Chapter 211: Episode 211

Episode 211

“You arrogant little…!”

Enraged, Frost raised ice pillars all around himself.

Yusin took a step back and bent the trajectory of the falling volcanic debris, guiding it straight toward Frost’s head.

The ice pillars instantly shifted to defense, only to melt away under the assault.

“Kiiim Yuuusiiiiiin!”

Frost’s face flushed beet-red as he lifted his right arm, but a magic circle flashed with a sharp pop.

His arm jerked backward, canceling his ability. Yusin detonated another shockwave in Frost’s abdomen, and Frost gagged and dropped to his knees.

Faster. Even faster.

Frost’s body was being pummeled relentlessly by magic circles. As he hunched over in a guarded posture, his eyes suddenly flashed.

“Grrrrraaaaaaah!”

On the sweltering island, where magma boiled and heat shimmered, the temperature around them suddenly plunged. Yusin’s brow twitched as he sensed a different kind of mana wave than before.

<Frozen Nova>

Frost’s maximum output, something he had never shown before.

From his body, a wave of ice exploded outward in a full 360-degree circle. Yusin had no time to dodge; his ankles froze solid.

“Ahh!”

The first, faster wave locked down his ankles, and then the second, true ice wave came crashing in.

Yusin tried to wrench his feet free, but they wouldn’t budge. Abandoning the idea of escape, he quickly summoned Specter into his hand.

“Just die already!”

<Ice Dragon Rush>

The second ice wave and five ice dragons, all with their jaws gaping, hurtled toward Yusin. Confident of victory, Frost’s lips curled upward.

“…!”

It didn’t take long for his expression to freeze again.

Yusin was unharmed; the ice had failed to engulf him. Before the tip of Specter, an unknown black sphere was spinning.

A bottomless abyss whirled in place, emitting a horrifying sound.

’Roist, I still have no idea what that man is thinking.’

When Roist had told him his story, he had warned Yusin to avoid using dark magic as much as possible. But at the very end, he had suddenly reversed himself, saying he wanted Yusin to continue his research. The man was a walking contradiction.

When Roist had passed on his magic, a variety of dark magic theories had entered Yusin’s mind along with Titan Surgery for Humanity.

However, Yusin’s own dark magic patterns and tendencies were so different that he couldn’t use those spells in their original form.

So he rewrote them, creating his own original spells.

’Here we go.’

This time, instead of drawing Devastar on the soles of his shoes, Yusin inscribed it across the tops of his feet. He took a deep breath, spun once in place, and then kicked the black sphere as hard as he could.

’Darkness can only be ruled by darkness.’

The instant his foot connected with the sphere, Devastar activated, driving it forward.

<Devastar – Chain Hole>

WHOOSH!

The sphere shot out like an arrow. Frost responded by firing ice spikes, but the dark sphere devoured everything as it advanced. It wasn’t the kind of spell you could shoot down with projectiles.

’Damn it!’

Even so, Frost was still a top-tier hunter. With first-rate reflexes, he raised ice from the ground and shoved his own body out of the way.

SHK!

At that moment, dozens of black chains burst from within the sphere. One of them wrapped around Frost’s body.

“…What the hell!”

The sphere passed by, dragging Frost’s bound body along with it. The chains whipped in every direction, latching onto cliff faces, ice, lava—anything they could catch.

Soon the sphere shrank to the size of a ping-pong ball, and the chains were sucked back into it.

At last, the sphere suddenly expanded as if spewing out space itself, unleashing a massive dark-element explosion.

The air shuddered with an enormous vibration.

’I–It worked.’

On one knee, Yusin panted for breath.

Originally, it had been a binding-type spell that used gravity and chains, but he had remade it into a projectile-style attack by combining it with Devastar, another dark spell.

It was a raw, unrefined sixth-order spell with no grafting techniques applied.

Fast casting was impossible, and it took longer than a fifth-order spell, but once unleashed, it became an attack that could neither be shot down nor dodged.

This was the biggest achievement of this trial.

Rattle-rattle-rattle.

From the shattered flank of the mountain that Chain Hole had blown apart, a massive ice giant braced itself on the ground and emerged.

Cracked ice chunks fell away, and inside, Frost’s tattered body could be seen collapsing to the ground.

Even after using his ultimate defense—encasing his entire body in hundreds of layers of ice—he had taken this much damage.

The power was one thing, but Frost also felt as if some strange foreign substance had invaded his body.

Whenever he tried to stir his mana, a portion of it blackened and burned away. Black smoke was seeping from various parts of his body.

“Ghh! Heh… heheheh!”

Frost let out a hollow, deranged laugh. As he lifted his head, he saw Yusin walking toward him.

“Let’s finish this.”

Yusin summoned Specter back into his hand. Like Frost, black, heat-haze-like wisps were rising from several spots on his body.

WHOOSH!

Yusin swung Specter. The Fire Cannons engraved along its surface poured out, and Frost scraped together the last of his strength to raise an ice wall.

As the fireballs slammed into the wall and were stopped, Frost realized—too late.

There was a magic circle drawn right in front of his chest.

“Samia, now!” Yusin shouted as he triggered the circle.

<Wind Sagittarius>

Frost’s body was blasted backward. And in the direction he was being hurled, a Warp Gate that Samia had opened was waiting like a gaping maw.

Frost’s eyes went wide.

“Kiiim Yuuusiiiiiin!”

His body flew into the gate, and Samia immediately snapped it shut.

Gasping for breath, Yusin laughed.

“Hunter Kim Yusin! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I can manage.”

Yusin leaned lightly against Samia’s wheelchair, drawing ragged breaths.

Then he slowly purged the black mana that had built up in his body as a side effect.

“I’ve vented all my frustration. I should let someone else have the final blow.”

* * *

Frost tumbled out of the warp, sucking in harsh breaths as he looked around.

It was a quiet rural village shrouded in darkness. He saw an abandoned elementary school and an overgrown road choked with weeds.

Probably somewhere in an unprotected zone. It seemed to be within the country, but he had no idea exactly where.

’I need to make contact…’

As Frost fumbled in his pocket for his phone, his mind suddenly went blank.

In the darkness, two golden eyes shone brilliantly, staring straight at him.

“I’ve been waiting a long time.”

The moment he heard that voice, his knees went weak. Every hair on his body stood on end, and his breathing turned ragged.

There was no doubt in his mind that Kim Yusin had thrown him into hell.

“We’re seeing a lot of each other today, huh? Jeong Hajin.”

Hong Yul rose from where she had been sitting, her red hair flaring.

The suffocating tension wrapped around his throat. Frost’s forehead was instantly drenched in sweat. He had to talk—somehow, he had to keep talking and buy time.

“M-Madam President…!”

“Hm? You’re the Association President.”

She smiled, the corners of her mouth curling up.

“I’m free now. I don’t have a duty to protect the citizens anymore. So beating the crap out of one so-called citizen who barely even qualifies as one… that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Crushed under an inescapable terror, Frost’s legs shook uncontrollably, no longer obeying his brain.

He had to do something. He had to get out of here, no matter what it took.

“Stop! Hunter Hong Yul!” Frost screamed in desperation.

“I am the President of the Hunter Association of the Republic of Korea! Defying my orders is the same as turning your back on the entire nation—an act of grave treason!”

His voice came out hoarse and broken.

“Stop!”

“…”

A cold night wind blew. His shout scattered uselessly into the dark, carried away on the breeze.

“Even you have to admit you sound pathetic right now.”

She snorted.

“It’s just you and me out here, you idiot. I don’t give a damn about your money or your connections or any of that crap.”

She was right. There was no one else here.

No hunters to guard him. No audience to condemn her.

Nothing.

Realizing that, Frost felt himself being driven even further into a corner.

In the end, the only person he could rely on here was himself. With a trembling hand, he clutched a pill.

A drug that forcibly sent mana into overdrive.

He had agonized several times over whether to take it during his fight with Kim Yusin, but he had held back because of the risk—it could kill him—and because of his pride.

But now his life was truly on the line. He bit down on the pill and swallowed.

“Haah! Haaah!”

Mana flooded into what had felt like an empty body.

As his mana rapidly filled him, Frost’s mind cleared and a surge of confidence followed.

“How boring.”

Hong Yul let out a flat, unimpressed laugh.

“That’s the best you can do? Pop a pill?”

Frost clenched his teeth and thrust out both arms.

She had been trapped in a dungeon all this time. He wasn’t in perfect shape either, but there was no way her condition was good.

He had a real shot at winning.

“A dead ghost from the past has no right to challenge me!”

A torrent of cold mana swirled around Frost’s hands like a raging current.

“I’m the Association President now!”

Frost’s strongest technique, Frozen Nova, erupted in a berserk state.

This time, instead of spreading in a 360-degree radius, the ice tsunami surged in a single direction—straight at Hong Yul.

Her response was simple. She just walked into the oncoming ice.

RUMBLE—CRASH!

Within the ice storm that pulverized everything it touched, she alone remained unharmed.

The moment Frost’s steel-hard ice touched the crimson radiance wrapped around her body, it was shredded like an apple tossed into a blender.

“You monsterrrrr!”

Frost screamed and pushed his output to the absolute limit, but this was not an opponent he could overcome with sheer volume.

Her golden eyes gleamed as she walked forward, and finally—

“Hi there.”

The grim reaper had come for him.

The instant that monstrous blow connected with his body, Frost felt as if everything surrounding him had collapsed.

Blood gushed from his nose and mouth, and he heard the sickening crunch of bones breaking somewhere inside him.

In that brief instant, the muscles of his face rippled like liquid, contracting and relaxing over and over before snapping back into place.

Frost dropped where he stood, collapsing on the spot, and realized that a single strike had completely neutralized him.

There was no way a human being could ever beat something like this.

“I held back. Stop whining like a baby.”

She opened her palm and smiled elegantly. Her smiling face was beautiful, but to Frost, she looked more horrifying than any demon.

“Ah…”

His sharp, calculating mind ground to a halt, and his eyes filled with tears. His chest heaved.

All his complex thoughts about systems and processes and analysis evaporated as if they had never existed. His mind regressed until he could only think in simple, childlike terms.

“Please don’t kill me!”

Frost instantly dropped to his knees in front of Hong Yul.

“Please don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me! Please, I’m begging you!”

Then he pressed his lips to the toe of her shoe.

It wasn’t just a kiss on the top of her foot. A kiss wasn’t enough. He carefully licked the dirt, ice, and bloodstains from her shoes with his tongue.

The reason he was not a “defective product.”

“I’ll give up the Association President’s seat! For the Republic of Korea! For you, Hong Yul! If you just give me even the lowest position at your side, I’ll do anything, I swear! If you just let me live…!”

Smack!

Her sudden kick to his chin sent Frost rolling across the dirt. Hong Yul grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up, then opened her palm.

The crimson radiance had vanished. But it was not a sign of mercy.

Smack!

Frost’s head snapped to the side. It didn’t feel like being slapped; it felt like his face had been clamped in a mold and someone was hammering it.

Splat!

Another slap sent his head whipping the other way.

Several teeth flew into the air, catching the moonlight and flashing as they spun.

“Ahh! Cough! You savage bitch! Do you even know what you’re doing, you fuck? I’m the President of the Association of the Republic of Korea—!”

Smack!

“Guh! D-Do you—fuck—do you know who my dad is? Huh? Jeong with a J, Jin with a J, the real Chairman Jeong Jin-ja! Ring a bell? You’ve heard of him, right? If I tell my dad about this, someone like you—!”

Smack!

“Cough! Ghhk! W-Wait. Let’s talk. Let’s talk this out. We’re adults, right? We can resolve this with a civilized—”

Smack!

With every blow, Frost felt his personality twist and flip.

He was desperate. He tried anything he could think of to avoid being hit. But no matter what he said, there was not a shred of mercy in Hong Yul’s hand.

She was simply a beast that could not be reasoned with. A beast didn’t choose its targets based on whether they were rich or poor.

Frost shuddered in despair.

What could he do to survive? What could he do to make the pain stop? Those were the only thoughts left in his head.

Driven by the raw instinct to live, Frost’s mind raced frantically, and he screamed in a last-ditch effort.

“Hong Yeon! Your sister!”

Hong Yul’s raised arm froze mid-swing.

“You know your sister is in my hands, don’t you? One word from me, and she’s dead! No, no, it’s worse than that! Do you really think I’d just kill her? As simple as that? Use your head. Do you think those starving things out in the middle of nowhere would leave a pretty girl like her alone? Come on, think this through. It’s not too late. What happens to your sister depends entirely on you. You get what I’m saying? Huh?”

Hong Yul remained silent.

Hong Yul’s golden eyes trembled, then slowly squeezed shut. The arm she had raised high gradually lowered. Her grip on his collar slackened as well.

“Keep your promise. Don’t lay a hand on Yeon.”

Frost stared at her, his expression blank.

Finally.

Finally!

Finally, he had gotten through to her.

“…Heh, hehehe!”

Frost began to laugh like a madman. He tried to stifle it by clapping a hand over his mouth, but the sound still leaked out between his fingers.

“Hahahahaha! Kekekeke! Kyahahahahaha!”

His face was so mangled and smeared with blood and tears that it was barely recognizable, yet he laughed.

He clutched his stomach and rocked back and forth like a clown.

“Are you all seeing this, you fuckers? This is the system!”

Consumed by madness, Frost flung both arms toward the sky.

“Even the great Hong Yul can’t do a thing, see? Right? That’s how it is! Even a beast cherishes its cubs, its pack! And they’re all bound by the system! You think just because she’s a beast, she can drag her family into this meat grinder with her? No way! No fucking way! She’s lived it, so she knows it’s hell! Kyahahahahaha! That’s how it always is! Even those revolutionaries who scream about freeing the slaves still send their own daughters off to be noble slaves. Why do you think that is? Because they know! They know what the real answer is! Heh, hehahahahahaha!”

Frost, who had been howling with laughter, abruptly changed his expression.

“Let’s start with a kiss on your master’s foot. Get down and—”

Smack!

Frost’s head snapped back as he tumbled to the floor.

The triumphant look on his face shattered, and the lofty status he’d felt, as if he were standing atop a skyscraper, was slammed straight into the pit of hell.

“…Huh? …Huh?”

’This isn’t right,’ Frost thought.

“Wait! You can’t do this—!”

Smack!

“Ghk! Cough! Heh, was the foot-kiss a bit much? Then how about we—”

Smack!

“You crazy bitch! It’s your sister’s life on the line, your sister! You worthless piece of—!”

Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!

Frost’s cheeks turned to pulp as she slapped him senseless by the collar. His body went limp.

“You’re hopeless.”

Hong Yul grabbed him by the hair and yanked him upright.

“And I think you’re misunderstanding something. I heard from Yusin. Yeon’s at the Antarctic base right now, isn’t she? Even if every last one of them went after her…”

Hong Yul smiled faintly.

“My little sister is stronger.”

CRACK!

The last of Frost’s teeth scattered like buckshot.

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