A True Hero Appears
“What the hell are you?”
“Huh? You don’t know who I am?”
At Heo Wonsa’s words, Do-ha’s expression flickered with mild surprise.
He was never the type to flaunt his reputation, yet he had at least expected the Blood Cult to recognize him. After all, he was the very man who had brought the Blood Cult to ruin during his years in Belhart. He had even shown his face on a recent broadcast; recognition should have been inevitable.
“Hmph. Just because a few people know your name, you start thinking you’re actually somebody. I may not know every expert on this Earth, but one thing is certain—you look completely unremarkable.”
“What the hell have you been babbling about this whole time, you piece of shit?”
Hundred-Step Divine Fist
Thud!
A faint surge of force shot forward the instant Do-ha drove his fist out from a standing position.
“Judging by that energy, you’ll be lucky if you don’t die in a ditch somewh—”
Heo Wonsa snorted and casually swatted at the incoming force. Then his eyes went wide as his arm twisted at a grotesque angle.
What? Why can’t I deflect it?
The energy flying toward him had clearly been weak. Compared to the man’s arrogant entrance, it was so pathetic it almost made him laugh. So why, the moment he struck it aside, did that same energy suddenly balloon into something enormous?
“Hey. Keep spacing out and I’ll break the other arm too.”
Thunderlight Fist
A crackling roar of lightning erupted. Do-ha’s fist streaked forward like a bolt.
“It won’t work twice!”
Heo Wonsa’s arm coiled like a snake, wrapping around the incoming blow.
“I’ll just rip the arm clean off!”
His hand clamped down—then froze.
“Huh?”
The arm he had coiled around refused to budge. Under normal circumstances it should have been torn free in an instant. Yet it felt as solid as a steel pillar.
“Giving me a massage?”
Do-ha’s own hand shot out and seized Heo Wonsa by the collar.
“You Blood Cult bastards have always had the same problem. You insist on trying to counter every attack.”
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong — Fourth Step: Extreme Thunder Fist
“Try blocking this one too.”
The Extreme Thunder Fist detonated against Heo Wonsa’s skull and blew his head apart in a single catastrophic blast.
From the old days, Blood Cult members had always shared the same bizarre habit: instead of dodging an opponent’s energy, they insisted on striking it aside. Dodging was somehow shameful to them, so they either redirected or met force with force. That arrogance was exactly why techniques like the Hundred-Step Divine Fist or Thunderlight Fist—deliberately weakened—always caught them off guard.
Heo Wonsa’s body crumpled.
“How many people have died because of vermin like this…?”
Do-ha dusted off his hands and walked toward Henry, still bound in chains.
“You all right? I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but first let’s get out of—”
The chains rattled violently as Henry thrashed, unable to speak because of the sealed pressure points.
“Ah, for crying out loud…”
Do-ha toyed with the chains for a moment, then let out a quiet sigh and unleashed a kick behind him.
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong — Second Step: Unbroken Kick
The headless corpse of Heo Wonsa had already retrieved its sword and was silently closing the distance while Do-ha’s attention had been on the chains.
“Now this is a first.”
Heo Wonsa’s body dragged the blade along the floor, limbs hanging limp yet still advancing.
I thought it was a jiangshi… but this is something else?
From the moment he arrived, Do-ha had known Heo Wonsa was no longer a living human. That was why he had expected the man to keep moving even after his head exploded. Yet the fact that the corpse was still functional after taking the Unbroken Kick put it a fair distance from any ordinary jiangshi.
“I assumed someone was controlling a jiangshi, but the durability is ridiculous.”
The shambling figure suddenly lunged, sword flashing forward at terrifying speed.
Well now? This is getting interesting.
Do-ha’s eyes narrowed as he slipped past the blade. Even with a shattered skull and bones broken by the Unbroken Kick, the thing was still executing high-level swordsmanship—techniques that demanded a fully intact body. And yet it performed them headless.
Do-ha continued to evade while scanning the surroundings at high speed.
Where is it?
To control a jiangshi of this caliber, the puppeteer had to be nearby. Jiangshi masters had always worked that way.
Nothing.
He casually sidestepped another slash, thoughts racing. Attacks from a jiangshi like this were something he could dodge in his sleep, so every spare sense was devoted to locating the controller—yet no true body existed in the vicinity.
“Hey. I’m curious what you actually are, so stay still for a second.”
Do-ha drew up his energy. Freezing air spilled from his lips, and pure white frost began to spread across the ground around him.
Bingbaek-singong — Second Form: Resentful Ice Hell
The technique erupted. Heo Wonsa and the entire factory building froze solid in an instant.
“Henry, hang on even if it gets a little cold.”
Do-ha flicked two fingers.
Finger Flick Technique
Of the two bursts of force that shot from his fingertips, the stronger one shattered the chains while the weaker one released Henry’s sealed pressure points.
“Haa… thank you, Do-ha.”
Freed at last, Henry stared at his frozen neighbors with a troubled expression. The moment Resentful Ice Hell had expanded, every controlled person waiting nearby had frozen solid as well.
“Do-ha, these people who are frozen… they’re still all right, aren’t they?”
“No.”
“What?! Then why freeze them too? You could have easily controlled the range of the attack—”
“You’re right. I could have.”
“Then why…?”
Henry looked lost. Why make that choice? When the cold had spread, Do-ha had left him completely unharmed.
“Henry. Let me ask you one thing.”
“What is it…?”
“Those people over there… do you truly believe they’re still fine, or do you just want them to be fine?”
Henry could not answer.
“You already know, don’t you? Those people can never return to being human.”
Henry’s reaction stemmed from guilt. He knew perfectly well that his friends and neighbors would never come back. As the incarnation of the Star Goddess, there was no way he could have been ignorant of that truth. Acting this way was simply running from reality.
“…I know. But there has to be a way to bring them back. Some method—”
“There isn’t.”
Do-ha shook his head without hesitation. He understood the desperate urge to grasp at any straw, yet the vessels had already devoured their hosts’ souls completely. The victims were no different from the dead.
“I encountered these vessels a long time ago. That’s why I can say this with certainty. They cannot come back as people. For the sake of your dead friends, it’s better not to cling to false hope.”
Do-ha gently patted the shoulder of the man whose head hung low.
For now, he would give Henry time to sort through his thoughts. The corpses would remain preserved inside the ice either way.
“What exactly is this thing?”
Do-ha walked over to Heo Wonsa. The controlled people had died the instant Resentful Ice Hell detonated. Heo Wonsa, however, was still moving—or rather, still twitching. Faint tremors were visible even inside the ice.
Blood Cult bastards really do have too many tricks. Even back in the murim, these people always excelled at creating the strangest things.
Most of the bizarre objects and phenomena discovered in Belhart—roughly eighty percent—traced back to the Blood Cult. The saying “If something strange happens in the murim, suspect the Blood Cult first” existed for a reason.
“This won’t do. I’ll have to cut it into pieces.”
Do-ha layered two techniques at once.
Wind Blade × Bingbaek-singong — First Form: Ice Blossom
The Wind Blade magic and Bingbaek-singong activated together, slicing the frozen Heo Wonsa into pieces while simultaneously locking every fragment in place so nothing could move.
Just in case the pieces keep thrashing even after being cut apart.
Apple-sized cubes of ice tumbled free. Do-ha crouched down and picked one up.
“Wow. It’s still twitching even like this?”
He let out a dry laugh as he examined the fragment sealed inside. Even reduced to cubes, the pieces continued to writhe. Then, almost immediately—
The fragments inside the ice turned to black ash and vanished.
“What’s that?”
Where the corpse pieces had been, something glittering remained.
Do-ha gestured. The Bingbaek-singong energy dissipated and the ice melted away.
He caught the object that fell into his palm.
“A bead?”
A single bead the size of a piece of candy glittered in his hand. Because he had cut the ice into apple-sized cubes, the bead itself was completely unharmed.
“Was this what controlled that jiangshi?”
He had never seen anything like it. A bead that controlled a jiangshi? No such object had existed during his decades in Belhart.
“I’ll ask Canteas first. If he doesn’t know, I’ll take it to Emilton.”
His friend Emilton might recognize the bead. Canteas possessed a great deal of knowledge as well, but even he might draw a blank on this one.
Do-ha slipped the bead into his subspace storage.
“Henry. Time to move.”
“…Just a moment. I’m still—”
Do-ha sighed, walked over, spun Henry around by the shoulders, and slapped him across the face.
“Listen, Henry. Dwelling on your feelings is fine, but snap out of it right now. Every second you waste standing here, more people in Britain are dying. The grief you’re feeling right now is the exact same grief others are feeling as we speak.”
Henry said nothing.
“Those vessels that turn people into monsters—they’re accessories, and they’ve already spread across the entire country. You understand what that means.”
At those words, light gradually returned to Henry’s eyes. Watching friends and neighbors who had been like family die had felt like plunging into a bottomless abyss. Now it was as if he were facing the light once more.
“Before you were ever an incarnation, remember why you fought the cult in the first place.”
“I fought the cult… to save people…”
Setting aside any mission granted by the goddess, he had judged the cult to be an existence that harmed people. That was why he had continued to fight them.
“The Blood Cult is the same. They’re a threat to people as well. No—since the Blood Cult has joined hands with the Demon God Cult, you can treat them as the exact same enemy.”
“You’re right.”
“Then let’s move.”
When the light fully returned to Henry’s eyes, Do-ha gave a small nod.
In that very moment, Henry’s wavering heart straightened into something unyielding, climbing the wall known as enlightenment.
At last, a true hero appears.
Watching Henry’s back as the man shot forward, Do-ha read his condition and allowed a quiet smile to form.