Obsession (5)

The calculations fall into place.

The two brothers, Gwak Hyeong-su and Gwak Hyeong-seok, are close enough that if one fell over, his nose would practically touch the other.

There are also many guard hunters visible around them. Even though their numbers were reduced after being split in half, they were still not few.

Even so.

Perhaps because he had taken Gaksinhwan, Kang-hoo was able to calculate exactly how he should operate his skills within that large crowd.

Not only did a first plan come to mind, but even a second and third plan as well.

He was certain.

He had properly seized the opportunity.

Amid the chaos of the explosions, he thought his decisive move of approaching from the air rather than from the front, side, or rear had worked.

Just before closing in!

He activated Ignore, one of the options of the zero-grade ring, Sight.

Since younger brother Gwak Hyeong-seok had the highest level in the group, Kang-hoo calculated that he could brush aside that bastard’s attack.

Because Kang-hoo’s first target was Gwak Hyeong-su, he muzzled Gwak Hyeong-seok, the next most dangerous target at that moment.

Not only that, he also placed Watch on Gwak Hyeong-seok, who, while his main class was swordsman, also possessed assassin traits secondarily.

Now, no matter what Gwak Hyeong-seok did, Kang-hoo could identify him clearly enough to chase him to the ends of the earth.

The preparations were complete.

Saint, Hostile, Weird, Great.

It was the damage-maximizing combo Kang-hoo had recently come to favor.

Because of the existence of Hostile Trade, it was also an extremely dangerous combo.

But if he did not take major damage within twenty seconds after using Hostile Trade, then it was not particularly a loss.

Stab!

“Guh!”

The dagger struck directly into the crown of Gwak Hyeong-su’s head.

It was so precise that even Kang-hoo himself felt pleasure just from the dagger piercing into the crown of his head.

For now, regardless of whether Gwak Hyeong-su lived or died as a result.

He executed Order of Nothingness.

He used it without hesitation because he already knew that Gwak Hyeong-su, Gwak Hyeong-seok, and the hunters guarding them all used Dark Energy, directly or indirectly.

As all of their Dark Energy was burned away by Order of Nothingness, causing enormous HP loss in itself.

“Urk-ughk!”

Gwak Hyeong-su staggered, letting out a groan as though his breath were failing.

His head was shattered on one side, and his insides were collapsing on the other from Order of Nothingness, bringing him right to the brink of shock.

‘I thought I drove it properly into the crown of his head. It feels like the dagger went in more than half a span, and yet he still did not die instantly. A named figure really is a named figure.’

The reason he was still alive in a situation where instant death would not have been strange must have been because he possessed that much protective machinery.

Since Kang Dong-hyun had also saved his life through a constellation ability like that, it was not especially surprising.

Sploosh!

Blood Flower was executed early.

At the same time.

‘Lucky.’

Five-Colored Blessing activated as well.

One minute of physical immunity meant that the most troublesome type of attack would be turned completely useless for one minute.

Clang!

He could feel Gwak Hyeong-seok slamming a longsword down onto his back from behind.

But Kang-hoo had not cared about Gwak Hyeong-seok from the very beginning.

He had already placed Ignore, which nullified attack damage, on him, and he had just acquired physical immunity as well.

There was absolutely no reason to pay attention to Gwak Hyeong-seok, whose damage was based on physical attacks.

Meanwhile.

The Judgment option activated on Gwak Hyeong-su, who was staggering with the whites of his eyes showing. An indisputably perfect opportunity.

Kang-hoo immediately carried out Judgment.

At that, Gwak Hyeong-su’s eyes went wide, and then he clutched his chest and collapsed forward.

Judgment, which inflicted the greatest shock upon the whole body and especially the heart, took his life.

“You bastard!”

In the meantime, Gwak Hyeong-seok launched another blow at Kang-hoo that was close to a one-hit kill, but.

Ting!

For Gwak Hyeong-seok, it became an utterly useless attack in a situation he could not even begin to understand.

‘Good. Gwak Hyeong-su is dead.’

Seeing the constellation plunder messages stream by one after another, Gwak Hyeong-su was definitely dead.

Unless there were a possibility of immediate resurrection, plunder would occur, so there would be no seeing Gwak Hyeong-su again in this world.

But Gwak Hyeong-seok and the guards around him were still intact. Only Gwak Hyeong-su alone had died.

“……What the fuck?”

Flustered, Gwak Hyeong-seok retreated far back. It was strange that not a single bit of damage was getting through to Kang-hoo.

No, not just strange. It made no sense.

If an all-out attack was blocked so meaninglessly, then from his perspective, there was no attack method left for him to choose.

Just moments ago, the Gwak Hyeong-su–Gwak Hyeong-seok brothers had been belittling and devaluing Kang-hoo’s worth.

Now older brother Gwak Hyeong-su had become one who could never return, and his own attacks were powerless.

“Kill him, you bastards! Why are you standing around in a daze?!”

Gwak Hyeong-seok shouted at the hunters who had begun to hesitate as fear and terror spread through them.

Gwak Hyeong-seok himself had also been infected by that fear, but he did not show it and instead first drove his subordinates forward.

Right now, it seemed he needed to throw his men in and identify Kang-hoo’s characteristics before he could respond afterward.

“Fire!”

“He won’t dodge this!”

Encouraged by Gwak Hyeong-seok’s urging, two guard archers immediately drew their bowstrings and aimed at Kang-hoo.

Fshiiing!

Two arrows aimed at Kang-hoo’s heart sliced through the air and struck his chest in an instant, but.

Ting!

The rebounding arrows fell powerlessly to the ground.

It was something that could not happen unless one was in a state of perfect invincibility against physical attacks.

100% resistance to physical attacks.

It was a concept that existed in theory, but among actual hunters, he could count on one hand the number of times he had seen it achieved.

Unless someone was one of those world-famous so-called “super-named” figures, it was a condition almost impossible to attain.

Yet Shin Kang-hoo, whom he had dismissed and denied as nothing more than an assassin with a little dexterity, had achieved it?

Gwak Hyeong-seok could not accept that.

That should not be possible. It was unfair, was it not? Shin Kang-hoo was absolutely not the sort of bastard who should possess that level of skill!

Meanwhile, three subordinates with swords cut at Kang-hoo with all their might, but the result was naturally the same.

And what came back in return was the futile end of the three subordinates, their heads flying off together in a counterattack.

“…….”

Using his subordinates as a wall, Gwak Hyeong-seok slipped behind them slightly and immediately entered a charging state.

This time, he intended to continue with an attack that placed more weight on skills.

If his sword attacks were being ignored because of 100% physical resistance, then he simply needed to strike using skills.

Skills contained a fair amount of magical damage, and their effects themselves were also treated as magical effects.

Gwak Hyeong-seok’s trump card activated, having seized an opportunity by using his subordinates as sacrifices.

In that brief span, three more subordinates lost their lives.

With physical attacks ineffective due to Five-Colored Blessing, there was no method that worked, whether sword, bow, or axe.

And unfortunately, the hunters specialized in magical attacks had been assigned to the pursuit squad that had been split off in half.

That was how the formation had been arranged, because they needed to maximize their accelerated movement state in order to get ahead of Lee Ye-rin.

A mistake they never would have made had they known the future. But because they lived only in the present, it was a mistake they could not help but make.

Of course, Gwak Hyeong-seok and his subordinates had trained together, so they understood what his aim was now.

So they actively worked to draw Kang-hoo’s attention, and the plan appeared to have succeeded.

Gwak Hyeong-seok had finished charging and was ready to leap forward.

At that, the subordinates split to both sides in the blink of an eye, as if witnessing Moses’s miracle.

“Die, you bastard!”

A blow filled with certainty!

Gwak Hyeong-seok was convinced that this attack would land a fatal strike on Kang-hoo.

Seeing Gwak Hyeong-seok kick off the ground and leap, his subordinates’ faces brightened.

A success rate of 100%. It was because they witnessed with their own eyes that the decisive sure-kill blow had been properly unleashed.

But their joy did not last long.

As though Gwak Hyeong-seok did not even interest him, Kang-hoo shifted direction to the side and targeted other subordinates instead.

Two subordinates, who had grown lax from trusting in Gwak Hyeong-seok’s counterattack, died neatly to Kang-hoo’s successive Great Decapitations.

And then.

Bang!

With a tearing sonic boom, Gwak Hyeong-seok surged toward Kang-hoo and unleashed a heavy blow, but…….

Stiing!

Along with a sound so unpleasant that it even sapped one’s strength, the Spatial Sword skill was nullified as well.

Only one of Spatial Sword’s secondary effects took hold: a slight knockback, meaning a pushing effect.

The core damage did not work at all. It was a result that inspired not merely helplessness, but even the fear of the abyss.

Even so, his awareness of reality was quick.

Gwak Hyeong-seok immediately entered stealth and consecutively leaped backward to retreat.

A rapid decision without even an inch of hesitation. Thanks to that, he was able to escape to the outer edge before Kang-hoo could counterattack.

‘I can see him well. He is as clear as if he had not used stealth at all.’

Kang-hoo was accurately aware of Gwak Hyeong-seok’s location with just a sidelong glance.

Of course, he intended to act as though he could not find him. That was the value of the Watch skill, and the variable it created.

Kang-hoo measured the distance.

The distance between himself and Gwak Hyeong-seok’s subordinates had grown close again, while Gwak Hyeong-seok stood slightly on the outer line.

The subordinates were just small fry anyway. Using Gaksinhwan’s remaining duration on them would be far too wasteful.

There were still about five seconds of its duration left.

It felt as though a very long time had passed, but it had not.

A great many things had happened in a fleeting moment.

First, he entered the standby state for Sacred Leap.

He intended to draw the force of his leap to its maximum output, then pounce anywhere in an instant.

In that state, Kang-hoo chose the option that seemed to suit the current situation best.

The moment the first target, Gwak Hyeong-su, died, the next first target became Gwak Hyeong-seok.

The reason he had spent time killing the subordinates earlier was to create an opportunity to aim for the new first target.

If he had immediately continued his attack on Gwak Hyeong-seok, the bastard might have tensed up and backed away or dodged.

But now, even after his own attack had failed, he had regained enough composure to enter stealth and retreat without lingering.

In that case, Kang-hoo judged that the effect of a counterstrike would be greater than if the bastard had fully committed himself to fleeing from the start.

Once a person began thinking first about escape, the center of gravity in their body naturally shifted backward.

And from the attacker’s perspective, that dramatically increased the chance of missing compared to when the target was neutral or leaning forward.

“Die, you bastard……!”

“He’s only one man! Let’s crush him with numbers!”

Still, perhaps they retained some grit as an escort unit, because the ones whose lives still clung to them began approaching again.

Sacred Leap had already been fully charged to its maximum output. The moment he decided, his body would respond at once.

The moment Heuksaja’s melee dealers closed in around Kang-hoo as if to encircle him!

Wiiing!

Kang-hoo brought out a brilliant move that would reverse the entire surrounding situation.

A freshly obtained hidden skill he had plundered by going deep into the hybrid zone of Western Australia.

It was Black Cross Flame Lotus.