Chapter 1156

At the moment the Skeleton King thought of something during his conversation with Chuck Hagel, the man they were talking about stood alone in the deepest, most secret chamber of the heavily guarded Pentagon.

Or perhaps “alone” wasn’t quite right.

Strictly speaking, Jin Taekyung wasn’t alone.

“I should’ve come to see you more often. Circumstances kept me away.”

He looked slowly around the vast white space. It was as bright as if hundreds of lights were shining at once, and so empty it felt hollow.

“I heard you moved recently. I didn’t know it was to a place like this.”

He truly hadn’t. The moment he stepped inside, he’d been startled by the resemblance.

It looked so much like the mysterious space he called the Inventory, where he’d had an encounter he never could have expected.

“Just a coincidence, I’m sure. Probably.”

It had to be. The massive Grand Mage who had painstakingly designed this secret space for one person didn’t even know the Inventory existed, much less what it looked like.

But…

“Honestly, I don’t know what to believe anymore. I’m not even sure what I know, or what’s true and what’s false.”

At some point, everything he’d taken for granted had begun to fall apart. Faced with a reality beyond comprehension, his reason had grown hazy, and instinct had filled the void.

An uncertain instinct, closer to a wild guess—one even Jin Taekyung could hardly make sense of.

And now, reflected in his eyes, was the person who might well be the beginning and end of it all.

“Can you hear me? Can you see me?”

Jin Taekyung lowered his gaze.

Before him stood an oval recovery capsule connected to countless Magic Formations and machines. Inside that coffin for the living lay an old man, sunk in a sleep from which no one could wake him.

“If you can, please answer me.”

Of course, Jin Taekyung knew no answer would come, no matter how many times he asked or how long he waited.

Even so, he had to ask.

“Are you the person I think you are?”

The greatest hero humanity had ever produced.

His real name was Cheon Taemin. His titles were Slayer and Sky.

And…

“The Martial God.”

Jin Taekyung let out the breath he’d been holding.

Through the translucent membrane fogged by his warm breath, he stared at Cheon Taemin’s peaceful, sleeping face.

“I could feel it. The person I met back then, in that place… was you. I’m sure of it.”

Hiss. Crackle!

His voice had grown louder without him noticing, echoing through the space. His hand, tensing on its own, struck the countless protective spells surrounding the capsule. But Jin Taekyung paid no mind to the pain in his skin.

He needed an answer to the conviction he’d only recently arrived at, incomplete though it was.

He needed to confirm that Cheon Taemin and the old man he called The Helper were the same person. That Cheon Taemin, too, had been a Player like him. And he needed to know how things had come to this.

More than anything—

“Why? Why won’t you wake up?”

No matter how hard he tried to hold it back, the anger in his chest kept boiling over. He needed somewhere to let it out.

“…Why?”

Why do I, who fall so far short of you, have to bear this burden?

At that moment—

Hiss.

Unable to speak the thought aloud, Jin Taekyung pulled his hand from the capsule.

Then he turned and blurted, “What, I thought it was one visitor at a time?”

His surging emotions weren’t the only reason he’d stopped speaking. A second visitor had just arrived.

“As far as I know, there’s no such rule. And even if there were, family ought to be an exception.”

“Wow. When you put it like that, what can I say?”

“For the record, I only just got here.”

“They say a guilty conscience needs no accuser. Who said anything?”

Jin Taekyung’s expression and tone were as playful as ever, at odds with how he’d been only moments before.

Team Leader Choi—Choi Minwoo—watched him for a moment, then shrugged.

“I should have knocked. Not that it would have made a sound through the barrier magic.”

“You didn’t have to go that far.”

“I suddenly thought of my grandfather and went looking for Mr. Johnson. I heard he’d already brought you here. I’m sorry if I intruded.”

“Don’t be. If anything, I’m the one intruding.”

Jin Taekyung smiled and waved a hand as he started walking.

“May I ask why you came to see my grandfather?”

After a moment’s silence, Jin Taekyung gave a short laugh.

“What, worried something might happen?”

In a situation like this, there was only one thing to worry about: Jin Taekyung taking Cheon Taemin to the Dragon Lair, just the two of them.

Of course, Cheon Taemin had been unconscious for a long time, and nobody in the Pentagon wanted that to happen. If it did, it would effectively be Jin Taekyung acting on his own.

But while Jin Taekyung’s question had sounded like a joke, Choi Minwoo’s answer came in a low, steady voice.

“Yes.”

“…!”

“To be honest, I’m very worried.”

Before Jin Taekyung could answer, eyes widening, Choi Minwoo added calmly, “I’m worried that you, Mr. Jin Taekyung, might make the stupid choice of fighting Morgoth alone.”

“…”

“Answer me, please. Deny it if you want.”

Jin Taekyung stared at him in silence, then spoke.

“Fine. Let me make this perfectly clear. I would never do that.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. So that settles it, right?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I don’t believe you at all.”

“…!”

“Anyone who knows you well would feel the same. Spend enough time around you, and it becomes obvious how recklessly and foolishly you choose to act.”

Choi Minwoo stepped closer and looked at his grandfather sleeping inside the recovery capsule.

“My maternal grandfather must have been the same. The two of you are so alike.”

“Alike?”

“Yes. Realizing that has brought me a little comfort. Only very recently, in fact.”

“What do you mean…?”

“Even after you came back from the Middle East, you haven’t gone to see your family. Even though you’re staying right here in the Pentagon.”

Family.

At that one word, Jin Taekyung’s eyes trembled.

His mother and younger sister. His family by blood, more precious to him than anything else in the world, had been under the Pentagon’s protection for quite some time.

But he hadn’t gone to see them once.

No. He couldn’t see them.

If he did, the invisible pillar barely holding him up would collapse. And if he crumbled now, he wouldn’t be able to summon even the smallest shred of courage.

“You’ve refused to meet the other Guild members, too. I’m sure it’s for the same reason.”

Jin Taekyung had come to know countless Hunters, but there were only two people left whom he and Choi Minwoo could call Guild members.

Song Song and Im Kkeokjeong.

Jin Taekyung had avoided them, too.

The path ahead of him was riddled with danger. Death came for everyone, but it didn’t come for everyone at the same speed.

What would happen if those two joined the battle to come, when neither was an S-rank Hunter or a Supreme Peak master?

They’d die. Without a doubt.

This was a colossal gamble with the lives of billions at stake, not just his own. In a world without the Three Saints or the Fire King, he couldn’t bear the weight he alone had to carry.

So he ran.

From his family. From his friends.

He’d fled everyone around him and come here, wanting to face Cheon Taemin once more, even like this. The only person who could understand him. The person who might hold the answer—and the key—to everything.

Then Choi Minwoo’s next words reached him, and Jin Taekyung realized something.

“Watching you, Mr. Jin Taekyung, finally made me understand how my grandfather felt when he never came to see his only grandson.”

Something he’d failed to notice until now.

“Maybe I just want to find a reason for it. But… I’ve decided to think that he had no choice but to keep me at a distance because of some danger only he could sense.”

Choi Minwoo’s voice held a bitter smile. And in his words was a meaning even he hadn’t noticed.

Some danger only he could sense?

That couldn’t be. At the time, there had been no danger left for humanity.

The once-mighty Demon King Asmodeus had been reduced to dust, without even a body left behind. The monster legions that had stained the Five Oceans and Six Continents with blood had become nothing more than prey.

Yet as soon as peace arrived, the hero who had achieved that great feat shut himself away from the world.

He kept everyone at a distance.

No one was an exception.

Not even his closest companions, practically sworn brothers, or the daughter he’d cherished above all else.

When that daughter and her husband died in an accident, he left his young grandson in Butler Kim’s care rather than look after the boy himself.

Then, one day, without warning, he lost consciousness.

And remained unconscious for more than a decade.

…Were you that afraid, too?

With those words swallowed on the tip of his tongue, Jin Taekyung gazed at Cheon Taemin, his eyes sinking into darkness.

He’d been right.

He still had no definite proof or testimony, but Choi Minwoo’s words had made him see it again: Cheon Taemin and the Martial God had been the same person all along.

The shadow of that old hero, sleeping as if dead, stretched across two worlds.

He knew. He knew it wasn’t over yet. That Asmodeus hadn’t been completely erased.

There was still so much Jin Taekyung hadn’t uncovered, so much he wanted to ask.

But this was enough.

At least he now knew what choice he had to make.

Step.

He turned without hesitation and started walking.

He’d taken only a few steps when he noticed a tiny but important change and stopped.

The door.

It was gone.

The only exit from this secret space, created through advanced magic, had vanished without a trace.

“Team Leader.”

At his quiet call, Jin Taekyung turned. Choi Minwoo stood there, his expression unwavering.

“I’m sorry.”

The brief, calm apology told Jin Taekyung everything.

“Was this your plan from the beginning?”

“As I said earlier, we know exactly what kind of person you are, Mr. Jin Taekyung.”

“We?”

“Of course, this wasn’t a decision I made on my own. Most of them, including Mr. Johnson and me, have already agreed to the plan.”

“Most? Then someone must have opposed this ridiculous plan.”

“No. No one did. We didn’t tell the people who might have caused trouble from the start, in case they became an unexpected variable. We’ve also made every other preparation we can.”

Thinking of Chuck Hagel and the Skeleton King, who still knew nothing about it, Choi Minwoo continued in a composed voice.

“So… for the time we have left, you’ll stay here with me, Mr. Jin Taekyung.”

The many people involved in the plan had a single goal: use every means at their disposal to keep Jin Taekyung—their only hope—here until the three days Morgoth had declared to the world were over.

Fortunately, the secret space Jin Taekyung had found was perfectly suited to carry out the plan. Countless barrier spells had been installed to protect Cheon Taemin.

Even so, one unpredictable element remained: Jin Taekyung himself.

The savior of a new age.

The greatest and strongest Hunter in the world, successor to Cheon Taemin—a man no one else could replace.

That was precisely why they couldn’t let him sacrifice himself in vain. And Choi Minwoo hadn’t forgotten one final precaution.

“No matter how strong you are, Mr. Jin Taekyung, you won’t be able to get out of here.”

“Is that so?”

Jin Taekyung reached into the air. A silver spear, invisible until now, appeared in his grasp.

Whoosh.

Dark blue flames surged along White Flame’s spearhead. The fire was refined to an extraordinary degree and carried heat beyond anything Choi Minwoo had felt from it the last time he’d seen it.

But Choi Minwoo didn’t waver.

“Come to think of it, there’s one thing I haven’t told you.”

The final precaution he’d taken was never meant to counter Jin Taekyung’s strength.

“If you try to break the barrier spells by force, the resulting backlash could bring down the entire Pentagon.”

At least, Choi Minwoo didn’t waver until he heard Jin Taekyung’s answer.

“You really think so?”

Grgrgrk.

As the space warped beneath the unbearable heat, Jin Taekyung’s quiet voice echoed through it like a distant refrain.

“I think otherwise.”

“…!”

Choi Minwoo’s eyes widened.

Slice.

Along a seam only one person could see, the vast wave of mana that joined and sustained hundreds of spells split in two.