Chapter 210: Episode 210

Episode 210

Seokmodo, a satellite island of Ganghwado. Military helipad.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”

Frost hurled anything he could get his hands on, his rage boiling over.

The teleporter, who had never seen Frost like this before, stood frozen, not knowing what to do. Secretary Ahn, Frost’s strategist, kept his usual blank expression as he bowed his head and asked, “Mr. President. What are your orders now?”

Frost panted, his face flushed red, then forced out, “How is the situation developing?”

“We have declared a state of emergency under wartime law. The reporters on-site have been locked inside the building by the Executive Committee. We announced that Hong Yul’s appearance is the work of demonized hunters.”

“Damn it…!”

Even Frost, who had given the order, could see the plan was full of holes. Would the public really buy this story?

In truth, the main reason the people had backed him was their desire for someone to quickly stabilize the chaos left in Hong Yul’s absence. Now that she had returned, the entire game board had flipped.

Many citizens still longed for Hong Yul.

For the first few days after becoming Association President, Frost had been drunk on the belief that he could do several times better than she ever had.

But as time passed, he realized how wrong he was.

Even in terms of diplomacy, several countries that had been extremely cooperative with Korea had changed their attitude the moment they learned the Association President was not Hong Yul.

The Great Hero of Humanity. On the world stage, the name “Hong Yul” carried more weight than the entire Korean Hunter Association.

’No. No! It can’t end like this!’

If Hong Yul had fame, he had Unix and its money backing him. With those, he had managed to win over several cynical nations. He could still do plenty.

’I will never give up this power!’

Frost’s eyes flashed as he looked at Secretary Ahn.

“Raise martial law to the highest level! Ignore whatever the media says and order every hunter in Seoul to exterminate demonized hunters on sight, no questions asked. Any insubordination is to be punished by immediate execution. I will not hear a single objection.”

There could not be two suns in the sky. If Hong Yul didn’t die, he would.

Even if it meant turning Korea into a sea of fire, Frost resolved to become even more ruthless.

“That’s not going to work for me.”

A voice suddenly slipped into his ear. Frost’s face hardened as he turned around.

“Kim Yusin…!”

Yusin was walking toward him with a smile. Behind him, Samia stood by the warp gate.

Secretary Ahn and the teleporter had already been knocked out cold by Yusin’s Wind Port spell.

Frost’s eyes went bloodshot.

“You son of a bitch! You ruined everything! Just a little longer and the glorious Republic of Korea would have—!”

“You mean your little kingdom, dumbass.”

Yusin glanced around. There were a lot of helicopters.

“People in high places really are all the same.”

His fingers twitched.

“Planning to lie low overseas until things cooled down?”

<Iron Cancer>

Magic circles bloomed across the helicopters. Steel rebar burst out and coiled around their bodies like snakes.

Then Yusin clenched his fist.

The rebar wrapped around the rotors and crushed them, or snapped the tail fins clean off.

In the blink of an eye, every helicopter on the pad had been reduced to scrap metal.

“KIM YUSIIIIIN!”

CRACK. CRAAACK.

The temperature around them plummeted. Ice spread out from under Frost’s feet.

“So now you feel like putting up a fight?”

Yusin gave him a crooked grin.

“…A dogcatcher doesn’t brawl with a stray mutt. That would be beneath his dignity. But…”

As he raised both arms, ice pillars shot up from the frozen ground.

“When a dog sinks its teeth into your pant leg, you pick up a club.”

“Samia. Stay back.”

Frost swept his arm. The ice swelling in his grip exploded outward, taking the shape of a long dragon that lunged at Yusin.

<Ice Dragon Charge>

Yusin immediately triggered his Leap Boots and leaped to the side.

As the ice dragon passed, everything in a straight line for hundreds of meters from where he had just stood froze solid.

“Whew.”

Watching the ice field spread, Yusin let out a low whistle.

Another ice dragon dropped from above his head, jaws open wide.

<Devastar>

Yusin vanished in a swirl of black smoke.

When the dragon slammed its head into the ground, an ice spire erupted upward. And that wasn’t all—within a radius of hundreds of meters, jagged glacial claws thrust up from the earth.

In that instant, Yusin reappeared on the opposite side of where Frost was looking.

<Fire Cannon>

Accelerated fireballs streaked toward Frost. Without even turning around, he raised his arm.

SHHHHHHHK!

A perfectly formed ice wall surged up and blocked the fireballs.

Beyond the wall, two more ice dragons writhed to life and came after Yusin again. He activated Devastar and slipped past their snapping jaws.

’So the “certified rank 2” title really isn’t up for debate.’

For a moment, seeing Frost run nonstop, Yusin had wondered if he might actually be weak. That had been pure fantasy.

Frost simply considered hunter battles beneath him. His skills, however, were undeniable. You didn’t become Association President for nothing.

Acknowledging his opponent’s strength, Yusin recalled the intel he had memorized.

’Frost’s strength is defense.’

Most ice-type ability users focused on generating extreme cold to freeze monsters to death.

Frost’s ice, however, was different.

His ice was specialized for durability.

Most hunting devices couldn’t even cut it properly. Once it caught you, escape was nearly impossible.

That was why, in a second-class party, Frost’s role was classified as binding and defense.

’Good thing I can use fire.’

He had never been more grateful to be a four-element Elemental Master.

Yusin ran in a wide circle around Frost, pouring out Fire Cannons. Even Frost’s ultra-durable ice walls melted rapidly under the continuous barrage of flames.

Frost responded by reinforcing the wall in front of him or raising new ones.

– Tower Master! It’s coming from behind

Yusin kicked off the ground.

An instant later, an ice dragon roared past like a bullet train as jagged walls of ice shot up within a radius of hundreds of meters. Yusin tumbled across the ground and slammed his palm down hard.

<Earth Claymore>

’A direct hit on Frost, right through that wall.’

Yusin raised an earthen blade directly under Frost’s feet.

’…Huh?’

Nothing happened. Even at maximum output, the ground merely bulged upward like a stubborn knot of rock.

The sheet of ice Frost had laid down was so hard that it completely neutralized earth-based magic at its source.

“Cheap tricks won’t save you.”

Frost increased the number of ice dragons under his control to four. Yusin had no choice but to brace for the backlash and activate Devastar on both feet, breaking into a sprint.

’With Devastar, dodging isn’t the hard part. But…’

Yusin skidded to a halt, grinding his teeth.

’It’s already spread this far!’

The sheet of ice was expanding at an alarming rate, threatening to swallow the entire island. As a test, Yusin stepped onto it.

“…!”

His leg whipped out from under him without any resistance. Whether it was a special property of Frost’s ability or some other trick, the ice was impossibly slick.

“What were you thinking, chasing me all the way here, Kim Yusin!”

A violent whirl of cold surged from Frost’s body.

“As you well know, the gap between a fourth-class and a third-class hunter is massive! Most hunters retire without ever reaching third-class!”

The ice dragons danced through the sky, all of them taking aim at Yusin.

Unable to run on the treacherous ice, Yusin had no choice but to conjure shields in midair, using them as stepping stones to stay mobile.

“But the gap between third-class and second-class is even greater. It’s a gulf that can’t be crossed by talent alone! If you think taking down Blackjack means you’ve reached this level, you’re delusional!”

The number of ice dragons climbed to five. The ground below was now a treacherous skating rink; one slip would mean the end.

The island’s temperature continued to drop, and Yusin’s condition deteriorated with it.

To make matters worse, Frost had stopped raising walls. Instead, he wrapped his body in a coat made of ultra-high-density ice.

A single flap of that coat was equivalent to an entire ice wall. Even when Yusin fired his Fire Cannons, it was like trying to melt a glacier with a matchstick; the coat didn’t even budge. Every attack was blocked with ridiculous ease.

With perfect defense, Frost neutralized every assault, shaped the battlefield to his advantage, and slowly tightened the noose around his opponent’s neck. There were no gaps in his formula for victory.

However—

“If the world really worked the way you think it does, life would be boring as hell, don’t you think?”

“…What?”

Yusin drew Specter from his back.

He hadn’t just been running away. While buying time, he had been steadily weaving magic circles along Specter’s blade.

“You sent a Wave Master after me. You’re going to pay for that.”

Yusin drove Specter deep into the ground. Immediately, the four magic circles engraved on the sword began to resonate, and the blade shuddered as if it were howling.

The ground shook with the sword. No—the entire island had begun to tremble.

The terrain surged upward in a violent upheaval, and in an instant, a mountain rose from the earth.

“…What have you done?!”

“Now we can really get started.”

Smiling, Yusin spread his arms wide.

<Volcano Ground>

A volcano erupted in Ganghwagun.

Burning rocks rained from the sky, and a terrifying river of magma poured down the mountainside like a raging torrent.

Trees, ice, and houses on the hillsides collapsed the moment they touched the molten flow.

The ice sheet vaporized before the advancing lava. The chill in the air vanished, replaced by a searing heat that spiked the ambient temperature. Even ice untouched by the lava itself melted into runoff.

“You insane bastard! You won’t walk away from this either!”

“That’s my problem, not yours.”

Frost had a weakness. His defense was overwhelming, but until now, he had barely moved from his spot.

To maintain one hundred percent of his power, he had to stay rooted in place.

A chunk of molten rock blasted into the sky came crashing down toward Frost. There was no way he could dodge it while wearing that heavy ice coat.

Frost thrust his hands inside the coat and stretched his arms as if yawning. The ice shifted into the shape of a massive shield, and the molten rock slammed into it.

HISS!

“Ack!”

As Frost recoiled, tearing his hands away from the shield, Yusin appeared behind him in a puff of black smoke.

Smack!

Frost frantically raised his arms to block the kick, but the impact lifted him off the ground and sent him flying toward the molten mountainside.

In a panic, Frost spewed a massive amount of ice from his palms to slow his descent, then anchored an ice chain to a rock the lava had not yet reached and jerked to a stop.

“Got time to rest?”

Yusin raised his index finger.

<Earth Claymore>

One side of the volcano suddenly jutted upward, sending a wave of lava splashing toward Frost. He flinched and threw up an ice wall in midair, but the moment the lava touched it, the wall shriveled away instantly.

<Earth Claymore>

<Earth Claymore>

<Earth Claymore>

Yusin cast the spell again and again. Every time his finger rose, the lava leaped with it.

The ultra-high-density barriers Frost desperately erected were melting away as if they were made of snow. Hardness and melting points were two very different things.

“Goddammit!”

Frost thrust out his right arm and fired an ice dragon in a counterattack, but Yusin simply planted his hand on the ground.

He raised a wall of molten earth, and when the ice dragon’s head slammed into it, it melted without a trace.

’Man, now this is what a real brawl looks like.’

At a glance, detonating a volcano on an island they were both standing on seemed like a mutual suicide attempt, but that wasn’t the case.

Yusin’s true strength shone in a chaotic melee.

The countless chunks of molten rock falling from the sky were not hard for him to avoid, thanks to the combination of Deva’s Eye and his Predictive Evasion trait.

He also had the leaping spell Devastar, and his Leap Boots, and he could simply conjure shields over the lava to run across.

Frost, however, who had always fought by staying in one place and turtling up, had no experience with evasion.

On top of that, his ice walls, his coat, his ice sheet, and his ice dragons were all being completely neutralized by the superheated lava.

Yusin was paying back the man who had sent a Wave Master after him in full.

“Grrrraaah!”

Dodging the falling debris, Frost sprinted toward a flat plain the lava had not yet reached.

Yusin quickly closed the distance.

Frost fired a volley of ice, but Yusin invoked Aiolos, the fourth-order wind spell. He seized control of the volcanic debris flying through the air and slammed it down in Frost’s path.

HISS!

All of Frost’s ice slammed into the magma and melted. In that brief window, Yusin activated Devastar and shot forward, reaching Frost’s flank.

“Such a predictable move!”

Frost didn’t back down and swung a fist of his own, but a magic circle bloomed over his shoulder.

<Wind Sagittarius>

A shockwave slammed into his shoulder, sending his punch wide. Yusin’s fist drove straight into Frost’s face.

Crunch. Frost’s head snapped to the side.

“Aghh!”

As Frost staggered back, Yusin closed the distance, planting his right foot deep.

Both men clenched their fists to throw another punch, but this time a magic circle flared at Frost’s leg, unleashing another shockwave. His knee buckled, and Yusin’s kick smashed up into his jaw.

Crack. Frost’s head whipped backward.

“GRAAAAAH!”

<Wind Sagittarius>

<Wind Sagittarius>

<Wind Sagittarius>

A combination of sixth-order magic and martial arts.

Break your opponent’s rhythm while keeping your own intact.

The overwhelming presence Frost had shown at the beginning was gone, replaced by a desperate, flailing mess.

Yusin drove another straight punch into Frost’s head. The suit’s force field shattered, and he felt the bare flesh of Frost’s face against his knuckles.

“Ahhk!”

The mighty Frost collapsed in a pathetic heap.

“Now, say that again.”

Grinning, Yusin wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

“What was that about rank 2 being so far above me?”

* * *

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