Cleaning House
Shhk! Shhk!
Another lizardman crumpled to the ground, its strength spent.
As expected of an S-rank gate, I supposed. These lizardmen were on an entirely different tier. Every single one of them rivaled an A-rank Awakener past level 200.
The large guilds really are built differently.
Even the traces I'd found upon entering the gate made it clear how many battles had raged here. To hold off numbers like these in terrain like this was genuinely impressive. At a glance, well over a hundred lizardmen lay fallen already. If the raiders had pushed deeper, there would have been many more fights to come.
"Cheongun."
"What is it?"
"Could you bring the lizardmen here under your control?"
"Hmm..."
Cheongun closed his eyes, tested his dominion against the lizardmen scattered around us, and then opened them again. "Not possible, I'm afraid."
"Is that so?"
As an imugi, he ordinarily boasted exceptional command over beings of the water attribute.
Is there a boss monster here?
Against creatures that already answered to a ruler, that authority didn't always hold. Either way, the lizardmen of this gate were in the same situation.
"If you wish to avoid combat, I can at least warn them not to approach."
"Really? Then I'll leave it to you."
"Understood."
Cheongun gave his answer and rose into the sky.
Crackle! The moment he ascended, faint bolts of lightning sparked across the swampland around us. After a short wait, he drifted back down.
"That should see to it that the lizardmen keep their distance."
"Thank you."
I patted Cheongun and sent him back through the gate. I still wasn't ready to show him the ugly side of humanity.
I can ease him into that later.
An imugi who had spent ages sealed inside a gate, cut off from any human contact, was positively thrilled to be around people now. Showing something like this to such a tender-hearted creature was far too soon.
No more interruptions, then. Time to catch up in a single run.
Most of the lizardmen within my detection range were already trying to put distance between themselves and me. I wasn't idle enough to hunt down every one of them and finish the job.
Basic footwork. Speed.
I pushed the footwork to its limit and ran.
Kang! Shhk! Shhk!
Hit by a sudden surge of lizardmen, the Pagwon Guild was barely holding the line.
"Lizardman pack closing in from the right!"
"From the left as well!"
"Tanks, get up front!"
The moment they cut one down, more lizardmen swarmed in. Cut those down, and the next wave was already upon them. The cycle simply kept repeating.
How did it come to this?
They had believed an S-rank gate was something they could clear quickly. Why? Why on earth had they thought that? They still hadn't properly mastered their demonic energy, which meant their actual skill was no better than before. And yet the thought had crept in all the same — it's only S-rank. A presumption that fit neither the situation nor themselves.
We should have come in far more prepared.
An S-rank gate was nothing short of a natural disaster. To treat a catastrophe as a mere matter of degree — there was arrogance, and then there was this.
"We're falling back!"
"But if we retreat any further—!"
"We cannot afford another casualty!"
At the guildmaster's command, the other members had no choice but to beat a retreat. Nearly every raider here was a being who had accepted demonic energy and become demon-human. They had grown stronger by becoming demons — and now they were being told to run. That was something they simply could not stomach.
They're just like I was.
As he retreated, Pa Kwon-seong thought exactly that. The thoughts running through their heads now were achingly similar to the ones he'd once had himself. They were deluding themselves into believing they had become strong.
Once we fall back, I'll need to have a proper talk with them.
If their arrogance swelled any further, annihilation was all that waited. They were drunk on demonic energy, no longer able to tell sense from nonsense.
Shhk!
In the middle of the retreat, a severing sound rang out of nowhere. If a lizardman had been chasing them, he would have known it instantly.
Thud.
The head of a guild member trailing at the rear dropped to the ground.
"Min-cheol!"
"Han Seong-gyu, stop!"
One member froze mid-retreat and rushed toward the corpse of his fallen comrade. Another grabbed at him, trying to hold him back.
Shhk!
Both of their heads left their shoulders together.
"Everyone, defensive formation!"
"Yes, sir!"
The panicked members snapped to their senses at Pa Kwon-seong's roar and threw up a defensive line.
This isn't a lizardman.
Not even a king-tier creature with a stealth skill could manage assassinations this clean. The shadow of death draped over them right now was not a monster's. It was a person's.
S-rank. Someone at least my equal, or stronger.
Otherwise there was no way he could have slipped past Pa Kwon-seong's senses.
About ten minutes after they had formed up, the assassin revealed himself of his own accord.
"Wow. You've held a formation like this for a full ten minutes?"
"You..."
He didn't know the man. But the smell of him was profoundly dangerous. It had been a long, long time since he'd last caught the scent of death like this.
Touch him carelessly and you die.
Pa Kwon-seong swallowed. So did every member standing around him, all of them rigid with tension.
"Then shall we begin the cleanup?"
The man drew the dagger at his waist and lunged.
It hadn't been long since I found the Pagwon Guild. I'd been advancing with my footwork when I spotted them in the middle of their retreat. I cut Speed instantly and shifted to Shadow.
Doesn't look like I've been made.
A little further and I would have walked straight into Pa Kwon-seong's detection range.
I closed the distance at a slow walk. From far away I couldn't be certain, but now it was unmistakable.
So this is how much demonic energy they're carrying.
It wasn't just Pa Kwon-seong. Every single member of the guild carried demonic energy. But the ma-ki radiating from Pa Kwon-seong himself was something else entirely — nothing like the other demon-humans.
Which demon did he contract with?
No ordinary demon could have granted power of this magnitude. To carry ma-ki like his, you would need at the very least a pact with a named demon.
Why would someone of Pa Kwon-seong's caliber...
I had no way of knowing what thoughts had driven him to bargain and become a demon-human. All I could believe was that he must have had his reasons. A man who had lived through the same generation as Han Min-joon and Bang Hak-shik — one of Korea's heroes.
Please be remembered as the nation's hero.
If he used demonic energy out in the open and died for it, the country would be thrown into chaos. That had to be why the Association President had arranged this gate for him.
Thank you for everything until now.
Demon-human or not, he was a man who had protected the past. I offered a final farewell in my heart, then drew my dagger without a shred of mercy and swung.
Shhk!
With a wet severing sound, the head of the last straggler came off.
"Min-cheol!"
"Han Seong-gyu, stop!"
Shhk! Shhk!
I cut down the member screaming as he charged and the one trying to hold him back. And at the sight of it, Pa Kwon-seong recovered with startling speed and threw up a defensive line.
A hero really is a hero, I suppose.
Experience set him apart from ordinary guild members. He read the situation with a clear head and built the formation properly.
How long will you hold it, I wonder?
Nearly ten minutes had passed, and the formation was still standing. Judging that this would drag on forever at this rate, I let the footwork go.
"Wow. You've held a formation like this for a full ten minutes?"
I spoke like some neighborhood thug. Like a complete lunatic.
Pa Kwon-seong's face twitched with bewilderment at the sight of me — probably because mine was a face he had never seen before. A powerhouse who could cleave through an A-rank Awakener past level 200 in a single stroke. That had to be the image they held of the enemy. And instead, a total stranger had popped out of nowhere.
Naturally, it rattled him.
"Then shall we begin the cleanup?"
I pulled the dagger from my waist and lunged.
Basic footwork. Destruction.
The ground beneath the tanks' feet shattered, and their balance collapsed with it. I slipped through the gap, drove the dagger in, and swept it across.
Shhk! Shhk!
Two tanks crumpled, strength gone. I didn't stop there — I flung the destruction-laced fragments toward the remaining tanks.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Aaagh!"
"W-what is this?!"
"Ugh!"
Blindsided by pain from nowhere, the tank line broke into panicked screams. I seized the opening without hesitation and swung.
Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!
Every time the sound of severing flesh brushed my ears, my mind flinched with pain. But I clenched my teeth and kept swinging.
Mid-sized guilds were full of trash. But Pa Kwon-seong and the Pagwon Guild were the nation's heroes — and the heroes it still needed to become.
I'll fight harder for the share you leave behind.
Repeating the hollow comfort to myself like it wasn't one, I swung the dagger again.
Shhk! Thud!
The more people fell to my dagger, the weaker the others' blows became. Blades carried on confusion, disbelief, and raw fear only grow dull.
"That's enough."
Then Pa Kwon-seong himself stepped forward, uncoiling the demonic energy he had kept wrapped tight until now.
"Demonic energy — is that why you're targeting us?"
"Yes."
I answered him plainly. In the final moments of a life, a man deserved to at least know why he was dying.
"I see."
"Thank you."
"It's the price of coveting too much."
He seemed to have accepted the outcome, at least in part. And yet, deliberately, he clenched his fist.
"A wrong is still a wrong. But I have no intention of dying this hollowly."
"Understood."
Gripping my dagger tight in turn — the barest courtesy owed to a hero — I faced him.
A space gone silent. Most of the guild members had already met their end on my dagger. The survivors would follow before long.
"Hah!"
BOOM!
Pa Kwon-seong's fist carried the full weight of his responsibility as guildmaster. I never took the blow directly, but I felt it against my skin all the same.
Kang!
My swinging dagger was knocked clean out of line by his fist.
Shadow Footwork. Shadow Pressure.
"Ugh!"
The instant his movements were bound, Pa Kwon-seong dropped straight into a defensive stance.
Shadow Footwork. Shadow Blade.
Blades of shadow hurtled toward him.
Kang! Kang! Kang!
Every shadow blade that reached him was batted away, powerless.
"Huaaap!"
With a battle cry, Pa Kwon-seong broke the Shadow Pressure and came charging at me. It looked like the last desperate thrash of a man fighting for his life.
He's already accepted his death.
Even as he fought me with ma-ki-filled fists and a demon's body, his heart was still shouting that he was human. That was why I wasn't being pushed back — we traded blows nearly evenly. This was, most likely, the final line he intended to hold.
Thank you for everything until now.
As my last courtesy to a hero, I unfolded my strongest footwork.
Nameless Footwork. One Step: Heaven Breaker.
Watching my footwork come for him, he smiled at the very end. And then, to no one, he murmured:
"Take good care of my son."