Chapter 136
Chapter 136
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 136
Chapter Title: Daughter of the Abyss, Northern Lead Hunter (3)
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5.
Do Ye-jin burst forward in an instant, crying out desperately.
“Sister! Sister!”
From within the dust of the collapse, someone groaned… ah…
The moment she heard that voice.
Do Ye-jin nearly slipped and fell several times on the slick ice, but she found the strength to keep running without stopping.
“…In this world. What the hell happened….”
From behind, Seo Hwa-yun muttered in a sigh.
“…How do you fight to leave a face like that….”
She found the person groaning amid the dust…
“As expected… she’s alive!”
It was Do Ye-jin’s most precious sister in the world.
“Ye… Ye-jin…?”
The moment she confirmed that face.
Tears of joy and angry sobs erupted at once.
“You… you idiot….”
The once-beautiful face had been slashed to ribbons. No… better to say half torn away.
“What are you… doing here right now…?”
Blood-soaked muscles revealed the jawbone beneath. Do Ye-jin barely moved her lips.
“To save you, sister… but sister… why your face…?”
Chills prickled down her spine.
Do Su-jin was one of the top talents in the <Association>… and she’d ended up like this?
“Snap out of it, Do Ye-jin!”
“…Huh?”
“Let’s clear these rocks. Your strength should be enough! We’ll get Su-jin out and escape!”
When Seo Hwa-yun stomped the ground…
Surprisingly, something like a forklift rose up.
“《Shape Memory》…?”
“Not a real forklift. Just a similar mechanism.”
“I’ll help too!”
Right. Rocks, just rocks.
Now she just had to rescue her sister and get out. She’d held on this long, so Uncle Baek-jun would arrive any moment.
“No… Ye-jin… go, go! Alone… hurry and go…!”
“I won’t go alone! I’ll go with you, sister!”
Please, please, please.
No end in sight. The debris from the collapse seemed endless.
No matter how much she cleared.
It kept pressing down on Do Su-jin’s body.
“Listen to sister, please!”
“No way!”
“Hwa-yun sister, take Ye-jin and run…! Right now──”
At that exact moment, terror flashed in Do Su-jin’s eyes.
“───Kaaaaaaaah!”
An icy metallic screech.
Followed by a deathly scream.
Soon, a hunter’s severed head came rolling to Do Ye-jin’s feet.
Why… a head…?
She slowly raised her gaze.
A vast pool of blood covered the street.
“Hello?”
And.
“Did you lose your way?”
A crowd crossing through that blood pool.
At the center of the crowd.
A beauty seductively licking blood from her lips. Strangely, her hair was half black, half white.
“Hmm? This is odd.”
With every step of her high heels.
Frost crept over the blood pool, freezing it solid into an icy path.
“Have we met before? Why do you look so familiar? What’s your name?”
Do Ye-jin couldn’t open her mouth.
[Lv : 261].
Her breath caught under the crushing pressure.
This is… just like… that time facing the ‘Exalted One’…
“My name is Hwang Ga-in.”
[Lead Hunter].
Same title, but her aura was utterly different from Kim Baek-jun’s.
If Kim Baek-jun was warm like spring… this woman was cold like winter.
“Not mute, I bet. Tear that mouth open and see if she talks?”
That was when.
The kindly-faced man to Hwang Ga-in’s right spoke up.
“Glory, glory…! Oracle, of course she looks familiar.”
Pure white bishop’s robes.
Opulently adorned priestly garb.
Slick features, feminine tone, clutching a holy staff in his right hand.
[Lv : 226]… this one was no pushover either.
“That’s her, the child who descended to this land.”
“That child…? Oh, really!”
“Yes…! Just as shown in the blizzard by the Lord!”
The bishop prostrated himself on the ground and bowed to Do Ye-jin.
“This lowly human, Song Chan-un, beholds the precious face of the [Daughter of the Abyss].”
Daughter of the Abyss…?
Do Ye-jin felt momentary confusion.
“Who’s named Shim Yeon-ui-dal?”
“…What?”
“Wrong person! But you’re a hunter? You are!”
“Yes. Blessed by the stars.”
“Then why… do this crap?! Why slaughter so many people!”
The bishop, Song Chan-un, tilted his head.
“What’s the problem?”
“What…? You’re a hunter! I’m a hunter too! Hunters protect people and bring peace to the world, right?”
That’s what Kim Baek-jun had said.
A heavy silence fell, only for someone to burst into mad laughter.
“What, what? Insane? Oh, jackpot. Filming a comedy? Who said that? What moron?”
“Kim Baek-jun! The Lead Hunter!”
“Lead Hunter…?”
Lead Hunter Hwang Ga-in.
She feigned bafflement for a moment, then grinned viciously.
“No wonder you’re all gutless if the Lead Hunter’s that much of a retard. Every last one’s a weakling.”
“…!”
“Not a strong one in the bunch. That raid leader was the toughest.”
The Lead Hunter pointed her fan at Do Su-jin. In that instant, something ignited hot in Do Ye-jin’s mind.
“You… the one who did that to my sister…?”
“Wow… getting mad now? Just like the chihuahua I raised.”
“Shut up!”
“But… you really take after your dad.”
Dad? My dad?
What? How do you know my dad?
“Even that angry, twisted face is pure beauty.”
In a flash, the Lead Hunter’s face contorted with sickly rage.
“Born so perfect, life must’ve been pure bliss, huh?”
Sleet scattered from the ashen sky.
The street reeked of blood.
In the middle of it all, Do Ye-jin drew Cannon Axe from the sheath on her back.
“No, it wasn’t that blissful.”
“Ridiculous… girls like you never learn gratitude.”
“…………?”
“Why? Never scraped the bottom. Folks down there aren’t even treated like people.”
Girls like you?
If it was about looks, Hwang Ga-in was prettier than anyone.
“Stay calm, Ye-jin.”
Just then, from behind.
A whisper faint enough to barely hear. Seo Hwa-yun.
“Our goal isn’t winning. Right? Just get Su-jin out.”
Yeah, exactly.
Her hands shook from terror-fueled tension.
“Play along for now. Sister will pull Su-jin out soon.”
Even as she whispered.
The Lead Hunter fanned herself languidly.
“So I’m teaching girls like you what gratitude means.”
“Gratitude?”
“Humans only value what they lose, right? So I tore those pretty faces right off the flesh.”
Something in her chest went ice-cold.
“…No, that’s not it. I misspoke….”
That’s why Su-jin sister’s face…
“…Take back the ‘girls like you’ part….”
Do Ye-jin realized she was crushing Cannon Axe’s hilt to the breaking point.
“…You’re not human.”
She hadn’t heard a word the Lead Hunter said in the meantime.
Rigid Body Reinforcement.
Boosts physical abilities in an instant.
She reined in her dizzy mind and forced out words.
“That the only reason you wrecked my sister like this?”
“Can’t get it through your head? Need me to repeat?”
Sparks exploded in her skull.
“But my sister? You’re alone? Hey, Song Chan-un.”
Her sisters’ desperate pleas overlapped.
“Ye-jin, no──!”
“Ye-jin──!”
With the Lead Hunter’s voice in that split second.
“This kid keeps asking how to her──”
Subordinate Rigid Body Reinforcement.
50% amplification to all physical abilities.
“──sis… ter…”
The world slowed, like sinking into a mire.
Just a sensation, of course.
In truth, her body and focus had amplified to near-subordinate levels, thoughts accelerating.
“…is… there…”
In that instant, she kicked off the ground.
Closed a near-fifteen-step killing distance to one stride.
Still laughing?
The Lead Hunter was busy chatting with the priest Song Chan-un. No stance prepared.
“…Wha…?”
She pulled Cannon Axe back, then slammed it down. Snatch that fan from her right hand first.
Whiiiiiing───!
Full power loaded. Rigid Body Reinforcement, perfect.
It should have…
She doubted her amplified sight, which slowed the world itself.
How… did it end up like this?
The blank-faced young man to Hwang Ga-in’s left.
Silver-white eyepatch over his left eye.
That bizarrely dressed man ‘slowly’ swung an ice sword.
Yet that sluggish blade.
Sliced precisely into Cannon Axe’s killing arc.
───Kaaaaaaaang!
The instant axe blade met ice sword.
A chill ran through her.
Do Ye-jin sensed killing intent like her body being vivisected.
Stay here… and die?
The moment danger registered.
Do Ye-jin kicked the ground in desperation, leaping back thirty meters. And.
[Lv : 351].
She forgot how to breathe upon seeing that level.
What… that insane level?
A hundred higher than Lead Hunters Kim Baek-jun or Hwang Ga-in…?
It didn’t make sense.
Impossible to understand.
Why… isn’t this guy the Lead Hunter?
“What… what kind of power?”
Hwang Ga-in tittered in mock surprise.
“Leg strength amp just now? Damn. Ground just cratered.”
“Don’t underestimate due to low level.”
The eyepatch youth dusted his hands with polite tones.
The ice sword that had materialized from nowhere.
It dissolved into pale haze and countless ice crystals.
“From what I saw, physical prowess at minimum level 200. Subordinate power, perhaps.”
Hwang Ga-in blushed demurely, hiding behind her fan.
“Whatever. Still just a half-blood brat.”
“But…”
“Fine now, back off, Choi Sin-yul. Interfere again, and you’re done.”
That initial pressure.
Right… the ‘Exalted One’-like pressure came from Choi Sin-yul, not Hwang Ga-in…
“Where were we? Ah, right! Chan-un.”
“Yes, listening.”
“Why’s she keep yapping about a sister? Did the [Nameless Demigod] have two daughters?”
[Nameless Demigod]? Daughters?
Song Chan-un shook his holy staff and grinned.
“No. The [Daughter of the Abyss] is singular. An only child.”
No clue why.
But she knew she shouldn’t keep listening.
So she kicked the ground again.
Poured her body’s swirling acceleration into Cannon Axe and swung wildly, but.
“I know that already.”
Half a step.
Hwang Ga-in recoiled for a heartbeat.
“But this psycho keeps warbling ‘sister, sister.’”
She snapped her fan open and swung… sending frost scythe swallows swirling like daggers.
Kang── Kang─ Kakakakang─!
Do Ye-jin switched to defense, barely blocking them.
“How… so pitiful.”
Song Chan-un shook his head at Do Ye-jin.
“That blasphemer must’ve tampered with her memories… ah… right when we must welcome the new heaven and new earth…”
“Memory tampering…?”
Hwang Ga-in scowled in brief annoyance.
“Hey, hold up. So she doesn’t even know where her dad is?”
“The Lord surely knows… why not ask her directly?”
“Hmm… yeah, kinda dumb asking you when she’s right here.”
What the hell are they on about? Only child? Memory tampering?
No, no. Don’t let it get to you.
They’re just trying to throw me off…!
“Hey──”
────Click!
Do Ye-jin answered by dropping Cannon Axe’s axe blade.
The barrel’s muzzle yawned open.
She’d loaded the powder earlier… now just pull the trigger.
Boom────!