Mutant Wyverns and the Fallen Angel
“Canteas, you head to Sokcho.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll take Gangneung. Selenia, grab Kang Ji-hwan and Han Se-ah and move straight to Yangyang.”
“Understood.”
Do-ha assigned the personnel in rapid succession. He and Canteas could clear a single ghost city without breaking a sweat, but Selenia traveling alone was another matter entirely. That was why she needed Kang Ji-hwan and Han Se-ah with her.
“Stay sharp, Selenia. It’s been abandoned for years—strong monsters will be nesting all over the place.”
“Don’t worry.”
Selenia smiled and took Do-ha’s hand. The only person who fretted over her like this was Do-ha, after all.
“Looks like lunch is about to be served…”
“The weather today is really…”
At the sight, Canteas’s brow furrowed while Han Jeong-soo cleared his throat and looked away. No matter how many times they witnessed that tender little display, it never got any easier to watch. The two of them lived under the same roof every single day—did they really still need to act like that?
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Don’t get hurt.”
“I’m going too.”
“….”
“Hey. I said I’m going too.”
While Do-ha watched Selenia vanish into the distance, Canteas shoved his face right into his line of sight. Why did this bastard never have a single word for him?!
“I said I’m going too!”
“Ah, so what?! Just hurry up and go!”
“Cheer me on as well!”
“Cheer you on? Han Jeong-soo, you feel like bone broth today? Eight-circle lich bone broth ought to taste pretty decent.”
“Haha…”
Watching the two of them, Han Jeong-soo laughed and scratched the back of his head. Seeing how completely at ease they both were made him feel ridiculous for having sprinted over in such a panic only moments earlier.
Thud-thud-thud. Whoosh!
After a long stretch of loosening up with lightfoot techniques, Do-ha raced forward, scaled a tall tree, and settled at its crown.
“Just as I thought. Mutant wyverns.”
He nodded as he took in the distant cluster of monsters. He had approached with maximum caution in case they turned out to be dragons, but up close they were clearly mutant wyverns. Their size, however, was truly staggering. An ordinary person would have mistaken them for adult dragons without a second thought.
Oh-ho. Their aura’s strong too.
These were the strongest mutant wyverns he had ever seen. Their presence was so overwhelming that the surrounding monsters had fled in terror and gone into hiding.
“Even the griffins are cowering.”
Griffins and wyverns normally despised each other. They weren’t so much natural enemies as sworn blood foes. A griffin would usually throw itself at a wyvern on sight, determined to kill it by any means necessary—yet today they were too frightened to do anything but hide.
Whooosh. Crash.
“The sound of the waves is nice.”
Do-ha turned his head, took in the beautiful scenery, and nodded. Gangneung had always been famous as a seaside tourist destination, but after becoming a ghost city it had been left to rot for far too long.
“People always say the environment cleans itself once humans disappear…”
The opposite was true here. The place was far more polluted now than when people had lived in it. Monsters had nested everywhere and dumped filth without restraint; the whole area looked like a garbage dump.
“Looking at those tail scales standing on end, they were about to head into the city the second I got here a little later.”
The clustered wyverns’ tails showed scales bristling diagonally outward—the exact posture a wyvern took right before it began a hunt. In simple terms, just as cats raised their fur when angry or startled, a wyvern that had decided to attack raised the scales along its tail at a sharp angle. At rest they lay flat.
“Shall I start with a light Meteor?”
Meteor
Rumble—rumble—rumble—rumble!
“Ah. Right. They’re mutants.”
Do-ha clapped his hands as he watched the massive meteor plummeting from the sky. Unlike ordinary specimens, mutant wyverns possessed magic resistance. Even back in Belhart, dealing with them had always required knights or martial artists on hand. The falling Meteor was saturated with mana, so the impact would barely scratch them.
“Can’t have that.”
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong — Tenth Step: Stone Throw
Whoooom!
Six enormous Cheon-hyeon-geum-gang constructs formed behind Do-ha’s back and seized the falling meteor.
“Just a light one for starters.”
One of the Cheon-hyeon-geum-gang hurled the Meteor the way a pitcher throws a baseball. A sonic boom cracked the air as the projectile shot forward.
KRAAAAAAAAAAANG!
“KYAAAAAAK!”
Flap!
The mountain-sized mutant wyvern died instantly under the meteor’s insane velocity. The rest of the flock startled and took to the sky in panic. That was precisely what made mutant wyverns so troublesome—massive creatures flying free while spitting dragon-class breath attacks. Ordinary hunters found them nightmarish.
“Of course, that doesn’t apply to me.”
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong — Seventh Step: Heaven-Suppressing Demon Emperor Art
Rumble—rumble—rumble!
Thud!
“Kyaaak?!”
The moment the Heaven-Suppressing Demon Emperor Art unfolded, crushing gravity slammed down. The flying mutant wyverns reeled in shock.
“This isn’t magic. Escaping it won’t be easy.”
He had remodeled gravity magic into a martial art; the mutant wyverns plummeted straight to the ground.
Boom—boom!
“Still, there has to be a reason these things appeared so suddenly.”
While the mutant wyverns writhed under the crushing force, Do-ha began walking through midair. Something had caused them to show up overnight.
“Did they escape from a Gate? Or did someone deliberately turn ordinary wyverns into mutants?”
Mutant wyverns could arise naturally, but they could also be manufactured on purpose. Given that they had appeared simultaneously in three separate cities, someone had clearly converted ordinary wyverns into mutants.
“Anyone capable of creating specimens this strong has to be pretty powerful themselves.”
Do-ha scanned the surroundings from the air. Anyone bold enough to create mutant wyverns and dump them into ghost cities would be hiding somewhere nearby.
Take the bait.
The only reason he was simply pinning the mutant wyverns with the Heaven-Suppressing Demon Emperor Art instead of finishing them was to flush out whoever was lurking. His guess might be wrong, but decades of hard-won experience told him someone was definitely hiding.
In that instant—
Whoosh!
Do-ha’s head snapped around. In the blink of an eye, a foreign aura had flickered far away and vanished.
“You should’ve held your breath too.”
The Cheon-hyeon-geum-gang still gripping the Meteor moved like lightning.
Swoooooosh!
KRAAAANG!
A massive explosion bloomed, and dust billowed skyward.
Where are you?
He had thrown the Meteor specifically to raise that dust cloud. Someone was already hiding; now a thick fog of dust made it impossible to see even an inch ahead. From the hidden party’s perspective, this would look like the perfect chance to move. Of course, the tactic only worked if you were strong enough to locate your opponent even inside a dust storm. If the other side was faster and more agile, you simply handed them an escape route.
Rustle.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Shwoooooooom!
The moment he sensed movement, a hurricane of wind and mana poured into Do-ha’s mouth.
Hwaneum-yeyang-gong — Fifth Form: Phoenix Throat
Boom!
Do-ha’s chest swelled; he opened his mouth wide and unleashed a colossal shockwave.
Kiiing! Clang!
The blast was so powerful it warped space itself as it slammed into the hidden figure. The dust cloud that had hung like fog was blown clean away by Phoenix Throat.
“Guaaagh!”
The fleeing figure clamped both hands over his ears and collapsed to his knees.
Whoosh. Thud.
“So that’s who was hiding…”
Do-ha approached the kneeling figure and let out a dry laugh. He had expected a Demon God Cultist, a demon, or at least a black mage. What knelt before him was something else entirely.
“What the hell is a pigeon doing here?”
It was an angel.
The presence that had been hiding and then tried to flee was an angel.
“How dare a mere human call a Power Angel like me a pigeon?!”
Crunch!
The angel glared; Do-ha kicked him square in the jaw.
“Mere human? You fucking pigeon—did you catch bird flu or something? Spouting that kind of garbage.”
“Guaaagh!”
Power Angel Silchemis’s shattered jaw sent him rolling across the ground.
“Those mutant wyverns. Your handiwork?”
“I—I have nothing to do with them!”
“Then why were you hiding?”
“I saw a flock of mutant wyverns and was simply observing to find out what was going on!”
“Ah, really? My mistake, then.”
Do-ha nodded—and seized Silchemis by the nape of the neck. One of the Cheon-hyeon-geum-gang had already closed in and locked onto the angel.
“You thought I’d actually say that? Who the hell do you think you’re lying to?”
“L-let go of me!”
Silchemis thrashed, still held by the scruff.
What in the world is this creature?!
Silchemis was genuinely panicked. He was a true Power Angel—not some ordinary angel, but a fifth-rank Power Angel. Yet he could not break free of a human’s grip.
“Since ancient times there’s been a tool that brings one closer to the truth.”
“A tool…?”
A tool that approached the truth? Did such a thing exist in the middle realm?
“This is it.”
Do-ha casually displayed a fist corded with bulging veins.
“A fist…?”
“That’s right. With this alone, you can reach the truth.”
“How could something so crude possibly—”
“Like this.”
Whoosh! Crunch!
The moment Silchemis tilted his head in confusion, Do-ha drove the fist straight into his face.
“Guaagh! W-wait!”
“This never ends after one or two hits. It takes a little time.”
Whoooom!
Do-ha drew up his energy; golden light erupted from his body.
Ban-ya Geum-gang Shin-gong — Fifth Absolute: Yaksha’s Hundred Eight Strikes
Do-ha dropped into a horse stance and began hammering the angel at blinding speed.
“GUAAAAAAAAAGH!”
“Hang in there a little longer! I’m holding back as much as I can!”
“You insane bastard!”
Silchemis screamed at Do-ha’s words. Hang in there because he was holding back? What kind of nonsense was that?!
Gurgle!
At last, after taking a prolonged beating, a foreign aura began to leak from Silchemis.
Boom!
Flap.
“Just as I thought.”
Silchemis tore free of the Cheon-hyeon-geum-gang and shot into the sky. Do-ha smiled. Demonic energy was pouring from the angel.
“So you were a fallen angel.”
“Hah… hah… How dare a mere human…”
Hiss. Hisssss.
The demonic energy streaming from Silchemis began to corrode everything around him.