Chapter 585

Whoooosh!

A fierce rush of air sounded overhead. Thousands of people who had been screaming and fleeing in every direction stopped in their tracks. One tourist looked up at the sky and spoke in a daze.

“…Huh?”

He wasn’t the only one wondering.

The civilians fleeing the monster, the hundreds of reinforcements dispatched to stop it, even the Peace Guild Hunters hurrying down the mountain to fulfill their Guild Master’s final wish—they all saw it and had the same question.

What is that?

But they saw it from different places and with different eyes. To the civilians, the streak of light crossing the sky was simply a mystery. The high-ranking Hunters among the reinforcements felt a powerful surge of mana far above them for the briefest instant.

Closer still, the Peace Guild Hunters on the mountainside realized how the light had appeared out of thin air.

…Teleport?

Who? How? Why?

Questions raced through countless minds. But no one saw and felt what was happening more clearly than Kim Hwajong.

On the brink of death, the old butler recognized the blue light spreading across the sky, pressing down on the black mist of magical power.

That’s…

Power, pure and more destructive than anything else.

Flame. It was flame.

Brighter than sunlight and as fierce as the sun itself, it streaked across the sky. For a moment, a face seemed to pass through Kim Hwajong’s blurred vision—a face somewhere inside that blinding light, too bright to look at directly.

Yes. It’s you.

His smile deepened. The primordial monster risen from myth opened its enormous jaws toward the oncoming light.

Whoooooom—

The wind split. The air scattered. Inside jaws wide enough to swallow a mountain, an abyssal power churned.

But the light did not stop. It grew sharper and larger, becoming blue-white flame that surged through the air.

Gooooong.

The world stopped. Two forces that swallowed all space and sound as they advanced collided.

And in the next moment, Kim Hwajong could see. He could hear.

Fwooooosh!

Darkness torn to shreds beneath the blue sky.

Blue-white flames burning through everything in their path. And in that dazzling, silent world, one voice ringing clear.

“One Annihilation.”

Space warped. Unprecedented flames fell like a meteor and pierced Behemoth’s jaws before they could close, passing through its body.

As the monster toppled with a death cry like thunder, the old butler forgot his pain and laughed aloud.

Even the greatest master in the world could not escape death. Neither could an ancient monster that belonged in a myth. Not when a full-powered One Annihilation had entered through its mouth and pierced its entire body.

—Ho…w…

Bewilderment and death settled together in the eyes of a monster unlike any I had ever seen or heard of. It stared at me vacantly as its enormous body slowly tipped over.

Krrrrrrrung!

The mountain shook when its lifeless body hit the ground. Huge clouds of dust rose all around me, and I gritted my teeth against the pain and fatigue rolling over me in waves.

I can’t collapse.

One Annihilation was a double-edged sword. It poured out all the user’s strength at once.

But I couldn’t fall yet. Not now. Fortunately, I had a power ordinary people didn’t.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

System

You have defeated Lv. 150 Behemoth!

You have acquired an enormous amount of EXP and Fame!

Level Up!

The Status effect Exhaustion has been removed!

The Status effect Internal Energy Depletion has been removed!

Some fatigue and Status effects have disappeared due to the effects of Level Up!

…

…

…

Damn it.

I barely managed to steady myself.

Leveling up was one of the System’s most broken features, but unless the effects stacked, it couldn’t fix everything. Too much fatigue had built up in my body and mind. The aftereffects of One Annihilation left my hands and feet tingling as if I’d been electrocuted.

Still, I couldn’t stop or collapse. I drew on the internal energy that had filled my dantian with the level-up and sent it surging forward.

Boom!

Compressed air burst outward, scattering the dust. At last I could see a rounded shape covered in white bones.

Step. Step.

My heart pounded with every step across the ruined ground. I couldn’t hide the fear in my ragged breathing.

I was afraid of what I’d find. Afraid he wouldn’t look the way I hoped. Afraid he would say goodbye before I was ready.

Tap. Shrrr…

When I carefully placed my hand against it, the membrane made of bones scattered as though it were melting. And then I could finally see.

Inside was a grim-faced blond foreigner. Leaning against him was a middle-aged man with half-gray hair, each faint breath seeming to be his last.

This is…

For a moment, my heart seemed to stop.

It took only a glance to understand. The top-grade potion bottle lying at the Skeleton King’s feet was empty. The man appeared to have recovered without a mark on him, but strength was already draining from his body.

My vision swam.

“…Butler Kim.”

His half-closed eyelids fluttered at my voice. When his fading gaze met mine, his bloodstained lips curved into a gentle smile.

“You came.”

“…!”

“Yes. I knew it would be you. That light was so warm.”

I clenched my teeth to hold back a groan. Butler Kim had already accepted what was happening to him. That was probably why he sounded different.

The man before my eyes was neither Butler Kim nor the Guild Master of the Peace Guild. He was simply a human being, Kim Hwajong, saying goodbye.

But…

I’m not ready yet.

I couldn’t accept this sudden farewell. I wasn’t going to smile and let him go. I would do anything to bring Kim Hwajong back—to make him Butler Kim, the Guild Master, again.

“But I’m a little cold now. I was so warm before.”

I took his hand and slowly sent Scorching Yang Qi into him.

“It’s because we’re up on the mountain. You’ll warm up soon.”

“Will I?”

I forced a smile.

“Yes. It’s still winter.”

As the warmth seeped into him, Kim Hwajong smiled faintly.

“It really is. Just as you said.”

“You’ll be all right. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of—”

My voice failed me, and not only because my chest had tightened. The internal energy I’d sent through him had shown me the state of his body.

What in the world…

Everyone was born with innate qi, the root and source of all the body’s energy. Almost none remained in Kim Hwajong.

No. Even what little remained was slowly burning away.

Like a dying flame.

Jeok Cheongang’s innate qi had been damaged in Henan, but not to this extent. Kim Hwajong’s condition was beyond repair.

I could tell from what my internal energy revealed.

What it had taken for him to face Behemoth. What he had sacrificed to hold back the monster that had crawled out of the darkness. And who he had burned his one and only life for.

“Young Master… Minwoo. Is the boy safe?”

I made my voice as bright as I could.

“He’s safe. I caught a glimpse of him on the mountainside. He’s fine.”

“Good. That’s good. What a relief.”

What’s a relief? Look what’s happened to you.

I bit my lip rather than say it aloud. Then the Skeleton King’s thought sounded in my head.

—I absorbed the magical power that had seeped into his bones and gave him a top-grade potion, but it was already too late. Even I couldn’t save him.

I knew. I couldn’t blame him when he’d done everything he could. His entire appearance was an illusion made with magic, but the guilt and sorrow on his face were real.

—…I’m sorry, human.

A question occurred to me. It was about everything happening around me.

Why was he the one apologizing? How had Kim Hwajong, who’d eaten with us and laughed with us just a few days ago, ended up lying here beyond recovery?

And why hadn’t I stopped it?

Why?

I had power. The power to stop disasters and prevent tragic deaths.

It had started with a mysterious capsule that appeared in my life one day. It let me change the fate I’d been given and meet people who became precious to me. Now one of those bonds was about to break. One of those people was about to leave me.

So why couldn’t I stop it?

In Shanxi, Henan, Sichuan, Hubei. In Sichuan, in Busan…

I had saved so many lives while traveling between the Murim and the modern world. So why couldn’t I save the one person about to leave before my eyes?

Why?

I was sinking into that question, into helplessness, when—

Ssssh. Tap.

A cold hand covered my trembling fist. Kim Hwajong looked at me, warmth in his eyes.

“It isn’t your fault.”

“…!”

“You did your best.”

His eyes were no longer clouded. His voice no longer sounded ready to fade. The kindness in his face caught the breath in my throat.

The final rally.

A last flame flaring at the edge of death.

No. I couldn’t let him go yet. I gritted my teeth and sent more internal energy into him, but his body was already at its limit. Strength continued to drain away.

More. Just a little more!

I poured every bit of internal energy in my dantian into him. I held his slowly closing acupoints¹ open and tried to feed the flame dying deep inside his body.

The end came closer rapidly anyway.

“It’s cold. I don’t know if it’s winter, like you said, or if night’s already fallen.”

It couldn’t be either. Scorching Yang Qi was still pouring into him, and the afternoon sun remained in the sky.

Only Kim Hwajong could feel that cold and darkness. Death was freezing his body and drawing a veil over his eyes.

I struggled to speak to the old butler as his breaths grew thinner.

“It’s all right. You’ll see Team Leader Choi soon. Just trust me and…”

Thud.

A hand closed around my wrist. The Skeleton King shook his head, his face grim.

At last I understood. Nothing I said or did could stop this.

It was time to let Kim Hwajong go, so he could leave with whatever peace I could give him.

“Young Master… Minwoo. Is the boy safe?”

His eyes had turned milky. He’d asked me already, but that didn’t matter. I could answer him a hundred times. A thousand.

“He’s safe. Not a hair on his head was harmed.”

“I want to see him. Just once more…”

“You will. He’s already coming.”

“Is that… true?”

“Yes. Ah, there he is.”

It was a lie. A bright red, pure white lie.

On the nameless mountainside swept by a wave of chaos, there were only the three of us and the monster’s corpse.

But Kim Hwajong could no longer tell. With his sight clouded and his mind fading, he reached into empty air as though the person he’d been waiting for would take his hand.

Grab.

At my call and the look that accompanied it, Skeleton King firmly took that hand. The old butler’s eyes curved like crescent moons, and a radiant smile spread across his lips.

“You’ve come.”

And then—

“My grand…son.”

The flame that had burned for one person and refused to go out for this moment finally guttered.

Sssrrk. Tap.

Everything went black.