Chapter 133
Chapter 133
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 133
Chapter Title: The Demon Marquis Gristarin
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Gray eye snowflakes, rough and eerie drumbeats, and finally screams from an unknown source.
When the things visible only to Yong-un's eyes became visible to everyone.
Ten powerful nations.
Spain, China, the United States, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Brazil.
And finally, South Korea.
A colossal disaster descended upon the Demonus that had appeared so quiet and peaceful.
It was a kind of calamity that even A-Rank Hunters, who had spent long years rising to high rank, had never encountered before.
A disaster where bodies moved on their own, slaughtering teammates without regard for one's own will.
In an instant, it reduced the number of Hunters from the powerful nations to less than half.
The orders from each country to minimize casualties had lost all meaning.
Now, all that remained for them was survival right here.
That was it.
Amid the chaos, among the Hunters from the powerful nations who had suffered massive losses.
There was one powerful nation where everyone had uniquely survived the disaster.
South Korea.
The Mareong Squad including Yong-un, the Ghost Slaughter Soul Annihilation, and the Demon Shadow Assassination Squad.
"Muhee...?"
Muhee, rising from Myung-su's shadow, wore a grave expression.
At Yong-un's command, she had been monitoring the situations in the ten powerful nations by slipping through the shadows of the Hunters she had marked in advance.
Whenever screams echoed, Muhee would scout via the shadows and return with reports.
And this time was no different—she had grasped the powerful nations' status and come back.
But unlike her previous reports, which had shown no anomalies, Muhee's face was darkened beyond measure.
"What happened?"
Yong-un asked, seeing Muhee unable to even speak properly, whatever she had witnessed.
"Just as the Supreme One said."
Was it from glimpsing an unforeseen hell?
Muhee's voice trembled.
"Of the ten Hunters from different nations whose shadows I marked, only three survived."
"What!?"
The Sword Tiger shouted.
All the subordinates couldn't hide their shock.
"The monster wave wasn't that intense. To that degree?"
Jincheol shook his head at the Sword Tiger's words.
"From what the Supreme One told Muhee-nim, it doesn't seem to be the monster wave's fault."
"Huh? Then what made the Hunters from every nation get wiped out like that?"
"Not certain, but I think the Supreme One mentioned it because of that sound."
Jincheol pointed to the sky.
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom!
The bizarre, savage drumbeats continued to resound without cease.
It was a sound that hadn't paused once since the monster wave began.
"Still, it's dire. If Muhee-nim's right, that means at least half are dead..."
Jincheol's expression darkened in turn.
Muhee parted her tightly sealed lips at Jincheol's expectant look.
"Just as you said. At least half are gone. But that's not the key point."
Muhee turned to Yong-un.
"Did the Supreme One know what I saw?"
What had she seen?
The subordinates exchanged puzzled glances at Muhee's sudden question to Yong-un.
How grave must it have been?
Their curiosity didn't linger long.
Muhee continued.
"I realized it from those three survivors. More than half the Hunters didn't die to monsters or demons... but to their fellow Hunters—their own teammates."
"...?!"
Muhee's revelation was staggering.
More than half the Hunters lost to hands of their own comrades, not monsters or demons?
"I knew."
As thoughts raced through his mind.
Yong-un's voice rang out.
The subordinates' eyes locked onto him.
"What did you think I was doing?"
At first, none of them had any idea what Yong-un was up to.
But thanks to Myung-un, they had learned the reason behind his actions.
"Weren't you... fighting?"
"You thought it was just fighting?"
Myung-un had said he was battling something incomprehensible.
Yet he had done something else amid it all?
As the subordinates struggled to comprehend, Yong-un's gaze shifted to the Ghost Slaughter Soul Annihilation.
Precisely to Yukguihon Seongmin, the only one inside maintaining a blank expression.
"A fellow with peculiar tastes."
The subordinates tilted their heads, as Yong-un's words didn't address their burning questions.
Then he withdrew his gaze and spoke.
"You have one more reason to grow strong quickly."
Yong-un's eyes flushed purple.
Invisible things began to appear, one by one.
White powder scattered everywhere, along with chunks of severed gray-black cords.
Yong-un tilted his head skyward.
'I thought I'd grown considerably, but a national Demonus is on another level.'
As his eyes returned to normal, the gray-black orb floating in the sky vanished as well.
Just before it did, Yong-un noted far more cords linked to the gray-black sphere than before, then looked away.
'Are all national Demonus like this?'
They weren't quite back-level reliable, but still useful subordinates.
Yet right now, blind to that threat, they were little more than liabilities.
Definitely unlike Murim.
In Murim, only martial artists were foes or allies, but reality brimmed with things unseen there.
Still, the starkest difference: reality's enemies weren't just Hunters, but also bizarre demons.
[Your world is quite different from what you're used to.]
A voice echoed in Yong-un's mind.
His gaze shifted to Yukguihon Seongmin.
[You'll have to make a choice soon.]
The words that had restrained Yong-un from acting alone at the operation's start resurfaced.
Namely.
[What you'll sacrifice to safeguard everything you've built.]
Sacrificing something dear.
Yong-un scowled.
'What exactly am I supposed to give up?'
He couldn't even fathom it.
Unlike his days as the Heavenly Demon Cult's Demon Commander, the Sword Demon, Yong-un now in reality had much to protect.
Precious things he refused to lose had multiplied accordingly.
More options meant pinpointing the right path grew harder.
A dry chuckle escaped him.
More treasures meant more vulnerabilities.
Once, under the Heavenly Demon Cult strategist's orders, Sword Demon Yong-un had led the Demon Shadow Assassination Squad to seize a prized Murim Alliance treasure.
In exchange for returning it, he secured a vital war stronghold without shedding a drop of blood.
Yong-un had deemed the Murim Alliance fools.
He couldn't grasp why they'd forge weaknesses with cherished possessions, then surrender key assets to reclaim them.
'So that's it. Why those Murim Alliance hypocrites thrashed about so desperately.'
The vengeful fiend called Sword Demon had nothing precious.
That's why he was invincible.
Nothing to lose.
Free to devote himself utterly to war.
'But not anymore.'
Family, the faction he'd forged, his altered mindset, the subordinates grown dear because of it.
And finally, his true identity here: Lee Yong-un, second son of the Lee family.
'All of them matter.'
Since when?
Had the forward-charging Sword Demon fiend started glancing back?
Yong-un smirked at his utterly transformed self.
Then he stared straight at Yukguihon and asked inwardly.
'What are you?'
A question he should have posed from the start.
What manner of being exuded such overwhelming presence, unseen even by the Heavenly Demon?
What was its nature, planting unheard voices ceaselessly in his mind?
[I am...]
What sort of entity.
Foreseeing unborn events and issuing warnings.
The immense presence, amid swirling snowflakes, spoke.
[Man(????).]
'Man(????)?'
Yong-un's brow twitched at the words.
Snowflakes around the voice borrowing Yukguihon's form shaped a single Hanja.
????
Yong-un, long versed in the Central Plains and Murim, had seen most Hanja.
Yet this one was new.
His immediate thought upon the "Man" radical: What is that?
What bore such a form?
[The time has arrived. That's all I can say. Walker of the Blood Sea, Forger of the Corpse Mountain.]
Yukguihon's body swayed.
At once, snowflakes unlike the descending gray-black ones dissipated.
As Yukguihon lifted his head, the profound eyes vanished.
Only Seongmin's original youthful, innocent gaze remained.
"..."
It was then.
As if validating Man's declaration that the moment had come, Yong-un's senses picked up two anomalies that shouldn't have registered.
Two special presences racing in at high speed.
One appeared before Yong-un first.
Pop.
"May I have your name?"
A peculiar demon materialized with a faint gust.
He stood directly before Yong-un, offering a bow at forty-five degrees in the manner of medieval nobility.
Clang!
A speed beyond even the subordinates' detection.
"Protect the Supreme One!"
The subordinates instantly gripped their swords and weapons, charging toward Yong-un.
"These worthless pests need to buzz off."
The bowing demon flashed a slight smile.
Simultaneously, Yong-un's eyes turned purple.
Something unprecedented occurred.
The gray-black sphere aloft made its first aggressive motion.
Swishhh.
Dozens of gray-black cords lashed toward Yong-un's subordinates.
"Let's brush aside the bugs and chat, shall we?"
Dozens of gray-black cords plummeting from the sky.
Beneath them, the demon beamed, cocking his head ever so slightly.
Yong-un met the demon's gaze squarely and swept his hand lightly from left to right.
Pop. Crackle crackle crackle.
Purple sword-ki shards rained from above.
Dozens of gray-black cords severed and tumbled down.
The demon and Yong-un, drenched in shards and cords.
"So it was you."
"No idea what you're talking about."
Yong-un erupted with Adversary Heavenly Demon Ki, advancing a step toward the demon.
"The boss of this Demonus I glimpsed back then. The master of that thing."
Yong-un's eyes blazed purple and dark crimson simultaneously.
The demon retreated a step, shrugging nonchalantly.
"Impressive. First I've seen someone spot and sever it."
The demon shuddered theatrically, as if in fear.
But only for a moment.
Sreeeak.
The demon's lips split into a wider, chilling grin, unleashing a hair-raising voice.
"Fascinating as that is, you know one truth but miss the other."
The demon's mouth stretched ear to ear.
Its grotesquely torn maw.
Yong-un's brow twitched.
"When I say it, I do it. Bugs are bugs, nothing more."
Twitch.
From the sky, severed gray-black cords poured down in greater numbers than before.
Yong-un summoned his sword intent to slice them all as before.
"Ah, rude of me—my introduction's late. I'm Demon Marquis Gristarin, one blessed by that lord."
The demon's forty-five-degree bow deepened to ninety.
At that instant, the falling cords accelerated dozens of times over.
Too swift for Yong-un's sword-ki shards to cleave them all.
"You'll have fun."
Marquis Gristarin, bowed at ninety degrees, craned only his head up to eye Yong-un.
And the gray-black cords Yong-un had tried to block began latching onto his subordinates, one by one.