Chapter 403

The twenty-odd military transport planes and the fighter jets escorting them ran into trouble before they could even land.

“W-What the…”

“We can’t find a landing site!”

Below them lay a small city reduced entirely to ruins.

The buildings packed tightly together had collapsed like dominoes, and flames rose from here and there.

But what frightened the pilots most was the horrific sight visible even from far above.

Schoolyards, convenience stores, government offices… In a place where peaceful daily life had vanished, mountains of corpses and rivers of red blood filled the void.

A vision of hell painted by the monster army.

As the pilots trembled with indescribable terror at the lifeless ground below, a voice rang out.

“Land.”

“C-Commander-in-Chief, but…”

“No buts. You will land. That is an order.”

The pilot took one look at the middle-aged man’s stony face and realized he had no choice.

He was a soldier, and the man before him was the de facto commander-in-chief directing this war.

Disobeying General Wei Fenghu—the Minister of National Defense under the Central Military Commission and Chairman Xiao’s most trusted confidant—would have been madness.

Then Wei Fenghu spoke again, and the pilot decided that disobedience might actually be the less insane option.

“Head for the general hospital the Western Front has been using as its temporary headquarters.”

“What? But that’s…”

“According to the last communication we received, that was where the fiercest fighting took place. It may still be going on.”

“…”

“I know that as well as you do. We may already be too late. But we have to go. If even one person is still alive, we must help them and fight alongside them.”

Wei Fenghu continued, his eyes grave.

“Take the controls. And land first.”

It was extraordinary enough that the commander-in-chief had come all the way here himself. Now he was ordering his plane to land first. With monsters potentially still in the area, the risk was enormous.

Damn it.

The pilot squeezed his eyes shut and switched on the radio. His trembling voice soon spread across the communications network to every aircraft.

“VIP-777 to all aircraft. I repeat, VIP-777 to all aircraft…”

As he listened to his orders being relayed, Wei Fenghu slowly drew a deep breath.

The parachute strapped to his body in case of an emergency felt as heavy as a massive boulder.

Is it because this is my first real battle in more than thirty years? I’m trembling.

And Wei Fenghu was not the only one.

All four thousand Hunters aboard the twenty-odd military transports carried fears of their own.

Some probably wanted to run away that very instant. Others were suppressing their fear and desperately trying to stoke their will to fight.

No one knew who would die in the battle about to begin. Wei Fenghu was no exception. The reason he had risked coming to the fiercest part of the battlefield despite being the commander-in-chief was simple: the morale of his soldiers.

A commander who sends only his subordinates to their deaths has no right to command.

That had been Wei Fenghu’s lifelong principle, and Lei Fei—his nephew and as good as a son to him—had respected him for it.

The sudden memory of that beloved face sent an ache through the old general’s heart.

“…I miss you.”

Wei Fenghu murmured quietly.

It had already been fifteen days since Lei Fei had gone missing. But he had not let go of hope. Neither had Lei Fei’s wife and daughter, who had been moved to a safe place.

Today, I saw someone who reminded me of you.

A young man who was still only in his twenties. He had achieved an incredible military feat in a distant foreign land, and when he heard that the Western Front was in danger, he had left without hesitation.

He had even laughed while attempting a teleport with a survival rate of only ten percent.

“Ten percent sounds pretty good.”

“It’s probably a thousand times higher than the odds of crossing dimensions.”

When Magic Johnson relayed those words, Wei Fenghu had immediately mobilized the command headquarters’ forces and assembled the squadron.

He had been deeply moved by the courage shown by Jin Taekyung, a young foreigner, and the sight of him had brought his missing nephew to mind.

You would have done the same, wouldn’t you?

Just as Wei Fenghu’s lips curved into a faint smile after asking the silent question, a cry rang out.

“H-How can this be…!”

“C-Commander-in-Chief!”

Wei Fenghu raised his head at their urgent shouts and looked out the window.

As the ground drew closer, a sea of corpses and blood came into view, more horrific than any battlefield he had ever witnessed.

Corpses and blood. Blood and corpses…

The general hospital serving as the Western Front’s temporary headquarters lay in ruins, its twisted steel framework exposed. A gigantic sinkhole gaped like the entrance to hell, and dozens of craters carved into the ground brimmed with red and green blood.

Monster and human corpses lay tangled together in numbers too vast to count.

Thousands?

No. Well over ten thousand.

“My God…”

“W-Who did this?”

A land of death raked by disaster.

The pilots stared speechlessly at the devastated ground until Wei Fenghu’s shout jolted them back to their senses.

“Lower our altitude! Quickly!”

“Yes, sir!”

The threat from the monsters had vanished, but they could not afford to let their guard down.

The pilot maneuvered the aircraft more carefully than ever, his entire body drenched in cold sweat as he attempted the landing.

Krrrrrrk, boom!

The aircraft shuddered violently several times. At last, when the transport successfully landed, the first person to step out was none other than Wei Fenghu.

Tat-tat-tat!

The two hundred Hunters aboard the transport quickly poured out behind him.

Their reactions fell into two categories.

“This is fucking insane…”

Shock at a sight beyond anything they had imagined.

“Urk… Urrrgh!”

Nausea from the stench of blood filling the air and the dismembered corpses strewn everywhere.

And through it all, one question filled every mind.

Who did this?

They had even forgotten they were supposed to search for survivors. Wei Fenghu and everyone else stood frozen like statues.

Then—

Splash. Splash.

Footsteps echoed across the silent battlefield.

Two hundred pairs of eyes turned toward a lone figure crossing the field, wading through pools of blood.

The man was drenched in green blood from head to toe. Wei Fenghu stared at him and groaned out a name.

“Mr. Jin…?”

It was definitely him.

Though he looked like a man made of blood, Wei Fenghu recognized him.

Jin Taekyung had survived a Teleport spell with only a ten-percent survival rate, overturned a hopeless battle, and lived.

His seemingly endless steps finally came to a halt before Wei Fenghu.

Splash.

Jin Taekyung brushed back the hair clotted together with the monsters’ sticky blood. After a long silence, he spoke his first words.

“The battle is over. There are… no monsters left alive.”

“…!”

“…!”

That unbelievable declaration sent a shudder through everyone present.

According to the Western Front’s final transmission, the monster army had numbered a staggering ten thousand.

And that was not all. A Death Knight Lord believed to be one of the Arch Lich’s closest servants had personally entered the battle, making this the most overwhelming offensive of the five fronts.

By contrast, barely a thousand Hunters had stood against them. The remaining People’s Liberation Army troops might as well have been made of paper.

Not only did he win that battle—he annihilated a monster army of ten thousand.

It was a battle that would have been impossible without one man.

And a victory made possible because that one man had been there.

An S-rank Hunter was said to be a strategic weapon capable of overturning an entire battlefield in an instant. But since the Great Cataclysm, who had ever accomplished something like this?

The two hundred Hunters gazed at the young man before them in awe.

But Wei Fenghu was different.

The old general stared at Jin Taekyung with grief and fear in his eyes.

No—not at Jin Taekyung himself.

At the sword in his hand.

Wei Fenghu knew that sword all too well, which only made the pain in his heart worse.

He knew what its presence meant.

“Did you… meet him?”

After a brief silence, Jin Taekyung answered.

“He asked me to pass along his love.”

“…!”

“He also said he was sorry.”

Wei Fenghu clenched his teeth against the sob rising in his throat. Through his tear-clouded vision, he heard one final sentence.

“He was the best Hunter I’ve ever seen.”

That was all.

Plip, plip. Tears rolled down Wei Fenghu’s wrinkled face.

A breeze blew from somewhere and gently wrapped around him.

Rank, achievements, whether someone was a Hunter or not—none of it mattered.

The fact that he had sacrificed himself for someone else was enough to make him worthy of being called a hero.

That was why Lei Fei would remain in my memory for a long time.

A man resurrected as an undead who died as a human.

He had fulfilled his mission to the very end. He was a true Hunter and a true hero.

The countless others who had died here today were no different.

And neither were the two people who had yet to regain consciousness.

The healer said they wouldn’t wake up until they’d recovered from their exhaustion.

Remembering what the healer who had stopped by earlier had told me, I looked at Team Leader Choi and Xiao Shen, both sunk in a deep sleep.

Thanks to the Top-Grade Potion, their injuries had vanished as if they had never existed. But the fatigue accumulated in their bodies and minds was a separate matter.

Even I occasionally pass out, and I level up.

The two of them had fought bravely to the very end.

They had held on to their weapons even while enduring the pain of having their limbs severed.

“Heroes… heroes, huh.”

I muttered under my breath and looked at the sword lying beside me.

The sword left behind by that very hero. His keepsake.

Wei Fenghu had wept without end as he returned it to me despite my repeated refusal.

“He would have wanted you to keep it too, Mr. Jin.”

Really, Lei Fei?

I ran my fingers over the blade as I asked a question that would never receive an answer.

It was a magnificent sword, its chilling edge apparent at a glance.

Item appraisal.

Ding.

System

Item Window

Hero’s Soul

Type: Sword
Grade: Supreme Peak
Restriction: Those worthy of being called heroes
Description: Extremely hard and sharp. The final soul of a noble hero dwells within it, and those who meet its qualifications can draw out even greater power.

Hero’s Soul?

It was a fitting name for Lei Fei, but the sword was certainly strange.

Its Supreme Peak Grade made sense, considering it had survived that fierce battle without so much as a hairline crack. The restriction, however, was unique.

Only someone with an upright character can use it?

Hmm. Might as well put it to the test.

Without hesitation, I gripped the hilt and slashed downward through the air.

Whoosh!

Better than I expected.

The weight and balance were perfect, and I liked how its edge seemed sharp enough to split the wind itself. The System notification that immediately followed was the icing on the cake.

Ding.

System

• Hero’s Soul has recognized you as someone of upright character.
• Hero’s Power has manifested. All stats have increased slightly, and fatigue has been reduced. You may draw out even greater power under certain circumstances.

I had no idea what those certain circumstances were, but apparently this wasn’t one of them. The increase in my stats was so tiny I couldn’t feel it at all.

It was like adding a single bucket of water to a lake.

Still, it would be perfect for judging someone’s character.

A character-testing sword.

From now on, I would test everyone who approached me with Hero’s Soul. If the sword accepted them, I’d keep them close. If it didn’t, I’d cut them down, root and branch—snip…

Crackle!

A powerful electric current suddenly shot through my hand, and I dropped the sword.

“What the hell?”

As bewilderment washed over me, a sharp alarm sounded and a System message appeared in the air.

Beep!

System

• You have harbored an evil intention!
• Hero’s Soul has rejected you!
• The effect of Hero’s Power has disappeared!

“…”

Come on. It was just a passing thought.

I looked down at the fallen sword and let out a short laugh. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps a little of Lei Fei’s soul really did linger within it.

Wait. If that was true…

“Are you listening?”

After a brief silence, the Skeleton Warlord, currently stored inside my Inventory, answered.

“…I am.”

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“…If your question concerns whether that sword is an Ego Sword, the answer is no. Only the faintest trace of a soul remains within it. The human you are thinking of has already ceased to exist.”

He usually had a screw loose, but he was still a Named Monster and the commander of an army of the dead.

He had absorbed some of the magical power scattered during Lei Fei’s Erasure and grown even stronger, so there was a good chance he was right.

That aside…

“Is something wrong?”

“Hmm?”

“You’ve seemed gloomy for a while.”

Even as I said it, I wondered if the question made any sense. Why was I asking an undead monster why he seemed gloomy? Weren’t they gloomy by nature?

The problem is, he doesn’t usually act like this.

But then the Skeleton Warlord suddenly spoke.

“A thought occurred to me.”

“What thought?”

“What kind of being was I in the past?”

“…!”

“I have no memories at all. Although the human named Lei Fei has ceased to exist, this commander was secretly envious of him. At least he learned who he was.”

I hadn’t expected him to be thinking about something like that.

After considering it for a moment, I spoke in a warm voice.

“Then should I erase you too?”

“…!”

“What? You said you were envious.”

“N-No, that isn’t what I meant…”

The Skeleton Warlord’s frantic explanation was cut short by a knock and a polite voice from beyond the door.

“Mr. Jin. Comrade Minister of State would like to see you.”

It seemed it was already time.

“Yes. I’ll be right there.”

I took one last look at the two sleeping figures, then rose from my seat. As I did, I murmured the words I hadn’t managed to say earlier.

“Well, if you ask me, you were probably a pretty decent guy.”

“…Huh? Were you talking to this commander?”

“No. Just talking to myself.”

“Ahem. Right?”

But the sudden brightness in the Skeleton Warlord’s previously dejected voice was definitely not my imagination.

I let out a quiet laugh and left the room.