Ch.82Tyrant Lee Ji Cheol (2)

Click.

Click.

The call disconnected, and I blankly turned my head to check the calendar in the living room. The date was indeed Monday.

Wait, didn’t he say the execution would be Tuesday night?

It seemed like Shin Doyun couldn’t wait and charged in a day early, only to be easily defeated by Lee Jichul.

Ring ring ring.

As I stood with my arms crossed, lost in thought, another call came from Shin Doyun’s phone.

I quickly composed myself before answering.

“…What?”

[I already know who you are. No need for lengthy explanations. If you don’t come to the designated location tonight, I’ll kill this guy.]

Then a message arrived under Shin Doyun’s name.

Ding!

“……”

After checking it and carefully considering my options, I answered Lee Jichul.

“That’s too far. Just kill him if you want.”

The distance was too great to make a quick trip. Seoha would definitely notice and interrogate me. That was something I really wanted to avoid.

[…What are you saying?]

Lee Jichul spat out words filled with irritation, as if he’d heard something absurd.

Then he said to me:

[Come to think of it, you two are in the same guild, aren’t you?]

“What?”

[If you won’t come, I’ll use this guy as a hostage to lure out Baek Seoha and kill him.]

Shin Doyun was indeed currently a member of the Cheongbaek Guild.

With the right threats, Seoha might go alone to Lee Jichul to save Shin Doyun.

A plan with a high probability of success.

And that made me extremely angry.

“…You’re asking for it.”

In truth, I had used the excuse of being grounded when I refused Shin Doyun before, but the more accurate reason was my judgment that it wasn’t the right time to mess with Lee Jichul.

However, now that didn’t matter anymore.

I returned to my room, grabbed my coat, and declared to Lee Jichul:

“I’ll be there in two hours. Think carefully until then.”

[……]

“I’ll at least let you choose how you want to die.”

And so, I accepted Lee Jichul’s invitation and headed to Incheon.

#

Lee Jichul, one of only three S-rank Hunters in South Korea and known as the Tyrant of Incheon, tossed aside the phone in his hand and spoke quietly.

“I didn’t expect things to get entangled this way, but now I can clean up all these nuisances at once.”

Then he grinned and shifted his gaze to the injured and restrained Shin Doyun.

“All thanks to you.”

“……”

He had known for some time that Shin Doyun was investigating him. But he hadn’t bothered to take action until Doyun made a direct move, seeing no need to concern himself.

However, he found something quite interesting on Shin Doyun’s phone after capturing him.

It was a record of communications with Baek Eunha, one of the two individuals that Hades had identified as targets.

‘…How impudent, targeting me like that.’

Yet from the conversation content, it didn’t seem like they had noticed the connection to Hades. There must be some other reason, but the captured Shin Doyun refused to speak.

In that case, he would just have to question Baek Eunha when she arrived.

“I thought you were just some insignificant fly, but you turned out to be decent bait. Don’t you think?”

Stab.

“Urgh……”

As Lee Jichul carelessly prodded his wound, Shin Doyun let out a pained groan.

But resistance was impossible. Shin Doyun had already deeply felt the vast difference in power between himself and Lee Jichul.

‘…This bastard, he’s been hiding his true strength all along.’

The counter-magic and secret weapons he had prepared after researching Lee Jichul’s data were completely ineffective.

Even though Lee Jichul hadn’t fully recovered from his injuries, his strength was on an entirely different level.

“…Just who was it that injured a monster like you?”

“……”

At Shin Doyun’s question, Lee Jichul slightly frowned as he recalled a recent incident.

The S-rank Hunter from England, Helena, whom he had gone to stop at the request of Hades’ founder, to prevent interference with the ritual.

Even Lee Jichul had been quite shocked by that fight.

‘I never imagined such a monstrous woman existed.’

This wasn’t the first time Lee Jichul had fought an S-rank awakened. After all, he earned his nickname “Tyrant” by pulverizing an S-rank Hunter from another country.

But Helena was different. Though they shared the same rank, she was clearly a level above the current Lee Jichul. He couldn’t be certain, but she was probably among the strongest even among S-ranks.

‘…Even so, it’s not a problem.’

In the end, the ritual had succeeded, they obtained the fragment, and Helena failed to intervene.

The result was a victory for Hades.

After closing his eyes and carefully recovering his depleted magical power for several hours, he finally sensed a powerful presence approaching from the distance.

And when Lee Jichul opened his eyes, there stood a girl looking up at him with an emotionless expression. It was Baek Eunha.

“You came.”

Baek Eunha glanced once at Shin Doyun who was slumped in the corner, then addressed Lee Jichul.

“You haven’t killed him yet?”

“One can’t kill a hostage before the target arrives, you know.”

However, Baek Eunha mocked Lee Jichul with her response.

“I didn’t come for him.”

Then, chanting a spell, she immediately summoned the Book of Death in her hand.

Whoosh!

Crackle!

“Since I don’t have time, let’s finish this quickly.”

And so, the battle began.

#

As I opened the Book of Death, Lee Jichul took out an ominous-looking orb from his pocket and shattered it.

Boom!

Swish.

Swish.

“Smoke screen?”

“I’d rather avoid unnecessary noise, you see.”

The black mist that explosively flowed out enveloped me, Lee Jichul, and Shin Doyun in a wide area.

It seemed he wanted to conceal any traces of the battle from the outside.

“Well-prepared, I see.”

Of course, a fight between high-rank Hunters would cause chaos everywhere if both sides went all out.

This wasn’t bad for me either, so I paid it no mind and immediately began chanting my spell.

Whoosh,

“Extraction.”

After the battle in Italy, my level had finally exceeded 40.

“Materialization.”

Whoosh!

My current level is 41.

Now I could easily maintain the simultaneous summoning of high-level undead.

Thud.

Roll.

Split skulls and broken statue pieces appeared in both my hands as I completed the spell.

I was summoning the undead durahhan Hans and the totem shaman Kan.

A standard combination considering front and back lines.

“Undead call.”

Intense energy burst from my entire body, and soon Hans and Kan appeared with a thunderous noise.

Crack.

Crackle.

Rumble.

Boom!

“Oh my, it seems you’ve regained quite a bit of power.”

“I am honored to meet you, great Lord of Death. Please command me as you wish.”

Hans swung his arms a few times and then showed a satisfied expression.

That was to be expected. Compared to when I first summoned him, his body must feel incredibly light now.

The two high-level undead emitted a powerful aura, but Lee Jichul showed little interest in response.

“Is that all? How disappointing. I expected you to be at least half as good as that woman.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’ll change your mind after taking a few hits.”

I wasn’t just being arrogant. I was actually quite strong now. Unless it was someone like Seoha, I probably had no equal within the A-rank.

“Come forth.”

Whoosh!

Swish.

Creak.

“…This opponent seems quite strong.”

Gordon, who materialized at my command, struck the ground with his staff and chanted a spell.

Thud.

“Ring of Erosion.”

Whoosh.

A specialty spell of Gordon’s that continuously absorbs the life force of enemies within a certain range.

In addition, I also activated a prepared curse to pressure Lee Jichul.

“Breath of Decay.”

Swish!

Lee Jichul was already not in his normal condition. Such debuffs would surely be a significant burden.

However, Lee Jichul still didn’t change his expression and just silently looked down at me.

As I felt something strange about this, Shin Doyun, who was restrained on the ground, warned me.

“…It’s hopeless.”

“What?”

All his usual confidence gone, Shin Doyun spoke quietly as if he had completely lost his will to fight.

“I was wrong.”

“……”

“Run away if you want to live. There’s no need to create unnecessary sacrifices.”

Just as I was about to respond, Lee Jichul, who had been silently watching, sighed and spoke with an annoyed expression.

“Waiting is becoming troublesome.”

Whoosh.

In an instant, dense magical power rose from Lee Jichul’s body.

He gathered it in his legs, then took a step forward.

Thud.

Boom.

It was just one step, a single footstep.

But soon, an eerie wave of magical power and intense vibration enveloped my entire body.

And then.

“Ugh.”

BOOM!

CRASH─!

The ground split open.