#159
“…”
Dan Joo-hyuk, who was about to kick Lee Tae-jung’s neck, stopped abruptly.
As he halted, Lee Tae-jung dropped the sword he was holding to the ground and began pleading.
“It’s true! Since this morning, Guild Leader Heo has been acting like a madman, causing me trouble, really!”
Indeed, Lee Tae-jung looked quite battered. His face was covered in bruises, and one side of the gate-use pauldron he was wearing had been completely torn off.
This wasn’t damage caused by Kim Sin-cheol’s attacks. Dan Joo-hyuk had observed that due to the poor compatibility between defensive-type Lee Tae-jung and Kim Sin-cheol, the latter had focused on blocking movements with long-range strikes.
Particularly, Lee Tae-jung’s pauldron was a fairly durable A-class item. It would be natural to assume that Heo Sang-yeon was responsible for tearing it apart with bare hands like that.
“There’s another hunter here! …He’s already dead.”
Kim Sin-cheol, who had rushed to the car, looked inside and announced the situation loudly.
The body he recovered from the car was a hunter with a build similar to Heo Sang-yeon. It was likely meant to create the impression that Heo Sang-yeon was in the car.
“There are signs of Hunter Heo’s work there too.”
Kim Sin-cheol, returning to Dan Joo-hyuk, spoke in a serious voice. Dan Joo-hyuk, who had been looking at the corpse laid on the ground, now calmly looked behind him.
“Kugh…!”
Heo Sang-yeon, who had pulled out the sword that had somehow pierced his stomach, was staggering to his feet.
The sight of him moving his dried-out legs reminded Dan Joo-hyuk exactly of a scene from the Russian gate.
“We need to deal with this quickly! I can’t stand by and watch the Guild Leader’s atrocities any longer. Please help me, Hunter Dan Joo-hyuk!”
Seeing this, Lee Tae-jung shouted urgently. Kim Sin-cheol also stood cautiously with an anxious expression, wary of both Lee Tae-jung and Heo Sang-yeon.
Dan Joo-hyuk was already approaching Heo Sang-yeon before Lee Tae-jung had finished speaking. Heo Sang-yeon had staggered to his feet and was reaching for a potion he had thrown aside.
“Kek.”
Before his arm could reach the potion pouch, Dan Joo-hyuk kicked Heo Sang-yeon. His body flew helplessly, sweeping through dry leaves as he moved away.
“We need to kill him! Hurry!”
Behind him, Lee Tae-jung was shouting. Genuine urgency was thickly evident in his voice.
“Dan Joo-hyuk!”
Kim Sin-cheol nodded with a tense expression, apparently finding merit in Lee Tae-jung’s words.
In Dan Joo-hyuk’s opinion too, Heo Sang-yeon’s involvement seemed certain.
“…”
Yet clearly, why was he suddenly remembering Yoon Pa-ran’s words?
‘That day, Hunter Lee Ha-min seemed to be clearly controlled by an energy similar to a stone fragment?’
‘No, well, I avoided it well. Anyway, so I was wondering if Park Jung-hoon might have been in a similar situation?’
It was a moment when Yoon Pa-ran, usually oblivious to others’ affections, made an unusually sharp analysis. The appearance of Park Jung-hoon, whom Dan Joo-hyuk had encountered while rescuing Yoon Pa-ran, certainly had questionable aspects.
Of course, he had no intention whatsoever of kindly informing Yoon Pa-ran that the guy had shown excessive interest in him. So he had dismissed it as a useless thought to Yoon Pa-ran, but what was the truth?
If it was truly a power that could control even an A-class hunter that way, would it work on an S-class?
But no matter what, that couldn’t be possible.
After quiet consideration, Dan Joo-hyuk picked up Kim Sin-cheol’s sword that had fallen to the ground. Eventually, looking down at the helplessly lying Heo Sang-yeon, he raised the sword.
“You’ve made the right choice! Let’s go to the Association Director together when this is over! I will testify!”
“…”
With Lee Tae-jung’s shout in the background, Dan Joo-hyuk swung his arm with all his might. The sword that left his hand sliced through the air with a sound of tearing.
“Kek…!”
The sword eventually pierced Lee Tae-jung’s abdomen.
“W-why…!”
“Huh? Hey, Dan Joo-hyuk…”
Lee Tae-jung’s body, pushed by the tremendous force, crashed into the car with the sword. The sound of metal being crushed reverberated through the dry air.
“Since earlier.”
“K-huk.”
Looking at the miserably crumpled Lee Tae-jung, Dan Joo-hyuk quietly tilted his head.
“Why do you keep insolently speaking to me?”
“What, khuk, are you saying…?”
“…”
Kim Sin-cheol frowned, seemingly confused by the situation. Instead of explaining the situation to him, Dan Joo-hyuk slowly approached Heo Sang-yeon. Since he wanted to reveal Yoon Pa-ran’s power as minimally as possible, he planned to provide an appropriate explanation to Kim Sin-cheol depending on the outcome.
Arriving in front of Heo Sang-yeon, he bent down. With a cautious gaze, Heo Sang-yeon displayed aggression like a trapped animal.
Seeing this, his suspicion strengthened. The closer he observed, the more he noticed that Heo Sang-yeon’s eyes showed no sign of rationality. This wasn’t a side effect of going berserk.
True to his S-class status, Heo Sang-yeon momentarily used his still-functioning knee joints to push off the ground and rush toward Dan Joo-hyuk. Far from avoiding his rapid approach, Dan Joo-hyuk extended his hand.
“Kugh!”
And grabbing Heo Sang-yeon’s head with one hand, he concentrated Yoon Pa-ran’s power in his palm.
“Aaaaaaargh…!”
A brilliant light burst forth in the mountain that had grown darker since earlier. Though it was merely light, Heo Sang-yeon convulsed as if in agony. It was an excessive reaction, just like when he was attacked with the sword earlier.
As if he were being overwhelmed by an opposing force.
Then at some point, Dan Joo-hyuk felt the Sacred Energy of Yoon Pa-ran he was holding start to dissipate on its own. As if this much was sufficient.
Indeed, looking down, Heo Sang-yeon’s expression was now confused, different from before.
“Khuk, heok, huk…”
“Get a hold of yourself. What disgraceful trick have you fallen for?”
“…Hunter Dan?”
It was an incredibly stupid act. From the circumstances, it seemed to be a trick by Lee Tae-jung, whom Heo Sang-yeon trusted most, but it was still a waste of his rank.
Recognizing Dan Joo-hyuk, Heo Sang-yeon frowned deeply. After suffering as if with a headache, his gaze slowly moved from Dan Joo-hyuk to his own ruined body.
Eventually, after surveying the dry winter mountain, he seemed to understand the situation roughly and let out a hollow laugh.
“Hunter Dan…”
“Kruk…”
Overlapping with Heo Sang-yeon’s voice, an ominous sound came from where Lee Tae-jung was.
Both of them turned their attention in that direction. Unlike the rather indifferent Dan Joo-hyuk, Heo Sang-yeon’s expression became very urgent upon seeing Lee Tae-jung.
“Be careful of that strange energy!”
“You, merci…less, bastards…!”
“Uh…?”
An unpleasant black haze rose from Lee Tae-jung’s body. Kim Sin-cheol, who was nearby, stepped back without understanding the situation.
Yet reflexively, Kim Sin-cheol released vines near Lee Tae-jung. The vines that grew from the ground ensnared both Lee Tae-jung’s limbs and the partially destroyed car simultaneously.
“Hoo…”
This time, Dan Joo-hyuk, picking up Heo Sang-yeon’s greatsword, walked slowly toward him. The gesture of pushing back his disheveled hair exuded boredom.
It was a matter with an extremely clear solution. So now it was just an annoying task. Why did they keep pulling transformation stunts that even monsters wouldn’t do.
Lee Tae-jung tore the vines apart with tremendous strength. It was an unbelievable power against one of Kim Sin-cheol’s most powerful binding skills.
However, Dan Joo-hyuk approached him without hesitation. He stabbed the greatsword deeply into the same spot where he had thrust the sword earlier.
“Hunter Dan, I said be careful…! Huh?”
“Kaa… Kaaaak!”
“I’m tired, so I want to wrap this up now.”
Lee Tae-jung’s waist, which had been boasting immense strength as if to destroy everything, bent helplessly to the ground. Dan Joo-hyuk concentrated his skill only on the tip of the sword, invisible to Heo Sang-yeon’s eyes.
It was unexpected that Heo Sang-yeon had regained consciousness so quickly. According to what Yoon Pa-ran had told him, after purifying the strange energy, the subject should faint.
From his position of wanting to hide Yoon Pa-ran’s power as much as possible, things were becoming troublesome in many ways.
“Hmm…”
At that moment, the Sacred Energy that he had been deliberately controlling bit by bit was suddenly sucked away.
Fortunately, there was no bright light like before. However, the energy of Yoon Pa-ran that Dan Joo-hyuk had been carefully gathering suddenly burst out all at once through the place where the sword was inserted, like a dam breaking.
“…Kkeuk.”
Lee Tae-jung’s head, which had been noisily displaying power, completely slumped forward.
“No way…”
From the side, it looked as if Lee Tae-jung had been incapacitated with just one sword strike, causing Kim Sin-cheol to make a bewildered sound.
Meanwhile, Dan Joo-hyuk’s expression was not good. The skill of Yoon Pa-ran that he had been carefully saving had been completely consumed on just Lee Tae-jung.
“What a waste.”
Realizing this fact, Dan Joo-hyuk clicked his tongue softly and muttered.
“Hey, what should we clean up first? Huh?”
Kim Sin-cheol, quickly regaining his composure, approached Dan Joo-hyuk. The way he glanced at Heo Sang-yeon lying behind showed considerable anxiety.
“First, restrain him well.”
“Nng. Got it.”
Unlike Heo Sang-yeon, Lee Tae-jung had completely lost consciousness. Dan Joo-hyuk observed him for a while as he lay limp, with black blood pouring from every orifice on his face.
Only after judging that the guy wouldn’t easily get up did Dan Joo-hyuk head toward Heo Sang-yeon.
But this time, something blocked his view.
[You have discovered a minion connected to the Great Will.]
Minion. One of his eyebrows raised crookedly at the word whose meaning he couldn’t understand.
However, the status window that followed contained an even more irritating phrase.
[The arrival of the Disciple of the Sacred God is widely proclaimed.]
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
