Awakening Kang Hae-il (1)
Professor Kim compared the current Awakened to pre-built PCs.
The Awakened received their skills and could only use them exactly as the skill descriptions dictated. This was Professor Kim’s intuitive way of explaining the vast gap in mana comprehension between demons and the Awakened.
It was an extremely fitting analogy.
The skills of high-ranking Awakened had the massive advantage of being usable without any understanding or preparation. However, they came with restrictions like cooldowns, time limits, and no possibility of modification. There was little room for improvement through training.
They were factory-sealed products—difficult to tamper with.
In other words, they operated on fixed paths and grew along predetermined lines.
It was quite a despairing worldview.
But Professor Kim refused to give up hope.
Even if they’re pre-built…
If someone had the determination to disassemble a pre-built PC down to the last screw, perhaps the Awakened’s skills could be strengthened beyond their limits?
Maybe one day, even student Junil could…
Professor Kim had always wondered.
Perhaps even the ranks granted by the system could be changed.
Just maybe.
BOOM—
A tremendous roar erupted from inside the crimson dome.
“Uh… hey? Did you guys hear that weird noise coming from inside just now?”
Just as the caster beside him described it—weird. Because until now, the crimson dome had blocked not only visual information but auditory information as well.
“There hasn’t been a single sound until now. This is strange, right?”
This sound wasn’t coming from inside the dome.
“Uhhhh…?”
RUMBLE—
The world itself was vibrating.
And it wasn’t just them who felt it.
Some of the news viewers had felt it as well.
It was a wave that only the Awakened could sense.
It was a vibration caused by a dimensional shift.
In other words, the aftermath of the story board shaking violently.
Everything was hot.
So hot it felt like it would all burn away.
Inside that inferno, Hae-il remembered something.
Sometimes, truly cherishing someone is a feeling that’s hard to recognize until it’s too late.
I didn’t know… I…
It was the same as how he would wake up every morning and stare at his late father’s empty study.
Only when loss took physical form did the value of what was lost ride in on regret.
I didn’t know again.
He hadn’t realized this time either.
Porter…!
That the guy called Porter had, in the world of the Awakened, become his one and only comrade.
Batman & Robin. Sci-fi duo.
Those silly nicknames hadn’t just been other people’s jokes after all.
He only understood after seeing that limp corpse.
This…
Not being able to save everyone in the world?
He could understand that.
In a disaster this massive, no matter how hard you tried, some people were bound to die.
But—
This is unacceptable.
His own comrade dying right before his eyes, in front of the S-rank power he possessed yet couldn’t use.
He couldn’t accept it.
He couldn’t forgive himself.
Never again—
He would rather burn himself to ash than allow something like this to happen again.
I won’t let it!
WHOOSH!
The flames inside him materialized.
Something scorching surged up from the deepest part of his being.
Even his mind grew feverishly hot.
It was a burning pain.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
Overwhelming agony swallowed him, and his consciousness began to fade.
Inside his hazy mind, Hae-il’s eyes opened.
…Water?
BUBBLE…
He was submerged.
It was definitely fire before. Now it’s water?
He reached out toward the faint sunlight filtering through the blue water.
It’s so far.
His breath was steadily running out.
The surface was too distant.
The blue surrounding him grew darker and darker. Hae-il frantically turned his head, but there was nothing to grab onto in any direction.
What happened? Where am I…
For some reason, it reminded him of the time he fell into the adult pool as a child.
This place was far too vast, terrifying, and cold to be a mere swimming pool, yet it felt similar.
Young Hae-il had flailed his arms back then too, but the cold, blue, churning world remained unchanged.
No matter how much he swung his arms, only a few bubbles appeared.
The pool didn’t change at all.
His body simply grew weaker and weaker.
Then—
GRAB!
A strong arm seized him.
It was his father.
Dad…!
Shockingly, it felt completely real.
His father was truly there.
What is this?
Present, past, future…
The boundaries were blurring.
Just as direction lost all meaning underwater.
The father before him spoke the same words he had when Hae-il was a child, in a voice that seemed to echo from a faraway cave.
Touching the bottom meant you could kick off and rise again.
Hae-il nodded, just like he had as a child.
But there was one difference from back then.
His father had pulled him out and said those words. This time, Hae-il was still underwater.
He could no longer rely on an adult’s help.
Because…
Hae-il lowered his head and swam downward, repeating the thought to himself.
I’m the adult now.
That was right.
He was already an adult.
This wasn’t some swimming pool. It was a far more treacherous ocean. A much more terrifying place.
I have to go down.
So he kept descending. Deeper and deeper.
His breath grew shorter. It felt like he would suffocate—mentally, if not physically—in the dark, freezing sea.
Yet he continued downward.
Complete darkness swallowed him.
But the identity of that darkness soon revealed itself.
The bottom!
It was the floor.
Even in this seemingly endless depth, there was still a bottom.
Just like any other sea.
He kicked off it with all his strength and shot upward.
Everything happened in an instant.
The pitch-black surroundings became blindingly bright.
SPLASH!
The moment he broke the surface, he returned to reality.
Huh.
Time had stopped.
His fist was buried in the giant serpent’s scales, which remained as hard as steel.
It was exactly the same as when he had first fallen into the water.
But something had changed.
Hae-il had returned with an epiphany.
From the coldest, darkest place, he had learned how to become an even hotter, brighter flame.
Pressure.
Ignition
He ignited his body using the most basic ignition skill.
But not from the outside—from within.
WHOOSH—
Flames bloomed.
It was hot.
But there was no need to fear it.
Again.
Ignition
WHOOOOSH!
He ignited the interior that had already been set ablaze.
It’s working.
Stacking ignition upon ignition, the internal temperature continued to rise.
Hae-il clenched his teeth and kept repeating the skill.
Again.
Ignition
More… more…
Ignition
Ignition
Ignition
.
.
.
He ignited it countless times.
Endlessly. Without pause.
WHOOOOOOSH!
With each repeated ignition, the heat rose higher and higher.
He drew that power up from deep inside his body.
His body was completely immune to fire and high temperatures, so no matter how extreme the heat became, there was no problem.
This was the blessing granted by the Flame of Conviction.
But actually choosing to set your own body on fire dozens, hundreds of times?
That was something only a few insane people would even consider.
How much higher could a temperature that had already reached its limit possibly climb?
More pressure!
It was when pressure was at its highest.
He began creating pressure by trapping the flames inside himself.
HISSSSS—
Flames and smoke leaked from the corners of his mouth.
His mind grew hazy from the scorching heat. Hae-il’s focus began to slip.
Even his eyes were now blazing.
Not red—brighter than that…
KWAAAAA!
Golden-yellow flames exploded outward.
Double Pressure - Iron Forge
Iron melts at 1,510℃
Hae-il’s body had reached that temperature.
And then, time began to flow once more.
“That level of flame is nowhere near enough.”
Sar had seen it clearly.
BOOM—
Kang Hae-il’s fist had failed to pierce his scales.
The human’s fire was strong, but it couldn’t compare to this near-perfect modified body he had created.
The scales remained completely undamaged.
“Didn’t I tell you it was pointless?”
That was why he had warned him.
He had no hobby of watching an opponent’s foolish struggles.
But—
What?
Suddenly, a scorching sensation surged from below.
It was a stimulus he hadn’t felt in a very long time since creating this body.
KWAAAAAAAAANG!
Golden-yellow flames erupted.
Kang Hae-il’s fist had sparked for the second time.
How?
No matter how advanced a legion commander he was in magic, he could not perceive events that transcended space and time.
So he couldn’t dodge in time.
THUD—
He missed the moment Hae-il kicked off the ground.
Almost simultaneously, Hae-il’s fist slammed into Sar’s jaw.
——KWAAAAAAAAANG!
The golden-yellow flames swallowed him whole.
The scales beneath his jaw melted away, exposing bare flesh.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
He screamed.
It had been so long since he last felt pain.
It hurt that much.
Hae-il climbed onto the writhing Sar and began raining down more punches.
KWAAAAAAAAANG!
Every time his fist landed, a perfectly circular hole was punched through the dense scales.
KWAAANG!
The second punch burned away the flesh beneath the scales.
KWAGWAGWANG!!!
The third punch burned straight through bone.
It was a one-sided beating.
Sar, who had been casting incredible magic with mere flicks of his fingers, could do nothing but scream like a child.
“H-hot! It’s so hooooooot!”
Pain had completely taken over.
He had reinforced the outer scales far more than the flesh beneath them. The moment they were breached, he became pathetically vulnerable.
In his agony, Sar fired his breath wildly in every direction.
Sky, ground, north, south, east, west—none of it mattered.
KRAAAAAAAAAAAA!
In the end, he sliced the very building they stood on clean in half.
The building began to collapse.
“Kim Ri-el! Lift us up!”
At Yu Jihun’s shout, Ri-el levitated the rest of the Awakened party.
But he didn’t allocate any mana to the Porter’s corpse.
Kim Ri-el saw no reason to bother saving a dead man.
He tried to save Sagosul instead.
…Where did he go?
Sagosul was nowhere to be seen.
He’ll survive somehow.
He was the kind of guy who always managed to live.
Ri-el was about to move Suyeon and Jihun as far away as possible when—
WHOOOOOOONG…!
Hundreds of Skra rose into the sky.
“Damn it.”
They were the creatures Sar had summoned in his desperation while being beaten by Kang Hae-il.
SCREEEEEEECH!
Nearly half of the Skra shot toward Hae-il.
The rest came for them.
“I don’t think we can stop those.”
Ri-el’s judgment was correct.
With their current power, blocking the Skra’s charge was impossible.
But then—
Protection - Vector Conversion
SWISH!
A defensive barrier slightly different from usual spread out.
All the charging Skra were bounced back in the exact opposite direction they had come from.
KWAGWAGWANG!
“…?”
Ri-el looked down in surprise.
Suyeon was reaching out with her hand, panting heavily.
“Haa… haa…”
Her face was a mess of flowing tears, yet a faint, bittersweet smile crossed her lips.
“I… I think… I might have realized something too?”
She had awakened as well.
“D-die, you worm! Get off meeee!”
Sar summoned hundreds of Skra to shake Hae-il off and even armed the black hands with spears, stabbing at him from all directions.
They were the same ‘demonic’ spears from ancient times that had been used to brand a beautiful woman a witch out of jealousy and execute her.
But—
WHOOOOOOOSH!
The Skra burned away like moths before a mighty flame.
The massive incoming spears were dodged with beast-like movements. Hae-il only struck the shafts, shattering every single one of them.
KWAGWAGWANG!
“The… Envy’s Witch Hunt Spears?”
Watching the vengeful spears snap in half in an instant, Sar finally felt a real threat.
His body could be repaired like a machine, but these summoned creatures were all borrowed from high-ranking demons in the demon realm.
If too many were destroyed, he wouldn’t be able to summon them again.
“You… just what the hell are you?”
Sar was afraid now.
Hae-il’s Constellations were excitedly answering in his place.
But Hae-il had no time to respond.
“Grrrr…”
Half of his human reason had already flown away.
He only dodged incoming attacks and kept striking until the enemy died.
That was the only command left in his mind.
“AAAAAAAAAAH!”
With a monstrous roar, his fist slammed into the inside of the scales once more.
KWAAAAAAAAANG!
“Guh!?”
Sar’s head finally slammed into the ground.
The building completely collapsed.
“Krrrrgh…!”
Hae-il remained mounted on Sar’s head and continued throwing punches.
“AAAAAAAAAAH!”
KWAAAAAAAAANG!
The golden-yellow flames surged upward, smashing Sar down from the 15th floor all the way to the 10th.
KWAAAAAAAAANG!
The surrounding concrete turned back into paste. The entire building swayed like jelly.
They crashed all the way down to the 5th floor.
Sar no longer seemed conscious enough to even scream.
His eyes had rolled completely back.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
The yellow flames bursting from Hae-il’s eyes shot all the way to the roof as he threw a punch several times stronger than any before.
KWANG—
Sar’s long body was engulfed in yellow flames.