Asia Restored
Standing atop a nameless high ridge in the borderlands between Cambodia and China, where even the frontier line had grown vague, Kim Woojin gazed out across the open horizon.
Just two weeks ago, the land had been choked with the remnants of violet magic, the shrieks of monsters, and the roar of artillery. Now it was astonishingly quiet.
The wind swept over the ruined city below.
It carried none of the nauseating stench of blood and magic. Instead, there was the crisp scent of rain-soaked forest and the chirping of birds he couldn’t name.
“Haa. So this really is over, huh.”
Woojin muttered under his breath as he reached over to pat Gabi on the head. She was beside him, stuffing her face with a ripe mango like some kind of squirrel.
His voice carried the deep relief of a man who had finally seen the end of a brutal two-week war, along with the exhaustion it had carved into his bones.
Gabi blinked her huge eyes and nodded brightly, yellow juice smeared around her mouth.
“Mm-hmm! Appa, let’s go home now!!”
Woojin snorted and once again checked the gate status across Asia through his tactical terminal.
Tens of thousands of points sparkled across the holographic map.
Messages reporting that every red warning light had vanished and that the whole region had been normalized to safe blue now gleamed across the screen—from the inland areas of the Indochina Peninsula to the island chains of the Philippines and Indonesia under Eileen and Yu Jihyun’s command.
The massive gates at the major strongholds had been sealed perfectly, and the stray monsters that had wandered the fields threatening civilians had been wiped out to the last one by Woojin’s goblin legion and Sangjin’s undead army.
Catherine, standing nearby, slipped off her vest and added with a bright smile, “Two weeks is a miracle. No, that doesn’t even begin to cover it. What the armies of the whole world couldn’t do in ten years, you pulled off, Woojin.”
Woojin didn’t bother to be modest.
“Well, yeah. I did do everything.”
Catherine laughed softly too.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“I’m kidding. It would’ve been a nightmare without you, sis. Even while I was doing it, I kept wondering if this was actually possible.”
It hadn’t been just about fighting.
If Catherine, the Benedict family, and the DH Group’s people hadn’t handled the support work, this purge would have been far more brutal.
Because of them, he’d been able to sleep when he needed to, push the assault forward comfortably, and move from one front to the next without losing momentum.
Woojin looked down at his callused hands.
After so much fighting, even his hands had changed.
Days and nights spent as an Augmentor, ceaselessly strengthening tens of thousands of goblins while racing from one battlefield to the next.
When the expedition first began, military experts around the world had sneered and predicted it would take at least three years. But Woojin and everyone around him had completely shattered that forecast.
Catherine, standing beside him, set down her satellite communicator and smiled brightly.
Her eyes were clearer and more transparent than before, thanks to the vision enhancement procedure Woojin had performed for her.
“Singapore headquarters just called. Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar—everything through the entire last defensive line in Thailand has been normalized. They also confirmed that Sangjin’s undead army stopped marching after detecting no more monster activity at the Bangladesh border. They’re preparing to return now.”
“That brat must’ve had it rough too. Must be a shame to send that million-strong army back. Just the upkeep alone has to be astronomical.”
“Heh, Sangjin was the one who sounded disappointed. He said if he levels up just a little more, he might get another maid? Anyway, Woojin, we really did it. The monster threat is gone from the Asian continent. This is the kind of thing that gets written into history books.”
Only then did Woojin feel the tension that had been crushing his shoulders finally begin to loosen.
He’d gone without proper sleep for so long, continuing to enhance and sprint across the front lines without pause.
He’d used his second Awakening skill to force his fatigue under control, but that didn’t mean the mental strain of being responsible for so many lives had vanished.
Still, at last, he could set down all of that weight.
“It’s over. Really over.”
A faint smile spread across Woojin’s lips.
This was the moment the curtain fell on an unprecedented military expedition in human history, a long march unlike anything the world had ever seen.
The next morning, in front of the temporary unified command center set up in Singapore, thousands of reporters from all over the world had gathered like a cloud.
Amid the swarm of cameras, Eileen and Yu Jihyun stepped onto the stage as the faces of victory.
Tens of thousands of flashes erupted, turning the daylight into a barrage of blinding white sparks.
Eileen took the microphone first.
Her voice, amplified by magic, was broadcast live to the entire world.
“To the respected citizens of the world, and to the brothers and sisters of Asia who suffered through this nightmare—today, I, Eileen Benedict, solemnly declare the following.”
She paused and swept her gaze over the crowd.
In the suffocating silence—so still that not even breathing could be heard—her ringing declaration continued.
“The violet disaster that blanketed the Indochina Peninsula and all of Southeast Asia has been completely swept away as of today. We have won. The monsters have been driven out, and the precious land they stole from us has returned to the embrace of humanity!”
“Waaaaaaaaah—!!!”
A thunderous roar rose up and rolled far beyond Singapore, sweeping across all of Asia.
But that was only the beginning.
Yu Jihyun stepped forward and added in her signature calm, iron-edged voice, “This is not merely the end of a purge. It is the beginning of Asia’s restoration, and the prelude to humanity’s counteroffensive. From this point on, humanity is no longer in a defensive position. We have proven that we possess the strength to reclaim our own territory. I, Yu Jihyun, together with the DH Group and the Benedict family, will devote all our resources to rebuilding the recovered regions and returning the refugees home.”
On the giant screens of Times Square in New York, Piccadilly Circus in London, and Shibuya in Tokyo, the historic scene was broadcast live. People in the streets embraced one another, cheering and crying at the same time.
“No way! Southeast Asia was hell, and they cleaned it up in just two weeks?”
“Thank God! The war is finally over!”
“They’re the true heroes of humanity!”
News filled with hope poured out day after day.
Major outlets across the globe—CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and many others—cut their regular programming, ran special editions, and blared the story of humanity’s first “complete victory” since the Gates first appeared.
Eileen’s speech was more than a declaration of triumph; it lit a massive fire in the defeatist spirit humanity had sunk into under the terror of monsters.
At the end of her address, she left behind a meaningful line that seemed aimed at Woojin and Sangjin.
“Through this war, we have seen something clearly. We have seen that a few great individuals can be more powerful than millions of soldiers, and we have seen how the miracles they create can change the world. From this day forward, the shape of the world will be entirely different.”
Yu Jihyun also fixed the camera with a straight, unwavering stare and delivered a short but piercing statement.
“There are no more gates on the road we travel. There are those who carve the path, and those who guard it. Humanity will begin marching once again.”
In the midst of the worldwide festival atmosphere, public attention naturally shifted to the hidden heroes behind this purge.
Eileen, Yu Jihyun, and Jo Ayoung had drawn the spotlight with their blades on the dazzling front lines, but now the existence of the two men who had supplied the overwhelming logistics, sheer volume, and military force behind them was slowly coming to light.
Across internet communities, Awakener forums, and social media, the names Kim Woojin and Kim Sangjin were causing servers to buckle under the traffic.
Inside the Pentagon in the United States and the Joint Defense Command of Europe, alarms had gone off.
Strategic analysts stayed up all night writing and submitting reports.
Most of them were about Eileen Benedict, Yu Jihyun, Jo Ayoung, Kim Woojin, and Kim Sangjin.
Their combat strength and influence had already blown far past the bounds of ordinary S-rank Hunters.
Among them, Woojin and Sangjin had been newly classified as high-priority, extremely dangerous figures.
The reason was simple: the unbelievable fact that a single individual could operate and sustain a national-level “army.”
The Guardian, one of Britain’s major media outlets, splashed them across its front page with the explosive headline: The World’s Military Map Is Changing.
And the one sentence all military experts around the world agreed on was this:
Do not make enemies of South Korea—no, of the Kim brothers, Kim Woojin and Kim Sangjin.
On YouTube, a satellite video of Woojin lifting one hand in a fortress battle—sending tens of thousands of scraps of metal and wreckage into goblin form at once to swallow an entire monster legion—surpassed five hundred million views.
Sangjin’s own video, showing a million undead filling the horizon and razing monsters and gates to the ground as though a swarm of locusts had passed through, was just as wildly popular.
People began to worship Woojin as the “Goblin Dad,” while calling Sangjin the “Maid Legion Commander” with a mixture of awe and disbelief.
Thanks to the brothers’ overwhelming achievements, the standing of the South Korean government had shot straight through the roof.
World leaders began phoning the President of South Korea one after another to offer congratulations and lobby for introductions to the Woojin brothers, while a worldwide craze for learning Korean started to spread.
After the Asian purge, Woojin and Sangjin had become talents beyond the reach of any ordinary national power—men even the President of South Korea couldn’t casually lay a hand on.
By evening, after the purge had been officially declared over and the sunset over Singapore’s Changi Airport had turned the sky a deep red, Woojin was in the VIP lounge, packing his bags and preparing to return home.
Gabi tugged at his sleeve and tilted her head.
“Appa! Then why are we taking a plane? If Black Mom goes home first near the house, Gabi can open the goblin door! Just like that!”
Gabi’s ability, the Goblin Door, was a ridiculous skill that could move her through space to anywhere she knew or had visited before.
If Yu Jihyun went back to Korea first and just set the coordinates, Gabi could open the door and be in the living room of their apartment in Seoul in a single second.
But this return trip was about national pride—and about putting on a performance for the whole world.
They needed to show the image of them returning in triumph and plant certainty of victory in humanity’s heart.
“Sometimes, being seen matters too, Gabi. People want to watch us come home.”
Woojin scooped her up and smiled.
“Let’s try the plane, Gabi. It’s Eileen’s private jet, so there are beds inside and tons of good food! Unlimited ice cream, too.”
“Really? Ice cream?! Then Gabi wants to ride the plane! Gabi likes planes!”
Gabi clapped her hands, her eyes sparkling.
Woojin rubbed his cheek against her chubby one and grinned widely.
“Yeah. We’ll eat a lot of good food and sleep all the way home.”
The war was over.
Now it was finally time to go home.