Chapter 195
Chapter 195
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 195
Chapter Title: Toward Seongsan, Nowon-gu Breakthrough Operation (6)
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13.
“These bastards, are they really mindless?!”
Seo Hwa-yoon wrenched the steering wheel sharply.
Kuuuung……! An impact slammed into the train at that instant. He clenched his teeth, barely keeping his body from toppling over.
“There’s no way mindless things could pull off tactics like this…….”
Seo Hwa-yoon’s suspicions were valid.
After failing several pursuits, the monster hunters had immediately switched tactics.
“Ramming their bodies into the train……?!”
Bodies unrealistically enhanced by Song Chan-un.
The overwhelming kicking power that came from them.
They relentlessly battered the train with their massive builds and strength.
Kuuuuaaaaaaaa───!
And the result.
The train kept getting shoved toward the left side of the city streets.
───Kiiiiiiiiiiik!
“Something’s controlling them, right? No, it has to be.”
As Seo Hwa-yoon muttered that, Gong Min-young suddenly flinched.
“Something…… controlling them? You don’t mean.”
At that moment, Shin Tae-yeop, who had been peering out the window, pulled back and shouted urgently.
“We can’t stay like this! The train’s gonna crash into the city or flip on its side!”
“……!”
“Sis, we have to fight here! If we keep going, we’ll lose everyone!”
“Shishishishi!”
As Shin Tae-yeop and Shyrak shouted, Gong Min-young shook her head.
“No, we can’t.”
“What……?”
Kuuuuaaaaaaaa────!
A crushing sound.
A sharp screech of metal tore at their eardrums as the train groaned like it was about to shatter, shoving even further left.
“Urk, urgh!”
Shin Tae-yeop nearly fell but steadied himself against the outer wall. And he yelled.
“What do you mean we can’t───”
“───Look, north!”
North……?
Shin Tae-yeop peered north through the melted hole in the ceiling from earlier, nearly losing his mind to cosmic horror.
What the hell……?
It was Surak Mountain.
A pale beam of light was shooting up into the snowy sky from the peak…… Good God.
“The clouds…… they’re splitting apart.”
Snow clouds swirled in Ikiras’s spiral, rotating furiously.
From that distant outer space.
From beyond the stars themselves.
A pillar of pure white light poured down, shattering human senses and reason.
“What the hell is that?!”
“Proof that the mountain sacrifice ritual has already begun……!”
“What……?!”
Mountain sacrifice ritual?
Did that mean……? His heart pounded as Gong Min-young gave the clear answer.
“If we stop here now…… we’ll never save that kid, Do Ye-jin or whatever her name is.”
“………………!”
“She’ll be devoured by the god!”
Shin Tae-yeop was speechless at Gong Min-young’s immediate response.
“No way…….”
He could only alternate helpless glances.
Between the hunters chasing the train and Surak Mountain.
“Hyung!”
That was when Park Ji-won came rushing into the cab, out of breath.
“The cars are getting attacked! If we stay like this, we’re all dead!”
No…….
That’s not the problem right now.
Shin Tae-yeop immediately told Park Ji-won.
“Get all our kids. Our squad. We have to get to the roof.”
“The roof…… why the roof?”
“The boiler room roof! If those bastards blow the steam engine, this op’s over!”
14.
“Third exchange.”
“Fifth exchange.”
“Eighth exchange.”
Chae-aeng, chaeng, chae-aeng!
Liam’s slashes poured in like exploding flashes from all directions.
Block, deflect, block.
It was still too soon to seize the advantage in close combat.
“Thirteenth exchange.”
But at least he wasn’t losing after just one exchange like on the first day.
Twenty-one days to get this far.
He still had plenty of rough edges, but nine days remained, so it was fine.
“Seventeenth exchange…… 101st, a new record!”
A new record……!
As he inwardly praised himself.
Liam pulled out a mirror shield—one he never used in close-combat training.
A shield……?
He had always underestimated shields. Hunting required overcoming overwhelming size differences.
Shields were useless in that kind of fight.
“Wha…… what!”
But in man-to-man combat, it was different.
No…… no.
The very notion became meaningless when Liam wielded it.
“101st, a shield is……!”
He couldn’t read Liam’s momentum.
Neither slow sword nor fast sword.
The harmony of shield defense and sword offense…… like facing a mountain.
“Depending on how you use it───”
Kaaang!
His offense bounced helplessly off the shield.
“───you can match an opponent several times your superior!”
Shuwaaaaak!
Every time an opening appeared, the blade tip struck with lethal precision.
“You can even overwhelm a superior opponent──!”
Paaak!
A sudden pain exploded in his wrist.
“───Urk!”
Berkenxia slipped from his grip, spinning to the edge of his vision.
“Like──”
That instant.
The blade tip rushing right to his face.
“───this.”
He felt his heart pounding wildly.
A shield…… for an attack like this……?
Liam had swung the shield, smashing its edge into his wrist.
This was…… Liam’s combat?
The shift from defense to offense flowed like water. Softer than that [Master of Broken Dawn] yet…… even more solid.
“I never imagined…… you’d use a shield like that for pure defense.”
As he smiled weakly.
Liam instantly withdrew his blade tip. At the same time.
Charararang…………………….
The fierce sword aura pouring from Liam’s Berkenxia—grip and crossguard only—vanished.
“101st, exactly. Remember the lesson from the combat I just showed you.”
“……?”
“Every fight, every element of combat, is psychological warfare.”
Liam tapped his temple with his index finger.
“You must always disrupt feint and reality.”
“……?!”
“In simple terms, disguise the feint as the trump card, and the trump card as the feint.”
Truly…… masterful.
There was a world of difference between vaguely knowing and truly understanding—and executing—it.
“I’ll do that.”
“Good.”
“Then I need to learn shield techniques too.”
As he smiled determinedly, Liam Talorden grinned back.
“No weapon fortifies defense like a shield. I’ll etch it into your body.”
The greatest successor in history, Liam.
He must have learned perfect close combat from such a being.
That was, if Yurvel’s messenger, Yuya, hadn’t rushed to this graveyard two days later.
“Is that…… true?”
As Yuya poured out her words.
Terusia’s face paled upon hearing, then.
She suddenly stared straight at him.
Huh? Tension straightened his back on instinct.
What the hell…… bad news?
News so urgent she had to rush here. News that troubled Terusia the moment she heard it.
“What…… happened?”
Terusia’s eyes gleamed with sorrow, then she finally sighed and confessed.
“People from 101st’s paradise…….”
“My…… paradise?”
“The Northern Paradise…… entered Ikiras’s sanctuary.”
The info flooding his mind refused to sort itself for a moment.
My paradise? Northern Paradise?
No way. Did the <Association>…… advance into Nowon-gu? Already?
“How the hell……?”
It made no sense.
It should take at least a day to get there. No, that wasn’t the point right now.
“I have to go.”
As the info finally settled.
He was telling Terusia this.
“Right now. Immediately…… I…… I have to go help.”
15.
“Wiiingwiriririyeeeaaaaiii……?”
One monster hunter clung to the train window.
The pilot couldn’t even react.
In a single instant, its massive hand crushed his skull like a melon and dragged him out.
“Phew…… what a clown.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong sighed softly and rose from her seat.
《Super Acceleration》.
She aimed the large-caliber revolver at the monster’s head and fired.
“Wii───”
It couldn’t react.
“──ieng?”
The heavy slug buried into that wriggling snail head.
“Iiiieeeeeeekyaaaaaaa!”
It let out a chilling shriek as its head began melting.
- Use blood bullets from now on.
A chaotic hell with no room for thought.
“U-upper! Acid!”
“Dodge!”
Monsters dangling from the roof.
Monsters bursting into the passenger cars.
“Shoot, shoot ’em!”
“C-careful, you lunatic! Who’re you trying to kill!”
The <Association> was tearing its hair out fighting them in these confined spaces.
“Ha.”
What a fucking mess.
Jeong Ha-kyeong grumbled inwardly as she walked to the window.
“Th-that’s dangerous!”
“Association Leader proxy!”
Ignoring the warnings.
She reached out the window, grabbed the roof, and vaulted up.
- The time acceleration in your blood, you can use it through a gun too.
The roof.
Gale winds whipping her coat.
Below her flying hair, things clung to the roof like cockroaches.
“You lot.”
Nowon-gu’s monster hunters.
“Honestly speaking.”
Those horrific snail eyes.
Eye stalks writhing to stare at Jeong Ha-kyeong in unison.
“You know you’re uglier than dick, right?”
One monster hunter gaped its maw and roared, lunging at Jeong Ha-kyeong.
“Kihyaaaaaaaak────!”
Jeong Ha-kyeong.
Equipped 《Goean Valley Helmet》 in an instant.
Her other hand reached her waist.
Gogogogogogo………………
It wrapped around her fingers. The feel of the demon blade Salryuan gave her.
Short sword, 《Karije-ryu》.
She drew it and stabbed it into her side.
“Oh, no.”
A stabbing pain like a thrust.
Her blood, sucked into the blade, pulsed with alien power. When she pulled it out, it was coated thickly……
“Uglier than dick.”
……She swung with all her might, splattering the blood across five monster hunters.
The next moment.
A symphony of agonized death screams ripping from all sides.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAKK!”
“RHIAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!”
In a single instant.
Flesh melted like jelly, bones corroded.
That pain.
Even mindless, it was unbearable rot and decay.
“Slow to die, slower than dick.”
The monster hunters thrashed madly in death, some falling off the train to be shredded by the endless tracks.
Hmph…….
Jeong Ha-kyeong, face blank.
Touched her side where she’d stabbed the blade. No wound…… just blood drained.
Demon blade 《Karije-ryu》’s special ability.
It wounds the wielder not at all, passes through armor, extracts only blood and humanity.
Thought she was just a bitch, but she gave a decent blade.
Muttering inwardly, Jeong Ha-kyeong surveyed the situation.
The train chase was hopeless.
The front boiler room guarded by the First Hunter Squad kids……
Car 1 was like this……
Car 2…… several times worse.
Roofs and walls melted everywhere.
Over a dozen snail monsters clung to them. Then.
“S-sa…… save……!”
An <Association> rookie’s head crushed by a swinging arm.
“Ah, fuck…….”
One shot, one shot.
Jeong Ha-kyeong stepped carefully across the snow-whipped roof.
Slippery as fuck from the snow……
As she nearly slipped. A chill prickled her nape.
She whipped around instantly.
The moment she saw the snail filling her vision despairingly.
She realized her hand on the hilt was half a beat slow.
“《Shiwol Tu-gyo》.”
Space split stickily.
From the gap, a massive wolf’s maw emerged, devouring the airborne snail monster.
“Sis! You’re seriously badass!”
Flying flesh and blood spray.
Beyond it, a black-haired bob-cut woman like Jeong Ha-kyeong herself. Smiling, gripping a shepherd’s staff.
“Can I be your little sis starting today? Pretty please?”
?
Who the fuck is this psycho?