The Immortal Sacred Hero (3)
Setting Correction
The protagonist’s starting rank has been changed from C-class to E-class.
E-class — Lowest-grade Hunter
D-class — Low-grade Hunter
C-class — Mid-grade Hunter
B-class — High-grade Hunter
A-class — Elite Hunter
S-class — Unmeasurable
Sorry for any confusion.
It was right after Yi Sun-sin took a step toward Bae Seol.
“Yi Sun-sin….”
A voice like metal scraping bone echoed from the cave’s darkness, followed by hundreds of shadow hands that looked exactly like human ones pouring out. The grotesque sight sent an icy shiver down my spine.
That’s got to be at least A-class.
Monster ranks followed the same system as hunters. But being an A-class hunter didn’t mean you could hunt A-class monsters. The real dividing line was whether you could survive an encounter with one. Actual hunting was an entirely different story. Even B-class monsters could give A-class hunters a brutal time if they were particularly nasty.
For reference, the Udanhwa I had exterminated at Hangang Park was only C-class. Yet Bae Seol, corrupted into a monster, sat two full ranks higher at A-class. These creatures possessed the power to erase an entire major city. Once they appeared, the resulting catastrophe was so devastating that foreign nations called A-class monsters City Destroyers.
Hundreds of black hands surged toward Yi Sun-sin like a tidal wave of disaster. The valley, bright with daylight only moments ago, plunged into night beneath the shadow tsunami that swallowed the sky. Yi Sun-sin looked dangerously close to being devoured.
It was already too late to dodge.
At that exact moment, Yi Sun-sin drew his sword.
Shing—
A massive ring-pommel blade, easily twice the size of a normal sword, emerged. This was the cherished weapon mentioned in Park Jong-kyung’s Donamjip Won-yung Geomgi: Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin’s beloved Twin Dragon Sword.
Woooong.
The Twin Dragon Sword let out a resonant cry in Yi Sun-sin’s grip. With a powerful sweep from left to right, a colossal wave of sword energy erupted, vaporizing every shadow hand in a single strike.
KWAAAAAANG—!
The darkness peeled away as the blue sky reappeared, and a thunderous roar that could rupture eardrums shook the entire valley. Rocks cascaded from the half-collapsed cave like a landslide. With nothing more than one swing, Yi Sun-sin had erased an A-class monster’s threat entirely.
The overwhelming display was almost impossible to describe as merely unreasonable.
“Let us enter.”
Yi Sun-sin walked toward the cave where Bae Seol hid, as calm as if he had simply brushed dust off his sleeve.
This is ridiculous.
I stared at the artillery-blasted ruins of the valley and could only shake my head. The historical anecdotes about Yi Sun-sin weren’t exaggerations or fiction at all. If anything, the records had portrayed his power with remarkable realism. I could practically feel the historians of that era agonizing over how best to capture such a scene in writing. No wonder the court had scrambled to reinstate the dismissed admiral when he joined the army dressed in white. There was simply no substitute for this kind of strength.
The cave where Bae Seol hid was so pitch-black you couldn’t see an inch in front of your face. It wasn’t ordinary darkness. This was the shadow created by a Geusundae. Proof of that was the fact that while the surroundings were invisible, An Wi and Yi Sun-sin beside me remained perfectly clear. Lurking inside its own created darkness to launch surprise attacks was the Geusundae’s signature tactic.
Yet none of those attacks worked on Yi Sun-sin. This astonishing man dodged and blocked every strike using nothing but raw instinct. And every time he swung his sword, he delivered power that defied common sense. The man who could swing a blade and produce cannon fire was Yi Sun-sin.
If I compare him to Baek Seorin…
I measured Yi Sun-sin against the strongest hunter I knew: Baek Seorin, South Korea’s one and only S-class mage, Guild Master of Samdocheon, guardian of Incheon, and the woman known as the Black Witch.
The result surprised even me.
I can’t tell.
I genuinely couldn’t decide. Even after watching her from the shadows for ten years and witnessing firsthand how terrifying an awakener she was, I couldn’t confidently claim she stood above Yi Sun-sin. The same went for every other top-tier Korean hunter who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her. No modern hunter came to mind who could possibly stand in front of this man.
Still, monsters weren’t creatures you could defeat with raw power alone. If that were enough, they wouldn’t be called monsters—they would simply be labeled as regular beasts.
He’s incredible, but… this really is the past after all.
Watching Yi Sun-sin pour attacks into empty darkness reminded me once again that we stood in fifteenth-century Joseon. A twenty-first-century hunter would never fight this way. That didn’t mean his method was wrong.
It’s just inefficient.
Modern humanity had spent decades building massive databases to research far more efficient ways to handle monsters. We had even developed techniques specifically for identifying creatures like the Geusundae inside absolute darkness.
I closed my eyes and sent a thin thread of mana into the ground.
Sssssss.
The mana spread like a spiderweb, feeding three-dimensional spatial data directly into my brain. The uneven floor, the cave walls, the stalactites hanging from the ceiling… and the Geusundae hiding in the corner. My senses, honed through hundreds of repetitions, pinpointed the creature even in total darkness.
“Upper right,” I said, opening my eyes and pointing.
Yi Sun-sin swung his sword in that direction without hesitation.
—!!
The startled Geusundae dodged, and Yi Sun-sin’s sword energy sliced through empty shadow. But the new position was already burned clearly into my mind.
“It crawled across the ceiling and moved to the lower left.”
—Damn it…!
Whoosh!
“Left wall.”
I kept feeding Yi Sun-sin the creature’s location, acting as his eyes.
—KRRRAAAAAAGH!
Bae Seol’s monstrous shriek reverberated through the darkness.
Yi Sun-sin Yi Sun-sin Yi Sun-sin Yi Sun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-sinYiSun-sin YiSun-siiiiiiin!
The darkness twisted and contracted as if in a final, desperate frenzy, threatening to crush us all. Yet I trusted Yi Sun-sin completely. His techniques for dealing with monsters might be outdated and lacking refinement, but he was still the strongest warrior of his era.
Woooong.
A deep blue sword aura formed along the raised Twin Dragon Sword, driving the darkness back. The sight brought a particular verse to mind.
One sweep clears all away, and blood dyes the land and sea."
With that single swing, the darkness shattered completely.
As the shadows lifted, the cave’s true appearance was revealed. A single scroll dropped to the ground with a soft thud. Yi Sun-sin picked it up, unrolled it, and read.
“……This is His Majesty’s royal edict.”
“What does it say?”
“It states that I shall be reinstated as Naval Commander of the Three Provinces.”
“Congratulations, General.”
For whatever reason, the reinstatement decree for General Yi Sun-sin had been in Bae Seol’s possession. Jealousy, obviously. The way he had screamed made it clear how deeply that envy ran.
After Yi Sun-sin and An Wi stepped outside, I remained in the cave. Their business had ended with the recovery of the edict, but mine was only beginning.
Step. Step.
I walked deeper into the cave. In the cool shade where sunlight never reached, a small patch of darkness writhed.
“Bae Seol.”
—How…!
“How? I saw everything.”
When I had spread my mana to scan the cave earlier, I had already detected that Bae Seol’s main body had split off. The cunning bastard had sensed Yi Sun-sin’s power, immediately calculated his chances, and prepared to flee. That was excellent news for me. Although Bae Seol was technically an A-class monster, he had been weakened to the limit—too weak to even resist an E-class hunter like myself.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Crunch!
I slammed the butt of my Napoleon rifle down on the crawling creature, finishing it off. Before it could completely vanish, I pressed the Seolhwaseok I had taken from my pocket against its body.
The Seolhwaseok is absorbing mana.
Sssssss.
Bae Seol’s corrupted energy flowed into the stone. The Seolhwaseok didn’t just replenish my mana—it was a living artifact that grew by absorbing power on its own.
The Seolhwaseok’s mana has increased by 1,500.
Mana Capacity:4000 / 4000
“Kiya. Just as I thought—very satisfying.”
A fallen general really did provide a hefty amount of mana.
“Choi Seonin! Are you coming out?”
I heard An Wi calling from outside and quickly stored the Seolhwaseok before leaving the cave. With Bae Seol taken care of, it was time to head for Jangheung, where the twelve warships waited. The real preparations for the Battle of Myeongnyang were about to begin.