The White Knight
Situations always unfolded abruptly. Cheon Ji-hoo knew from long experience that the only crises that came gradually were things like climate change and environmental shifts.
There were Demons and the Demon King. Right here on Earth. That alone was enough to sour his mood.
And the information he'd heard from Toridos was incredibly significant.
The Demon King, divided into 666 fragments. A disgustingly large number.
Cheon Ji-hoo blinked as he pondered it. The Demon King was the Demon King—an incarnation of the Demon God, unadorned by any qualifiers. But if it had been split into 666 pieces, that explained the qualifiers...
"What a fucking mess."
He was certain now. The Demon King was an incarnation of the Demon God, but it was also a sort of conceptual entity. One could see it as the embodiment of all the negativity that had been crammed and compressed into existence. So maybe that's why it had splintered into these qualified Demon Kings—a total clusterfuck of 666 fragments.
"Oppa, oppa."
"What?"
"Can I ask you something I'm curious about?"
"Go ahead."
Before he knew it, Cheon Ji-yoon had sidled up and plopped down in front of him as he lounged on the sofa.
"Oppa, how strong are you, really?"
She was seventeen—the perfect age to be curious about someone else's power. Cheon Ji-yoon vaguely knew her brother was strong. She'd thought maybe S-rank hunter level, but what she'd seen this time was beyond imagination.
The dragon aura shooting into the sky. The sight her brother had created was a natural disaster in every sense. Something no human could reach or even approach. Just watching it felt like it transcended reality. If she'd been swept up in it, she would've vanished into another dimension entirely. She couldn't even gauge his strength.
Wearing her white armor and accompanied by her sword spirit, Cheon Ji-yoon had felt fear toward the Demon. Even with the blessing Steel Heart, the sticky black demonic energy pouring from it triggered an instinctive revulsion and terror. A primal sense screaming that she shouldn't charge in. Yet Cheon Ji-hoo had slaughtered it in one blow.
So she was curious. Just how strong was he? How did he stack up against S-rank hunters?
"How strong I am, huh..."
Cheon Ji-hoo narrowed his eyes at a question he'd never really considered. There was no objective way to measure it. Everything that had come at him so far, he'd beaten to death no matter what tricks they pulled...
But one thing was certain.
"Even if every S-rank on Earth ganged up on me, they wouldn't stand a chance."
It had happened once before. Right after returning to Earth, a horde of S-ranks had swarmed him, but he'd subdued them all without killing a single one.
At his words, Cheon Ji-yoon stared blankly for a moment before nodding. She couldn't quite picture his exact strength, but she got that he was insanely powerful. He'd learned magic from dragons in that other world. Killed dragons too? And reigned as an archmage for centuries.
"But... you okay, Ji-yoon?"
This time, Cheon Ji-hoo asked. She tilted her head at the question, her face saying she had no idea what he meant. He blinked at her reaction, then waved it off. Never mind.
He didn't consider Demons or humans cursed by them to be human at all, but Cheon Ji-yoon probably did. He'd asked to check if cutting down a 'person' this time had left any mental scars... but she seemed fine, so no need to pry.
Effect of the armor?
What the hell kind of armor had every effect under the sun? He couldn't even remember where he'd picked it up. Maybe from some asshole who picked a fight with him on the road? After that, he'd completely forgotten about it and didn't even know what buffs it had.
He'd have to examine it closely later.
"I'm heading to my room to rest first. Totally wiped..."
"Go ahead. I'll grab a midnight snack."
"Whatcha eating? No, don't tell me. I know what it'll be."
Cheon Ji-yoon shook her head as she stood.
Cheon Ji-hoo chuckled at her words.
"Obviously sotdelia."
* * *
Click, click, click, click.
The sound of nails being gnawed echoed through the dark conference room.
The man sitting alone trembled with anxiety, sweat beading on his brow.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck..."
Everything was going to shit. The original plan had been smooth sailing. They'd brought chaos to the world. It was just a small chaos, but it was the foundation for something massive.
With the powerful authority of the Status Window blocking them, they couldn't tempt hunters. So they'd baptized Returners—those without Status Windows—with the Demon King's grace. They fell easily.
Most Returners struggled to adapt to reality. A few months for the short stays, years for the long ones. Those who'd spent ages in other worlds accepted corruption without a fight, turning villain or hunting other Returners to build their power.
Thus, several S-rank villains were born. The plan was perfect.
Until Cheon Ji-hoo returned from the other world.
He was a Returner with immense power. As a candidate for the Demon King's baptism, he was irresistible. If he'd accepted it and evolved, he would've become a Demon to rule the world.
But things didn't go that way. Cheon Ji-hoo rarely left home, making it hard to track him or make contact. And with his overwhelming strength, the association had him under heavy surveillance.
"Fuck, for real..."
If this kept up, it was total ruin. The ominous Toridos was dead. Vaporized in one hit without resistance. The monster army they'd ambitiously gathered was routed by the White Knight clad in the relic of the Goddess of Light and Salt. Two S-rank villains dead, one captured. Probably undergoing brutal interrogation in the HCU basement by now.
He had to think. Think hard, or he'd be dead soon.
And the top priority was killing Cheon Ji-hoo somehow. As long as he lived, Earth—no, at least Korea—would be no place for Demons to thrive.
"DF... yeah, I can use those bastards."
They weren't baptized by the Demon King, but maybe he could use those rift-worshipping lunatics. There might be a path forward.
He pulled out his phone and called a DF contact.
The head of the DF Korean branch. He'd commission Cheon Ji-hoo's assassination.
But—
-The person you're calling has their phone off or is out of range.
-Beep. Connecting to voicemail.
----!
No answer. The guy always kept his phone on—calls always connected. But no signal at all? What the hell?
He shoved the phone roughly into his pocket and bit his lip.
"Didn't want to drag those guys in..."
If the clean option failed, he'd have to go nuclear.
* * *
Weekend over, back to weekdays—Cheon Ji-yoon had to head to school again. With Cheon Ji-hoo's permission to stop hiding her power, she went grinning ear to ear. Like a flower blooming after holding back her strength for so long.
Still, he told her to keep the white-armored knight thing under wraps.
"I'm off~!"
"Yeah. See you later."
As she left the house, Cheon Ji-hoo sprawled on the sofa and closed his eyes. The noise faded. His consciousness sank deep, like plummeting into ocean depths. He didn't resist, letting it plunge further.
Where did it arrive? He felt the bottom of the deep sea and slowly opened his eyes.
Having reached the realm of pure unconsciousness, he sat up from his lying position and looked around.
"Haven't been here in ages."
The Sea of the Unconscious. Within it lay the 'Library'—a world filled with thousands, tens of thousands of books recording his entire life.
The floor was pure white, the sky a cosmos. Stars densely packed, a massive clock faintly visible, its second hand ticking slowly. Beneath it, hundreds of wooden bookshelves crammed floor to ceiling.
Cheon Ji-hoo hadn't visited this world in ages. Last time was maybe a century ago.
"Record, open."
He murmured softly, and light gathered before him, forming a book. Bound in white leather, it opened itself, black text appearing on white pages as it questioned him.
-This is Record, administrator of the 'Library.' Please input the information you desire.
The Library's information terminal, Record. With a lifetime's worth of books, he couldn't search manually, so he'd made this search engine.
Cheon Ji-hoo wrote keywords on Record with his finger.
-Demon King, revival, Demon, crevice.
Stuff he'd heard from the ominous Toridos. Maybe his memories held related info—reason for this long-overdue visit.
The keywords written, Record's pages closed, dissolving into light. Soon, books flew from various spots in the library, halting before him.
"Gotta read 'em all."
Not many—fifteen at most. No issue for him, who'd devoured books nonstop while learning magic. Plus, time flowed differently here, like a dream.
He snapped his fingers, conjuring a table and chair, then sat cross-legged and opened the first book.
-XXXth month, day. On the way down to the village for food, heard talk of the Demon King. Demons smashing crevices to revive it.
-XXXth of Water. Rumors Demons are going all-in on Demon King revival. Smashing crevices—what even are those? Devil worshippers spotted near village. Be careful. Gotta go see Ji-yoon.
Only those two passages stood out. He didn't remember well, but people in the other world had often mentioned 'crevices' too.
He closed the first book and picked up the second. Nothing much. Nor the next, or the one after.
Mostly repeats of the first two. No real gains.
On the ninth book, he finally found a solid clue.
-XXXth of Rain. Crevice means dimensional crevice. Heroes are beings who shatter dimensions to seal the Demon King there, so Demons are scheming revival after the last hero sealed it. But when the hell are these fuckers reviving? Same rumor for years. They process shit slow.
"Dimensional crevice, huh."
Hero and dimensional crevice. Heroes were those who inherited divine authority to enact the gods' will—simple enough to tear dimensional rifts.
Of course, Cheon Ji-hoo had never seen a hero in the other world. Just scraps from documents and tales.
He closed the book. The rest yielded nothing substantial.
After a moment's thought, certainty struck.
Rifts. The answer lay in the Rifts.
The 666-fragmented Demon King was plotting to devour Earth from within them.
In that case...
"Just smash every Rift. No place left for them to stand."