Chapter 127
Chapter 127
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 127
Chapter Title: Part 2) Prelude to the Age of Predation (1)
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0.
If.
Really, if.
The world ended.
No... when my world ended.
I thought.
Like in a third-rate movie, all the enmities would be simple and straightforward.
Those who destroyed the world.
Those destroyed by the world.
The destroyed ones banding together to fight back against those who brought the destruction...
But why?
In this ruined world.
That simple, straightforward chain of cause and effect... wasn't simple. Or straightforward.
1.
In that Paradise Zone, there are no saved souls.
"It's from the [Divine Legion]. A summons."
[Lv: 96].
A female Hunter in her late teens spoke.
A one-eyed crow perched on her arm, cawing harshly.
A momentary silence.
A chill slithered into the cozy meal of the raid team [Perilla Leaf Village Neighborhood Watch].
"What's it about?"
"Doesn't say. Just to be there by 18:00."
[Lv: 128].
Raid Leader Choi Su-cheol groaned.
"18:00 means come now."
"What do we do?"
"What do we do? We go, that's what."
Northern Seoul Paradise Zone, Nowon-gu.
In this land, the Pope's orders were absolute. Defiers vanished without a trace.
"Why the hell again."
"Fuck, how long ago was the Subordinates raid..."
Mumbling carefully, lest anyone overhear. Choi Su-cheol stood first.
"But why Nowon-gu of all places? Ha-ram, you sure you read it right?"
This was Gangbuk-gu.
The Nightmare Zone they'd incorporated into Paradise after taking down the Exalted One last time.
The Papal Court was here in Gangbuk-gu.
"It's real. Says to come to the Nowon-gu altar."
Something felt ominous.
Nowon-gu was the Lead Hunter Witch's territory... Choi Su-cheol shook his head.
"No point overthinking. Let's go. Late means trouble."
Opening the door unleashed a ferocious blast of cold.
Sleet scattered everywhere.
No surprise anymore. It always snowed in Nowon-gu and Gangbuk-gu.
"It's all because of that Pope and the Witch cunts."
The youngest, Lee Ha-ram, grumbled.
Choi Su-cheol patted his head, chewing his gloomy lips.
"Keep that in your head. And once we're in Nowon-gu, don't even think it."
Snow-blanketed retro streets.
As Choi Su-cheol's raid marched past with clanking armor.
"H-Hunters...!"
"G-Get down..."
Emaciated slaves.
They knelt along the roadside, bony bodies slamming foreheads to the ground.
"Fuck... this is such bullshit."
Watching the scene.
The third-in-command of [Perilla Leaf Village Neighborhood Watch], Kang Jin-tae, shuddered in disgust.
"Su-cheol hyung, you see that? Chopped-up people in the baskets?"
"People? Where're people around here?"
"What? You see a human corpse, you call it a human corpse."
No shock there.
Slaves guaranteed bare survival dying mid-labor.
And.
Surviving slaves eating the dead ones.
"Why're they acting up today? Stay still."
Then he paused.
He'd spotted a woman clutching her ten-year-old daughter, prostrated.
A wretched sight.
She'd freeze or starve in two days at this rate.
"Hey, ma'am."
Choi Su-cheol stopped before her.
The sweat-soaked woman trembled in terror, hands clasped in desperate plea.
"S-So-Sorry. Truly sorry. I was wrong."
Wrong about what, exactly?
Choi Su-cheol thought this world had turned to utter shit.
A ruined world.
He didn't think Awakeners owed the unawakened their devotion.
But... was this any way to live?
"You know you're sorry?"
Choi Su-cheol said gruffly on purpose. Like picking a fight. Safer that way.
"Then show me your hands."
The woman extended hers.
Choi Su-cheol slipped a top-grade soulstone into them, murmuring low.
"If you know you're sorry, buy some food, clothes, feed the kid right. Got it?"
The woman looked up.
Seeing what she held, her eyes welled with tears.
"Thank y──"
"Fuck, what're you staring at? Find some show?"
Choi Su-cheol bellowed harshly on purpose.
Hesitant slaves lifting heads.
They slammed them down again before gauging the situation.
The woman's daughter didn't.
New to Paradise, maybe. Innocent eyes fixed on Choi Su-cheol.
Shh.
Choi Su-cheol pressed a finger to his lips, then moved on.
How long had they walked?
Lee Ha-ram hurried right up beside him.
"Why so scary back there?"
"Do that nice, fights break out."
"Fights?"
"Never given soulstones to those types?"
Lee Ha-ram tilted his head.
"Done it plenty."
"Seen any of 'em since?"
Lee Ha-ram's face hardened instantly.
"Can't hand soulstones openly. After Hunters leave, it's chaos... killing each other... Make it look like a scolding, no backlash."
Lee Ha-ram's face drained white, lips quivering.
"Su-cheol ajusshi... then... then the ones I've given to till now... all..."
Long pause before an answer.
"Not your fault."
"So... they might all be... dead...?"
Silence works best sometimes.
That was Choi Su-cheol's response.
Suddenly, Lee Ha-ram's eyes reddened, hands covering his face in sobs.
"Cut it out. Not your fault, Ha-ram."
Kim Hyun-jeong.
The raid's number two, Choi Su-cheol's partner. She patted Lee Ha-ram's shoulder, consoling him.
Hopeless. Stifling.
But Choi Su-cheol showed nothing. Since the world ended, since Nowon-gu fell to the Witch, he'd grown detached from everything.
Had to, to survive.
The old cop Choi Su-cheol was long dead.
"Fuck, checkpoint already."
Kang Jin-tae's irritated voice.
Looking up... the Nowon-gu gate loomed.
Chilling.
Like a hunt dog's gaping maw.
"...Let's go."
2.
In this Paradise Zone, there are no saved souls.
Snow. Cold. Silence.
And far north, Suraksan.
At its peak, a pale worm overlooking Paradise eerily.
That was this Paradise Zone entire.
"Still no one...?"
Kim Hyun-jeong scanned around anxiously.
"Just Hunters... slaves really all..."
"Enough."
Choi Su-cheol nodded toward the distant north.
Suraksan.
Tower piercing its peak.
Beaming pale light like a lighthouse, an alien eye sweeping Paradise spots.
"That sees and hears everything. Doesn't look like bullshit to me."
Seen countless Hunters hauled off for blasphemy. Still no word on their fates.
"So no thoughts, even in your head. Just relax."
Rally point: old Nowon Station.
More precisely, the Culture Street before it.
"Used to be so cozy."
"Not anymore."
Just symbols of iron rule: [Altar] and [Altar Plaza].
Vast, open plaza.
Raid members glanced around, muttering.
"Full muster?"
"Looks it. Filling this huge plaza."
"What the hell's going on? Only before the Exalted One subjugation."
Hunters varied wildly.
Despairing faces.
Grinning idiots.
Frenzied praisers of the pale worm.
But uniforms identical.
Pure white priest robes.
Issued by [Divine Legion], all Hunters bore priestly duties.
Five minutes later.
The altar building's balcony swung open grandly. Four high priests emerged. And so.
"My beloved brothers and sisters whom I truly love."
The one in the center was there too.
"To you who share precious faith and grace from Ikilras, I bring joyous news indeed."
[Lv: 168].
Need more said?
One of the Four Great High Priests, Gangbuk-gu's Pope... that bastard Song Chan-un.
"I wished to deliver it myself... but that's selfish desire, unfit for the Lord's will."
Choi Su-cheol furrowed his brow.
Ex-priest, huh... ease up on the holy rhetoric.
"Enough. That's plenty."
Right then.
That voice hit. Air froze solid.
...My god.
One-eyed crows plummeted to the ground. Dogs barked madly somewhere.
This... this presence...
Even veteran Hunter Choi Su-cheol shivered chilled.
[Lv: 261].
Overwhelming level first.
Then... the string above it.
[Lead Hunter].
Choi Su-cheol swallowed dry.
Murmurs erupted everywhere.
"L- Lead Hunter?"
"Glory, glory!"
"Wh-What's happening?"
The Witch, ruler of this Paradise Zone... and 'she who birthed a god'.
Her gripping the terrace railing unleashed cheers all around.
"Quiet."
Left hand raised softly, instant silence.
The Witch's beauty was peacock-like.
Alluring, refined features.
Snow-whiter skin.
Crystal-clear voice, purer than ice.
But... why?
Everything about her looked unnatural.
Left hair and eye black, right silver-haired with white eyes.
"Last night's event. The boundary line finally vanished."
Everyone gulped.
Choi Su-cheol couldn't believe it.
"The boundary...?"
Boundaries were like borders between Paradise Zones.
Impassable.
Usually formed somewhere in the mid-zone Hunting Zones.
"You all know we've had no contact with other Paradises because of them. But not anymore."
The Witch coughed.
Pope Song Chan-un glided beside her gracefully.
"Sad tidings. No sooner did the boundary tear than blasphemers from Seodaemun-gu crossed and slaughtered our brothers and sisters."
Such... really?
He'd hoped some normal Paradise existed somewhere.
"But this is joyous too."
"……………?"
"A trial, test, and battle of faith from the Lord!"
"……………!"
"As you know, trial begets endurance, endurance tempering, tempering transcendence!"
Fanatic Hunters roared.
"Transcendence! Transcendence! Transcendence!"
"We cannot abide this. Must not!"
"Right!"
"Yes!"
"This hunt is no kin-slaying. A great mission from the Lord!"
What...?
Hunters slaughtering Hunters?
Choi Su-cheol could only watch blankly.
"Yes! This begins the holy war! Our Lord wills it!
Explosive cheers.
"Fear not. Ikilras's grace shall descend as real power upon you!"
The Pope hoisted a silver mask high, bellowing.
"Brothers and sisters! We shall distribute these masks. Don them, and from now till eternity, Ikilras's transcendence walks with you!"
That instant.
Hunters punched fists skyward, deafening roars.
"Ikilras!"
"Ikilras! Ikilras!"
"Ikilras! Ikilras! Ikilras! Ikilras!"
Lead Hunter Hwang Ga-in.
Ikilras Hunters led by the Law Emperor flanked her.
"......"
High Priest Choi Sin-yul.
The strongest Hunter, Sword God moniker, guarded the Witch silently as ever.
"Ahh... such beautiful sounds..."
Executioner Im Ga-hee.
The mad bitch clasped hands in ecstasy, anticipating the coming slaughter.
"Hoo..."
Heretic Inquisitor Gong Min-young.
The cold-faced woman exhaled smoke, scratching her wolfhound's chin.
"Good."
Pope's rabble-rousing done, the Witch finally raised her hand.
"You all get it now?"
The Witch added through pained coughs.
"Drag every last one here... the more, the better."
Right then.
An icy alien shudder pierced the plaza.
No.
Not shudder. Terror.
From distant Suraksan... the god the Witch birthed, that alien entity... stared straight down with its eerily pale eyes...
"You felt that? My child hungers. Famished, terribly so."
The Witch flashed a wicked grin. Cheers for holy war filled the plaza.
"Food for the god!"
"Living sacrifices to the god!"
"Burnt offerings to the god!"
In that Paradise Zone, no souls are saved anywhere.