Chapter 68. Identity Exposed
“Depart!”
As the Ninth Elder climbed into the last seat of the car waiting in front of the hotel, he gave the order.
“Yes!”
Yago, who was personally behind the wheel, answered respectfully and started the car, but inside he was cursing up a storm. They should have already been on-site by now, but he had wasted a lot of time waiting endlessly for the slow-as-molasses Elders.
Yago answered politely on the outside, but drove roughly, trying to reach the scene as fast as possible.
“Stop cursing. I can hear it all.”
The Eleventh Elder, who had his eyes closed, spoke quietly.
Yago didn’t know the exact unique ability of the Eleventh Elder, a mental-type ability user.
But since he had read Yago’s silent curses, it was certain he possessed a mind-reading type ability.
Even though he was a bloodkin and shouldn’t be sweating, Yago felt as if his back had turned damp, and he couldn’t reply.
If he admitted it, he would be admitting he had been cursing.
“There’s no need to be so impatient over something this small. Tonight, we’ll handle it ourselves. You just drive properly!”
The Ninth Elder chuckled and said to Yago.
“Yes, Elder. I’m not worried at all.”
Yago answered while desperately trying to empty his mind and not think of anything.
“What’s the situation?”
“Chris, of Elder Three’s line, has set the trap and surrounded them. In case he damages the Daywalker by attacking too aggressively, the plan is only to prevent them from escaping until you Elders arrive.”
“If it’s Chris, he can easily handle a handful of humans and a former Discipline Knight.”
The Ninth Elder spoke as if he had no worries at all.
The gap in power between the Second Generation and the Third Generation was so overwhelming that comparing them was meaningless.
Yago had never seen the Second Generation’s direct martial strength with his own eyes.
But Chaerin was unquestionably top-tier among the Third Generation. If she fought Chris with human support, victory or defeat couldn’t be guaranteed.
Yago pressed the accelerator even deeper. Thinking that today he would finally see that unlucky woman meet a miserable end, the excitement he had suppressed began to boil up.
Kiiik, kiiik.
From the moving car, a metal grinding sound screamed loud enough to tear at the ears.
The Ninth Elder furrowed his brow.
Their vehicle was a top-of-the-line Rolls-Royce model. No matter how fast it drove, there was no way it should make that kind of noise.
Then the car’s roof was cut out in a square and flew away.
They were bloodkin, not humans, but even they were startled by this unexpected situation and looked up.
Above the car, where the roof had been neatly cut away so the sky was visible, a black human-shaped shadow was peeking down into the cabin.
“What is that!”
The Ninth Elder, a physical enhancement type, sprang upward to attack the black shadow, but the shadow’s hand stretched out and pressed down on the Ninth Elder’s head.
“Ghk—”
No matter how he strained, the Ninth Elder couldn’t move an inch.
The Tenth Elder and the Eleventh Elder beside him also couldn’t move, as if bound by something, blinking only their eyes. They were so shocked that even their fangs—normally rising automatically once they entered combat readiness—had not emerged.
The black shadow, leaning down from above and inspecting the car’s interior, slowly pulled out the Ninth Elder’s head it was pressing down.
“Kkaaaagh!”
The Ninth Elder screamed in unbearable pain, but the other party didn’t care and completely pulled his head free.
A long strand of blood connected his head and torso.
The black shadow held the Ninth Elder’s head up to his own eyes, bounced it a few times lightly on his palm, then tossed it up into the sky.
As the blood strand connecting it to the torso snapped, the Ninth Elder’s body turned into black ash and vanished.
The Tenth Elder and the Eleventh Elder, and Abe Yago, who could only roll their eyes and couldn’t move, were seized by terror. Only Yago could move his right foot and everything below his wrists, making driving possible.
Yago hurriedly hit the brakes and stopped the car.
As the black ash that had been the Ninth Elder’s body scattered inside the cabin, the black shadow stretched out both hands, pulled out the Tenth Elder’s and the Eleventh Elder’s heads as well, and flung them high into the sky.
The instant the car fully stopped, Yago—unable to believe the sight of the Elders, the bloodkin’s greatest force, turning into ash and disappearing—also had his head pulled off.
He tried to use his specialty, enthrallment, but realized his head had already separated from his body and was looking down from above. That was his final memory in this world.
It had been a futile life.
Lauren fired her gun at the village residents rushing in from all directions, but it was useless.
Even when their breaths stopped and they became corpses, they still trudged forward. Worse, if they were wounded and blood sprayed, it became even more dangerous.
Their blood melted anything it touched like hydrochloric acid.
When one of the Isu Gang members protecting Lauren swung the steel pipe in his hand, an elderly villager who had been about to lunge had his leg broken and fell.
But instead of the broken leg, he went into a handstand and charged on his two arms. It was a grotesque, horrific sight that was impossible to believe was human.
The Isu Gang members formed a circle around Lauren and, injecting inner power into the steel pipes in their hands, attacked the humans rushing in.
From time to time blood burst from them, but thanks to the divine art called Diamond Body they had learned from Kang Chan earlier, their bodies remained unharmed.
However, the black suits the Isu Gang younger brothers wore melted away as if dissolved by acid.
Despite their fighting spirit that said they would never retreat, the clothes of the men protecting Lauren kept melting until they were nearly naked.
Even in the midst of crisis, Lauren felt embarrassed.
“Cut their necks!”
Cheolmin shouted as he ran out of the factory.
“No! You have to make them bleed as little as possible! It’s better to attack with clubs!”
Chaerin said as she followed.
She had realized the weapons Cheolmin’s men carried were the optimal tools to deal with this, and shouted.
Chaerin knew that if she took out her blood shard, this fight would become easier, but she still didn’t want to reveal her identity to Cheolmin or Lauren.
Cheolmin turned to Chaerin, nodded, then took up a steel pipe himself and began subduing the charging villagers by breaking their limbs.
After receiving guidance from Chaerin, Cheolmin’s swordsmanship had improved astonishingly; unlike his subordinates, he took down one person with each strike.
But there were too many.
It was hard to understand how such a quiet area could have this many people.
They were all elderly villagers, and there wasn’t a single young person among them.
Using her psychometry ability—residual intent—Chaerin could tell the one controlling them was far away, about one kilometer from here.
An ability that could hypnotically control people to this extent was certainly Second Generation or higher.
Chaerin questioned whether she could face a Second Generation ability user.
She had never fought a bloodkin of Second Generation or above, but piecing together what she had heard, it was clear it would be a hard fight.
If it was an Elder-class opponent, today’s battle was a guaranteed defeat.
But whether it was Second Generation or Elder-class, it seemed she would have to bring out everything she had.
There was no room left to hesitate out of fear that her identity might be exposed like moments ago.
Chaerin felt that the sweet time she had lived like a human for a short while was ending, and it was time to return once more to a long period of loneliness.
Behind them, the U.S. troops who had sealed the clumps of blood inside the factory into metal spheres came out and gathered behind the Isu Gang.
But the amount of blood the surrounding villagers would spill would be enormous compared to the blood mass they had just faced in the factory.
The opponent was a hypnosis user and, like her, a bloodline ability user.
She didn’t know if they had other abilities, but with a mental barrier that could effectively block mental-type attacks, and her own unique bloodline ability, it seemed doable.
Just as Chaerin was about to take out her blood shard—
Lauren, who had been surrounded by the Isu Gang in front, was staring fixedly at one part of the sky.
Chaerin turned her head toward where Lauren was looking.
In the dark night sky, there was nothing but darkness.
But Chaerin noticed something strange.
In the darkness floated something even blacker than darkness.
Rather than darkness or shadow, it was so black it felt more accurate to call it pure nothingness.
And it had the shape of a human shadow.
It looked like the culprit—an all-black shadow figure—from a Japanese mystery manga she had seen on TV a few days ago while channel surfing.
Chaerin knew that among the bloodkin’s ability users, many had unique abilities related to darkness and shadow.
But the feeling was different.
Chaerin instinctively knew it wasn’t of their bloodkin, and used her residual intent ability to grasp the opponent.
And the moment she realized the identity of the one hidden behind that black darkness, she could only gape in shock.
Flying north, I found a monster of the same type as the messy bunch Cheolmin hyung was fighting, and landed on top of the car they were riding in. Then I cut out the top and flung it into space, and looked inside.
I could use telekinesis to see, but leaning my head in and looking with my own eyes feels different.
I pressed down the head of the foreigner in the middle who tried to jump at me, and bound all the others with telekinesis.
The one driving had to drive safely, so I let only his two wrists and right foot move.
I thought for a moment about what to do with them, then decided to do whatever I felt like.
When I pulled out the head of the one sitting in the back, blood stretched out stubbornly like runny snot.
I hurled his head straight into space.
I dealt with the other two in the back the same way, and they turned into black ash and vanished.
These monsters are easy to dispose of.
Kill them and they disappear on their own.
They’re truly eco-friendly monsters.
After handling the monsters in the car however I pleased, my mood felt refreshed.
In my head, the hormone that had soaked my brain when I YOLO’d 20 billion won into coins earlier was washing through me again.
This is dopamine.
Dopamine from killing something!
So I really am a psychopath.
Killing just three wasn’t satisfying.
That flame-like anger was still boiling fiercely in my chest.
Fortunately, where Cheolmin hyung was, there were hundreds of those messy things crawling around.
If I killed that many, this emotion would die down, right?
Flying is the best mode of transportation.
No traffic lights, no congestion.
No waiting to get into a car, either.
After a short flight, in the open lot by a building at the edge of a small village, Cheolmin hyung and the Stage 2 course trainees were swinging steel pipes with faces that gleamed brightly.
The body-reforging was too much of a beauty treatment.
Next time I body-reforge men again, I should consider leaving the facial toxins alone.
I watched for a moment as the village grandpas and grandmas charged at them.
Their bodies contained a very faint amount of the monster’s living tissue, so I couldn’t tell if they were humans or monsters.
Lauren was looking at me.
And then the Room 103 customer looked at me with a startled expression.
Right now I’ve repelled all particles of light, so I shouldn’t be recognizable—so why is she reacting like she recognizes me?
First, I’ll send those grandpas and grandmas to a good place—
“No!”
Chaerin, the long-term guest in Room 103, shouted.
I stopped the hand that had been about to pull out the grandpas’ and grandmas’ heads.
“They’re innocent humans! If you just subdue them, they can come to their senses by tomorrow morning!”
Then I saw Cheolmin hyung turn to look at Chaerin with a strange expression.
An expression I couldn’t understand.
Innocent humans…
Right.
You can’t kill innocent humans.
I may have psychopathic tendencies, but I’m not a monster that kills innocent people for no reason.
With telekinesis, I annihilated the monster cells lying dormant in the villagers’ bodies. Then I flew to the one blinking and watching from far away, pulled out his head, and flung it into space.
With the foreign matter in their bodies gone, the villagers lost consciousness and collapsed on the spot.
It wasn’t enough.
So I scanned the entire country.
1,273.
That’s how many monsters are in our country.
Ah—two of them, no, two of them are our motel customers, so that makes it 1,271.
If I vented on that many monsters, my anger would go away, right?
I flew toward the nearest monster.