Pride After Dawn
That was the thought Cheon Ji-hoo had while dealing with the boy.
No matter how many times he killed him, the kid kept popping up from somewhere. And each time he reappeared, he was immune to whatever method Ji-hoo had used before, letting him test out new combinations to his heart's content. He was the perfect opponent—a real punching bag.
Fusion magic, blending multiple spells, wasn't all that popular. It was unstable, unpredictable. Plus, pulling it off required at least double casting—computing two spells at once—which most mages wouldn't even dream of attempting.
“■■■■!!”
The newly spawned boy shouted something and began drawing a magic circle. Ji-hoo watched curiously, wondering what it'd be this time. Gloomy mana unfurled, completing the circle as blood sprayed from the boy's entire body and he collapsed.
He'd sacrificed himself to finish the summoning array.
Out came a skeleton draped in tattered robes. It didn't look like your average skeleton. The way it immediately spewed death aura in all directions marked it as a high-tier undead—a lich, without a doubt.
A skeleton mage commanding armies of tens of thousands of the fallen.
But Ji-hoo just smacked his lips and muttered, “All he pulls out is a lich... How underwhelming.”
Not even an elder lich with divine power or an arch-lich—the pinnacle of their kind. Just a plain old lich. Back in that other world, the necromancers he'd faced churned those out like it was nothing. No way it'd satisfy him.
The lich raised its staff high and unleashed its magic. Behind it stood the boy, looking smug as ever, so Ji-hoo scowled and lifted his hand.
The lich's spell activated. Deathly mana rippled through the air, corroding reality itself.
Magic was a question posed to reality. The lich's spell touched on the concept of 'death,' so reality answered with all manner of corrupting energies. True to its moniker as the undead king, countless corpses erupted from the ground.
Each one, shrouded in death aura, packed the power of a B-rank hunter. Their armored forms moved with disciplined menace born of death, and those linked to the lich feared it least of all.
But the boy, so proud of summoning the lich, had overlooked one crucial thing: he was immune to magic—not the lich or its minions.
Tremendous mana surged from Ji-hoo's raised hand, sketching a crimson magic circle. The air vibrated, heating up fiercely. Then, with a snap of his fingers—click—
The heads of every undead and the lich exploded in unison.
Magic: Expansion.
Heat air, and its volume expands. Ji-hoo's original spell, rooted in scientific principles, superheated the air in a fixed space to spike pressure and trigger explosive growth—a lethal area attack.
The undead crumbled in an instant. With a flick of his wrist, death itself withered, bones scattering across the floor. The freshly summoned lich, without a separate phylactery prepared, lay broken and unrevivable.
Next up: the boy.
“Alright, let's see if you're immune to this one too.”
Splat.
The boy's head hit the floor. He hadn't even seen it coming. In his dying moment, instinct kicked in, awakening the next spare body.
The boy hatched from his egg, coughing and lifting his head. There stood Cheon Ji-hoo, like an unending nightmare.
“Immune yet?”
And again—head gone.
The homunculus hive system required meticulous analysis to generate immunity, but he couldn't even identify the magic's type or nature.
The sixtieth body sloshed out of its egg, and Ji-hoo spoke.
“Does immunity only apply to attribute magic?”
Simply put, Fireball was attribute magic; Magic Bullet was non-attribute. Among mages, non-attribute spells got a bad rap for weak power.
Only Ji-hoo knew their true infinite potential, so he wasn't surprised by the reputation.
'Guess that's that.'
He fine-tuned the output, fusing various spells for testing. It had been fun experimenting freely after so long, but now it was time to wrap up. No point meeting again. He'd figured out how the nest system worked during its kill-revive cycles—nothing left to see.
“Hoo.”
With a short exhale, he turned, briefly releasing mana. Expansion deployed once more, shattering the remaining eggs and the boy's head.
Knowing everything in the nest was destroyed, Ji-hoo didn't glance back. He cast Teleport toward the door's location.
Reaching it, he extended a hand toward the black door. He'd already scanned its structure with mana. All that remained was unlocking it.
Infusing mana made the door resonate, emitting its own in response. A simple puzzle: match the door's mana wavelength to trigger full resonance and open it.
Any other mage would call it impossible nonsense. Mimicking someone else's mana wavelength? Close enough, maybe—but perfectly identical? Never. Mana wavelengths were as unique as fingerprints, reflections of the soul. Only identical twins or precisely engineered homunculi might match, nothing else.
This door was made for one person alone.
But Cheon Ji-hoo could do it.
Eyes closed, he focused on the door's mana. Steady rhythm, low-pitched. A husky baritone, if it were a voice.
Memorizing the rhythm, he matched it first: thump, thump, thump....
With rhythms aligned, he lowered his wavelength. His own was high—stable high tenor. Forcing it down to mimic the door's.
Then fine-tuning. Little by little. Until perfect.
His mana now identical to the boy's gloomy signature, the door boomed open.
Ji-hoo exhaled deeply and stepped inside. As expected, a core pulsed with immense mana.
Familiar now, he extracted it—infused with rift mana—tossed it into his subspace, and swapped in the separated one from before.
Core swap complete, the rift's interior began collapsing. He teleported to the entrance, glanced at the crumbling rift, then exited.
Hong Ji-hwa, waiting outside, checked the time and swallowed hard.
'23 minutes.'
Longer than the last B-rank raid, but... 23 minutes was insane. A standard strike team would've taken days, if they succeeded at all.
That was hunters for you—staking their lives to push forward.
But Cheon Ji-hoo shattered every common sense.
“Core's here. And there was a real pain-in-the-ass inside. Requesting a pay bump.”
Hong Ji-hwa got it. Wasteland-grade rift. The kind guilds ignored, then jacked up fees on. Better to clear it and negotiate like this.
She nodded. “I'll pass it to the Association.”
Probably 1.2 billion, up from 1 billion.
And with that, the rift sealed shut.
HCU agents controlling the perimeter stared at Ji-hoo in shock. They'd heard rumors, but who the hell was this guy? Why was Hong Ji-hwa so deferential? Clearing an A-rank equivalent in under 30 minutes?
“Well, I'll be off then. Oh, one thing I'm curious about.”
“What is it?”
“Can rifts be triggered artificially?”
“Artificially? Yeah, those fuckers exist. Scumbags who summon rifts thinking it'll 'free' them from society.”
“Fuckers?”
“Oops. Slip of the tongue.”
She smacked her lips, but it was her real feelings.
“International criminals who believe rifts will smash the system and bring freedom. Half our job is hunting those bastards.”
“I see.”
“But why ask?”
“Just curious. Seems every world has its share.”
Otherworld cults worshiping demon kings were prime examples.
Hong Ji-hwa pondered briefly. “If you spot any or they approach, contact us immediately. Weird robes—they're unmistakable.”
“Sure, if I see 'em.”
Ji-hoo was certain the aroused freak from the rooftop belonged to that group. Same shady robe.
“Their group's called DF—Dimension Free...”
Explaining with downcast eyes, she looked up to find Ji-hoo gone. She sighed long and hard.
The world was full of lunatics.
* * *
Back home, Cheon Ji-hoo didn't head straight to bed. He pulled the core from his subspace. Still early dawn—the time when stellar energies peaked. Perfect for crafting a barrier.
Hovering the core mid-living room, he spread his arms. A magic circle etched around it, glowing softly.
A barrier needed three things: power source, formulas, purpose.
This one wasn't for killing—it prioritized excluding intruders and safeguarding those inside.
“What'll it take...”
Otherworld had standard barrier formulas—like laying foundations for pillars. The circle now overlaying the core was that base.
Ji-hoo layered new formulas atop it with mana. Reinforcement for durability—to withstand even dragon breath.
Next, exclusion formulas: unauthorized entrants, impure mana, hostile intent. Adapted from the witches’ mist maze spells.
Carefully, meticulously. One formula down, he gauged the core's allocatable mana. Room for more—he picked 'suppression' next.
Mage barrier theory had a saying: the best barriers are simple.
Sounds like bullshit, but the point was elegant simplicity with intricate, unbreakable formulas hidden within.
He wove in the illusion school's Reversal formula. Randomizing suppression's attribute magics into a maddening mishmash.
Then registered exemptions: his and Cheon Ji-yoon's mana wavelengths. Even non-mages had them.
Barrier finishing touches. Dawn now—he raised his hands, gathering starlight. It trickled down, and he scattered it over the core.
Infused with stars, the barrier would harden further, strongest under the night sky.
This was the 'purpose': stars as vessels for wishes. He imprinted a fierce vow—no unsafety under this stellar shield.
Design complete, he dismissed the circle. Grasped the gleaming core and dropped it. It melted into the floor.
Barrier erected.
Time check: dawn breaking. Morning sun rose through the apartment's floor-to-ceiling windows.
The sunrise after dawn.
Cheon Ji-hoo slumped onto the sofa with a long exhale.
'Hope that horny bastard's ripening nicely.'
By now, perfectly marinated. He smirked.