The Engagement of Nihility and Vanity (2)
Seo Yoon ran, and ran again.
The place she finally arrived at was the auction house where it had all begun.
Inside… everything was already over.
“This…”
“You've returned.”
The corpses of unknown assailants lay strewn about, alongside hunters frozen stiff in place. As if something had detonated, the traces of explosions scarred every corner of the hall.
At the very center of it all stood Jeanne, with her two dolls.
“What… happened here?”
In response to Seo Yoon's flustered question, Jeanne quietly turned her head. She spoke from where she sat primly on the floor, unmoving.
“The other hunters were struck down by an artifact. It's temporary — they'll all be able to move again soon.”
“That's not what I'm asking…”
“…Perhaps you should go look for him. He may be in quite a difficult situation right now.”
Jeanne was as composed as ever as she said it. But behind that calm, a faint weariness could be felt. Something had evidently gone wrong during the battle.
“Will you be all right?”
“Yes, I'm fine.”
Seo Yoon nodded at those words and left the auction house.
Right — she says she's fine. Right now… there are more important things.
As Seo Yoon's retreating figure dashed back out through the doors, Jeanne finally let go of the body she had been barely holding upright.
Thump—
She collapsed onto the floor as if crumpling, and gazed quietly up at the ceiling riddled with holes.
“Nothing will… go wrong, right?”
Her words rang hollow. As if she wasn't really here at all.
“I have no choice but to believe.”
“Yes. Let's believe in Jun.”
Her two dolls took each of her hands in theirs, one apiece. And in that state, Jeanne slowly closed her eyes.
Believe. Just as she always had.
Choi Jeong-hyeon trudged forward through a haze, one step after another. A hand pressed against the wall, following nothing but the direction the sounds came from.
“Haah… haah…”
The pain had dulled somewhat, but now stamina was the problem. Pushing her body in this condition was an uphill struggle. Her legs kept giving out, and she forced them back under her again and again.
“I… won't… fail…”
She could feel her consciousness slipping. She knew it herself — she was past the limits of her limits. The source of the sound drifted farther away with every second, and her pace of catching up was visibly slowing.
At this rate.
I won't reach it.
Srrk—
Her body sagged against the wall and slid down in a heap. Even though she didn't want to, her eyes were closing little by little. Just like that. Her consciousness floated upward, then sank beneath the surface.
【―◆◇★―▨―♧―♠―◎◈▷◇――――――】
Hwa-aaak—
A warm energy bloomed against her back where she leaned on the wall. A soft, gentle warmth. As if… she had become a small child cradled in her parents' embrace.
“……”
Along with that inexplicable sensation, Choi Jeong-hyeon lost consciousness.
Ka-ang—
He blocked the overhead strike with his tonfa, then leaned back half a step to evade the rising slash that followed. Lee Jun opening the distance, Kaufman closing it. That had been the rhythm of the fight for dozens of exchanges now.
“Tch.”
Lee Jun dismissed the dagger in his right hand and drew a pistol from his Pocket. Magic bullets couldn't punch through an aura barrier for meaningful damage anyway. So this was purely for splitting the man's attention. He had no intention of firing.
{Got a plan or not?}
More or less.
He had a rough read on Kaufman's combat style by now. Like aura users invariably were, this one trusted in his enhanced physical capabilities and buried his opponent under a ceaseless barrage of attacks. And there was one more thing.
'His skill proficiency is way too high.'
Skills available to awakeners fundamentally carried cooldowns. Their output was fixed — the user couldn't modulate the power — and the range and other details couldn't be altered either. That was why Yelena had always insisted magic reigned supreme over skills.
But even Yelena had conceded one advantage skills possessed: speed. No spirit contract, no incantation, no drawn stances — you simply followed the prescribed procedure and invoked. A skill could activate far faster than casting a spell in a single exchange.
That was precisely why the Dimension System itself balanced the ledger with cooldowns. Magic could be poured out without delay for as long as one's mana held, whereas most skills came saddled with a waiting period. To compensate, awakeners had to blend several short-cooldown skills with a handful of long ones.
And Kaufman's blend was close to flawless.
'Shock Wave's base cooldown is 70 seconds. Filling the gaps between… three skills in total, I think.'
Mana Break, on a 15-second cooldown. Shining Bind, 40 seconds to recharge with a 15-second duration. Under Slasher, on a 12-second cooldown. He wove those three together, mixing in dagger strikes between casts. And whenever I show an opening… yeah, that really is the only option I've got.
“You've gone quiet. Getting tired?”
“As if.”
Seugeok—
But contrary to his words, Lee Jun's movements were growing sluggish. Small wounds were still wounds — pile enough of them up and they became considerable damage.
{I'm telling you, just use shadows to defend. Keep this up and you'll be the only one running on empty.}
No.
I have to save you until the very end. It's the only way I win this.
{I know what you're angling for. But in this state, you won't even last long enough to get there!}
Lee Jun knew it too. Kaufman held the advantage in raw physical ability. He himself couldn't use mana. Aura was a pipe dream. The man was pressing him with skills on top of everything, and Lee Jun had no adequate means of answering any of it. That was exactly why he had to hoard Silhouette until the very last of the very last.
For a single opening. Until the perfect timing presented itself. Concealing, hiding, enduring to the last sliver of advantage he could carve out.
Sinning Bind
“Tch…”
Something coiled around his right foot. Fifteen seconds of immobility. It was a trap-type skill — demanding to trigger, which was the trade-off for its short cooldown and long duration. If he could sense mana, he could have mapped its positions in advance, but for Lee Jun that was impossible. A perfect counter, all things considered.
Bwoong—
He tilted backward like a felled tree to slip past the blade diving at his head. Bind-type skills worked by locking the body in place at the moment of contact. Which meant that, exploited correctly, they allowed movements a body could never otherwise make.
Like this.
“You slippery little rat!”
He snapped his ankle against the ground and flattened himself completely against the floor. Kaufman's left leg came hurtling in response. And Lee Jun — rather than dodging it —
caught it.
“Ugh…!”
Kwoong—
It didn't feel like being kicked. It felt like being run over by a truck. The sound, too, was nothing a human body should have produced. Yet even under that violent impact, Lee Jun's body didn't fly backward — his ankle was bound fast. The immobilized left foot twisted and wrenched with tearing agony, but thanks to it, he held onto Kaufman with unshakable stability.
“What are you—!”
Seogeok—
“Graaagh!”
A weapon switch through the Pocket — faster than almost any skill in existence. Enduring the grinding pain of cracked ribs, Lee Jun slashed cleanly through Kaufman's Achilles tendon.
Under Slasher
Kwadeudeuk—
“Kkeuk…”
A blunt, heavy mass of mana burst from Kaufman's foot. At the same instant, the bind's duration ran out, and Lee Jun's body lifted off the ground.
“…Damn it all.”
Kwaaang!
Pain flooded in with a violent impact around his waist — Kaufman had clasped both hands together and hammered them down. The man's Achilles tendon was severed, and he moved just fine regardless.
“This is why… I hate fighting you aura-user bastards.”
Lee Jun spat out the blood gushing up his throat and squared his stance again. His whole body was screaming in pain. Miserable. He could barely manage to stay upright anymore. But… even so, he didn't fall.
“Hoo…”
Slowly. He steadied his breath, slowly. An action that had long since transcended habit and become instinct. Like turning the ignition on a car that had slept for years. With that single exhale, the pain receded a fraction and his mind sharpened.
'Current position…'
Near the end of the corridor. Lee Jun stole a glance at the ceiling and readied himself to set the plan in motion.
“Persistent. Truly beyond expectations. I suppose that's why they call S-Class S-Class, hm?”
“Haha… aren't you the one who can't even… measure up to an A-Class?”
“I don't take cheap bait. Well, you're at your limit too, by the looks of it, Vice-Chairman.”
So this is what being outclassed feels like, huh? Why is that bastard still fresh as a daisy? Give me a damn status window too, why don't you.
“Hoo…”
Lee Jun drew one final breath, steadied himself —
and bolted, running straight back the way he came.
“Not a chance!”
Shock Wave
Kaufman pursued Lee Jun while simultaneously unleashing the skill at the ceiling. And in that moment, Lee Jun was thinking to himself:
'…39 seconds.'
Now.
Right here.
Sinning Bind
Lee Jun planted his foot directly on the spot where Kaufman must have laid his trap. And sure enough — the skill triggered exactly as predicted, and Lee Jun froze in place. With his ankle locked, he could come to a dead stop with no inertia to carry him forward. Kaufman, however, was another matter.
He had been chasing at full sprint, which meant his body couldn't halt the instant his mind registered what had happened. And there was the opening born from casting Shock Wave at the same time. In Lee Jun's right hand — sometime in the last heartbeat, the gun had been replaced by a mana ampoule.
“Eat this, you son of a bitch.”
The instant the mana injection finished, a ferocious explosion bloomed at the tip of the tonfa. Lee Jun activated Styx's Shard to its absolute maximum and seized control of the blast. Compression upon compression. The detonation, squeezed down as far as it would go, struck Kaufman's body dead-on.
Peuaaaaaeng—
{Did we get him…!}
…No.
Through the hullabaloo of Silhouette's shouting, Lee Jun saw it. From beyond the explosion and the firestorm—
Kwaaang!
“Ughhk…!”
A colossal fist slammed into his abdomen. And the bind still hadn't released. Lee Jun lurched violently, was hammered into the floor, and bounced back up from the impact.
Bam— bam— kwaang—
Once, twice, three times. All he could do was take the fists as they came down, over and over. And then, fifteen seconds elapsed. The instant the bind dissolved, Lee Jun floated upward on the rebound — and a fist came flying straight at his face.
Peueok—
“Kkeup…!”
Power entirely unlike anything before. Lee Jun was flung the length of the corridor, punched through the wall, and buried in the rubble.
“Haa… haa… you goddamn bastard… trying these cheap tricks on me?!”
Through the swirling smoke, Kaufman was visible — half of his torso scorched away. And the most eye-catching part of him… was the right arm that no longer belonged to a human being.
“Kahahahaha! What, you didn't know about this one either, did you? Huh?”
Peueok—
He closed the distance and stomped down on the fallen Lee Jun's chest, driving him deeper into the collapsed debris. Every conceivable pain converged on his body at once.
…Damn it all.
“How about it? You thought my innate ability was non-combat type, so you underestimated me? Well, too bad — turns out I can do this too!”
Kwaang!
The fist that plunged in again brought the wall down entirely. Lee Jun was hurled clear through it, past the corridor, into the storeroom beyond. Kaufman erupted into deranged laughter as he mocked him.
“Kihahahaha! How does the taste of defeat go down? Huh? I said, how does it taste!”
Beneath the bright light, it was even more vivid. His right arm… looked exactly like an ogre's. A massive limb of deep green. He had transformed it through his innate ability — Doppelganger.
“……”
“…Pathetic. Not even a word.”
Kaufman released the transformation of his right arm and drew closer. He let a smile spread across a face hideously mangled on one side.
“I've changed my mind. The ability is garbage, but that head of yours is dangerous. Who knows what kind of stunt you'd pull if I left you breathing.”
“……”
“Any last words? I'll hear you out. Go on, give it a try.”
“I… …do… ha…”
Lee Jun forced his mouth open, but the blood welling up again and again broke his words apart. Kaufman drove a dagger into the vicinity of his heart.
“……”
Thud—
Lee Jun could offer no resistance whatsoever; he simply crumpled to the floor. Black blood spread from his chest.
“Dolores. The Vice-Chairman is dealt with. You come here and finish the confirmation kill.”
Having said that to whichever other Liberator was listening on the comms, Kaufman turned to walk away and leave the dying man where he lay. But—
Tak—
Lee Jun wrung out the last of his strength and barely managed to seize Kaufman's ankle.
“What is this, you're still moving?”
“Euk…”
He tightened his grip on the man's ankle, but a body on death's doorstep wasn't going to accomplish anything.
“Why even bother? Huh? What's this grand mission you're killing yourself over, exactly?”
“Liberation…”
“Huh?”
“Among the Liberators… what rank are you… exactly?”
“Kihahaha, like I owe you an answer?”
Lee Jun didn't rise to the sneer. Kaufman snorted derisively for a moment — then, as if struck by a delightful idea, he spoke.
“Fine. It's your last walk to the grave. I suppose I can tell you.”
Through his prized innate ability, he became Seo Yoon in an instant. In that form, Kaufman spoke with perfect composure — in Seo Yoon's voice, with Seo Yoon's manner of speaking.
“Boss, of course I—”
But then.
Before the words could even finish leaving his mouth, Lee Jun rolled across the floor and put distance between them. And what Kaufman saw was…
a piece of auction-house furniture, clamped around his own ankle.
“From the very beginning…”
the Falsehood Predator.
“I know your rank well enough. Eleventh of the twelve. Jeff Kaufman.”
The artifact that devours falsehoods reacted to the mockery Kaufman had spat out as his final flourish —
and detonated.
Spectacularly.
Kwaaaaaaaaang—