Beep. Beep. Beep.
The ringing went on for a long time before abruptly cutting off.
Instead of the voice he had been waiting for, a familiar yet still strangely unfamiliar woman’s voice came through the phone.
“Your call cannot be connected. After the beep, you will be directed to voicemail…”
Normally, he would have hung up. No, he would never have called in the first place.
But the middle-aged man had a vague sense that the words he was about to record might be the last he ever left his family.
Beeeeeeep.
The tone sounded, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
What could he say to his wife, who was carrying their second child, and their child, who had only just turned four?
And just as the middle-aged man—Go Se-won—was finally about to speak after much thought…
Rumble…
A faint vibration shook the entire building. At the same time, the voice of a security-team member waiting outside seeped through the crack in the door.
“Team Leader, I think you need to come out.”
“……”
“Team Leader?”
“Wait. I’m coming.”
Go Se-won ended the call.
Maybe it’s a sign. Someone telling me to stay alive and see my family again.
And if it isn’t…
Then I suppose I don’t even deserve to leave them my last words.
Go Se-won muttered bitterly to himself before opening the door. A security-team member with a hard, expressionless, familiar face was waiting for him.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that outside—”
“I know. Let’s go.”
Go Se-won cut him off calmly and crossed the unlit corridor.
Ahead lay a vast circular hall befitting the top floor, with roughly a hundred fully armed elite Guild members inside.
And filling the hall was a holographic image.
BOOM!
A flash burst across it with a deafening explosion.
Fwoooooosh!
Rays of light surged from two opposing formations and shot toward each other.
“Graaaaaah!”
“Tanks! Reform the line!”
Screams and shouts came from every direction. Hundreds of Hunters clashed in a scene so vivid it might have been unfolding right before him.
Only minutes ago, they had belonged to the same Guild. Now they fought as enemies.
That’s…
Go Se-won watched the fierce battle in the hologram, his gaze darkening.
He recognized the faces fighting at the front: Guild executives from Song Cheonwoo’s faction.
Anti-Ares… So it’s come to this.
A body without a head was bound to fall.
But not this time. Song Cheonwoo, its head, had been removed, only for a stronger one to grow in his place. That was how a body sentenced to death had risen again.
In the hologram, a young man walked forward drenched in human and monster blood. He had become their new rallying point.
“A monster…”
Someone watching muttered the word like a groan.
At that moment, blue-white hellfire blazed around the young man—Jin Taekyung.
Fwoosh! KABOOOOOM!
A streak of flame tore through the space, scorching everything around it.
Huge Tower Shields shattered. Dozens of tanks who had held firm as an iron wall were sent flying at once, and the balance that had held until then collapsed.
“Graaaaaah!”
“Now! Attack!”
Amid spraying blood and falling bodies, the flame that had incapacitated an entire raid team in one blow kept shooting forward.
Screeeeeech!
It was an inextinguishable flame, an unstoppable meteor.
Ceilings said to withstand bombardment collapsed like dominoes, and the forces waiting on each floor fell like bundles of straw.
Whenever the hologram wavered, unable to keep pace with the flame, Jin Taekyung was already on another floor, bringing down new enemies.
“St-Stop him…!”
KABOOOOOM!
Nothing could stand against that overwhelming power. Jin Taekyung had become a streak of flame, shooting onward without pause.
As the troops stationed floor by floor crumbled, the executives in Song Cheonwoo’s faction—still wavering, still unable to decide—finally turned their weapons on their former allies.
“W-we’re on the eighty-fifth floor! Managing Director Kim Jong-pil and Team Thirteen have betrayed us. Gah!”
“Headquarters, respond! There’s a revolt on the ninety-seventh floor…!”
Fwoosh! Boom!
A strong current became a wave. A rolling snowball grew larger.
That was what was happening now. The fire that had been racing in one direction had spread on all sides.
And Go Se-won knew Jin Taekyung’s flame would not go out until his anger subsided—until it swallowed one man whole.
“The target has broken through the hundredth floor!”
“Fighting has broken out on twelve floors at once! Hostile elements have joined the target and are engaging our forces!”
“The target is moving alone! He’s on the 103rd floor! No—the 104th!”
Urgent reports flew from every direction. The executives who had seemed so relaxed when first summoned to the top floor now looked anxious.
“H-hey, Team Leader Go. May I ask you something?”
Go Se-won answered without looking away from the hologram.
“Go ahead, Executive Director Choi.”
“I’ve been wondering for a while…”
The half-gray-haired man swallowed. Then he voiced the question on everyone’s mind.
“Where… where on earth is the Vice Guild Master?”
Go Se-won glanced around. Among the hundred or so people in the hall, the one man who should have been fighting ahead of them all was nowhere to be seen.
Yet despite the bleak situation, Go Se-won felt lighter.
Yes. This should be enough.
When told to bite, he bit. When told to bark, he barked.
He had been one of the countless war orphans left by the Great Cataclysm. He had risen to his present position by living as a faithful hunting dog.
The irony was that knowing it made him sick with himself.
With this, I’ve repaid everything I owed you. Whether I live or die, it has nothing to do with you anymore.
Go Se-won muttered those words in his heart toward the person who still refused to appear, then firmly drew his sword.
Shing.
His calm voice cut through the sharp sound.
“The Vice Guild Master… He won’t be coming.”
“W-what did you say?”
“So fight if you want to live. You’ve eaten far too much from his hand to spit it back out now.”
Everyone here was a hunting dog. They had taken the food their master gave them and lived well on it. They had no choice left.
I’m no different.
A humorless laugh escaped Go Se-won. The executives stared at him.
Then a cry rang through the enormous hall.
“The 119th floor! The target has broken through the 119th floor!”
“……!”
“……!”
No one had trouble understanding what that meant. They all knew the building they came to work in every day had 120 floors.
He’s coming.
There was no avoiding the fight.
Clad in full armor, a sword in one hand and a spear in the other, Go Se-won spoke with a heavy heart.
“Formation. Prepare for battle.”
His quiet command reached the hundred Hunters around him.
Rumble! KABOOM!
With a deafening roar accompanied by a tremendous vibration, one of the world’s most famous skyscrapers shook.
An uninvited guest had set foot on the top floor of an impregnable fortress no one had ever been able—or dared—to challenge.
Step.
A lone figure appeared through the rising dust.
Every hair on Go Se-won’s body seemed to stand on end. He hurled his spear with all his strength.
Whoosh! Screeeeeech!
Slice!
The spear hurtling toward me split apart, along with the cloud of dust.
Through the clear path White Flame had cut, I saw a middle-aged man who looked strangely familiar.
Where have I seen him?
The answer came almost at once.
At Lee Jungryong’s national funeral, a new Head of Security had stood beside Go Jun like a shadow. This was him.
The name I had heard in passing back then was probably…
“Go Se-won.”
His eyes trembled faintly when I said it.
Maybe he was surprised I knew his name. Maybe it was how easily I’d dealt with his spear.
Either way, I’d finally found someone who might give me a proper answer. I asked the question I’d repeated dozens of times since entering the lobby.
“Go Jun. Where is he?”
Before I’d finished speaking, a flash shot from Go Se-won’s hand.
Whoosh! KABOOM!
A throwing spear missed me by a hair and buried itself in the floor, leaving a small crater.
It was a signal.
Fwish-fwish-fwish!
Go Se-won wasn’t the only one waiting on the top floor. Roughly a hundred Ares Guild members filled the hall, every one of them worthy of being called a high-ranking Hunter. They attacked together.
Fwoosh!
A vast surge of energy shook the hall, filling it with blue, red, and brilliant light.
Their attacks were stronger and their barrage denser than anything I’d faced on the way up. I stepped forward alone.
Step.
My foot struck the floor, charged with internal energy, and flames rose to heat the air.
Flamefire Path.
Fwoosh! Screeeeeech!
One step was enough. I erased more than ten meters1 of distance and struck at the air with my palm.
Arrows melted before the blue-white hellfire. Every spell flying toward me came apart.
BOOM!
Water, earth, wind, flame.
The intense heat of Scorching Yang Qi ignored even elemental affinities. As attack spells made from all four elements burst outward, the tanks at the front swiftly raised their Tower Shields.
KABOOM!
Despite the considerable impact, the Tower Shields didn’t waver an inch. They blocked the aftermath of the Magic without suffering the slightest damage, then tilted diagonally.
At the same moment, twenty figures sprang up, using the wall of steel as a foothold.
Pat-pat-pat!
I understood at once. Everyone gathered here was among Ares Guild’s elite. But the ones coming at me now were in another class.
Killing intent.
Their movements were spare and swift. Their calm, impassive eyes had the look of practiced killers.
More than twenty weapons stabbed and slashed at the speed of light, flashing brightly.
Screeeeeech!
As they came at me from every angle, I couldn’t hold back a short laugh.
“What a load of bullshit. You fucking morons.”
“……!”
In the slowed world, I saw shock spread across their blank faces.
But it was too late to turn back. For them and for me.
Slice!
Blue-white Force extended from White Flame’s spearhead. The incoming weapons lost their strength, and five bodies split in two.
Having turned five bodies into ten with one strike, I drove my fist into empty air.
BOOM!
Compressed air wasn’t the only thing that burst.
A stealthily approaching assassin toppled over, headless. By then, the chain sickle in his hand was already moving at my will.
Whoosh! Thud!
Wielded by Seizing an Object Through Empty Space, it buried itself in another man’s neck.
His once-calm eyes flew wide. As he began to fall, I planted my palm against his chest.
BOOM!
The force of my Flame Divine Palm wasn’t meant to finish him off. He was already dead.
It struck the enemy behind him, who had been about to use his comrade’s body as a shield while thrusting his spear.
“Graaaaaah!”
Blood burst from the man’s seven apertures2.
Before the man whose heart meridians had been severed throughout his body could even lower his head, I was already moving toward another enemy.
Crack!
My fist crushed a head.
Fwish! Thud-thud!
Finger Qi shot through another enemy’s neck and chest. He dropped his weapon and pressed a hand to the blood gushing from his throat. It wasn’t enough.
“Ghk. Guh…”
The light faded rapidly from his eyes. I watched the last of them collapse, my gaze cold.
You brought this on yourselves.
On another day, I might have let them live. But not today. Not now.
As when the Black Hunters had attacked Uncle Kkeokjeong, I had no intention of stopping. I couldn’t stop.
I have to show them here. Make sure this never happens again.
I had been a Hunter long before I became a martial artist.
I had also been a modern man born in the twenty-first century, someone who had lived in a civilized society where reason and the law existed. That was why I hadn’t been able to eliminate Go Jun in Sichuan.
Unlike Lee Jungryong, whom I had been able to eliminate amid chaos and destruction, Go Jun had been protected by a fence built from the two-syllable Korean term for the rule of law.
But now none of that mattered.
My choice had allowed Go Jun to live. He had crossed a river he could never cross back. And I—no, all of us—had lost Kim Hwajong.
I would never again see the half-gray-haired old butler who had always spoken to me with a polite, gentle smile.
That was why I had come here. Why I had torn down the fence called the rule of law and made myself an outlaw.
Splash.
My blood-soaked footsteps sounded unnaturally loud.
A suffocating silence had settled over the vast hall. Everyone stood frozen by the slaughter they had witnessed.
But the face I wanted wasn’t among them. Neither was the one man who could tell me where to find him.
Go Se-won.
I turned my head to look for Go Jun’s right hand.
A faint, stealthy sound cut through the air.
Whoosh!
I turned around and slammed my hands together as though in prayer.
KABOOM!
The sharp sword blade caught between them stopped just above my forehead.
Its owner, Go Se-won, spoke calmly.
“Looking for me?”
“Yeah.”
I pressed my palms together harder. The Sword Energy—or rather, Aura—formed from powerful mana yielded to my blue-white Force.
Unable to withstand my immense internal energy, the sword glowed red and began to melt.
Drip, drip. Hiss!
As the molten steel struck the floor, I thrust out a hand blazing with heat.
BOOM!
One palm strike was enough. Layer upon layer of defensive Magic shattered, and Go Se-won’s armor broke apart.
But the blow that shook him to the core didn’t bring him down. He swallowed the blood rising in his throat and reached for my shoulder with his gauntlet.
He tried to, anyway.
Tap-tap-tap! BOOM!
A flowing grappling technique followed seamlessly. Another burst of heat drove Go Se-won back, and he thrust out his hand.
Fwish!
A blade sprang from between the plates of his gauntlet and grazed my chin. I felt a sting, caught his wrist, and twisted.
Crack! KRAK!
My grip crushed the gauntlet. Flesh tore, exposing white bone.
The pain must have been worse than he’d imagined, but Go Se-won didn’t scream. Pale-faced, he asked flatly,
“Is that it?”
“No. Not yet.”
I caught his other arm.
KRAK!
He sucked in a breath.
This time the pain broke through his composure. Blood ran between his lips, and his voice shook.
“Take it easy… and finish it.”
“That’s the plan. After I hear where that bastard Go Jun is.”
“What if the confidentiality clause in my employment contract says I can’t?”
I gripped his collarbone.
“Then it definitely won’t end with just taking it easy.”
Go Se-won gave a weak laugh.
“You searched everywhere and still couldn’t find him. Of course you couldn’t.”
Unfortunately, he was right. I’d fought my way through an endless pack of hunting dogs and wrecked the inside of the building, but Go Jun had never appeared.
If there was one thing I had gained from all the information I had collected so far, it was the identity of the secret area where he was staying.
“Area A. I think you know where it is.”
Cough.
Go Se-won spat blood.
“I picked a bad day. I was planning to hand in my resignation soon.”
“Enough talking. Tell me.”
“That’s easy. But I have a condition.”
“T-Team Leader Go. You’re not going to tell that crazy bastard—!”
There was always someone who couldn’t read the room. The nameless executive who stepped forward soon went quiet, though. Few people could go on talking after taking Finger Qi to the throat.
“A condition?” I asked.
“Yes.”
What he said next caught even me off guard.
“…You want me to kill you?”
Go Se-won gave a small nod. Even as pain wracked his body, his eyes remained calm, reflecting my face.
“It’s too late to go back to how things were. Do it cleanly. Right here. That’s all.”
“……”
“I think you understand.”
Breathing heavily, Go Se-won raised a trembling finger and pointed somewhere.
When I finally learned where Area A was, I stopped short.
Empty air?
It was hard to make sense of at first, but the world called things like this Magic. Besides, I’d experienced things far stranger and more dangerous than Magic.
Where?
I stared into the empty air. After a moment, an unfamiliar sensation stirred in my exhausted body.
What’s this?
I couldn’t see it. But I could feel another space there, surrounded by an immense, carefully concealed energy.
It was hidden so perfectly that it could only be detected by someone who recognized its existence.
Go Se-won had kept his end of the bargain. His lips, turning blue, began to move.
“Now kill—”
Bzzzz.
A vibration cut him off.
A smartphone slipped from the trouser pocket of the suit exposed beneath his broken armor and rolled across the floor.
Tap. Bzzzz.
A family photo lit up its cracked screen beneath the caller’s name: Wife.
A young child and his wife smiled brightly. Beside them stood Go Se-won, his expression stiff.
“……”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. I looked from the photo on the cracked screen to the cracks showing in his expression.
I remembered his request to be killed. The calm way he’d said it was too late to go back.
“Let me ask you something.”
“……?”
“Why is today your last day at work?”
Go Se-won hesitated, then answered with a sigh.
“Turns out the job doesn’t suit me. Especially… my boss is a fucking asshole.”
“Yeah. Got it.”
Did Go Se-won know that answer had decided his fate?
I quietly drew up my internal energy.
Not toward my fist.
Toward my legs.
“You—”
KABOOM!
The rest of his words vanished beneath the roar.
I was already soaring into the empty air high above. Fierce wind rushed past me. I felt the strange buoyancy of being seized by invisible hands, and the unknown space that refused entry to anyone without permission.
But I was an outlaw. I didn’t need permission.
There.
Everything had a flow.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Blue-white Force burst from the spearhead in my hand and tore through the empty air.
Swoooooosh!
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