Rapid Growth (3)

‘That means even Dimension Plunderer’s teleportation ability that I have would be restricted if designated by Wrath.’

In terms of a hypothetical example, that was the case.

Of course, since Kang-hoo had the Chain of Wrath skill, unless he used it on himself, such a thing would not happen.

They had suffered quite a bit during the raid because they had not properly recognized the fact that this skill belonged to the boss.

That was because the moment they tried to make a strategic retreat after measuring distance, Wrath activated and blocked their movement.

‘If I have Chain of Wrath, I can designate a guy I absolutely want to catch and keep him from going far. But is there no case where the force field breaks?’

When Kang-hoo checked the detailed tooltip just in case, there was indeed some added content.

It said that if a large amount of Dark Energy or divine power could be detonated, the force field could also be broken.

But he thought that was fine in its own way.

Because if it was an explosion strong enough to break the force field, they would have no choice but to use an enormous amount of Dark Energy or divine power.

If that happened, then when he pursued that target again, the amount of those two hidden stats they possessed would have dropped significantly.

They would become much easier to deal with. In many ways, it was true that Chain of Wrath could twist calculations.

With this, his skill settlement was finished.

Looking at the three skills he had plundered, it felt like his assassin, necromancy, and mage(?) identities had all been evenly strengthened.

‘If I go to much higher-ranked dungeons than now in the future, I’ll obtain that much more valuable skills. Good. Let’s keep going just like this. Just like this.’

A face became clear again in his mind. Jang Si-hwan.

From the moment he had opened his eyes in this world, Kang-hoo’s first and second goal had been Jang Si-hwan.

To face him, and at the very least to meet him at eye level, he still needed more abilities.

It was too early to be satisfied just because level 500 was right in front of him, as Jang Si-hwan’s level was over 800.

From Jang Si-hwan’s perspective, Kang-hoo was still merely a slightly special assassin in an endlessly lower world.

Kang-hoo wanted to reduce the gap with all his strength.

Because even after transmigrating, meeting a twisted conclusion, a sad ending…… was a tragedy he could not accept as the original author.

Drip, drip, drip.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

The man filled a glass full of ice with strong vodka and drank it down.

Unless one truly liked alcohol, and unless one desperately needed that strength, it was not something one did often.

But perhaps that was not enough to satisfy him, because the man drank vodka like that once more.

Only then did the man open his tightly closed mouth.

“The plan is almost completely set. With this much, we can definitely clean up the trash inside the Public Safety Bureau.”

The man’s identity was Yu Do-hoon.

He had been more saddened by the fall of the Public Safety Bureau than anyone else, but in the end, he had not been able to change it.

The core executives of the Public Safety Bureau had become massive deep-rooted corruption, and they had no interest in anything except the vested rights they held in their grasp.

Instead, they had demoted Yu Do-hoon, who had been trying to bring change, and had effectively turned him into a vegetable inside the Public Safety Bureau.

It was from then that a burning desire to overturn the Public Safety Bureau began boiling in his heart.

If they had guaranteed him a decent position, perhaps the cunning nature of humans might have made him settle for reality.

But the consecutive demotions he experienced in the Public Safety Bureau lit a fire in Yu Do-hoon’s burning heart.

After that, he had run forward without looking back.

Unlike his honest and impulsive personality, in order to hide his operation, he had to become cautious and skilled at lying with a shameless face.

Was that why?

His past, when he had received the hatred of the executives all at once, disappeared, and now he was receiving the trust of the executives.

Hunters of the Public Safety Bureau who did not know his inner circumstances called Yu Do-hoon a “turncoat.” It was a natural reaction.

“Everything else is fine. It’s all fine, but…… is it really right for the destination afterward to be The Abyss?”

That was Yu Do-hoon’s only unresolved point of contention.

Overturning the Public Safety Bureau was something he had wanted for a long time.

Furthermore, it was also absolutely necessary to bring out secrets about the covert evil deeds of Jeonghwa Guild, which had made the Public Safety Bureau act as its second unit.

However, his concern was whether choosing the warlord The Abyss in northern Gyeonggi as the place to take this was right.

Perhaps because he himself had also been influenced by Jeonghwa Guild’s long-standing propaganda, he clearly had distrust toward The Abyss.

Of course, according to what Yu Do-hoon had investigated personally, The Abyss did not engage in human trafficking, and distributed drugs only in a limited way.

Unless it was an internal distribution meant to make Jeonghwa Guild rot from the inside and outside, they did not touch it at all.

Moreover, it went without saying that the civilians living under The Abyss’s jurisdiction were living safely.

Nevertheless.

‘Can The Abyss become an alternative? Are they truly fighting a lonely, righteous fight?’

He kept doubting the essence of The Abyss.

For the past several years, Seoul had always exposed The Abyss’s evil deeds, atrocities, and their unspeakable horrors.

Even though he had listened with a filter, too much information had been injected into him, so that afterimage did not easily clear away.

“Damn it…… Just who the hell are the bad guys? Are both sides bad guys? I resent this damned world where the truth disappeared long ago.”

Drip, drip, drip.

Yu Do-hoon could not suppress his boiling anger and poured vodka into his glass again.

It seemed he would have to live soaked in alcohol today. By the time he emptied an entire bottle of vodka, he would reach a conclusion.

At the same time.

Lee Hyun-seok was talking by the window with Park Sang-oh, who was his trusted aide and cherished younger brother.

Perhaps because the area in every direction was entirely forest, the night air was refreshing and cool.

A forest at night, where the light had disappeared, was often described as a symbol of eeriness.

But the forest, which always took darkness as a friend and allowed light and darkness to coexist…… was like a cozy home to Lee Hyun-seok and the hunters of The Abyss.

That was why it was not frightening.

Ghost stories about people seeing the spirits of the dead in a forest stained with the blood of struggle were instead regarded almost like beautiful stories.

Because it meant they had killed those who deserved to die so well that they had turned them into the forest’s vengeful spirits.

Comrades who died as members of The Abyss were never left alone in the forest. They were always recovered and buried.

While emptying two cans of beer, Lee Hyun-seok stared somewhere without saying a single word.

Park Sang-oh already knew that he was looking toward Seoul.

From here, downtown Seoul could not be seen. But in his heart, he was probably drawing the scenery of Seoul.

Park Sang-oh carefully took one step closer beside Lee Hyun-seok and asked.

“What are you thinking about, hyung-nim?”

“There are many things I find regrettable these days. Maybe because of that, I keep having times when I stand blankly by the window like this.”

“What kind of worries do you have?”

“I always think that if Seoul had not been toyed with by Jeonghwa Guild, we too would not have had to shed this much blood.”

“Ah…….”

“That’s what I find endlessly regrettable. If I had cut off Jang Si-hwan’s sprout in advance, this tragedy would not have happened. I had the chance, too.”

“You said you had seen Jang Si-hwan before he grew to his current state, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Back then, I thought he was a young man more righteous and sincere than anyone else in the world. It was a complete misjudgment. I never imagined that I had been so thoroughly fooled by method acting stained with hypocrisy.”

“I also had a chance to personally see Jang Si-hwan once. The thought I had at the time was only one thing. Not only were his outside and inside different, it felt like two people were together in one body.”

“Perhaps that might not simply be a wild guess. There could actually be a problem with his ego.”

“That may be true, but…… in truth, that is no longer important. Seoul has already become Jang Si-hwan’s, hasn’t it?”

“I know the past cannot be changed. But maybe because I find that so regrettable, I keep soothing myself like this.”

“That does not seem like you, hyung-nim.”

“I suppose so. It’s about time for Mr. Yu Do-hoon’s contact to come…… His deliberation is lasting longer than I expected.”

Lee Hyun-seok looked at the time on the clock, which was rushing swiftly toward the peak of dawn.

There was still one day left until the final deadline by which Yu Do-hoon had promised to give an answer.

However, the longer the deliberation grew, the more it was proof that he was caught in anguish, so Lee Hyun-seok had hoped it would not lead to prolonged contemplation.

At this rate, it seemed he would receive the answer only after the time was filled completely.

Of course, as long as Yu Do-hoon reached a positive conclusion, Seoul would also flow into an interesting picture going forward.

The truth that could not be hidden.

How would Jang Si-hwan try to bury that truth?

In fact, the method was simple.

‘Shut every mouth that knows the truth and close their eyes. That is enough.’

Since Lee Hyun-seok knew the method Jeonghwa Guild had used to bury the truth for a long time, everything was prepared.

That was right.

The Abyss, which had finished reorganizing, planned to provoke Jeonghwa Guild into coming out onto the battlefield again.

Because what those drunk on the benefits of vested interests feared most was hot blood they would shed amid desperation.

The Abyss’s struggle had not ended with the previous Battle of Dongducheon. That had been the beginning of a grand story.

The fifth floor of the underground labyrinth.

The raid of the main boss monster “Blood King - Jin Ryuha” had reached its climax before they knew it.

The appearance of Jin Ryuha, who seemed to have almost perfectly replicated the image of an ancient Chinese emperor, was dignity itself.

It had such a similarity that one wondered if the concept of this labyrinth was an ancient imperial tomb buried underground.

For example, sand soldiers reminiscent of Qin Shi Huang’s Terracotta Army kept appearing.

Their appearance resembled terracotta warriors so closely that anyone who saw them had no choice but to think the same thing.

The number of summoned sand soldiers was gradually increasing, but for now, it was still fine.

That was because Mokomichi was continuously increasing the number of servants to match them and blocking the sand soldiers’ advance.

However, if there was another problem, it was that not even the slightest damage went through to the sand soldiers on top of the sand.

So all they could do was delay their advance, not reduce the increasing number of sand soldiers.

Since the main boss monster Jin Ryuha also received the benefits of the sand area, they had quite a hard time in the offense and defense battle at first.

Of course, thanks to Kang-hoo appropriately using Blue-Position Exchange Formation, Jin Ryuha was currently outside the sand area.

All four raiders were faithfully performing their own roles and adding hardship upon hardship.

However, among them, the one exposed to the most extreme-job position was, as expected, Kang-hoo.

Right now!

“Burn.”

Jin Ryuha’s fingertip pointed at Kang-hoo and was preparing to bloom flames of death.

The moment the target was designated.

It was the explosion of the Instant Ignition skill that covered everything in fire. It was nothing less than a fire hell.