The Voice of the Heavens (5)
“……”
The moment Dokgo faced his opponent, he understood.
The only family he had shared decades with was already gone from this world.
“How did he die?”
“His head exploded.”
“……So it must have been painless, at least.”
Contrary to expectation, he neither flew into a rage nor radiated a heavy killing intent. Instead, he spoke in a voice that was calm, if laced with a faint wistfulness.
“Well, I always knew a day like this would come. I figured my brother would die before me no matter what. All that filth of a personality, but not enough skill to back it up—and careless to boot.”
“……”
“Still, seeing it actually happen leaves a bit of a sour taste. This was supposed to be the last job we took together.”
“Were you planning to retire?”
“Don't be ridiculous—I'm far too young for that. Let's just say I received a recruitment offer from the place they call the best in the business.”
The best in the business, huh.
Oscar snorted and shot back, “Funny. So this is a duel between an assassin belonging to the best in the business and a mage belonging to the best in the business?”
“Huh? The White Tower isn't the best in anything. Last I checked, you guys were fighting over second-to-last place.”
“……That's going to change starting this year.”
As he said it, a slight flush crept up his face.
Like a diehard fan of a sports team that finished dead last every single season.
Hearing this, Dokgo opened his mouth. “Seems like there's something you don't know. The best in the business is……”
Purple mana seeped from the man's body like a thin mist. Exposed to that clinging, viscous power, the corridor's walls and ceiling began to slowly melt away.
“You need to at least handle this much before you're worth listening to.”
“……Poison aura?”
Oscar's brow furrowed.
An assassin, so he'd assumed some enhancement or speed affinity—but it turned out to be the trickiest kind of all, a Special Attribute.
“Impressive, right? And here's what happens when you compress it.”
The mist-like purple mana gathered together, condensing into a dense sphere the size of a fist.
“……”
A virulent poison aura that made his head swim just from standing in the same space. Dokgo flicked it lightly with his finger.
Pa-ang! Chi-iik.
The poison aura shot toward the wall and vanished, melting through the concrete like chocolate left out under the midday sun.
“So? Looks fucking lethal, doesn't it? Now, what do you think happens if a person takes a hit from this?”
The question had barely left his lips—
Chi-iiiik! The poison sphere melted clean through the wall on Oscar's left and burst out at him.
“……!”
He wrenched his head back just in time to avoid a direct hit, and Dokgo grinned broadly.
“Oh, forgot to mention—my poison infects you with a single graze. You're probably already too late.”
Forgot, my ass. He'd kept quiet on purpose.
Oscar gave a small nod. “I know. It was obvious just from looking.”
“……What? You look way too fine.”
Dokgo's eyes went round. Normally, by this point, his breathing should have turned labored or paralysis should have set in.
“Simple. Right now I've wrapped my entire body in mana, so I'm not making contact with any outside air whatsoever.”
“……Then you can't breathe.”
“I'm producing clean oxygen inside my own body. Problem solved.”
For a moment, Dokgo's face went blank with stupidity. “That's even possible?”
“You've got to manage at least this much to be the best in the business.”
It was a precaution he'd taken the instant he realized just how dangerous the man's poison aura was.
He was, after all, a former Tower Master—he hadn't faced just one or two poison-wielders in his day.
“……Interesting. So my brother dying to you wasn't exactly a fluke, was it?”
Letting out a dry laugh, Dokgo flicked his hand. In that instant, the poison aura split into dozens of streams and sprayed toward Oscar like machine-gun fire.
⟨ Acceleration ⟩
Boosting his body's speed in a flash, Oscar concentrated mana into both eyes.
'I punch straight through.'
Every incoming droplet of poison had to be dodged, regardless of size.
This wasn't a simple worry of drizzle soaking through his clothes. Each of those raindrop-sized orbs carried enough potency to kill a man outright.
“Huh?”
Dokgo, watching with his hands clasped behind his back, let out an incredulous laugh.
Floor, walls, ceiling—his opponent was using the entire corridor in three dimensions, threading between every single drop of poison.
“No way. You actually dodged all of it? That is not 4th-level technique, no matter how I look at it.”
Then, abruptly, the words died in Dokgo's throat, and his eyes dropped downward.
Clack. In the blink of an eye the distance had closed, and his opponent had pressed the sawed-off shotgun—Trinity—right under his chin.
He pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation.
Bang! Ta-ang!
Acceleration, Reinforcement, Penetration. The meaning of three such enchantments engraved on a single firearm was simple: stupidly fast, stupidly powerful, and stupidly good at punching through things.
“……Whoa, that one was actually dangerous.”
Chi-iiiik!
But even that magnificent slug failed to pierce the poison aura Dokgo wore around his neck, melting away before it could connect.
Their eyes met at point-blank range, and Dokgo curled his lips into a frigid smile. “Got it. So my dear idiot brother died to this?”
“……!”
Crunch!
A kick fired off at demonic speed slammed into Oscar's solar plexus. In an instant he was hurled sideways, his new body smashing through the window and plummeting out of the building.
“Ah…… ugh…….”
The pain whited out his mind; even screaming was beyond him. Both legs were broken, and his left arm wouldn't respond.
Worst of all, this was after he'd thrown up a Wind Shield in that final moment.
Which meant there was an overwhelming gulf between them—in body reinforcement level, and in sheer mana reserves.
A gap that experience alone could never bridge.
“Oof, you're banged up pretty bad. Must hurt.”
Dokgo descended the stairs at his leisure and said, “Now then, shall we start wrapping this up?”
Even as he spoke, Dokgo's gaze stayed locked on Trinity to the very end.
He gave the distinct impression of a man utterly certain that, without that gun, no attack in the world could touch him.
“Hnngh—ha……!”
Watching Oscar grit his teeth and push his upper body upright, Dokgo scratched the back of his head. “Just stay down, will you? The fight's already decided. Don't be stubborn about it.”
Oscar's answer was to raise his trembling right hand—already reloaded—and aim it at the man.
So he intended to die fighting, even if dying was all that waited for him.
“They called you a warrior of the forest. You really are tough as hell.”
The moment Dokgo, respecting that resolve, raised his mana—
Bang, ta-ang!
Trinity roared once more.
“Told you it's useless.”
Dokgo's poison aura didn't just melt the two bullets—it swallowed Trinity itself.
Chi-iiiik!
The legacy of Gunslinger Jack dissolved into nothing.
“Now, this time it's a real goodbye.”
The moment Dokgo, having paid his farewell, drew back his spear-lengthened poison aura to hurl it—
Pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop-pop!
—WAAAAAAAH!
Fireworks erupted from the stage, and a roar unlike anything before it burst from the crowd.
“……You remember well.”
Hearing that thunderous cheer, Oscar let slip a faint smile.
—There's exactly one thing we need to rehearse. It's simple.
He had taught Marin a single lesson, and one lesson only.
—When two gunshots ring out from behind the stage, set off the fireworks and draw out the loudest scream the crowd can manage.
Because that scream would become his weapon.
Oscar surged his mana to its limit and completed a single spell.
⟨ Sound Binding ⟩
The cheers and fireworks filling the entirety of the Baran Dome were gathered into one.
Zrrrrrrrrr.
From high above the Baran Dome came a sound like hundreds of thousands of cicadas crying out in a single place at once.
“……What the fuck is this now.”
Sensing an inexplicable dread, Dokgo flared every last drop of his mana to shield himself—but in that same instant, Oscar poured out everything he had, transmuting that sound into a different spell entirely.
⟨ Noise Wave ⟩
Zrrrrrrrrr!
The monstrous wall of sound crashed down from the sky like a bolt of lightning—and drove straight into the crown of Dokgo's head.
“Ggaaaahh……!”
Unable to manage even a proper scream, Dokgo convulsed like a man being electrocuted. Blood was already streaming from both his ears.
Even so, he glared back at Oscar with bloodshot, burning eyes.
'……Tenacious bastard.'
It was sheer, staggering obsession. In that state, the man had still tried to hurl a spear of poison aura to kill him.
But the moment he lost his hearing, he had effectively lost every sense of direction he possessed.
“Ggaaaahhh!”
The poison spear meant for Oscar went flying off into somewhere entirely unrelated.
Seeing it, Oscar scraped together every remaining mote of mana and completed his final spell.
⟨ Wind Cutter ⟩
The blade of wind flew faster than it ever had before—and raked straight across Dokgo's throat.
“……”
Thud.
Dokgo crumpled to his knees and breathed his last where he fell.
Only after confirming that did Oscar finally flop onto his back.
“……Haah, haah. Now that's the real skill of the best in the business. Damn brat.”
The strongest opponent he had encountered since waking in this body. At his current level, even a rematch was no guarantee of victory.
'Monsters that strong are going to keep popping up without warning from now on.'
Thinking that, he knew he had to get stronger as fast as possible and reclaim the prowess of his prime.
'But right now I couldn't care less about any of that. First things first…….'
Rest.
Spent beyond exhaustion, Oscar closed his eyes and passed out on the spot.
“Hehe, hmhm.”
A hotel room somewhere in Baran. A woman sat on the sofa with her legs crossed, humming a tune as she read the newspaper.
Just then, a man entered through the door and asked, “Senior, I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
“Good news first. Always.”
“You know the new recruit's brother, the one we were bringing in? Turns out he's dead.”
“Oh, now that's genuinely good news.”
The gray-haired woman's eyes sparkled with delight.
He was the gem of a talent she'd discovered since coming to this city—an assassin whose one and only weakness was the existence of that brother.
She'd already been debating whether to kill the brother once recruitment wrapped up, so this was one worry off her plate.
“Okay. So what's the bad news?”
“Uh…… turns out the new recruit died too.”
“……”
What the hell is this bullshit?
The corners of her eyes drooped sharply downward. What settled over her face wasn't quite sulking—it was a chill.
“Care to make me a second piece of bad news? Would you like to drop dead alongside him? Then why the hell did you even bother delivering the good news?”
“D-don't take it out on me. From what I heard, your brother's the one who killed him?”
“……What?”
She folded the newspaper and leaned forward, extending her hand. The junior man carefully passed her a set of photographs.
“That's him, right? Kilian Lockwood. Your brother. Hired as a bodyguard on the other side.”
“……”
There were exactly two photographs.
One showed a bodyguard trailing behind Marin Maria whenever she went out. The other showed a bodyguard being carried out of the Baran Dome on a stretcher.
As the woman studied them closely, one corner of her mouth twisted crookedly.
“And this is supposed to be who, exactly?”
“……They call him the White Tower's Rising Star. Isn't he your brother?”
The junior's voice turned extremely careful the moment he realized she'd slipped into a low-pressure front. Touch her at a time like this, and junior or not, everyone got flattened without exception.
“……Well. Has his face changed that much while I wasn't looking?”
As if that could possibly be true.
What her eyes saw was some insolent impostor aping her little brother.
The woman brushed off her clothes, rose from her seat, and turned her head. Eyes glittering red as gemstones caught the reflection from the hotel window.
“I need to get a look at this bastard's face. Just who the hell does he think he is…….”
Walking around wearing someone else's little brother like a costume.