Cockroaches
Cockroaches.
The Japanese Hunters were paralyzed with terror.
Hanul cast Abyss Spectrum on them.
Sizzle—!
Black smoke rose from the Hunters’ heads. But even a fleeting instant was enough. What he sought was not the portion sealed by the geas.
Their memories projected outward.
······.
“Damn, one of these pills is worth ten years of cultivation. Korean bastards really are nutritious.”
“Heh heh. This batch of refining materials was prepared mainly from Awakened in their twenties. The freshness is outstanding.”
The Japanese Hunters snickered as they chewed and swallowed the blood-red pills. They were crystals compressed from people who had screamed for their lives while being ground down.
······.
From another Hunter’s memory.
A human experimentation facility had been set up in the embassy basement. As if reenacting the vivisections of the colonial era, they severed the limbs of Korean Hunters and injected mana into them.
“I’ll bet on the one who hits the leg of that guy running over there.”
“Hey, run faster! Your trait is high-speed movement, right? Haha, I win!”
······.
In yet another Hunter’s memory, they were hunting.
Korean Hunters driven into a corner were the prey. The Japanese Hunters joyfully chased the screaming victims, loosing mana arrows after them.
“Those Joseon pigs should be grateful they at least become elixirs when they die. Heh heh heh.”
“No kidding. I hear a new Japanese-made item is coming from the homeland soon. We should test it on them.”
“Oh, then that tanker-type Hunter we caught last time would be perfect.”
From the skull of the Japanese Hunter still pouring out memories—
Sizzle— crackle-crackle!
Because Hanul had dug too deeply, the geas activated with full force.
Pop-pop-pop-pop!
The Japanese Hunters’ heads burst one after another like overripe watermelons.
“You can become nutrients the same way.”
The lower hull of the Leviathan split open. Thousands of living tentacles poured out and snared the corpses. Crunch, crack. The warship’s maw greedily swallowed them and converted them into fuel.
The last one still thrashing against the tentacles was Myojin. Hanul looked down at him.
“Judging by your skill, you must be a returnee from the Immortal Realm.”
“Kang Hanul, what the hell are you? How can you be this strong?”
“None of your business. The Nest bastards and Kwon Taejun both called you master. You’re the one who orchestrated everything in Korea, aren’t you?”
Myojin let out a laugh.
“Heh. That’s right. But killing me here won’t change a thing. The grand design back home is already nearly complete.”
“Confident, aren’t you.”
“The Korean Peninsula will either ascend to the Immortal Realm, or become an altar and stepping stone for the exalted ones to descend!”
In that instant, smoke rose from Myojin’s head with a sharp hiss.
Pop!
The geas triggered and his head exploded like a watermelon.
“So this one was sealed too. Means it was placed directly by the Immortal Realm. They’ve been spreading it like a plague.”
Hanul stretched out a hand and poured mana into the remains. A bizarre phenomenon occurred. The burst flesh and bone reconnected in an instant, restoring the head.
“With recovery power around the level of a Peak Realm cultivator, even if the geas blows your head off, a little help from me puts it back together.”
“Ugh······ Don’t toy with me—just kill me!”
“I can’t kill you yet. The grand design will be completed? Exalted ones will descend? Don’t you want to see it for yourself?”
Slash-slash-slash-slash—
Barbed tentacles shot from the Leviathan’s hull. They disassembled Myojin’s limbs and hung him from the bow.
“Gyaaaaaah!”
Myojin’s agonized scream. He was being chewed alive by the Leviathan in real time.
“······I’ll show you.”
Hanul murmured something low. A mouth split open on the Leviathan’s hull right beside Myojin’s head and relayed the voice.
Kuuuuuuuwaaaang—
With the deep roar of its engines, the Leviathan surged toward the Japanese mainland.
He spread a wide-area search formula. The Japanese mainland entered detection range. Then an unexpected mana reaction was observed.
Even after the Hunter era began, Japan’s lust for Dokdo had never stopped. No—it had only grown worse. Using mana technology and raw force, they had illegally occupied the island. That result now appeared within Hanul’s search range. They had driven out the Korean Dokdo Guard Unit and stationed Japanese forces there.
Might as well clean up on the way past.
Whiiiiir—
Japanese mana drones floating in the waters around Dokdo were flying toward them. Hanul gave a casual flick of his hand.
Pop-pop-pop-pop!
Dozens of drones burst into flame and plummeted into the sea. The Japanese Hunters stationed on the island and the nearby combat ships went on high alert.
“Another Korean raid?”
“They kept coming to snatch it back, then went quiet for a while. Been a long time.”
“Takeshima isn’t even their land, yet they keep insisting. Let’s sink them completely this time!”
“But I don’t see any ships. What shot down the drones··· huh?!”
The enormous shadow of the Leviathan fell across their vision. The Japanese Hunters froze solid. Then tentacles poured from the Leviathan.
“Gyaaaaaah!”
“Guh-hack!”
On the combat ship decks and inside the island outposts, Japanese Hunters were reeled up one after another.
Trying to steal someone else’s land with this pathetic force? Pathetic.
The Hunters caught by the tentacles were mercilessly stuffed into the Leviathan’s fuel intakes. With the sound of bones crushing, their energy was converted into the warship’s power. Every Japanese trace that had occupied Dokdo vanished in a matter of seconds.
Rumble—
The Leviathan did not stop.
Passing near Dokdo, it accelerated further toward the Japanese mainland while deploying the wide-area search formula. Violet waves swept across the Japanese mainland, yet blurred at a certain point. Lilith reported.
“It is definitely near Tokyo, yet the precise location has not been identified. They are deliberately mixing in noise to jam us.”
“Once we get closer the reaction will lock on anyway. Advance in that direction for now.”
The moment they entered Japanese territorial waters, the aircraft carrier Shinzu and its escort fleet blocked their path. Awakened-exclusive fighter craft rose into the sky. From thousands of gun ports along the Leviathan’s flanks, violet beams poured down like rain.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang—!
Fighters that grazed the beams disintegrated mid-air into fireballs. On the sea, massive explosions erupted one after another. The aircraft carrier’s deck tore like paper and plunged into the depths.
Crash! Crack!
The Leviathan deliberately lowered its altitude to the waterline. It crushed the wreckage of the Japanese escort ships underfoot and raced forward at full speed.
Crackle— crackle-crackle-crackle!
The instant it reached the mainland coastline, a colossal barrier of light surged upward.
“A defensive barrier this time. They put real effort into it.”
“Indeed. A barrier that utilizes dimensional rifts.”
Crackle-crackle-crackle—!
The Leviathan’s hull was violently shoved back. In the moment the barrier rippled, the wails of tens of thousands of resentful souls washed over them. It was a formula sustained by the power of pills refined from countless people and by sacrificial altars. Mixed into those cries were not only Korean and Chinese, but Japanese as well.
“An unsightly method.”
Hanul focused on the barrier without further comment. Tracing the center of the dimensional-rift barrier proved worthwhile.
Yasukuni Shrine.
Hanul raised the Leviathan’s output. The barrier blocking their path? The Leviathan’s prow became a giant spear and pierced straight through it.
Kwaaaaaang—! Shatter!
The spatial fault line shattered into fragments and scattered.
Cunning bastards. Because they wove the barrier into a dimensional wall, breaking it is making the dimensions themselves tremble again. Need to finish this fast.
With high-speed movement he advanced to Tokyo in an instant. The destination was Yasukuni Shrine—the final sanctuary that the Immortal Realm returnees and the Pill Cult were risking their lives to protect.
Crackle! Crackle-crackle!
The moment they reached the shrine’s main gate, another spatial-rift barrier surged up. Its range was narrower, yet its density far denser.
Rumble—!
The Leviathan’s hull rammed the barrier head-on and smashed it. It punched through the dimensional wall that scattered like glass shards. The Leviathan settled to low altitude above the shrine.
Large-Scale Spell Array Deployment
Gaze of Repentance
Swarm Movement
Countless violet eyes bloomed across the night sky and looked down upon the earth. Violet light swept through the city, sorting the guilty from the innocent. Then Lilith assisted by unfolding a mass illusion.
“Open the path. It is time for the little lambs to return home.”
—It is time······.
—It is time······.
Lilith’s voice echoed across the entire city. Innocent civilians were drawn by the dreamlike mist and fled. Only those steeped in right-wing ideology or those who deserved judgment remained in the chaos of the city center. Those people, as if entranced, flocked instead toward Yasukuni Shrine.
“Hey, Myojin—are you watching?”
“······.”
“Tch. Already dead, huh.”
Hanul flipped his palm. A reverse-gravity formula slammed into the shrine grounds.
Kwaaang— crack-crack-crack-crack!
The massive structures of Yasukuni Shrine shook from their roots and began to rise into the air. At that moment the core figures of the Pill Cult and the Immortal Realm returnees poured out from the shrine’s inner chambers.
“What kind of monster is this?! He broke through every barrier!”
“Just hold a little longer! Until the passage to the Immortal Realm opens!”
Japanese Hunters from the Immortal Realm and their disciples swarmed in by the hundreds. They surrounded the shrine, sat in formation, and began a collective chant.
Woooooom—!
The immortal energy they released resisted the reverse-gravity formula and clung to the earth. They coughed blood and writhed in agony all around, yet they did not stop. Drawing on the accumulated power of the pills, the vengeful spirits of the sacrifices, and the ley lines flowing beneath Tokyo, they continued their resistance.
“Hold on!”
“Just a little longer. If we succeed······.”
“The time of ascension is near!”
Voices steeped in madness filled the shrine. Crackle— crackle— The shrine buildings that had been rising into the air halted midair with an eerie grinding sound. Hanul looked down on them from the bow. From the vengeful spirits woven into the formula resisting the reverse gravity, he heard screams in Korean without fail.
“Hey, Japanese bastards. One question.”
Hanul’s low voice drove into the ground.
“The formula you’re using is certainly strong for something of Earth. That’s because you kidnapped Koreans and used them as sacrifices, isn’t it? Do you admit that crime?”
An old man in the front row spat blood and sneered.
“Heh! Don’t make me laugh. We never did any such thing!”
“Of course not. You never admitted the crimes of forced conscription and human experimentation during the colonial era either. Same here, I suppose.”
Hanul’s eyes blazed with a cold violet light.
“Then all of you die.”
Kuuuuuuuwaaaang!
The colossal living warship Leviathan ignored gravity and plummeted vertically toward the earth. The warship’s overwhelming mass collided head-on with the reverse-gravity formula Hanul had laid down.
Rumble—!
Two opposing forces locked together and twisted space. Tremendous friction and spatial distortion crushed the entire shrine.
Kwaaaaaang—!
The earth screamed and exploded. More than half of the Japanese Pill Cult Hunters maintaining the barrier were torn apart on the spot without leaving a trace of their forms.
“Kuuuugh!”
“Guh!”
When the smoke cleared, fewer than thirty remained standing, battered and broken—the returnees from the Immortal Realm. In other words, the enemy’s core combat strength.
And then.
Beneath the scorched floor of the shrine, their true purpose was revealed. The earlier impact had gouged the earth deep underground. At the place where Tokyo’s ley lines condensed most strongly, a grotesque altar lay waiting.
“Feels like hunting cockroaches.”
At one of the three vertices of that altar sat Seo Mungyeol—who had fled from Korea—in a full lotus position. At the other two vertices sat two more men of similar constitution to Seo Mungyeol.