yet it was useless. Invisible arrows of mana ruthlessly severed the threads of fate and drove straight forward.
Crackle-crackle—
At last the air in the center of the penthouse living room rippled. Space tore open, and a gigantic violet pupil rose into view.
—So that’s where you were.
A chill voice drove itself directly into Myojin’s mind. His heart felt as though it had frozen solid under the crushing pressure; he screamed.
“Aaaargh!”
In a frenzy Myojin jammed his own fingers into both eye sockets. Without hesitation he gouged out his eyeballs and flung them to the floor. The orbs burst, spilling dark-red blood in thick streams.
“Hah… hah…”
The moment his vision went black, the violet pupil floating in the air vanished as well. He had physically severed the connection himself.
“M-Master! Are you all right?!”
Seomun Gyeol rushed forward in horror. Myojin shoved him away with blood-smeared hands.
“You must flee at once. Return to the homeland.”
“I will escort you. Let us go together!”
“No. You go alone.”
With trembling hands Myojin cast a cultivation art. Fragments of space gathered and formed a perfect replica of Seomun Gyeol.
“I will head to the embassy. I will buy whatever time I can. You return home, report everything that has happened here, and fulfill your duty as a descent vessel.”
National Assembly Main Building, First Conference Hall.
Minister Kang Eunha and Director Kang Hanul of the Hunter Special Affairs Bureau sat in their seats with complete composure—despite being the ones under audit. The lawmakers who were supposed to be asking the questions instead watched their faces and hesitated.
“……”
“Seems you have no questions. Then I’ll begin.”
Hanul swept the assembly seats with a frigid gaze.
“The elixir-pill nest case uncovered not long ago. We have confirmed that a large number of National Assembly members were involved.”
The reporters stirred.
“The elixir-pill nest case—you mean the recent one?”
“National Assembly members were involved?”
“Didn’t he just say ‘a large number’?”
“The very gentlemen sitting right here. No—those bastards!”
Hanul gave a slight nod. One by one the lawmakers caught in Lilith’s bewitchment rose from their seats.
“I… I took them! I donated money to the Elixir Cult!”
“I participated as well! Framing Minister Kang was my doing!”
Without exception the lawmakers dropped to their knees on the floor. Through the live broadcast their groveling apologies spread across the entire nation. Hanul projected the materials he had prepared onto the screen.
An elixir-pill tribute list.
Bribery ledgers.
Secret meeting transcripts.
The evidence was airtight; there was no room for rebuttal.
“Come in.”
The doors opened. Park Dojin and the newly selected Special Affairs Bureau hunters entered.
“Arrest them all.”
Men wearing golden badges were dragged out like animals. Of course, prison was not their true destination. Officially it would be announced as such, but they would be hauled to Leviathan, subjected to every torment imaginable, and left with souls beyond any hope of rehabilitation.
In no time the National Assembly audit hall had transformed into a Special Affairs Bureau crime-sweep and press conference. Hanul stared straight into the camera lenses.
“I will now make one critical announcement. Behind this entire incident stands Japan.”
Click-click-click—
At the unexpected bombshell the reporters scrambled to fire their shutters.
“More precisely, the Ilseong Group—rooted in Japan—and the Elixir Cult are deeply entangled. The ringleader Myojin has currently taken refuge in the Japanese embassy, while Seomun Gyeol, second son of the Ilseong Group and president of Ilseong Pharmaceuticals, has fled to Japan.”
It was as if he were speaking for the benefit of Myojin hiding inside the embassy. A faint smile touched Hanul’s lips.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice the cheap trick of smuggling Seomun Gyeol off to Japan?”
He wagged his index finger left and right.
“I’ll give you a grace period. Two days. Crawl back to Korea on your own and apologize.”
Hanul casually lifted a thick book that had been lying on the desk. In an instant it crumbled into powder and scattered.
“If you don’t, you will regret it to the marrow of your bones.”
Several days after the unexpected declaration of war from Korea’s Hunter Special Affairs Bureau Director Kang Hanul, a Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman issued an emergency statement.
“The Korean government’s recent actions are deeply regrettable.”
He adjusted his glasses and stared arrogantly into the camera.
“Should any unfair measures be taken against the Japanese embassy or Japanese nationals, we will by no means stand idly by. We warn that a firm response will follow.”
The place watching that broadcast on television was none other than Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Deep within an inner chamber, Seomun Gyeol watched the screen. Beside him sat returnees from the Immortal Realm dressed in bizarre robes, along with high-ranking Japanese government officials.
“To think Korea would act so recklessly. They must have gone mad.”
“What is Kang Hanul, really? All that fuss about SSS-class this and that.”
A returnee seated nearby sneered. Dark-crimson killing intent rose from his body like heat haze.
“Capturing the Fallen Thousand-Armed Guanyin was impressive, I’ll grant. But even we, strengthened by Immortal Realm secret arts, could manage that much.”
“Moreover, if we open our true power after receiving a share of His soul fragment, destruction beyond that would be child’s play.”
Seomun Gyeol spoke with a dark expression.
“Still, we must not grow careless. He is a monster of the sort that forced Master to sacrifice his own eyes just to escape.”
“For now, let us refrain from rash action. The grand design is nearly complete.”
The old man seated in the highest place murmured in a low voice. At his single remark the noisy chamber fell silent in an instant.
“Until then we must move with caution. Kang Hanul set a two-day deadline, but what can a man like him possibly do from across the sea?”
“Indeed. This is Japan—a sacred domain watched over by the gods of the Immortal Realm.”
They still did not know.
To Kang Hanul, national borders meant nothing at all.
The promised forty-eight hours had passed.
The clock in the Special Affairs Bureau director’s office struck the hour and stopped. Hanul rose from his seat.
“Fortunately they didn’t come crawling to apologize, yong! It would have been way too boring if they had, yong!”
“Hatchery, why are you even here? Get back to your post.”
Hatchery and Lilith bickered. Had Hanul not been present, they would already have come to blows.
“Hatchery. Once things reach this stage, they may try to terrorize Eunha. Stay by her side.”
“Ehh, just when the most fun part is about to start! Well, too bad—I’ll just watch this time, yong!”
Hatchery melted into a mirror and vanished. Meanwhile Hanul summoned the Leviathans. Three of them had been holding position over the West Sea, cloaked in invisibility formulas and barrier formations.
“With the Leviathans’ positions adjusted, the output of the barriers sealing the dimensional rifts has fluctuated.”
“Pull the defensive line back slightly and recalibrate. Lilith, I’m leaving it to you.”
“Yes! Since Master will board a Leviathan personally, even if we withdraw the line it will be fine. The mana composing the barrier force field itself will rise far higher.”
Hanul leapt. He landed on the prow of a Leviathan hovering invisible above Seoul and looked down.
“They’re all on edge.”
“Looks like they scraped together every last scrap of strength they have.”
Hunter forces surrounded the Japanese embassy in multiple layers, maintaining ironclad security. To Hanul’s eyes it was no different from lining up toy soldiers made of Lego.
“Release invisibility.”
At Hanul’s command the concealment formula wrapping the Leviathan unraveled.
Crackle—crackle-crackle!
A colossal presence vast enough to blot out the sky revealed itself directly above the front of the Japanese embassy.
“Wh-what the hell is that?!”
The hunters who had been holding defensive positions recoiled in terror. At the very tip of the Leviathan’s prow, Hanul stood in an arrogant posture.
“Th-there!”
“It’s Kang Hanul! Damn it—was that ship that appeared in China his too?!”
“Attack!”
Japanese hunters raised their weapons. All manner of skills and magic were about to pour toward the Leviathan when—
Woooooom—!
An ultra-dense mana wave erupted from the Leviathan and swept across the entire embassy district. The eardrum-shattering vibration sent hunters screaming to their knees.
“Guh!”
“Aaaaargh!”
They clutched their ears and rolled on the ground. In contrast, ordinary civilians nearby remained eerily calm. Just as the citizens of Beijing had done, they quietly left the scene as though entranced. Only those marked for the hunt remained bound by chains of terror inside the embassy grounds.
Hanul looked down at the earth and stretched out his hand.
Black Magic Formula
Anti-Gravity
The embassy grounds alone were carved out with surgical precision.
KRAAAAAAASH—!
A massive chunk of the earth’s crust was ripped out by the roots and rocketed skyward. The embassy building, the trees in the garden, the screaming hunters—none were exceptions. In a space where the laws of gravity had been broken, they floated helplessly into the air.
Guuuuuuuurn—!
The Leviathan let out a grotesque cry, the sound of a great beast salivating over the succulent prey laid before it.
“Damn it… that thing’s worse than the Fallen Thousand-Armed Guanyin!”
“W-we have to run. How the hell are we supposed to beat something like that?!”
“Ugh… m-my body won’t move!”
The Japanese hunters were paralyzed with terror. They had trained in cultivation arts and consumed elixir pills, placing them at a higher realm than ordinary awakeners. Yet before the demonic aura of the Leviathan?
They were nothing more than prey.