Chapter 223: Controller

Episode 223

*Weee-woo! Weee-woo!*

As soon as the main gate was destroyed, piercing sirens blared throughout the Paladin headquarters.

Alerted by the alarms, Paladins rushed towards the entrance.

They saw Kim Jinsung, and…

“…Kim Jinsung!”

“It’s Kim Jinsung!! Kim Jinsung!!”

“S-save me!!”

“Aaaargh!!”

…they turned and fled.

The commander was bewildered, watching his subordinates scatter in terror.

“What are you doing?! Get into formation! Anyone who runs will be executed under martial law…!”

**Boooom!**

The commander couldn’t even finish his sentence.

Kim Jinsung’s relentless attacks culminated in the destruction of the headquarters entrance with a single crescent Mana blast.

With the commander, their only hope of resistance, gone, no one could stop the fleeing Paladins.

Not even Trey, the head of the G-1 branch, who was watching from the rooftop.

“Tsk tsk, how can they call themselves Paladins…”

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head in disappointment as he watched his subordinates run for their lives.

He knew, instinctively, that there was no way to bring them back.

“…Fine, at least you’ll live.”

**Boooom!**

Another explosion ripped through the headquarters, destroying a third of the building.

Now, even the staff members were fleeing, along with the Paladins.

Trey was the only one left.

“Huh…”

He chuckled, despite the imminent danger.

“That single bastard destroyed our billion-dollar security system…”

He couldn’t believe how easily Kim Jinsung had destroyed the new security system they had installed at the G-1 branch headquarters, specifically to counter him.

“And he didn’t even use any tricks. He just brute-forced his way through.”

As he marveled at Kim Jinsung’s power, Kim Jinsung looked up at him from the entrance.

Their eyes met.

“…It’s foolish to fight a monster like that. I understand.”

He muttered to himself, as if speaking to his fleeing subordinates. He then extended a hand towards Kim Jinsung and beckoned him.

It was a signal to come up.

Kim Jinsung responded by leaping onto the rooftop in a single bound.

“Why didn’t you run?”

It was his first question to Trey.

“Would it be fitting for a Paladin executive, responsible for maintaining order in the New Continent, to run away from a criminal?”

He replied calmly, his gaze fixed on Kim Jinsung with determination.

But his hands were trembling slightly with fear.

‘Damn it, I want to run too, you bastard.’

He desperately wanted to join his fleeing subordinates and run for his life.

But he couldn’t. He was bound by a restriction.

‘Graham, that bastard! He should have lifted my curse before he died…!’

He had tried to run away once before, in a similar situation.

He was caught by Graham and cursed, a spell engraved on his heart to prevent him from ever escaping again.

[You will serve a life sentence at the G-1 branch headquarters. The moment you step outside a 5-kilometer radius from here, the curse will activate, and your heart will explode.]

[…!]

[Do your job well. I might lift the curse if you prove yourself worthy.]

But Graham was dead. Killed by Kim Jinsung, who was standing before him.

He had been searching for a way to lift the curse, but Kim Jinsung had arrived before he could find a solution.

‘Fate is not on my side.’

He drew two swords from his back, accepting his fate.

They were unique swords, with a handle in the center and sharp blades on both sides. He held one in each hand and said,

“Let me introduce myself properly. My name is Trey Hangman. I was the Team 1 Leader of the ‘Texas Clan’ in America before coming to the New Continent, and I was an S-rank hunter known as the ‘Controller’.”

He spoke slowly, drawing out his introduction.

He had a reason.

‘I need to stall for time until reinforcements arrive.’

He had no chance of defeating Kim Jinsung in a one-on-one fight. How could he possibly defeat a monster who had killed Graham, someone he couldn’t even scratch?

But if reinforcements arrived, and if there were at least one top-tier Ranker among them, comparable to Graham…

He might have a chance of survival. It was a slim chance, less than 10%, but

‘It’s better than 0%.’

He continued his slow explanation,

“I continued to rise through the ranks even after coming to the New Continent. Until I was trapped by the Paladins, I was undefeated, both in individual and team battles.

It was all thanks to my unique ability! And the reason why I was called the Controller is…”

**Thud.**

“……!!”

His eyes widened in shock as he heard a familiar sound behind him.

He slowly looked down.

He saw a sword protruding from his chest, piercing his heart.

“I know.”

Kim Jinsung’s voice came from behind him. It was a clone.

The clone had used the ‘Complete Invisibility’ skill to sneak up on him and pierce his heart with a sword.

Trey, whose power level was lower than Kim Jinsung’s, couldn’t even sense his presence.

“You’re an ability user similar to ‘Sword Control’, who can control weapons without holding them.”

The clone finished his sentence for him.

He then smirked and asked,

“You were trying to stall for time until reinforcements arrived, weren’t you? It was too obvious.”

“……!”

His eyes trembled, and

**Slice.**

His head flew off his shoulders.

The clone had sliced his neck with the sword embedded in his heart.

▷ Weapon Controller: Allows the user to control any weapon they designate, even without holding it.

The range and the number of weapons the user can control increase as their power level increases.

The user can currently control up to 127 weapons.

“…Let’s try this out.”

Kim Jinsung read the notification window and grabbed Trey’s swords.

He used the ‘Weapon Controller’ trait to designate the two swords and threw them like boomerangs.

The swords spun rapidly in the air and disappeared from his sight.

Moments later,

**Slice! Slice! Slice! Slice!**

“Aaaargh!”

“W-what? What is that… Argh!”

“Flying swords! Help… Ugh!”

Screams and the sound of slicing flesh came from the direction the swords had flown.

It was the fleeing Paladins.

“…Not bad.”

He said, satisfied, and extended his hands again.

The two swords returned to his palms, as if drawn by magnets.

“It’s not very effective in one-on-one fights, but it’s good for dealing with small fry.”

He muttered to himself and then turned his head, hearing a familiar sound.

He saw Paladin task force vehicles approaching at high speed, sirens blaring.

‘With my current power level, I can easily wipe out that task force.’

Graham had once single-handedly destroyed an entire Major Clan that had rebelled against him,

nearly a thousand hunters, including their Master.

And he had absorbed Graham’s abilities and become even stronger.

‘And there’s no one in that task force who can threaten me.’

He could tell from his keen senses and various surveillance traits, including ‘Tracking’.

He could easily wipe them out if he attacked them now.

‘…But I can’t be careless.’

He decided to follow his rational judgment, instead of his instincts.

There was a chance that there was someone in the task force, someone his senses couldn’t detect, someone who could threaten his life.

‘The world is vast, and there are many strong individuals. And their abilities are diverse.’

He suddenly thought of someone.

Shin Woong.

The one he had fought fiercely in the third round of the Colosseum preliminaries.

The only one who had pushed him to his limits in the Colosseum.

‘There’s no guarantee that there isn’t another ability user like Shin Woong, with the ‘Allobon’ ability.’

‘Allobon’, a trait that permanently increased the user’s power level by sacrificing their lifespan.

He was certain that there was at least one more ability user with a similar ability in the New Continent.

‘Otherwise, Representative Baek wouldn’t have asked me that question after the third round of the preliminaries.’

[Did you absorb Shin Woong’s ability? If so, can you explain it in detail?]

Representative Baek had asked him this question out of the blue after summoning him to a secret room in the hotel after the third round of the preliminaries.

He hadn’t asked any further questions after Kim Jinsung said no and dismissed him. It meant that was the only reason he had summoned him.

He still remembered Baek’s question, his attitude, and his reaction.

‘It was a question he could only ask if he knew something about Shin Woong’s ‘Allobon’ ability.’

It meant that top-tier Korean hunters like Baek knew about the ‘Allobon’ trait.

And Yong Hangil, Yoo Jun-ho, Hong Yeon-seok, and other executives of the Korean Clan were also top-tier Korean hunters.

‘They might ambush me with an ability user similar to ‘Allobon’ at any moment.

It could even be now.’

Of course, it was highly unlikely that such an ability user was in the task force. He knew that.

But they were the task force that had been dispatched after receiving a report that he had attacked the headquarters. So the possibility wasn’t 0%.

‘It’s always better to be safe than sorry. I only have one life.’

He hadn’t acquired any resurrection-related traits.

So it was always better to be cautious.

He started backing away, preparing to leave before the task force arrived.

“But first, I need to finish what I started.”

He levitated the blood-soaked swords and started creating Heavenly Energy and Demonic Energy spheres in his palms.

He was going to create an Incrucio phenomenon.

Moments later,

**Boooom!**

The G-1 branch Paladin headquarters was engulfed in a massive explosion.

It happened right before the task force arrived.

—