Ch.104Angel Tip 8

Meanwhile, Jeoksa and Jisoo chased after 08 as he retreated.

Descending the rough mountainside, they were soon greeted by a ruined city.

Just like the abandoned city where Dohyun and Jisoo had died.

Jisoo’s eyebrows twitched at the familiar sight.

Upon arriving there, 08 stopped walking.

Then, as if he had been waiting, he turned to face the two.

“Seems like you don’t have the strength to run anymore?”

Jeoksa asked the boy in a cold voice.

In response, 08 glared at her with deeply furrowed brows.

Jeoksa.

One of the Four Executives of Ilshim, ranked somewhere in the 80s.

Quite weak for a Ranker.

However, that was merely a fake ranking that hadn’t been updated since she wasn’t affiliated with the Association.

According to information from the Councilor, she had once reached a single-digit ranking.

In other words, she wasn’t an opponent that he, who had just debuted as a Ranker, could defeat.

As he grew anxious, a reddish light began to swirl around the tattoo beneath his eye.

Soon, just like with 06, the Councilor’s voice reached him.

“08.”

“Councilor…?”

“Don’t be afraid.”

Don’t be afraid?

It was already overwhelming to face Jeoksa, but now he had to deal with that damn Flame Swordsman too, in a 2-on-1…

How could he not be afraid?

“Take the medicine.”

At the mention of medicine, 08 suddenly remembered the pills he had tucked into his shirt.

He hurriedly took them out and looked down at them.

He thought he had taken out two pills, but there were actually three.

“That will bring out your hidden power.”

“Hidden power..?”

08 wasn’t physically strong.

Perhaps his physical abilities were far inferior to even Jisoo, a B-rank hunter.

Yet the reason he could become a Ranker.

It was because the boy’s shadow was special enough to offset all of that.

Moreover, he was still a promising talent.

No one knew what might happen if his abilities were maximized.

In the end, he swallowed the pills.

As commanded by his master.

The boy’s body began to writhe as if in discomfort.

Soon, he started dry heaving.

The pain was so intense that he fell to his knees, his entire body conveying his agony.

Jisoo’s amber eyes twitched at the unsettling sight.

“What is that…”

When Jisoo asked, Jeoksa shook her head.

She calmly told Dohyun’s first love:

“I’ll handle that one. You take care of the shell.”

“The shell…?”

As Jisoo questioned, Jeoksa pointed at the boy’s shadow with her finger.

Black blood began pouring from the retching 08’s mouth.

As the blood spread on the ground,

the area it stained became so dark that even moonlight couldn’t penetrate it.

A completely pure dark substance.

The substance soon rose up on its own and took human form.

08 stared intently at the darkness.

Because there was a number engraved on the shadow human’s shoulder blade.

The boy murmured that reddish number.

“02..?”

The shadow glanced back at the boy.

A bizarre face without eyes, nose, or mouth.

A heavy male voice came from his face.

“You’ve grown a lot.”

Number 02, about whom little had been properly known until now.

The only information was that he had been the original Rank 2 when the gates first opened in the past.

His corpse, which had died protecting against monsters, had been stolen, and his essence had been inserted into 08’s body.

As the boy grew through the pills, 02, who had been dormant inside, awakened along with him.

The awakened original Ranker calmly looked at Jeoksa.

“So that’s why Mother bothered to wake me up.”

The shadow human, like a true Ranker, noticed that she was no ordinary opponent.

He calmly warned the boy:

“That woman… she’s not someone you can handle.”

The shadow human put his palms together in prayer.

In that state, he stared at Jeoksa as if scanning her.

Soon his form began to squirm.

Before long, 02 transformed into an exact copy of Jeoksa.

“Go. I’ll handle this.”

The 02 of the past life humbly told the 08 of the present.

In a voice identical to Jeoksa’s.

After hesitating, the boy began to flee.

Jisoo urgently chased after the departing Ranker.

“Stop right there!”

Jisoo followed the fleeing boy through the city.

She turned a corner and entered a dark alley.

A dark passage where even moonlight couldn’t reach greeted her.

The moment Jisoo stepped into that darkness.

“—!”

She instinctively twisted her body.

Spikes had emerged from the dark shadows, aiming for her head.

Having narrowly avoided them, Jisoo immediately drew the Vice Chairman’s sword.

Then she surrounded herself with flames to illuminate her surroundings.

“What is this…”

The moment she witnessed her illuminated surroundings,

she murmured to herself, dumbfounded.

Black hands were writhing in all the darkness beyond her flames.

And among those hands, the boy reappeared.

“So you chased me all the way here?”

08 sat confidently on the ruins of a building.

Then he gestured to the black hands.

To kill Jisoo.

The hands rushed toward Jisoo as if they were alive.

In response, Jisoo ignited even more flames from her body.

When the black strikes touched the flames, they turned to ash and disappeared.

Seeing this, 08 bit his lip.

No matter that he was a Ranker.

He had a poor matchup against Jisoo, who blocked darkness with her flames.

He eventually put his hands together again to condense his shadow.

The giant black hand thus created.

It surged forward once more, just as it had attacked her in the laboratory.

Thanks to the pills, the enlarged hand attacked Jisoo much faster than before.

But.

Jisoo hadn’t been idle all this time either.

She was originally a swordsman.

Now she wasn’t defenseless like when she escaped from the laboratory.

Plus, she had a reliable sword.

Jisoo raised Nahyun’s sword.

And with one hand, she gently stroked the blade.

In response, red flames gradually rose from the sword.

Intensely, as if oil had been poured on it.

“Finally, we meet.”

She firmly gripped the sword with both hands.

And she sharply aimed it at the enemy of her comrades.

A massive hand falling down.

Jisoo charged straight at that overwhelming palm.

Like a moth to a flame.

“How stupid, rushing in recklessly again!”

The nerves on the boy’s forehead stood on edge.

The giant’s hand, now larger than before, pressed down on the moth.

“—!”

But she was no longer a moth.

Gradually, cracks formed in the pitch-black, solid hand.

The massive hand, engulfed in flames, split in half.

Just like the wyvern they had killed with her comrades in the past.

Jisoo burst through the split gap.

Covered in black ink, she aimed straight for the boy’s neck.

Just before the blade touched his face,

08 summoned a shadow sword from the ground to clash with hers.

“Kugh…!”

Clearly, his stats had increased by 30 across the board.

But it was difficult to withstand Jisoo’s sword, burning with vengeance.

The hand holding the shadow sword trembled.

It trembled so much that drops of his blood fell in the dark world.

The boy swung his sword with all his might, the veins on his face nearly bursting.

Thanks to that, he was barely able to push Jisoo back.

But.

“This is just the beginning…!”

Jisoo shouted with a voice that seemed about to tear her throat.

The massive blade gripped in both hands surged toward the boy’s side.

08 barely avoided the fierce attack, gritting his teeth.

Whenever their swords clashed, an involuntary groan escaped him due to the overwhelming difference in strength.

Even if he blocked the attack, the impact was fully transmitted.

“Why. Are you flustered?”

Jisoo’s amber eyes blazed.

The boy looked at her with a tired expression.

He had clearly become stronger thanks to the medicine…

Why was he struggling against a B-rank hunter who was no better than an insect?

To finish him off, Jisoo took off the jacket she was wearing.

This revealed her grotesque arm.

A hand scarred and bruised from countless training sessions.

An arm tightly wrapped in bandages due to torn and ruptured muscles.

The moment he saw that arm, 08 realized.

While he had relied solely on drugs and abilities,

Jisoo had been training not just her abilities, but her body as well.

No matter how good his ability was,

he couldn’t defeat a swordsman with multiple abilities and years of effort.

Jisoo gripped the massive sword with one hand.

Like the absolute ruler of Ilshim.

And she swung it with swift, elegant force.

Following that trajectory, flames surged.

The flames became a vortex, engulfing the boy’s entire body.

08 covered his face with both arms and succumbed to the strike.

With devastating power, 08 was reduced to ashes and flew helplessly.

He ended up crashing into a pillar supporting a building.

“—.”

Only ash dust swirled in the ruins.

The Flame Swordsman walked leisurely toward that dust.

She gazed indifferently at the collapsed debris.

Within it lay 08, his entire body burned black.

The only part of him that wasn’t blackened was his pupils.

His smooth eyeballs looked up at Jisoo.

08 murmured through his crumbling lips.

“I should have killed you properly back then…”

“That’s right. I should have killed you all back then too.”

Jisoo looked down at him and said the same thing.

The situation had completely reversed from the wyvern raid in the past.

“Then I could have saved Dohyun…”

The swordsman’s voice trembled faintly.

Her longing for him soon turned into anger.

Emerging from the sad past, Jisoo asked 08 in a cold voice.

“Where is Siho?”

“Siho…?”

“The woman you kidnapped.”

08’s smoky eyes stared straight at her.

Then, as if realizing something, his crumbling lips sneered at Jisoo.

“How stupid, don’t tell me you can’t even recognize your own comrade?”

“What…?”

“She’s definitely a woman too good for someone like you.”

08’s voice began to diminish like dust, as if he no longer had the strength to speak.

At this, Jisoo was overcome with anxiety.

“If only she didn’t have that past.”

Jisoo couldn’t understand 08’s soliloquy.

But judging it to contain some kind of clue, she quickly grabbed his body and asked again.

“What do you mean? Hurry and tell me! Where is Siho…”

As Jisoo grabbed 08’s shoulder, his body completely crumbled.

It scattered like dust and mixed with the air.

“…”

Jisoo stared down at the remains of 08 in her palm.

Infinitely light and insignificant.

She clenched the powder tightly and rose again.

Then she hurriedly returned to where Jeoksa was.

Now only 02 knew Siho’s whereabouts.

Only him.