hotmtlnovel Chapter 217: North Korea (3)
Chapter 217: North Korea (3)
Beyond the Qi Wall, the Punisher, unaware of what awaited, condensed the Qi Bullet in his right hand.
He prepared to send it flying beyond the quiet wall.
As much as they were cautious with each other, he assumed Kang-hoo would likely be waiting rather than readying an attack.
Even if he was preparing to attack, the assassin would still have to approach, so he thought initiating the attack was his responsibility.
However...
Boom!
“......?”
The thunderous roar left the Punisher with a question mark on his face. There was no reason for such a sound...
Screech!
Snap!
...there was.
The Hundred-Day Slash, flying like a raging bull, instantly shattered the Qi Wall and sent the Punisher flying.
The wall shattered like glass, and the Punisher behind it became a headless ghost in an instant.@@@@
The death was so sudden that he died without even having a chance to close his eyes.
“Ugh.”
Kang-hoo, having confirmed the Punisher’s death, groaned while clutching his throbbing forehead.
Relying solely on condensed magical power without other means brought on a wave of headaches.
“Well, at least it ended in one go. The performance is solid, as always.”
There’s a reason why the Hundred-Day Slash and the Black Moon Slash are known as hidden skills.
Unlike general skills, which have limitations on their maximum power depending on mastery and composition...
Hidden skills produce output proportional to the input invested. The stronger the input, the greater the power.
This becomes a wild card.
If one cannot gauge the opponent’s strength, the power of hidden skills also falls into an unpredictable realm.
Thus, the Punisher died.
Kang-hoo leisurely gathered three Mad Solarkium Flowers. After some processing on-site, he totaled 15.
Additionally, he gathered Solarkium found alongside the Mad Solarkium Flowers.
15 Mad Solarkium.
20 Solarkium.
One of his two objectives here—securing Solarkium—was mostly complete.
He did feel a slight desire to gather about five more Mad Solarkium...
But since those points were far north, he decided to leave it at that.
After all, there would be plenty of opportunities to obtain them in the future, and K might even be able to procure them through other means.
If it came to that, Moon Hyeong-seo or Hwang Bo-hye could help secure them, so there was no need to push too hard.
‘Now, let’s find the Queen of the Swarm.’
He updated his next goal.
The Queen of the Swarm’s heart—a necessary ingredient for unsealing the Random Skill Book—was his target.
Since he had confirmed the existence of the hybrid species, the Queen of the Swarm must be somewhere nearby.
It was now time to find her.
Meanwhile,
Gong Yu-seok and Ko Joo-hee were submitting a report on Kang-hoo to Jang Si-hwan.
Their task was to carefully compile and hand over data so that Jang Si-hwan, the final decision-maker, wouldn’t have to look into matters himself.
They were responsible for talent training and recruitment.
To them, Kang-hoo was an exceptional talent to be recruited urgently and their top priority of interest.
But to Jang Si-hwan, it meant something different.
In their eyes, Jang Si-hwan was an extremely busy man.
He was overwhelmed with countless tasks and had a lot on his plate.
Moreover, due to personal matters that couldn’t be disclosed to the public, his training time had significantly increased compared to before.
There was a problem with his ability to control the Dark Energy.
A defect had developed in an ability he once wielded without issue.
Such occurrences are rare unless someone suddenly loses their power.
For this reason, Jang Si-hwan had many matters to prioritize.
Therefore, his interest in Kang-hoo wasn’t as intense as that of Gong Yu-seok and Ko Joo-hee.
It could also be a matter of perspective.
No bodies or bones were visible around.
Of course, this didn’t mean there were no dead here. Hybrids are perfectly capable of cannibalism.
Since they even chew through bones, it was possible all traces had been erased.
Then—
‘They stopped.’
The entire horde of hybrids suddenly froze, as if frozen in time, standing still in their tracks.
It was like watching North Korean soldiers facing their leader.
For hybrids, their coordination was uncanny. They even turned their heads with precision, a truly remarkable sight.
Only one being could exert this level of control. The Queen of the Swarm.
‘As I thought.’
A figure, appearing female, was visible entering through the village’s right-side gate... but it was a monster.
Naked, her entire skin was colored yellow and black like that of a hornet.
She looked as though a two-meter-tall woman had donned a bodysuit imitating a hornet’s coloring.
The main difference from a human appearance was that her hands were sharpened like spikes.
In the original storyline, the Queen of the Swarm was only mentioned by name, with no detailed physical description.
Ultimately, this too lay in the realm of the unconscious, but she was far more menacing than the image he’d vaguely imagined.
Then—
‘...Hmm?’
A new element appeared, one he hadn’t anticipated.
A convoy of armed trucks arrived through the village’s left-side gate, opposite the Queen’s entrance.
Though he couldn’t hear their conversation from a distance, their appearance was clearly not Asian.
‘Kashimar Guild?’
It was plausible.
Even if their base was by the sea, entering inland was simple with the right transportation.
The hunters disembarking from the truck used modified firearms to capture weaker hybrids.
The hunters, seemingly oblivious to the Queen of the Swarm’s presence, targeted mainly hybrids resembling children.
Since they weren’t killing, it seemed they had separate research or strategic motives.
An imminent clash!
Predictably enough.
Sensing something suspicious, the Queen of the Swarm suddenly grew enraged and charged toward the left gate.
‘Is she an enhanced type?’
Her speed was unimaginably fast as she tore through the ground.
She was even faster than Kang-hoo at his maximum sprint.
Though he wondered why she wasn’t using wings, for now, running seemed faster.
And then—
The enraged Queen of the Swarm began slaughtering the hunters.
It wasn’t even a battle.
Each time the Queen swung her sharp arms, the hunters were sliced apart like tofu.
From Kang-hoo’s unintended vantage point, it was a chance to observe the Queen’s attack patterns.
But for those on the ground, it was pure hell.
‘They’re too low-level.’
For hunters in a danger zone, their skills were lacking.
Of course, maybe his standards were too high, but their basic response skills seemed insufficient.
At that moment, one hunter managed to react properly and drove a large sword into the Queen of the Swarm’s back from behind.
Though wounded in his last moments, this swordsman hunter took her down with him.
Shk!
Kang-hoo rose from his position.
He had been waiting for the right moment to intervene, and with the Queen of the Swarm now injured, this seemed ideal.
It didn’t matter to him who those dead hunters were or where they came from.
If they were hunters operating in an organized manner on this land, they were 100% tied to crime. They were far from innocent.
Victory and defeat.
Life and death.
In a battlefield where choices are binary, the only thing that matters is the outcome. The process was irrelevant.