Chapter 582

What could they call it?

Choi Minwoo, Kim Hwajong, and the twenty elite Peace Guild Hunters guarding the Gate from outside all had the same question. None of them could answer it.

They could only stare in disbelief at it, now standing in their world.

—GRAAAAAAAH!

A thunderous roar shook the sky.

It was a hippopotamus, an elephant, an ox, and a rhinoceros all at once. Yet it was none of them.

It was too enormous, too powerful, to be called a beast.

Whoooosh. CRUNCH!

A single step—and the impact was tremendous.

Its huge foreleg crushed the Gate control station beneath a shadow that stretched more than ten meters¹ in every direction. The ground shook as if an earthquake had struck. The cable running down the mountain snapped, and a gondola fell.

Then, from a memory long buried, Kim Hwajong recalled a monster’s name.

“…Behemoth.”

Behemoth. Or Behemos.

A monster whose name came from the Hebrew word for “beast.” Traces of the mythical creature that had risen from the deep, dark abyss could even be found in the Bible.

Look at Behemoth. Just as I made you, I made it too.

It grazes grass like an ox.

But the Bible was wrong.

Kim Hwajong did not know what being had made the monster before him, but Behemoth was nothing like a peaceful creature that grazed on grass and drank from ponds.

CRUNCH! CRRRUNCH!

—Kwooh! Kwoooooh!

Behemoth was not the only thing to emerge from the Gate.

Some two hundred yetis fled into the world, their cries sounding like screams. They were Behemoth’s first targets.

The enormous creature trampled and devoured them without mercy, though they were both its kind and its subordinates.

SHAAK! Thud-thud-thud!

Blue blood fell like rain.

Four legs like temple pillars stamped across the earth. Each time tusks resembling an elephant’s ivory scraped the ground, severed monster limbs and blood flew into the air.

A trembling voice escaped someone’s lips.

“T-This…”

The sight alone was enough to bring despair.

Everyone stood frozen, staring blankly as the yetis met their gruesome deaths.

Then—

FWOOOOSH!

Beyond the black mist that had settled around them, dazzling light surged upward. Its warmth pushed back the mist, spreading little by little.

Only then did the onlookers release the breaths they had been holding and search for its source.

Twenty-odd pairs of eyes found a young man holding a sword that blazed with light. His own eyes shone brighter than ever.

“Everyone, behind me.”

“…!”

The moment his calm voice reached them, the Peace Guild Hunters realized they had broken free of the Fear emanating from Behemoth.

And one person watching the scene trembled with emotion.

This is…

The feeling was deeply familiar and achingly distant. Kim Hwajong remembered a face whose features had grown faint with time and murmured, “So you were here.”

Past and present overlapped. What Kim Hwajong saw reflected in his eyes was Cheon Taemin and Choi Minwoo at the same time—and Choi Minwoo and Cheon Taemin at the same time.

Song Cheonwoo had seen the same thing and felt despair. But even in this perilous moment, joy welled up from deep within the old butler’s chest.

He took his place beside the young man, who had stood alone in the light.

FWOOSH!

Long, fierce whips of flame formed in his hands. Choi Minwoo met his gaze, his expression composed.

“We have to stop it. No matter what it takes.”

There was no retreat in his voice. Below them, screams were already rising from those who had noticed what was happening.

“Aaaah!”

“A-Aaaah!”

—GRAAAAAAAH!

As Behemoth slaughtered the yetis, its roar sent the snow piled on the mountain sliding down like a wave.

More than a thousand people were scattering in every direction, their shrill screams carrying up the slope. Even if luck let them escape the monster for now, they would be its next targets.

Choi Minwoo, Kim Hwajong, and the Peace Guild Hunters knew it. They also knew they could not take on the monster by themselves.

“T-Team Leader.”

They all possessed the strength of high-level Hunters, but their opponent was a monster that appeared only in mythology.

Choi Minwoo answered the frightened voice.

“I won’t force you. If you want to run, run.”

Before anyone could begin to murmur, he continued quietly.

“But don’t forget the choice you made here. Ask yourselves whether you can still call yourselves Hunters.”

“…!”

The wavering in their eyes stopped. The sword in Choi Minwoo’s hand shone brighter than ever.

[Hero’s Soul]. An ego sword that granted power worthy of a hero only to those who qualified.

Hummm. Fwoooosh.

The blade shook fiercely. Light burst from it in a flash, driving back the darkness, and its warmth enveloped them all.

By then, Choi Minwoo’s eyes had turned golden. Reflected in them was Behemoth, which had finished devouring every last one of its kind.

“Wasn’t the power we received given to us for a day like this?”

Not one person here was an exception. Each had been chosen one day by someone unknown and given power beyond the ordinary.

And that power came with duty and a sense of responsibility.

Hunters.

Swords that defended humanity. Shields against the threats it faced. Guardians who had to stand at the forefront of every battle against monsters.

Their wealth and fame might have dulled that ideal, but its pure essence remained.

“Attack formation. Take your positions.”

Step.

Choi Minwoo advanced. The light moved with him, and Kim Hwajong and the twenty Hunters followed.

They formed an arrowhead as they approached. Their figures appeared in the enormous eyes of the monster that had just finished its first meal in this new world.

—G. R. A. A. A. A. H.

Behemoth let out a cry that sounded almost like a sneer. Though it had devoured hundreds of yetis, it was still hungry—ready to trample, chew, and swallow the humans approaching it with their irritating light.

—Come. Hu. Mans.

No one there understood Behemoth’s Demon Realm language.

But its meaning reached them all.

Shing. Fwoosh.

Weapons were drawn. Magic surged up through staffs and hands.

Twenty-two Hunters shone in the deep darkness, bathed in the sword’s radiance. They were drawn taut as a bowstring, and Choi Minwoo’s shout loosed them.

“Charge!”

Their battle cry was loud enough to leave their ears ringing. Together, they shot forward as a single arrow.

SHWAAAAAAK!

A streak of light cut through the darkness. At its tip, the monster roared as if the sound had been dragged up from the abyss.

—KWOAAAAAAH!

The next moment—

BOOOOM! CRRRUNCH!

Shouts and roars, light and darkness, collided.

—Kik!

“Shut your mouth, you fucking bastard.”

Wham!

The Merman’s head vanished with a heavy impact.

I didn’t bother checking whether it was dead. Before the body hit the ground, I launched myself forward and cut off the fleeing Mermen.

“You shit all over the place, and now you’re running? What kind of business ethics is that? Huh?”

—K-Kiiik.

Their cries were desperate pleas to live. Too late. They were monsters, and I was human.

Besides, if they had crawled all the way to Busan and shit everywhere, they had to pay compensation for it.

An eye for an eye. A life for a life.

I swung White Flame without hesitation.

Whoosh!

Flames surged along the spearhead and swept sideways.

Fire Dragon’s Single Tail. The fire dragon’s tail, packed with immense heat, lashed some fifty Mermen in a single stroke. Screams rose with the horrific stench of burning flesh.

—KIEEEEEEK!

A pitiful death cry.

I flashed past the nearest Merman.

Slice.

Through my heightened senses, I felt its head lift into the air and heard the faint sound of the cut.

But I wasn’t done.

Some five hundred Mermen had gathered here, looking for a way out. That meant some five hundred monsters I had to kill.

Slice. Slice. Shhhhhk!

Limbs flew amid sprays of blood. Everything in my spear’s path was severed. From my outstretched palm burst the force of Flame Divine Palm, burning some twenty Mermen.

Fwoosh! KRAAAASH!

It was hot.

The asphalt melting under the extreme heat was hot. So were the tires of the car spinning uselessly after slamming into the side of a bus.

And my heart, as I looked at the driver dead behind the wheel, his foot still on the accelerator.

Drip. Drip.

Blood ran down the hood from the shattered windshield. Even a state-of-the-art airbag had apparently failed to stop the trident that had pierced the glass and lodged in the driver’s chest.

The middle-aged man’s eyes were empty, their light gone. A family photograph hung from the rearview mirror like a talisman, soaked in blood.

Middle-aged parents. A boy who looked to be in elementary school, and a girl who looked younger still.

The worst fucking part was that everyone in the photograph was inside the car. None of them was smiling anymore. All of them were covered in blood.

“You fucking bastards!”

Fwoosh! KRAAAASH!

The flames blazed fiercer and swallowed the monsters.

I cut through the path they made, swinging my spear. I cut, split, tore, and smashed without stopping.

Amid the heat and the evaporating blood, a thought came to me.

Maybe.

Maybe they had been on a trip too. Maybe this was their first family trip to Busan in years, and they had been laughing and chatting when the monsters appeared.

Maybe the father and son had looked toward nearby Gwangan Bridge and made a promise they would never get to keep.

Crack!

My fist punched through hard scales and crushed bone and flesh.

I watched the Merman silently as it let out a short groan. Then I grabbed the warm, pulpy thing my hand had touched and tore it out.

SPURT! Thud!

Green blood splashed across my face as I pulled my hand out. The stench was horrific, but I was already drenched in blood.

Eyes wide, I dropped the heart I had just ripped out onto the fallen Merman’s body.

Plop.

I didn’t like the disbelief in its eyes or the look on its face, as though it thought it had been wronged. So I stomped on it.

CRUNCH. Pop.

Only then did I realize no more monsters were coming at me. None were fleeing. None were alive.

I stood in a pool of green blood, breathing hard, when—

“…Wicked human. You.”

“Why?”

The Skeleton King met my eyes as I turned. It sighed.

“No. Never mind.”

For a moment, I wondered what I looked like to it. I didn’t ask. The eyes of the hundred or so Hunters behind it gave me a fair idea.

“We’re done here.”

At the dry voice that sounded strangely unfamiliar even to me, a Hunter who appeared to be a superior jolted and answered, “Huh? Ah, yes. Yes.”

“How are things elsewhere?”

“T-Those were the last ones. We were gathering our forces to hit them all at once, but…”

Gulp.

He swallowed and went on.

“It looks like everything has been taken care of.”

“Good, then. You worked hard too.”

I patted the Skeleton King’s shoulder and started walking again. When someone asked where I was going, I answered briefly.

“To save people. The ones dying right now. The ones who’ve survived this long.”

I was tired—more mentally than physically. But I couldn’t rest.

Somewhere, people were still waiting for rescue, facing the terror of death. I had to save at least one of them.

And then—

Splash.

My foot left a print of green blood on the city asphalt.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

An irritating electronic buzz sounded, and a billboard high on a building flickered. Through the static appeared a familiar face.

A face so handsome it was almost irritating.

Team Leader Choi.

A small inset image appeared beside him, along with a caption.

Peace Guild Hunter Choi Minwoo. Caught up in the Monster Wave in Pyeongchang…

God fucking damn it.