Lightning
Ha Jinwoo made an immediate judgment. The enemy’s combat strength, its power, its special characteristics—none of them were at a level he could handle with ordinary means. He activated the Kill Switch without hesitation.
A massive surge of electricity raced through the bio-generators beneath his skin and spread across his entire body. The current coursed over him, racing violently along his nerves and pushing his reaction speed to the absolute limit. He accepted the risk of cardiac arrest. This was an opponent that demanded such a risk.
Crackle. The electricity surging from his entire body became visible. Beyond the rising blue flash, the Holy Knight moved. Ha Jinwoo moved at exactly the same instant.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
The greatsword slammed down, splitting the roof and still finding the force to shatter the floor beneath. The ground collapsed. Ha Jinwoo leapt before he lost his balance, twisting his body in midair and lashing out with a kick.
Clang!
It was metal. The surface, the interior—everything was metal. He felt no solid impact. Sensing the hand reaching to grab his leg, Ha Jinwoo used the Holy Knight as a foothold and launched himself backward.
Thud. Thud. Rumble rumble rumble…!
The building collapsed floor by floor, sinking down to the first level. The Holy Knight landed with a heavy crash, and Florence touched down behind it.
Florence couldn’t find Ha Jinwoo, who had hidden himself within the rising cloud of dust.
“You’re more cunning than you look.”
Death approached her blind spot in utter silence. Ha Jinwoo hurled the decorative spear he had been hanging from. The weapon shot through the dust cloud in a perfect line. Florence noticed it but did not dodge. Instead, she reached out her hand.
In the Domain of Darkness, light could only gather in limited amounts. Had this been outside, the holy power would have been enough to erase an entire district. A Spear of Punishment.
But the casting was too slow. She would be hit. That was how it should have gone.
She didn’t even flinch as she watched the spear flying toward her shatter.
Crrrrrrrrrrrack!
The shockwave blasted the dust away. Beyond the ringing echo, Ha Jinwoo frowned. When the dust cleared, the spear he had thrown lay broken against the Holy Knight’s shield.
A shield extended beyond the normal range of its joints. Ha Jinwoo clicked his tongue, stepped forward with a wide stride, and swung the spear shaft at Florence.
A beam of light flashed. The shaft deflected the light and melted away. Within the rays that carved through the surrounding space, Ha Jinwoo released the shaft and spun.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
A powerful spinning kick. Once again, it was blocked by the shield.
Everything’s blocked.
It meant size wasn’t the only factor. The moment Ha Jinwoo tried to create distance, he felt the massive body closing in. The giant swung its sword high while keeping its shield close, moving with refined precision.
Kwa-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga!
The building collapsed. Every swing of the Holy Knight’s sword shook the earth as if the ground itself were twisting. Furniture, walls, pillars, and flooring were shredded like paper and sent flying.
No human could withstand a single blow. Even a vampire would be gravely wounded or left on the verge of death. Yet Ha Jinwoo was somehow enduring within that storm.
Recognizing the clear gap in raw power, he abandoned his usual tactics. Instead of the super-soldier approach of using overwhelming strength to deflect, push back, and forcibly break an opponent’s posture, he chose the opposite. He would exploit the enemy’s attacks, evade them, and use rotation.
Even so, he realized the truth. His own attacks weren’t landing, but if any of the Holy Knight’s strikes connected, it would be over. It was a bad matchup.
Ha Jinwoo gritted his teeth and moved like a slippery shadow through the pouring rain of sword strikes. The Holy Knight was fast, strong, and flexible. Unbelievably so. The sword strikes that invaded his field of vision seemed to leave more than one trajectory. Overwhelming skill matched an overwhelming body. Every ferocious blow was the product of meticulous calculation.
Ha Jinwoo leaned back sharply to avoid the next attack aimed at his head, but—
It’s fast.
The Holy Knight was experienced. The greatsword that had swung through empty air bent mid-path and came at him again. This time it targeted his leg, aiming to cut off his escape. Even if he dodged, the flying debris would stop his movement.
Experienced indeed.
So Ha Jinwoo slid low to avoid the leg-sweeping strike and leapt. He bounded onto the already collapsing ceiling. A new presence entered his sensory range.
Maribella.
Ha Jinwoo reached toward the Holy Knight.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
Electricity erupted from his palm. It lacked the power to harm the Holy Knight, but it was enough to momentarily blind it. And that was all he needed.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
The spear Maribella threw struck the Holy Knight. The shockwave cleared the dust and drove the giant back. The warped spear clattered to the ground. Had it not been a Holy Knight, the throw would have skewered it like a piece of meat long ago.
Yet the giant that had been sent flying casually shoved aside the wreckage of the building it had destroyed and stepped outside. Its armor bore dents, but there were no signs of injury. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Ha Jinwoo, who had escaped the collapsed building, took his place beside Maribella. She had used the time he bought her well. She was now fully armed. Crimson plate covered her body, and in her hands she held a greatsword larger than she was tall. White hair spilled from beneath her pressed-down helm and fluttered in the wind.
“Mari.”
“Father.”
“The weapons?”
“Here.”
Maribella handed over Jeokjo, the mace, and Yeojin. Ha Jinwoo took them both and drew Jeokjo from its sheath.
It was a long blade, roughly two meters in total length. A pattern resembling crashing waves was engraved along the edge, and the hilt was a deep blood-red. A famous sword. The moment he gripped it, he knew. The material was ultra-alloy—one of the lighter varieties, excellent in both ductility and strength, ideal for weapons.
Even so, victory seemed uncertain. Ha Jinwoo simply gripped the hilt that fit perfectly in his hands with both palms.
“What in the world is all this noise—”
The vampires who had been guarding the main gate returned and assessed the situation. Their eyes naturally turned from Ha Jinwoo to the Holy Knight.
“A Holy Knight…!”
They gasped in horror. They knew the Holy Knight’s might. It was the very reason every race had fled into the Labyrinth and Guro District. The vampires were no exception. They had been driven from outside the Labyrinth and forced to take refuge within it.
The Holy Knights of Light. The greatest force wielded by the Church of Light. The final destination for those who died in service to the light. The reason for the vampires’ downfall.
They swallowed their instinctive terror, then—
“Knights of the Blood Clan, hear me!”
Maribella’s roar snapped them back to their senses.
“Take up your weapons! Raise your blades!”
She gripped her greatsword with both hands, drew in a deep breath, and shouted.
“The time for vengeance has come—!”
The vampires reacted on instinct to their lord’s cry. They drew their longswords. Eyes burning with fighting spirit, they stared down the Holy Knight.
This was the Labyrinth. The territory of darkness. A space where the Church of Light could not exert its full power.
“Oh my, what’s all this commotion?”
A light laugh mixed with those words. As the Holy Knight’s shield swept through empty air, a woman who had thrown herself low to the ground flipped through the air and landed gracefully.
“Tsk, I didn’t come here to work… but this looks like it could be fun?”
There was no sound when she landed. Only the two daggers in her hands gleamed with a chilling light.
“Bishara.”
“Shall I add this to your tab? Or perhaps… the next request will be free?”
“Do as you like. Did you bring anyone with you?”
“They’re all too slow. I prefer working alone.”
Maribella clicked her tongue and glanced at her father. Fortunately, he didn’t appear injured. Good. That was exactly how it should be. Her father would never allow anything less.
Even so, she felt a complicated swirl of emotions. She shouldn’t feel even the slightest disturbance at the thought of that human dying. Yet when the spear had pierced her and sent her flying, she had been shaken with worry for her father.
She couldn’t even understand her own heart. While feeling relief that he was unharmed, she turned her gaze to the enemy before her.
The giant stood with casual ease, shield in one hand and a heavy greatsword in the other. Maribella’s face twisted into a fierce scowl.
She had sent out several requests just recently. While a minimum defensive force always remained on site, it was only enough to handle monsters. It was nowhere near enough to face a Holy Knight. The Mage Tower might have taken it lightly, but the vampires held no particular advantage against Holy Knights. In fact, it was the opposite.
Of all times…
Perhaps it had been deliberate. The thought crossed Maribella’s mind, and she gripped her greatsword tighter.
Fortunately, the vampires were not alone.
“How pathetic. Insects daring to cast shadows upon Master’s glory.”
Vertea stepped forward, her doll-like face filled with clear, expressionless rage.
“I-is that really a Holy Knight…?!”
“Why is there a Holy Knight in the Labyrinth?!”
Jenia and Moare seemed unable to fully grasp the situation. They panicked but still assumed combat stances.
Ha Jinwoo scanned the area with his eyes. Florence was nowhere to be seen. That was unsettling. Still, with this many people, they could fight. No matter how strong the Holy Knight was, they had a chance of victory.
That was what Ha Jinwoo thought, but—
“So many insects have gathered in one place.”
The Holy Knight spoke briefly in an archaic tone. Its arrogance dismissed every surrounding enemy as nothing more than bugs. Yet no one could protest. Such confidence resonated in its voice.
Maribella noticed it but did not retreat. This was the land of the Blood Clan. To flee without repelling an invader would be an unbearable loss of face.
With Maribella at the lead, the vampires who had surrounded the Holy Knight surged forward.
“The Light will surely rejoice.”
With those short words, the Holy Knight and Maribella moved at the same time.
What followed left only afterimages.
When Maribella’s greatsword drew a red arc, the Holy Knight’s blade followed as if chasing it. White and crimson. The overlapping crescent traces collided, shattered, and charged toward each other with ferocious intensity. Sparks flew violently, igniting the ground. The clashes were so intense they left lingering traces on the retina even under the bright sunlight.
A perfect harmony of strength and technique. Maribella and the Holy Knight were equal in skill. They were equal in power. Therefore, they were evenly matched.
Within the sword dance that no one dared interrupt, the Holy Knight suddenly accelerated the shield it had drawn back fully. The massive shield filled the entire field of vision as it rushed forward. It was like being charged by a truck.
Maribella stepped back and planted her foot on the shield.
Crrrrrrrrrrrrack!
With a tremendous roar, Maribella was pushed back along with the shield. In pure strength they were even, but the Holy Knight held the advantage in weight. However—
“Is that all you have?”
The moment those words left the Holy Knight, the flow of battle changed completely. It no longer blocked.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
Maribella’s strikes sequentially found the gaps in its armor. The seam of the helm, the gap between gauntlet and breastplate, the ankle—attacks that should have caused fatal wounds. Yet only the sound of metal striking metal rang out. The Holy Knight did not retreat even an inch.
It endured every blow with absolute solidity, then lifted its sword high. While accepting every attack with its body, it waited for a single opening and swung with precise timing.
It was coming. A counterattack. Maribella stepped back and raised her sword, but—
Crack. The sound reverberated to her very bones as her body was launched into the air.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
The ground cratered as Maribella’s body flew upward. The vampire knights who had been unable to break into the fierce sword dance widened their eyes. Ha Jinwoo followed his daughter’s trajectory with his gaze and clenched his teeth hard.
“Everyone, attack—!”
He shouted, drawing on his experience as a commander. In a one-versus-many fight, morale was everything. Ha Jinwoo closed the distance in an instant.
The moment it recognized him, countless sword strikes flew his way. The attacks, launched lightly with only wrist, waist, and ankle rotation, resembled one-handed sword techniques rather than those of a greatsword. Yet their sheer size was overwhelming. So was their weight.
Ha Jinwoo instantly realized that the moment he tried to block even one, the fight would end. He held a slight edge in speed and technique, but the weight difference was absolute. It felt like at least several tons. Even his micro-current couldn’t fully analyze its entire interior—it was that densely constructed.
Even if he saw through it, that was all he could do.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
The ground cratered wherever the sword merely grazed. His instincts screamed that even a graze would bring death. He realized he was facing a weight class he had never encountered in his entire life.
Ha Jinwoo arched his back as far as possible to avoid the strike aimed at his head. He dodged. But the wind pressure alone shook his stance. The weight difference was overwhelming. It was nothing like the time he had faced Korven, whom he could suppress with technique. It was like a martial arts master trying to fight an African elephant.
One hundred and twenty-seven years after becoming a super soldier, Ha Jinwoo felt for the first time as if he had become an ordinary human. He also realized just how absurd his daughter’s physical abilities were to have briefly matched this thing.
Even so, he could not simply retreat.
Clang! Shiiiiiiiiiing!
Ha Jinwoo watched a vampire knight stab into a gap in the Holy Knight’s armor only to be cut cleanly in two. The Holy Knight no longer avoided attacks. Instead, it received them, then struck through the openings to kill.
It was similar to Korven’s tactics, but this side held the advantage. Muscles made of metal. A body that nullified attacks. No fatigue, no reduction in physical ability from wounds. It was absurd. It felt like a machine created solely for war.
Nevertheless, Ha Jinwoo gritted his teeth and charged inside. This output wasn’t enough. Faster. More precisely. The already overloaded generators pulled even more electricity. His cognitive speed rose to the limit. Lightning flashed in his pupils.
The guillotine-like greatsword rose high, aiming at the charging Ha Jinwoo, then slammed down.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
“Oh?”
Yet not even a thread of his clothing had been grazed. Even though the strike had been guided into the space created by pushing with the shield, the lightning avatar was no longer there. Instead, the Holy Knight felt a slash slip through the gap in its helm and exit.
An ultra-alloy blade that carved through metal as it withdrew. Ha Jinwoo moved with a long afterimage trailing behind him like a tail and passed the Holy Knight.
It was not a clean hit. But a scratch had been made. The metal, blessed in every way possible, had been split. A surprising and blasphemous feat.
The Holy Knight quickly twisted its body to stab with its sword, but—
Kwoooooooosh! Fwoooooooosh!
Flames erupted from the ground as if they had been waiting. The armor grew scorching hot. Even when it swung its shield to scatter the flames, they clung persistently. Unpleasant fire.
From a distance, the Holy Knight spotted the halfling holding flames in both hands and glaring at it.
“Calamity Flame Vertea.”
There were many things to kill. The Holy Knight bent its knees, intending to target Vertea first since she could damage its armor, but—
Clang-clang-clang!
Jeokjo, swung at that exact moment, sliced the Holy Knight’s ankle and stopped it cold. Metal fragments flew from the split ankle.
It works.
The vampire knights saw it. A sharp blade carving through the hard metallic muscle within the armor’s gaps.
A chance.
They accelerated at once. Guided by decades of combat experience, they moved to support Ha Jinwoo. Dozens of swords, spears, and a pair of daggers hammered into the armor’s seams. No matter how powerful the Holy Knight was, it could not deflect every single attack. It could not block them all.
Ha Jinwoo’s strikes, mixed between the others, were fierce and impossible to ignore. They widened the existing scratches and added countless small wounds. The repeatedly swinging sword and shield could not reach Ha Jinwoo. They only swept through the empty space he had already left behind, scattering dust.
Frustrated, it clenched its fist and pulled the shield closer to its body in a spasm. Ha Jinwoo believed they had a chance of victory. Using micro-current pushed to its limit, he was reading every single movement.
It was clearly not a human body. Yet it possessed a human shape. And if the shape was human, every martial technique and attack began from the feet. The planting of the foot, the rotation of the foot, the position of the foot—intent was contained there. No matter how cleverly it moved its feet, the muscles could not lie.
Ha Jinwoo read it all with bloodshot eyes and accelerated. As if trying to catch up to her father, Maribella joined the fray. The daughter gripping her sword and closing the distance.
“Father!”
Ha Jinwoo did not answer her cry. But there was no need for words between them. He read his daughter’s muscles. He understood her intent faster than words could convey. And so father and daughter moved as one.
Kaaaaaaaang!
When Maribella’s greatsword struck the ankle and broke its stance, Ha Jinwoo stabbed into the face and the gap in the helm. When the vampire knights deflected the Holy Knight’s sword, Ha Jinwoo slipped inside and slashed the back of its knee. When Maribella struck the staggering Holy Knight’s head with her greatsword, Vertea’s flames accurately pierced the helm’s gap and set its head ablaze. When Moare’s timely stone wall slowed the greatsword, Ha Jinwoo hid behind it and slashed the wrist with his swung blade. Bishara, hiding her presence and sliding past like a shadow, then sliced and tore the already cut wrist.
There were no vital points. There were no fatal wounds. That was why it could counterattack as if unaffected by such strikes. But even that had its limits. Just like now.
The Holy Knight’s severed wrist—struck in succession by Ha Jinwoo, the vampire knights, and Bishara—fell away. The sword slipped from its grasp.
Kuuuuuuuung!
He didn’t understand its principles or how it existed. But that didn’t mean it was invincible. If it were, it would not have tried so eagerly to kill the Avatar of Darkness.
The invincible have no enemies. And those without enemies have no reason to be aggressive. Therefore, it had weaknesses. It had limits. It had to.
The Holy Knight was powerful, but its only means of attack were its sword and shield. It could not use divinity. If it could, it would have used it at the appropriate moment. That was what Ha Jinwoo thought, and the others thought the same.
They could win. They could kill it. Everyone’s thoughts aligned.
Despite the burning headache, Ha Jinwoo gritted his teeth and raised his sword. He aimed for the neck. This time he would take the head. If that didn’t work, then the limbs next.
The moment Ha Jinwoo raised his sword with renewed resolve and the Holy Knight moved toward the direction where it had been holding its sword—
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!
A sudden flash of light slammed down toward the Holy Knight. It was the power of that woman from the Church of Light who handled divinity. For an instant, everything froze.
Was it an attack? Or assistance?
Ha Jinwoo’s wariness lasted only a moment. He immediately realized the light was not aimed at him. A chilling premonition struck him.
“Dodge—!”
A drawn-out voice. The dark elf who had leapt the instant the beam descended, climbing onto the roof as if searching for something. Before his mind could even process it, something shot out from within the falling pillar of light.
An attack that tore through the densely woven net of micro-current and closed in. A greatsword hurtling forward while splitting the light. Something that should have been impossible to wield after the wrist had been severed. It was not the left hand that had held the shield. It was the right.
A perfectly clean right hand with no trace of having been cut. Ha Jinwoo tried to pull down the sword he had been about to swing into its path, but he realized—
This cannot be blocked.
From the beginning, trying to block an attack of this weight and size was meaningless.
Crack.
The greatsword crushed his body along with the sword he had raised to block. It shattered bones, burst flesh, and drove him back.
Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrack!
Ha Jinwoo’s body flew through the air. He smashed through a building in the opposite direction of the swing and crashed inside. A thunderous roar rang out as dust billowed up. Maribella unconsciously turned her head inside her helm.
“Father…?”
When the pillar of light faded, the Holy Knight still stood in the same place. All the wounds it had suffered were gone without a trace. It stood firm, holding its sword and shield, showing no impatience.
“One first.”
Only then did Maribella realize. It had deliberately allowed itself to be wounded and exposed openings to create an opportunity. All for this single counterattack. To shake their emotions, lower their morale, and break them at the moment when victory seemed most certain—so it could bend the battle to its will.
“I suppose you won’t call that underhanded.”
With the sound of grinding teeth, Maribella charged. The Holy Knight smiled.