Chapter 53: Under the Sun!
Chapter 53: Under the Sun!
When the police helicopter crashed into the apartment building, dozens of fire trucks and police cars soon surrounded the area. Police special forces who entered the neighboring building’s rooftop shone searchlights onto the battlefield.
Tutatatatatatatata—
With the sound of helicopter rotors, this time a news chopper slowly approached.
[Warning. Press personnel must turn back. This is a restricted site. Warning. Turn back.]
Using loudspeakers, the police blocked the approaching news helicopter from getting closer.
After hesitating in the air for a moment, the news helicopter pulled away from the scene of the fight and hovered at a higher altitude.
“Zoom in as much as you can! Those lunatics—how dare they block freedom of the press!”
The reporter inside the helicopter tried to ignore the police warning and push in closer, but the helicopter pilot—under a direct order from the station director—refused to approach, so they had no choice but to retreat.
In the end, the furthest they could compromise was this distance.
When they zoomed all the way in with a telephoto lens, they could see silhouettes of people darting back and forth in the dim darkness.
But it was hard to make out their exact appearance.
The reporter sensed at once that this was a scoop.
The police had announced that the helicopter had crashed and hit a civilian apartment complex, but the truth was different.
He begged the pilot to please get just a little closer so they could film the truth the government was hiding, but the pilot—just a broadcasting employee—shook his head.
When a body-type innate ability user and a mental-type ability user teamed up, they were difficult to deal with.
Fortunately, the boy wasn’t skilled in combat and was only moving on instinct, so Seorin could still match him.
If the boy had been experienced at fighting, Seorin would have been struggling far more than she was now.
At that moment, Mark asked Yago,
“There are humans filming with cameras from far away, but my poison won’t reach that distance. Mr. Yago, handle it.”
“Kekeke, looks like you still can’t read the situation, Mr. Mark. On this land, we don’t need to hide ourselves. If anything, it’s better if the world learns about us like this!”
“Huh?”
For a moment, Mark tilted his head, not understanding Yago’s words.
For countless years, the bloodkin had been obsessed with hiding themselves from humans.
So he hadn’t properly grasped what it meant that the rules were abolished within Korea. But when he chewed on Yago’s words again, he realized what it meant.
“I see! Korea really is a paradise for bloodkin from now on!”
Just then, the rooftop door opened and an apartment security guard ran out.
He must have heard the commotion and come to see what was happening. Mark walked up to the old guard, squeezed his neck, and drank his blood.
From far away, Seorin could sense the news helicopter filming the scene.
But Mark laughed as he quenched his throat with the old man’s blood, as if to show the whole world.
Since becoming bloodkin, he had never been this happy. A powerful sense of liberation surged through him.
Seorin had several chances to land a fatal blow on the boy, but each time, her hand stopped. It wasn’t something she did after thinking it through—it was an instinctive refusal.
Because the boy’s situation resembled her fate so closely that she couldn’t bring herself to harm him.
And he was only around ten years old.
She realized that tonight, she couldn’t take this boy’s life. If so, then her targets weren’t the boy, but the old vampires standing over there.
Seorin deliberately didn’t dodge the boy’s attack—she took it.
Darkness gathered around the beastlike arms, swelling them larger than the small boy’s frame.
Bang!
With a heavy agony like being struck by a hammer, Seorin flew helplessly—straight toward where Mark stood laughing while drinking the guard’s blood. In midair, she righted herself and shot her blood whip forward like a spear, aiming for Mark’s heart.
“Kuhk!”
Mark, laughing like a madman, was shoved backward as his abdomen was pierced, blood spraying from his mouth.
Seorin immediately followed by swinging her real sword at Mark’s neck.
When Mark was in danger, Yago layered dozens of shadow beasts between Seorin and Mark. Seorin’s sword cut through them all and only stopped after sinking halfway into Mark’s neck.
So close.
If she’d put in just a little more force, she could have taken the black old man’s head.
As her decisive strike was blocked, the enemy’s attacks came in succession.
Dozens of beasts and the boy’s huge black fists surrounded her.
But the attack Seorin was most wary of was Yago’s bewitchment. Even in the briefest moments, Yago’s bewitchment slammed into Seorin’s mental barrier dozens of times. If she showed even the slightest gap, he tried to seize her mind.
Seorin checked the time.
It was already nearing 4 a.m.
Soon, dawn would break.
She thought that would be her chance.
They didn’t know it, but Seorin’s body no longer feared the sun. On the other hand, they would be reduced to a handful of ash under sunlight.
Seorin shifted her stance to a defense-focused posture.
And she decided she would take the head of either Mark or Yago tonight.
At some point, once Seorin stopped pressing the attack and wrapped herself in defense, the three couldn’t do anything to her no matter how they attacked.
The boy’s powerful blows never reached Seorin’s body, and her ironclad mental barrier blocked every mental attack from Yago and Mark.
The deadly poison mist couldn’t even approach and scattered in all directions, and the shadow beasts were cut apart the moment they neared her.
Yago bit his lip, thinking.
He had prepared many things for tonight, but the results were disappointing.
Chae Seorin was a powerhouse they couldn’t easily handle—even with a mysterious helper supporting them—despite Yago believing that joining forces with Mark would be enough.
There were two options.
Keep fighting like this and wait for an opening to capture Chae Seorin, or withdraw for now and look for the next chance.
But an opportunity like tonight—three of them attacking Chae Seorin together—would be hard to come by again.
To face her, it would likely take even blood fiend elders joining forces, but among the elders there was no one suited for that.
It had to end tonight.
Now that he had bared his claws, if he met her again next time, it would be his life at risk.
After landing a bewitchment and hiding behind shadow beasts, Yago joined the fight directly.
He didn’t know if it had been hundreds of years since he had moved his body like this, but this wasn’t the time to care about that. Mark seemed to think the same; once his pierced wound healed, he took a boxing stance and charged in.
Even though they weren’t physical-enhancement types, the physical attacks of old blood fiends who had lived for ages were sharper than the boy’s.
Seorin steadied her mind further and knocked away each attack flying in from all sides.
They said the Daejeon bakery opened at 8 a.m., and to make it for the opening rush you had to start lining up at 7. The bread she’d seen on YouTube had visuals she’d fall in love with at first sight.
She’d come to Daejeon countless times over four hundred years, and she hadn’t known about a famous thing like this.
She felt her past years were a waste.
She saw police special forces trying to enter the rooftop, only to melt under Mark’s poison.
Before, a scene like that wouldn’t have moved her, but now her brow furrowed.
It was certain.
Having overcome the sun and being able to eat food, she had regained her humanity.
She was no longer a loathsome monster with filthy blood flowing through her body.
She was a different existence from these monsters in front of her now.
The apartment rooftop where five monsters beyond human power were fighting was riddled with holes on all sides.
The people living directly below had died without even a chance to escape. Those on the floors beneath had already evacuated. Police and 119 firefighters were evacuating everyone in the complex.
The greatest damage to the building came from the boy’s huge black fists. After pounding the rooftop hundreds of times, the building was now in a perilous state, as if it might collapse at any moment.
The boy was still charging with bloodlight in his eyes, but it was obvious he was weakening, as if his stamina had run out.
Meanwhile, Mark and Yago were desperately throwing themselves at her, determined to kill her somehow.
At last, the darkness slowly receded and sunrise began.
At first, the surroundings brightened little by little, then quickly turned bright.
“Ahem! What a shame! Miss Seorin! I can’t settle things today.”
Mark was the first to take a step back and speak.
“Hmph! What a coward. Trying to pull out first. More cowardly than Baldy.”
Seorin deliberately provoked Mark so he couldn’t run.
“Miss Seorin, please don’t hate me so much! For today’s matter, I will formally apologize later. Please, let’s forget this.”
But even as he said that, Mark was still slyly continuing to attempt hypnosis.
If Seorin had lowered her mental barrier and met his eyes for a few seconds, she would have been hypnotized. But after spending so many years as comrades, Seorin knew his techniques better than anyone and didn’t fall for it.
Instead, she cut off a chunk of her blood sword and threw it like a throwing knife at Mark’s eyes.
Thuk.
Blood-sword fragments lodged into both of Mark’s eyes as he tried to catch her off guard and land hypnosis.
“Ugh! You crazy bitch!”
Mark hunched over, clutching his eyes.
If his body had been damaged by an ordinary attack, it would have regenerated in seconds, but the eyes pierced by Seorin’s blood would take time to regenerate.
Because he had to drive out Seorin’s blood first before regeneration could begin.
“You said you wanted to drink my blood. Why don’t you eat that, too?”
At Seorin’s words, Mark considered it for a moment, but it was impossible. Blood imbued with the will of a blood-type innate ability user was no different from a weapon.
If he pulled out the blood lodged in his eyes and drank it, his insides would obviously be shredded.
“See you next time, Chae Seorin!”
The surroundings were now bright enough to recognize faces.
Soon, sunlight lethal to bloodkin would pour down. Yago tried to pull out without caring about Mark, who was collapsed in pain.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
After conserving her strength for hours by focusing on defense, Seorin released it all at once.
Blood streams shot out from her entire body like frost blades, blocking Yago’s escape route.
“The sun is rising. Let’s stop here for today!”
Yago spoke in an urgent voice, but Chae Seorin, as if dawn meant nothing to her, rained attacks like a madwoman.
With no bewitchment, hypnosis, or shadow-beast pincer assault, Seorin’s attacks became ferociously intense. In an instant, they engulfed Mark, Yago, and the boy, and the three struggled just to evade.
“Are you trying to die together, Miss Seorin! Stop! You’ll die too!”
Mark and Yago went pale in shock at the approaching sunlight, while only the boy—apparently unaware of the sun’s danger—kept panting like a beast and lunging at Seorin.
But Seorin, calm and detached, ignored the sun and blocked Mark and Yago from escaping.
Bang!
Yago tried to punch through the rooftop floor beneath him and leap down, but his ankle was caught by Seorin’s blood whip and he was lifted into the air.
At that moment, he saw sunlight touch Seorin’s body.
“This can’t be…”
Yago was stunned, his mind going blank at the sight of Chae Seorin smiling brightly under the sun.
She took no damage at all, still swinging her blood whip like a madwoman to prevent the others from fleeing.
“Kuhk! No!”
Mark’s body began to burn when sunlight touched it.
Turning to ash like flaming tissue paper in an instant, Mark desperately tried to flee into the darkness, but Seorin—who had completely seized control—held him in place.
And so, Discipline Knight Mark, who had lived six hundred years, was annihilated.
Next, the boy’s body also began to catch fire.
Still charging at Seorin until the last moment, the boy panicked when flames suddenly surged from his body and flailed, trying to put them out—then he was struck in the back of the head by Seorin’s attack and collapsed. Seorin took off the large coat she was wearing and wrapped it around the boy’s body, shielding him from the sunlight.
In that opening, Yago severed the ankle bound by the blood whip, then cast bewitchment on Seorin to hide his position.
For a few seconds, Yago’s bewitchment took hold in Seorin’s mind as her focus weakened while tending to the boy.
Yago quickly wrapped himself in shadow beasts, slipped down through the rooftop hole into the building’s basement, then fled far away through the sewers.