Chapter 108
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 108
Chapter Title: How Is That Even Possible…
“Wha… how……”
Un Yeol muttered in disbelief as he stared down at his own chest.
He had no choice but to react that way.
A sword gleaming with sharp blue energy was embedded in his chest.
The pain hadn’t even set in yet, making it all feel like some unreal dream.
“How? I just stabbed you.”
Ha Mu-baek replied indifferently, giving the blade a slight twist.
“Gaaahhh!”
A searing pain like being burned alive spread from his chest throughout his body.
Un Yeol let out a scream.
“What I hate most are backstabbing bastards like you. The client will show up eventually if we wait.”
Ha Mu-baek yanked the sword free as he spoke.
It had pierced straight through his heart, so in that instant, blood gushed from Un Yeol’s chest like a waterfall.
Gong Mu-hyeok quickly covered Gong So-yu’s eyes and retreated backward.
“Ugh… ugh… ugh……”
Un Yeol stared down at his chest with eyes full of denial until he collapsed and breathed his last.
“Because of trash like him, innocent people lost their lives……”
Ha Mu-baek clicked his tongue and muttered.
His gaze then shifted to the Demonic Cultists.
“Shall we continue?”
The Demonic Cultists flinched under his stare.
At that moment.
“Attack!”
The Three Spirit Lord’s command rang out from behind them.
At the order, they launched themselves toward Ha Mu-baek.
Gleaming sword lights flashed menacingly, but with a single swing from Ha Mu-baek, half of them crumpled to the ground.
In the meantime, the Three Spirit Lord slipped into the annex with his ten subordinates.
The Three Spirit Squad had been divided into ten groups of twenty each.
Now, fewer than fifty remained.
The Three Spirit Lord glanced at the ten subordinates with him.
They were the squad leaders.
He had entrusted the Ten Thousand Thunderbolts to them.
The Three Spirit Lord quietly observed Ha Mu-baek’s movements, trying to analyze his patterns.
He issued further orders telepathically to the remaining five.
[Avoid that monster. Eliminate those behind him first. Target Gong Mu-hyeok and Gong So-yu.]
He had already committed their appearances to memory from the intelligence on the Appearance Disruptors.
The moment the Three Spirit Lord’s order went out, the five Demonic Cultists fled from Ha Mu-baek at full speed.
They didn’t want to die, after all.
The instant they thought they’d created distance, they veered off in another direction.
All of them were desperate.
Ha Mu-baek saw their intent plain as day.
“Pathetic.”
He smirked and flicked his left hand.
Five streams of finger-force shot out from his five fingers.
In the confined space of the annex, the distance they could put between themselves and Ha Mu-baek was limited.
It was enough range for the finger-force to tear through the air and punch holes in their throats.
“Gurgle.”
With groans like deflating balloons, the five collapsed limply.
Seeing this, the Three Spirit Lord felt certain.
As expected, the monster was the same as in the last war.
Fortunately.
His plan seemed like it would work.
[Fourth Squad Leader. Get as close as possible to Gong Mu-hyeok and activate the Ten Thousand Thunderbolt.]
The fourth squad leader moved the instant the telepathic order arrived.
Even knowing it meant death, there was no hesitation whatsoever.
The moment the five fell, the one beside the apparent leader moved alone.
“Where do you think you’re going.”
As Ha Mu-baek moved to block him, the man thrust his hand forward. Ha Mu-baek’s face twisted upon seeing it.
He’d seen it endlessly during the last war.
He’d received help from it and suffered damage from it.
But at least it had never been in the hands of Demonic Cult bastards!
“Everyone, get down!!!”
He bellowed the moment he saw it and pushed his protective aura to its limit.
He concentrated his energy into his left hand as much as possible, layering it thickly before thrusting it forward.
The throat of the man holding the hidden weapon was already severed by Ha Mu-baek’s sword, but he couldn’t stop the trigger from being pressed or the breath of time that followed.
The moment he smelled gunpowder.
Boom boom boom boom BOOM!!!!
A massive explosion roared, and a vortex of flames engulfed the annex interior.
“Kyaaak!”
Gong So-yu screamed and collapsed to her knees.
“Tch.”
“Urk.”
“H-how is that……”
Everyone groaned, desperately enduring the blast’s shockwave.
Gong Mu-hyeok sat stunned, his face full of disbelief.
Because that item had no business being here.
Ten Thousand Thunderbolt.
The Myriad Alliance’s ultimate gunpowder weapon.
Why was something so strictly controlled even within the alliance in enemy hands?
The flames from the Ten Thousand Thunderbolt’s explosion turned the annex interior to ruins.
The Three Spirit Lord and his men had already fled outside.
Ha Mu-baek stood firm, battling the flames.
No fire made it past him to those behind. Only the scorching heat washed over their skin.
It was an incredibly brief moment—one fifteenth of an incense stick’s burn time.
In that span, the annex was engulfed in flames, blazing fiercely.
Its structure was destroyed everywhere, leaving only the bare skeleton.
Yet behind Ha Mu-baek, everything was intact.
His protective aura and energy had blocked it all.
Ha Mu-baek grimaced and shook his left hand repeatedly.
Even wrapped in layers of energy, the pain was intense.
In his left hand was the Ten Thousand Thunderbolt that had spewed the flames.
Ha Mu-baek had snatched and crushed it mid-explosion with his left hand, halving its power.
And this was the result.
“Whew. I don’t know how those bastards got it, but the guy who used it didn’t know how, or I’d be dead.”
Gong Mu-hyeok nodded dazedly at Ha Mu-baek’s words.
A human who could grab and stop that with his bare hand?
Was such a being even human? The thought crossed his mind.
The Ten Thousand Thunderbolt was a thrown hidden weapon. You pressed the button and then threw it—not held it.
“Hah!”
With Ha Mu-baek’s shout, a fierce storm of inner energy swept the area, extinguishing all remaining flames.
And the revealed scene.
The half-burned, skeletal remains of the annex, surrounded from afar by the watching Demonic Cultists.
Under his mask, the Three Spirit Lord smiled.
Ha Mu-baek had acted exactly as predicted.
He had leaped toward the Ten Thousand Thunderbolt himself to protect those behind him.
That’s why he’d sent the fourth squad leader—to confirm it.
The man had been recruited after the war and didn’t know how to use it, so he’d followed the Three Spirit Lord’s instructions.
“Kyaaak!”
The sudden explosion echoing through the night sky made Ha Seol-ran jump and scream in fright.
Han Seol-bing, beside her, furrowed her brow as well.
It was a sound that stirred painful memories.
“What’s wrong?”
Wi Ji-gun asked, and Han Seol-bing answered.
“I’ve heard it a lot before.”
Wi Ji-gun had brought Ha Seol-ran to Han Seol-bing to prepare for any contingency.
If he had to move, he trusted her to protect Ha Seol-ran.
She now knew his true identity, too.
“Heard it a lot?”
“Yes. It sounds just like the explosion from the Myriad Alliance’s hidden weapons. We got help from their immense power but also took damage……”
Wi Ji-gun’s expression darkened at her words.
An explosion like the Myriad Alliance’s battlefield weapons.
And right here were Demonic Cultists and the Myriad Alliance’s leader.
Not a good sign.
That’s why he couldn’t decide on a course of action.
Go help Ha Mu-baek, or stay and guard Ha Seol-ran?
Wi Ji-gun’s energy sense enveloped the entire Wuchang.
No suspicious presences elsewhere.
No—all suspicious auras were clustered around Ha Mu-baek.
But he couldn’t relax.
Unlike Ha Mu-baek, he couldn’t detect demonic energy within auras.
“Master. Something’s happening to Brother, isn’t it?”
Ha Seol-ran asked Wi Ji-gun, who was lost in thought.
“Probably.”
Han Seol-bing scowled at his reply.
“No way… really a Ten Thousand Thunderbolt?”
With Ha Mu-baek involved, it somehow felt plausible.
Finally resolving herself, Han Seol-bing shot to her feet.
“Let’s go!”
“Huh?”
“To Instructor Ha. If they’re using a Myriad Alliance Ten Thousand Thunderbolt even with him there, these aren’t ordinary foes.”
In the last war, neither the Demonic Cult nor Blood Cult had used them.
The Myriad Alliance supplied them ironclad, so only the Righteous Heaven Alliance used them.
There were mishaps and misfires causing heavy friendly damage, but enemies never wielded them.
Thus, Han Seol-bing misunderstood.
She thought the Myriad Alliance inside Wuchang Fortress was using it.
[Second Squad Leader. You know how to use it, right? Press three times and throw at Gong Mu-hyeok.]
At the Three Spirit Lord’s command, the second squad leader didn’t hesitate. He drew a Ten Thousand Thunderbolt from his bosom and rapidly pressed the trigger three times.
The trigger could be pressed up to five times, controlling the explosion delay.
One press for one breath’s delay, two for two breaths, and so on.
The second squad leader hurled the Ten Thousand Thunderbolt toward Ha Mu-baek’s rear.
Toward Gong Mu-hyeok it flew.
“You crazy bastards. How the hell did you……”
Confirming the incoming hidden weapon, Ha Mu-baek unleashed his protective aura at full power again.
This time, he had a bit of leeway.
He wrapped both hands and the flying weapon in energy.
Boom boom BOOM!
A loud explosion rang out, but confined to a tiny space.
The blast within Ha Mu-baek’s energy barrier.
“H-how……”
Gong Mu-hyeok watched with complex eyes.
One leaked unit was unbelievable enough, but another?
And blocking it by encasing it in energy—a being beyond human.
Meanwhile, hidden weapons flew in from eight directions, staggered in timing.
Ha Mu-baek recognized them all as Ten Thousand Thunderbolts.
“These damn bastards, where did they……”
The war had ended long ago.
As far as he knew, even the Righteous Heaven Alliance didn’t stock that many.
They had about four as emergency reserves.
Yet these bastards had pulled out over ten today.
The source was obvious.
The Myriad Alliance.
Nothing else.
The betrayal from the escort squad fit too. Something was wrong there.
Ha Mu-baek’s thoughts stopped there.
Right now, he had to deal with the incoming Ten Thousand Thunderbolts.
Boom boom boom BOOM!!
In that instant, a deafening explosion from above sent flames shooting in all directions.
The highest-flying one had detonated midair.
“Agh!”
“Urk.”
“Ow.”
Ha Mu-baek gritted his teeth.
Seven left.
Since it exploded in the air, those flattened on the ground took little damage.
Just stinging heat on their skin.
Then again.
Boom boom BOOM!
Another explosion spewed flames everywhere.
Not only thrown with delays, but triggered with varying presses for different timings.
“Whoever you are……”
A sharp-minded bastard.
Really putting him in a bind.
He wanted to just swat them all away.
But this wasn’t a battlefield.
It was Wuchang Fortress.
Whatever he deflected would hit civilian homes.
Innocents would die.
“Hoo.”
Ha Mu-baek took a deep breath and launched himself toward the center of the incoming Ten Thousand Thunderbolts.
He unleashed Void Grasping at full power.
The scattered weapons veered toward him like iron to a magnet.
His protective aura was already maxed, and he layered energy thickly on both hands.
His hands glowed pure white.