The Signs of Collapse (1)
Facing my enemy, I had shouted with all the confidence in the world, but if I were being honest, I needed to be careful.
My opponent was Matthew, one of the 12 Apostles.
He was the seventh-strongest of the guardian warriors protecting the cult leader. Even if he was weaker than Nike, the sixth disciple, that still didn’t make him easy prey.
I asked myself a question.
Am I stronger than Nike?
I had fought Instructor Nike, an A-class hunter, before. The only reason I’d beaten him in the dungeon was because I hadn’t been alone—my companions had been there with me.
Of course, the me from then and the me now were different. I had more experience now, and thanks to Na Sang-min’s special training, I’d grown a hell of a lot stronger.
Still, I can’t afford to get careless.
I ran the numbers in my head. If I could beat Matthew easily, then I could probably handle the fifth disciple too.
Matthew stared at the White Revenge I’d drawn.
“A dagger? You’re going to fight with that? That’ll put you at a disadvantage.”
I’d put on a mask and taken up the identity of the Purple Devil to hide who I was. I’d deliberately left Heoksikdo behind.
If things start going badly, I’ll run without hesitation.
Without letting anything show on my face, I steeled myself.
“That’s enough.”
Matthew narrowed his eyes.
“The cult leader is waiting. Let’s finish this quickly.”
For some reason, he looked almost pleased.
“So a challenger after all this time. How exciting. I’ll let you take the first strike.”
Matthew was a swordsman too.
In a contest where one risked his life to prove his skill, his fighting spirit was blazing hot.
I gripped White Revenge with both hands.
I still couldn’t use long-range sword techniques that sent out slashes of mana through the blade. What Na Sang-min had taught me was the most basic of the basics in One Heaven Style.
I’ll win this using nothing but fundamentals.
I lifted the dagger behind my head.
A straight downward slash.
I would bring the blade down as if throwing it from the line of my spine to the center of my head.
It was a movement I’d repeated tens of thousands of times over the past two weeks until I felt like I was going to die from it.
Will it actually work?
I decided to set my doubts aside.
Trust it.
Trust Na Sang-min’s swordsmanship.
Trust all the work I’d put in.
Here I go.
I struck down as if cleaving the air itself.
Clang—!
Matthew’s sword flashed out, deflecting mine with a sharp, precise motion.
My grip tingled.
Every one of the 12 Apostles had mastered Shield Style.
The defining trait of Shield Style was swinging the sword like a shield to protect the cult leader.
One more time.
Upper-left diagonal slash.
Upper-right diagonal slash.
Horizontal cut…
I unleashed every attack I could think of.
Clang-clang-clang!!!
The edge of my blade didn’t even graze Matthew’s collar.
I stepped back and widened the distance.
Matthew said smugly, “Useless. At this level, that won’t work.”
He drew an imaginary circle around the spot where he stood.
It was a technique that blocked every attack that entered that space.
The same thing had happened with Nike.
So far, this was exactly what I had expected.
If I used the Speeder’s Infinite Acceleration here, I could turn the tables.
The relentless storm of attacks at absurd speed had been something even Nike couldn’t block all at once.
But my body was already taking a heavy toll from the recoil.
Should I use it?
The hero’s power was still there.
It was still strong enough to overpower Shield Style.
Should I settle this right now?
Or should I come up with another plan first?
Matthew was still standing in place.
“That’s all? I’m disappointed.”
He decided my momentum had broken.
That mistake actually made me feel more relaxed.
Let’s test this a little more.
Fighting Matthew was giving me information.
I needed to figure out how to deal with the 12 Apostles from here on out.
I couldn’t rely on my hero abilities alone.
Not if I wanted to beat the strong ones still ahead of me.
I need to have more options.
I remembered a conversation I’d once had with Na Sang-min during training.
“What am I supposed to do against someone who’s good at defense?”
One Heaven Style was centered on relentless offense.
Shield Style was absolute defense.
It was a clash between spear and shield.
How do you break a contradiction like that?
Na Sang-min had answered in a bored voice, “Make it impossible for them to defend.”
It was the same kind of answer as, “Do the obvious thing.”
But I’d found a hint in it.
I closed the distance in an instant.
Then I swung straight at him again.
Matthew blocked it lightly.
“How simple can you get? Is that all you know how to do?”
We glared at each other with our blades pressed together.
The fatal weakness of Shield Style was that, because it was so heavily focused on defense, it had to pay attention only to my repetitive, textbook attacks.
Then what if something unexpected happened?
For example—
I reached out my hand.
My target wasn’t Matthew’s body.
I grabbed his sword.
More precisely, I caught only the blade between my thumb and index finger.
“Huh?”
Matthew’s breath broke at the sudden shift.
Grabbing a sword like that?
Even with protective gloves on, if he swung it now…
Those sharp edges would sever my fingers clean off.
It was, quite literally, suicide.
…That’s what you’d think.
I activated my trump card, Judgment of the Superhuman.
Ding.
Along with the crisp alert, mana concentrated at the tips of my fingers.
“Hngh!”
Matthew’s sword came to a stop, as if I’d locked the blade into a vise used in a factory.
“Ggh!”
He strained to pull his sword free, but it was no use.
The hero’s grip strength was beyond human limits.
It must feel like the blade has been driven into a giant rock.
I slammed my left hand downward toward the floor.
The blade trapped between my thumb and index finger seemed to sink under the weight of terrifying gravity.
“Gh…!”
Matthew groaned and dropped to one knee.
He looked almost as if he were kneeling in loyalty before the cult leader.
I reversed White Revenge in my hand and took a fresh grip.
“Like I promised, I’m taking your head.”
The face of the Purple Devil reflected in Matthew’s pupils.
“W-wait! Wait!!”
If a swordsman couldn’t use his sword, he was as good as dead.
Matthew was frozen, unable to move in either direction. Like a butterfly trapped in a spiderweb, the man in the suspicious mask thrashed helplessly.
“Goodbye. Send my regards to the afterlife.”
The cold blade touched Matthew’s neck.
Not a clean cut.
I moved the knife back and forth, sawing through his throat like a blade through meat.
“Aaaagh!!”
The deeper the cut went, the more blood sprayed out like a fountain.
A handful of hot liquid splashed across my face.
He struggled with all his might to escape the agony, but Matthew’s sword still wouldn’t leave my fingertips.
“Khh….”
At last, Matthew’s head came off with a wet, final severing sound.
I grabbed his hair and yanked it back as if tearing something loose.
Blood burst across the floor like red paint.
A human head was heavier than I’d expected when you actually held one. About the weight of a decent bowling ball, maybe.
Matthew’s body, robbed of its center, collapsed to the ground.
The sword was still in the dead man’s hand.
Only then did it finally feel real.
I got him.
Matthew, seventh disciple of the 12 Apostles.
If I judged him by difficulty, he hadn’t been that hard.
I hadn’t even used Heoksikdo.
I hadn’t even drawn half my full power.
Which meant the fifth disciple, too—
I can handle him.
With victory came a rising current of confidence.
Blood dripped steadily from the pale white blade.
A strange sensation seized my whole body.
In my previous life, I’d obsessed over nothing but making money.
I’d saved every tiny scrap I could, one small amount after another, and taken whatever little satisfaction I could get from that.
When I reached one billion won, I’d felt real exhilaration for the first time.
But I’d found something even more enjoyable than that.
In this life, only when I punished the wicked—
That’s when it feels good.
A quiet thrill ran down my spine.
I wiped the blood off White Revenge and slid it back into its sheath.
That completed the mission.
The CCTV had already been destroyed by Matthew, so there was no evidence proving who had killed him.
And there were no witnesses…
My gaze snagged on something nearby.
Someone lay face-down as if dead.
It was the woman Matthew had tried to kidnap—Sua.
Somehow, without meaning to, I’d ended up protecting one person.
What should I do about her?
Getting rid of a witness was out of the question.
Sure, I had no problem killing the kinds of scum that trampled all over my principles, but I wasn’t some pleasure-killing lunatic.
Even if I left her here, it didn’t matter; she probably hadn’t even seen my face.
I thought for a moment.
The girl group Burniss, which Sua belonged to, had hit big right after debuting and won the public’s love.
I vaguely remembered reading that Sua had later left the group because of personal issues, and they were recruiting a new member.
So that’s how Cheonyang-ji got tangled up in this.
If she had been dragged off by them again in this life, she’d have become the cult leader’s plaything without a doubt.
Because Sua was wearing a short skirt, her pale thighs were on full display.
If I left her here, there was no telling what might happen to her.
This was a lawless world with a horrific crime rate—something dangerous would happen sooner or later.
Burniss would release a song next year that would explode into a massive hit and make them famous worldwide.
Even someone like me, who had no interest in idols, had listened to their songs countless times.
Then maybe—
Suddenly, an idea came to me.
Yeah. That’ll work.
Originally, I should have eliminated Matthew and returned as quickly as possible. But instead, I decided to put a brilliant little plan into action.
I bent down and tapped Sua’s cheek.
“Hey.”
Each time my fingers touched her skin, sticky blood smeared across her face.
Only then did I realize my hand was a bloody mess.
Damn.
I looked around for something to wipe it on, and Sua slowly opened her eyes.
“Eek!!!”
She screamed in panic, then squeezed her eyes shut again like she’d fainted.
“……”
I’d thought she was overreacting, but when I looked at it another way, she did have a point.
In my other hand, I was holding Matthew’s severed head.
Behind me lay the body without a head.
And my purple mask was probably drenched in blood.
I shook her again.
Sua opened her eyes.
Another scream came spilling out immediately.
“Aah…!”
I put my index finger to my lips.
Looking terrified, she nodded and whispered, “Shh.”
The plan to tear down Cheonyang-ji could be summed up in two words.
Divide and conquer.
Split the Apostles apart.
Then use Peter to take down the rest of the weaker ones with ease.
Everything’s going according to plan.
I added one more word on the spot.
Intrigue.
I met Sua’s eyes.
“You were just about to be kidnapped by Cheonyang-ji.”
“Huh? Cheonjamun?”
“Cheonyang-ji.”
“What’s that?”
“……”
I’m trying to stage a scheme here, and she doesn’t even understand what I’m saying.
She had a pretty face, sure, but was her head full of flowers or something?
“They’re a cult. You see the guy back there?”
“……Then you’re the one who saved me?”
“Well, you could say that.”
I nodded.
What surprised me was this:
“Are you maybe the Purple Devil?”
Sua had recognized me.
She didn’t know the biggest heretical cult in South Korea, but she knew the Purple Devil?
“I saw a video of you online. My God, I’m a huge fan of yours, oppa!”
Oppa?
In an instant, her expression turned bright and cheerful.
She’s awfully positive for someone in this situation.
Still, whatever.
Looks like she’s got some goodwill toward me.
Perfect.
This was a golden opportunity.
“Listen carefully.”
“Yessir.”
“Call the police right now. Contact your agency too. Make sure you tell them the people who attacked you were members of Cheonyang-ji.”
“Yessir, oppa.”
“……”
Something in the way she looked up at me carried a trace of admiration.
Are you actually listening to me?
“Hurry.”
“Yes!”
Sua fumbled for her phone and pulled it out.
“Hello? Is this the police station?”
By tomorrow, word of the attempted kidnapping of a girl group member would spread everywhere.
Cheonyang-ji would take a serious blow.
It was the foundation for bringing down the rigid kingdom built by the cult leader.
After I heard the police say they were dispatching units, I stood and turned away.
Then a voice came from behind me.
“Um.”
I turned my head halfway.
“Could I maybe get a photo? Just one?”
What the hell was she talking about?
Did she think this was a fan meeting or something?
I let out a hollow laugh, utterly dumbfounded.
“Ah—no, no, that’s not what I meant. Um….”
Sua lowered her head.
“Thank you so much, Purple Devil-nim! I’ll definitely repay this favor!”
I left behind a streak of violet light and vanished into the darkness of the underground parking garage.
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