The Blacksmith Hides His Identity
Yoo Hyun-ah had no desire to borrow the power of a higher-realm cultivator. The burden would be too great to bear. So she relayed the events that had unfolded as gently as possible, emphasizing that she was on the verge of resolving the situation herself.
Taeheo Singun fell silent for a moment.
“So… that’s what happened.”
“Yes. That is correct.”
“Wait there. I’m coming.”
“…Pardon?”
Yoo Hyun-ah ended the call and stared at the hospital’s main entrance.
‘I have to settle this before Taeheo Singun arrives, no matter what.’
The collapsed form of Wolgeukseonggun lay on the ground. The torn rooftop and the half-destroyed giant were visible. Yoo Hyun-ah immediately thought of someone.
‘Hermes.’
‘I thought she didn’t suit Yoo Ji-tae-ssi at all. I’ll have to revise my assessment. To achieve this much against a Sacred Lotus Realm opponent while still in the Refined Realm… I’m impressed.’
The giant continued walking even with its upper body blown away, but it was clear this was Wolgeukseonggun’s strongest card.
Yoo Hyun-ah sent the signal.
“All units, move out.”
Following her order, fifty Condensing Realm mages sprinted toward the hospital entrance. The moment Wolgeukseonggun saw them coming, she formed a hand seal.
Tatatat!
In an instant, pale corpse soldiers rushed in from every direction, forming a wall.
“Huh?”
There were easily over two hundred of them.
‘That many?’
The force Yoo Hyun-ah had mobilized consisted of fifty Condensing Realm mages. The enemy had over two hundred Condensing Realm corpses—perhaps more. If they couldn’t overpower the suspect with force, enforcement was impossible. Couldn’t they just call for more? The question was valid, but the answer was no. National officials were legally capped at fifty Condensing Realm personnel when making arrests—the maximum force deemed capable of subduing an average Sacred Lotus Realm target. This law had been enacted a hundred years ago, back when the rules surrounding Plunder Marriage were still unclear.
Back then, a woman named Lee Se-hee, who had only just entered the Sacred Lotus Realm, had her husband stolen by a Heaven and Earth Realm peak cultivator. At the time, powerless women losing their husbands was considered ordinary. But this Heaven and Earth Realm woman had gone too far. She broke Lee Se-hee’s arm, severed her fingers, and destroyed her inner core. The Heaven and Earth Realm woman was far more beautiful and gentle than Lee Se-hee. Though the husband had initially felt uncomfortable, after a few months he stopped contacting Lee Se-hee altogether.
Lee Se-hee fell into despair. Most women would have given up there, but she was different. She held a position that allowed her to mobilize a certain level of military and police forces. She was the heiress of a powerful family with deep connections in both the business and political worlds. Watching the growing closeness between the two, the frustration of being left alone, the humiliation of divorce—her mind slowly crumbled under the heart demons and worsening internal injuries. Eventually, something snapped.
The military and police system at the time was loose and haphazard. Through document forgery, rumor-mongering, media manipulation, and seal counterfeiting, she gathered troops and surrounded the Heaven and Earth Realm woman’s residence in an instant. The force she assembled was overwhelming: two thousand Condensing Realm cultivators, one thousand Refined Realm cultivators, and a hundred Sacred Lotus and Deity Realm experts she had hired with her entire fortune.
Hours later, Lee Se-hee stood atop a mountain of corpses, clutching the severed head of the Heaven and Earth Realm peak cultivator, laughing maniacally as she danced. Stepping over bodies, she descended to her husband. She smiled brightly, gently stroked the trembling man, and embraced him as if cradling a child, whispering sweetly.
“It’s all right. I’m here now. From now on, the two of us will live happily together for the rest of our lives.”
With those words, the woman took her husband and disappeared, never to return.
The incident shocked everyone. It was common sense that those of high realm were great and noble beings, so ascending was only natural. Yet that belief was overturned by overwhelming numerical violence. Even after grueling training to reach the peak of the Heaven and Earth Realm, one could still be trampled to death by sheer power and wealth. Because of that past, even today, when arresting criminals, national officials are limited to a maximum of fifty Condensing Realm ability users.
In other words, this was Yoo Hyun-ah’s limit.
Wolgeukseonggun brushed the dust off herself and stared intently at Yoo Hyun-ah.
“You’re the one in charge?”
Yoo Hyun-ah realized she was screwed.
“Eek!? Wolgeukseonggun-nim! …W-wait. Time!! Please wait!! Wolgeukseonggun-nim! Let’s talk first!! A rational conversation!!”
“Shut up.”
On the restaurant rooftop, I saw the giant. A massive, white woman. Even though the upper half of her body had been completely blown away, she was still trudging toward us, diligently moving her legs.
“Even with her upper body gone.”
Llywelyn, leaning against the rooftop railing, replied.
“What are you talking about? Of course the lower half walks. The legs are still there. Besides, even if you blew those away too, she’d just make new ones and send them again. If you’re going to do it, better to blow everything away at once rather than piece by piece.”
Llywelyn stood on the rooftop and stared at me. My shoulders instinctively hunched. Earlier, I’d had reliable people beside me, so I could hold my own. Now the woman who wanted to kill me was right next to me, so I was terrified of offending her and found myself trying my hardest to stay on her good side.
Llywelyn smirked.
“Interesting. You are.”
“…Me?”
“Yeah. Sometimes you’d boldly talk back even to me, a Heaven and Earth Realm cultivator, but now you’re trembling just looking at me. Honestly, watching you is hilarious. That weird woman who’s supposedly your colleague—is she like you too?”
“She’s always been that way.”
Llywelyn let out a long sigh and gestured for me to come closer. I approached cautiously. She introduced me to the drone’s camera. The viewer count had surpassed one million, and the chat was scrolling too fast to read.
“Here. This is Hermes. A crazy woman who dared to oppose me despite being Refined Realm trash. Go on, greet them.”
“Y-yes. I’m Hermes…. Hehe….”
Worried my hat might come off, I pressed down on it with both hands. Llywelyn chuckled at the sight.
‘What’s with her.’
“Anyway, there’s someone attacking here, so I decided to kill that woman first, then fight Hermes. A temporary truce, you could say.”
She looked like an excited child. Llywelyn sprinkled salt and ash she’d brought from the restaurant onto the floor.
“…These are the ones from earlier. They’re in this state now, but they’re still connected to the main body. In a magical sense, at least. So it should be possible to trace them back and burn them in reverse.”
I didn’t know either. The distance to the opponent was three kilometers.
Llywelyn started boasting.
“Hey, Hermes. Remember when you used that pillar of fire last time?”
“…Ah. Um. Yes.”
“Did the fire spread anywhere and cause a blaze?”
“No.”
“That’s because your fire can burn only what it wants to burn. It’s a delicate tool. That function was there from the beginning.”
“Um, if you use that pillar of fire carelessly, it’ll cause a commotion in the area—”
“It’s fine. I’ll supply the mana. I’ll also draw the guiding magic circle. You just need to create the spark. Then I’ll use it as needed.”
Llywelyn stepped on the salt and ash and drew a small magic circle around it with chalk. It wasn’t delicate, but it was a distinctive magic circle with its key features intact.
“Solomon’s magic circle. The most primitive form. Its power is low because it’s the oldest, but we can compensate for that with your fire.”
She lit a piece of paper with a lighter and tossed it onto the magic circle.
“Do it.”
“Got it.”
Craftable
God’s Flame (S)
A flame imbued with absolute divinity. An essential refining material for forging divine armaments.
Required Materials: God’s Language (1/1), Human’s Fire (1/1)
“…Awaken.”
Thud.
Light erupted from the magic circle. It was bright but not blinding. Yet it spread widely, continuously, like waves, expanding outward.
Bang!!!
The lower half of the approaching giant exploded.
Wolgeukseonggun had connected herself to the corpses through a spiritual link. In case of emergency, she could send her consciousness to control them. There was also the risk of them being stolen. Though it required effort, there were advantages. Through the paths connected to hundreds of corpses, she could distribute pain and stress, maintaining her peak condition. The mana required for maintenance was manageable as long as the corpses were kept in a suspended state. Of course, even if she woke them all and made them move, they could only last a few dozen minutes.
That was why Wolgeukseonggun had linked herself to every corpse. And that was why she lost.
Baron Samedi, the highest deity of Voodoo, was the goddess who governed life and death, with her origins in a lush forest. Why a forest? Simple. To the people of that time, the forest was a contradictory space where man-eating beasts and edible food coexisted. A place where life and death existed together. That was why it was sacred. That was why, to destroy zombie magic, one had to use holy attributes.
And Hephaestus’s fire represented a volcano. A calamity once called a natural disaster since the beginning of time. The most destructive enemy of civilization, capable of burning cities, forests, even entire nations to extinction. Life. Beasts. Death. Forest… It was the most primal form of annihilation, trampling even those concepts underfoot.
Fwoosh.
The fire, born to eradicate vile sorcery, traced its path back and finally reached the sorceress.
“…Huh. Huh… Huhhhh…!?”
The anomaly occurred while Wolgeukseonggun was sneering and poking Yoo Hyun-ah’s shoulder. Wolgeukseonggun’s body began burning from the tips of her toes. It didn’t stop there. The holy fire spread to every corpse spiritually connected to her. In an instant, over two hundred Condensing Realm corpses burned and thrashed. The corpses in the morgue, even the young girl’s body she had planned to revive later—everything burned. Everything turned to ash.
“Aaaah!!! Aaaaaah!! Why?! Why!!”
Wolgeukseonggun rolled on the ground, engulfed in flames.
“It hurts!! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!!”
A pain as if her body was burning from the inside.
‘Fire. I have to put out the fire.’
Wolgeukseonggun frantically formed a hand seal. A basic spell. The seal to summon water. But it didn’t activate.
‘Why!?’
Because the fire wouldn’t allow it. Hephaestus’s fire was the flame of annihilation that burned civilization itself. Something as trivial as a water-summoning seal crafted from human wisdom could only be burned away along with its meaning.
To extinguish Hephaestus’s fire, one needed either an equal level of divinity, a sky-attribute spell that countered the volcano’s earth attribute, or a primitive form of magic created before civilization. Alternatively, one could find a countermeasure from the myths related to Hephaestus. But Wolgeukseonggun had none of these.
She was far from divinity. She had never learned sky-attribute magic. She had no intention of learning primitive magic. And she didn’t even know that the fire burning her was the flame that destroyed all civilization.
“Aaaaaaaaah!!!! Aaaaaaaaaah!!!!!”
She could only scream in agony and roll on the floor.
The fire went out three minutes later. Her arms had burned pitch-black and hung limply. Her entire body was covered in black ash. Whether thanks to her absurdly high stamina or because the fire’s power had been insufficient, her body aside from her arms remained intact for now. However, her combat strength had been greatly reduced.
Yoo Hyun-ah looked toward the restaurant.
‘…Hermes-ssi. I never imagined it would be to this extent.’
She had burned a Sacred Lotus Realm cultivator and her minions in one go. A feat impossible for someone in the Refined Realm.
Yoo Hyun-ah turned her gaze back to the front. Wolgeukseonggun was still alive, but her stamina was heavily depleted and her arms were unusable.
“…Hic… Hic… Ugh….”
Wolgeukseonggun slowly backed away before collapsing. Her legs trembled so badly she couldn’t move.
“W-wait, let’s talk…! Let’s talk…!”
“Be quiet!”
But no one was listening. Surrounded, Wolgeukseonggun shouted loudly.
“You people!!! Do you even know who I am!!! Even if you arrest me now, how many days do you think you can hold me?! I’ve already memorized all your faces…! I’ll find each and every one of you and take revenge…. Ahahaha! I’ll definitely find you all and kill you!!!”
“I see.”
It wasn’t Yoo Hyun-ah who answered. A tall woman parted the crowd and appeared.
“You’re Wolgeukseonggun?”
Taeheo Singun Heo Shin-ah stood before her and pointed a finger at Wolgeukseonggun.
“Stand up. I’ll kill you.”
“…Good. Looks like we’re done here.”
Llywelyn gazed endlessly toward the hospital and smiled. She threw off her jacket, revealing a sleeveless shirt underneath.
“I’ll consider that payment for the meal earlier.”
She spread her legs at a comfortable width and raised her fists. Overflowing mana surged like a storm.
“Shall we begin?”
The mana drone’s camera filmed the two of us from a slight distance. The viewer count was nearly 1.4 million.
“……This is where we part ways nicely, right? Like, ‘good for both of us’?”
“What’s the point of taking down a mere Sacred Lotus Realm? Well, I’ll at least spare you the broken limbs. How about it? Merciful, isn’t it?”
At this point, there was no answer.
“…Could you turn off that camera for a moment? There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What? If it’s some half-baked trap, it won’t work on me. If that’s really the case, I’ll fight you using only martial arts out of respect for the meal earlier. You can use magic or whatever else you want.”
“……Just a moment.”
I raised both hands to show I had no hostility, then grabbed the camera and turned off the screen for a moment. The viewers protested, of course.
Ignoring the frenzied chat, I slowly walked toward Llywelyn. She quickly approached and kicked me in the waist. It was a casual kick, yet I was sent flying several meters and tumbled across the ground.
“Kuhak!?”
It felt like my organs had flipped over. My bones might have broken too. Clutching my side, I rolled on the floor.
“I have no intention of accepting surrender. If you’re a woman, at least face this with dignity.”
“W-wait!! Just a moment!!!”
I took off my hat. The effect of Kynee, which distorted perception of gender and appearance, had been released. My current appearance had returned to that of a man.
The storm of mana swirling around Llywelyn died down, and she rubbed her eyes several times. A single bead of sweat rolled down Llywelyn’s cheek.