Chapter 1152

There are no absolute secrets in modern society.

Cameras and the internet are everywhere, carrying countless pieces of information across the world.

And sometimes, a truth is better left unknown.

Like a Pandora’s box that should never have been opened.

—KABOOOOOM!

With one last terrible roar—more than the speakers could fully convey—the screen went black.

The viewers watching a famous influencer’s livestream from near the Kremlin knew instinctively what had happened. The stream had just passed one hundred million simultaneous viewers, making internet-broadcasting history. And they would never see the influencer behind that record again.

After several seconds of stillness, a single line appeared in the chat. It said enough about everything they had seen and felt over the past half hour.

└ Oh, God.

A Dragon’s wings crossing the skies above Moscow. Red Square vanishing without a trace.

The creature taking human form, just like them, then slaughtering the Hunters and soldiers who stood in its way as it strode into the Kremlin.

And then…

The calamity that engulfed Moscow.

Rrrrrumble!

The rumble traveled hundreds, even thousands of kilometers.¹ It reached far beyond the rectangular screen and shook the world.

Countless eyes and ears—and even more cameras—caught the distant flash and the enormous mushroom cloud. The footage was quickly compiled into a single video and uploaded to the internet.

Its title captured the overwhelming shock and despair humanity felt at the news from Moscow.

—Where is God?

Where was God?

No one could answer.

No one.

All they could do was hope desperately.

If God had truly abandoned them, perhaps someone else would appear to save them.

No.

Perhaps he would wake from his deep sleep as soon as possible.

And unlike God, too far away for their voices to reach, the savior of this new age answered their pleas before long.

“He has returned.”

At those first words from the flushed fifty-seventh President of the United States on the holographic TV, the whole world erupted once more.

The modern world meant something special to me.

It was where I’d been born and raised. A home I could never forget.

That was why I’d always loved it.

Compared to Murim, where danger and trouble lurked around every corner, I could rest here in relative peace.

But when had that started to change?

Like a broken gear, everything had begun to slip out of place.

And it happened faster, with consequences more terrible, than I could ever have imagined.

“So…”

What the hell was I supposed to say?

I kept trying to think, muttering words that meant nothing, but my mind had gone completely blank. Nothing came to me.

The hour-long video had just ended.

I stared silently at the black-haired man smiling at the camera in the paused holographic footage.

I wanted someone to break the heavy silence.

“I hear it happened three hours ago.”

At Magic Johnson’s low, subdued voice, the question I’d been holding back slipped past my dry lips.

“How many casualties?”

“……”

“Tell me. I’m prepared for it.”

Magic Johnson let out a quiet sigh.

“More than twenty million, even by the lowest estimate.”

“Shit.”

“Moscow, and the surrounding cities in the metropolitan area, were swept away. We’ve thrown every resource we have at investigating, but…”

He trailed off and bit his lip.

“There are no signs of life. They’re probably all dead.”

Erasure.

The word flashed through my mind. It was the most accurate way to describe what had happened.

“Vladimir. That fucking old man hid a hydrogen bomb in the Kremlin.”

At the start of the Great Cataclysm, humanity learned two important things.

First:

No matter how tight the security, modern science couldn’t stop teleportation magic.

Second:

Teleportation magic could move objects, not just people.

Objects like tactical nuclear weapons or hydrogen bombs.

That was why every nuclear-armed country in the world, led by the United States and Russia, had signed an international treaty and disposed of all weapons above a certain yield.

Or so we’d been told.

Until three hours ago, when a giant mushroom cloud filled the sky above Moscow.

“Russia is finished.”

That was true.

For every other country, though, this was a beginning of another kind. A crossroads.

Resist to the bitter end?

Or surrender now and stay alive?

Black Dragon Duke Morgoth.

I repeated the name in my mind as I stared at the holographic screen.

On the land, blackened by magical power, a gigantic castle towered behind him. I took in his smiling face and burned it into my heart.

Can I defeat him?

The question came to me naturally. I realized my hand had clenched into a fist.

Dragon.

The unprecedented monster whose single appearance in the past had shaken the entire world.

But as his title, Black Dragon Duke, suggested, Morgoth was no ordinary Dragon.

He’s strong. Horrifyingly strong.

I turned to the dozens of holographic screens filling the spacious monitor room and looked from one to the next.

A predator brought down a forest of skyscrapers with one flap of its wings, shrugged off a barrage of magic, and trampled Hunters underfoot.

Among those dying with one last scream were faces I knew.

“Die! Just die!”

On a crackling screen, a bloodied woman screamed.

Her lower body had already been crushed beyond recognition. Her abdomen was split open, her entrails spilling out.

Still, at the rear of her retreating allies, she drew her bow as if possessed.

She kept drawing until the Dragon’s claws came at her faster than an arrow and took both her arms.

Crunch!

Blood spurted along with the severed flesh.

A deep shadow fell across her face, twisted with unbearable pain.

“You foolish human. Didn’t you know this would happen?”

The Black Dragon’s question rang down from high above. She spat up bloody phlegm and answered.

“I did.”

“Then why?”

“Because we were taught to call this courage. Not foolishness.”

“Good. Then, brave human, would you follow me even now?”

“Fuck off, you monster. And…”

She grinned, baring her blood-soaked teeth.

“My name is Faye Chen. Not just human. Faye Chen.”

“I’ll remember that, human.”

“You’d better. Soon, someone incredible is going to come looking for you and ask about that name. Ask about… the name…”

Her voice faded. Then her ragged breathing stopped.

Her unfocused eyes stared into empty space.

The woman—no, Faye Chen—died just like that.

Hong Kong’s pride. An S-rank Hunter, a hero of the last Great Cataclysm, and my friend.

She had died a week ago.

How about we all grab a drink?

The memory came back to me.

The day we first met in Sichuan to hunt the Arch Lich, she’d suggested we go drinking. When I asked why it had to be that day, she answered:

Today’s the kind of day you drink.

Huh?

It might be our last chance.

That day, we drank until we could barely stand.

Neither of us thought it really would be our last drink together.

“She was a good person.”

A voice broke into my thoughts.

Rough and gravelly, it was different from Magic Johnson’s deep voice.

“And a great Hunter.”

I didn’t ask who the unwelcome guest was.

The acrid smell of cigar smoke had slipped in before the monitor room door even opened, telling me who it was.

“Her sacrifice saved a lot of lives. Including one bastard who came back alive in disgrace.”

Chuck Hagel.

Also known as Uncle Chuck, he approached slowly and put a hand on my shoulder.

With his right arm—the only one he had left.

“As soon as I woke up, I thought I should’ve died instead of Faye Chen.”

“…Hagel.”

“I know. It’s meaningless bullshit. And I’ve repeated it hundreds—no, thousands of times by now.”

Chuck Hagel exhaled cigar smoke and smiled bitterly.

He looked at the familiar faces and the deaths playing over and over on the dozens of holographic screens.

“I swore I’d never let anything like that happen again… Yet here we are.”

What was I supposed to say?

No. What right did I have to say anything?

Whenever I needed them, they came running without hesitation. But when they needed me, I hadn’t been there.

I hadn’t stopped Morgoth’s summoning. I hadn’t realized soon enough that the axis of time had shifted.

And this was the result.

Ten days of indiscriminate destruction and death.

The weight of it all pressed down on my chest, more than I could bear.

Along with the anger roiling deep in my gut like lava.

“You know what?”

I let out the breath I’d been holding.

Reason and emotion tangled together. Then my mind went cold.

Before my eyes, Faye Chen died once more.

“From now on, I won’t let anyone else be sacrificed.”

I stared at her on the screen, my eyes burning.

At her warning Morgoth, with what little breath she had left, that someone was coming for him.

Yes.

That was exactly what would happen.