Above ground, snow had fallen throughout the night, and sharp winds scattered the drifts into swirling fog made of ice and powder.
Underground, however, it was pitch-black darkness.
A chilling stillness hung in the air—quiet, but thick with dread.
Defender led the way.
He had reportedly operated in this area for quite so ti with his own team.
Surprisingly, Defender had a team.
One mber followed directly behind him, and two more brought up the rear—his team.
They were not drawn to Defender by his personality but by his skill, and most of them shared a deep-seated hatred for fanatics. They weren’t from the military schools—mostly academy-trained or postwar volunteers.
A volunteer, in this context, referred to soone who hadn’t even attended an academy but chose to beco a hunter after the war.
Given that Defender’s primary enemies weren’t monsters, but people, this makeup didn’t seem like a flaw.
In fact, they showed clear signs of being quite proficient killers.
“Here.”
Inside the train that had stopped between stations, a stench of rotting corpses filled the air.
It was the sll of bodies killed recently.
As expected, corpses with white cloths covering their faces were hung from subway handles like butchered at.
There were at least fifty bodies, maybe more.
It was the work of the fanatics.
Like any cult, they started out warm and welcoming—offering everything, promising salvation. But once soone was fully under their control, they were forced into brutal labor and service.
Those who disobeyed or ran were executed like this—to teach the others a lesson.
However, these particular corpses were the handiwork of Defender’s hunter team—the infamous “Most Wanted” crew.
They had ambushed a group of fanatics in the middle of an execution and repaid them in kind.
One of the hunter team mbers had previously escaped from that very cult, making the ambush possible.
“Ugh... seriously disgusting...”
The young woman who followed behind, ard with only a handgun, gagged audibly.
From the glow in her eyes, it was clear she was a regular Awakened.
Her na was Lee Haru. According to her, it ant “Tears of Sumr.”
When we coordinated beforehand, Defender had agreed to treat her as a non-factor.
He had even prepared contingency plans to eliminate her if necessary, though I didn’t go that far.
Because once you prepare procedures like that, they’re all too easy to carry out without realizing it.
Regardless of current troubles, regular Awakened remain one of the few precious resources South Korea has left.
They need to be shaped into sothing usable, however possible.
“Hold. Stay here.”
We took a short break in a different train car, using the ti to review surveillance devices Defender’s team had planted in advance.
And then—
“Ugh...”
One of Defender’s team mbers pulled a gaunt, gagged man from a sealed box.
The stench—a mix of feces, urine, and vomit—imdiately filled the space.
He’d clearly been kept there for a long ti.
The box was small. Seeing the man’s inability to support himself, I checked its dinsions—indeed, far too cramped.
Stuffing soone into that for an unknown duration—just another glimpse into the brutal, dehumanizing reality of this battlefield.
The reason Defender’s team wore masks, gas masks, and sunglasses might not just be for style or utility—it could be a barrier against monts like this.
“This one’s a ssenger of the cult.”
The Manryu Gwijeong Cult often borrowed martial arts terminology for their hierarchy—just like in wuxia novels.
Terms like cult leader, guardian protector...
But since the cult isn’t unified like the Roman Catholic Church, the terminology varies by sect.
So don’t have administrative roles at all; others only go as high as a guardian. The one we’re up against now operates like a full monarchy, complete with a cult leader.
“ssenger” was a common rank across sects—typically a low-level position, but, from what I understood, it referred to soone highly esteed in faith, not ability.
“Hey. Snap out of it.”
One of the n slapped the fanatic’s cheek.
Another forced a canteen into the fanatic’s mouth, pouring water down his throat.
“What are you doing?”
Lee Haru grimaced at the sight, but I said nothing. I watched silently as Defender’s team roughed the man up.
“A true fanatic.”
Defender comnted.
He ant the man was deeply devoted—soone who clung to teachings we considered the babbling of madn as if they were more precious than life.
“Why keep him alive?”
I couldn’t understand why they’d bother with soone who clearly had no chance of rehabilitation.
Defender, uncharacteristically, allowed a cold smirk to rise on his usually expressionless face. His voice, frigid and quiet, said:
“Because I want to see his faith break.”
“...Is that so.”
I thought it was pointless.
If it were , I’d have put a bullet between his eyes and ended his delusion.
But then—
“Hehehe...”
Even after all that abuse, the fanatic drooled and pointed at us, muttering:
“You don’t understand anything. Why the rifts appeared. You think you know sothing, but you’re just dying in ignorance...”
Crack!
One of Defender’s team mbers struck him with a rifle butt.
Even as he clutched his stomach and vomited bile, the fanatic wouldn’t stop muttering.
“You can’t break my will. Our truth is as universal as the sun rising in the east...”
Crack! Crack!
“Don’t kill him,” Defender said.
He looked at .
“Because he’s that kind of lunatic.”
His team mber gagged the fanatic again.
It looked like they were bringing him along.
Lee Haru voiced what I was thinking.
“Are you really planning to bring this guy?”
I stared at Defender.
“...I just want to see if he’ll say the sa thing after watching his oh-so-glorious cult get wiped out.”
Defender glanced around at his team and added:
“We’ll handle him. They’re experienced, seasoned people. And... they’ve got history with the cult.”
Defender turned to the tall man wearing a gas mask.
The mont their eyes t, the gas mask spoke with a young voice.
“Those cult bastards raped and killed my mother and sister in front of . And I...”
He removed the mask.
Where his nose should’ve been—there was nothing.
And more than that, signs of brutal abuse were still visible on his too-young face.
“...”
I looked back at Defender.
“Do what you want.”
It wasn’t my style, but I had no desire to interfere in this cycle of vengeance.
They had enough people. If they could manage him, then fine.
“Hey.”
Lee Haru approached quietly.
She gestured.
Seed like she wanted to whisper sothing.
I bent down without protest.
A soft breath, then her whisper:
“Sorry to ask, but... do you know what’s up ahead?”
I nodded.
Her eyes widened in surprise. Then she gestured to whisper again.
As I leaned closer—
“There’s more than one.”
So even a regular Awakened wasn’t totally useless.
She had info Defender didn’t ntion.
“There’s a dancer-type up ahead. You old-school hunters—this is your natural predator.”
“...Really?”
“And that’s not all. There’s a mid-sized monster housed there too.”
“Housed?”
“Think of it like a hangar. You’ve been out of the field too long—stealth-type small monsters often construct fortified bases that store battle-type mid-class monsters. Like stationing fighter jets on an island airstrip.”
Then, in a much quieter voice, she added:
“Don’t you think the people here... aren’t exactly top-tier even for old-schoolers? Do you really believe this mixed team with volunteers can pull off a mission that would challenge a full elite team?”
I stepped away and looked down at her.
“You know a lot.”
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
“Of course. I’m the most elite one here. My record’s better than Seung-hwan’s.”
She pulled her jacket closed and pointed to the badge on her chest.
A symbol like a horned deer—one I didn’t recognize.
“For what it’s worth... we don’t want you to die, Professor.”
“...Really?”
“If soone like you dies, morale will tank. I get that Woo Min-hee wants to keep us in check, but we don’t want this city to fall either. We know we can’t go back to Jeju anymore.”
“...I see.”
So that’s what it was—the thing that had been nagging at .
The reason these kids were dragging their feet and making excuses.
They wanted command authority.
They wanted things to go back to the old way—where regular Awakened called the shots and everyone else took orders.
Like during the late stages of the China deploynt.
I didn’t know all the details about that period.
I had returned to Korea before the Awakened took command, and because of my past rits, I was allowed to keep leading my team.
But I still knew the battlefield realities.
Our death rate—already high—only increased once Awakened took command.
It’s not that they were greedy or incompetent.
It’s that once they beca the central axis, hunter doctrines shifted toward protecting the Awakened above all.
Gone were our flexible, creative operations. All that remained was a passive doctrine—for the Awakened, by the Awakened.
Maybe that worked against monsters. But we’re up against humans too.
Fanatics. Rebels. They exploited those weaknesses without rcy.
Woo Min-hee knew this thod was flawed.
Regular Awakened were precious, yes—but now, so were old-school hunters.
The number of school-trained hunters had already been low, and now they were nearly extinct. Even the academy-trained were nearing obsolescence.
In monster combat—where the difference between veterans and rookies matters more than in any other field—hunters no longer held the sa expendability.
In a ti when everything had beco scarce, Woo Min-hee reached out to .
Because regardless of how much or how little credit I took, even my fiercest critics admitted one thing:
My team had the lowest casualty rate.
“...How many monsters have you killed?”
I asked the young woman, at least ten years my junior, as we walked.
“I lost count. Small, mid-class—I’ve killed plenty. Never taken down a large-class, though.”
“And you think we can’t handle what’s ahead?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, her eyes glowing.
“It’s physically impossible.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Even if you are the legendary hunter—Professor.”
She smiled.
Heheheh...
Behind us, the gagged fanatic began laughing through his restraints.
And then, his voice echoed through the dark, the gag apparently removed.
“She knows. Of course she knows—chosen by God. She sees the truth. You can’t win. No human can defeat a divine ssenger—!”
CRACK!
I waved Defender forward past the beating hunter.
It was ti.
While Defender’s team restrained the fanatic again and secured the tunnel periter, we unpacked our gear.
Hunter equipnt.
Grotesque tools built for a ti that’s already disappearing, created alongside us old-school hunters.
Yes, they’re outdated.
But they were born from blood.
From losing comrades, from losing limbs—designed to kill humanity’s enemies more efficiently.
Click—
Not quite my twin axes, but I retrieved one of my favorite tools:
The Mark 7 Harpoonizer.
When used properly, it could take down nearly any monster.
I loaded two of them.
Then—
Screeeeech—
I loaded a crossbow.
Not so cheap knockoff like the Judge Killer. This was a French hunting crossbow.
If soone asked why we’d use such dieval gear—well, the answer was in the arrow.
Instead of a sharp tip, it had a small cara.
Unlike drones, which constantly emit and receive signals, this arrow traveled silently through the air, no power required. It captured photos of danger zones, then returned via a carbon fiber tether.
It was a way to gather just a little intel—without provoking monsters like a drone might.
An evolution.
Just as monsters kept adapting to human thods, so did we old-school hunters adapt to them.
The arrival of Awakened had paused our evolution—but that didn’t an we had been left behind.
In fact, our thods were now the latest—simply because no one had updated them since we retired.
“...That’s new.”
After multiple cara bolts, we calmly surveyed the danger zone.
And there it was—sothing I didn’t recognize.
A huge, amorphous blob of sli—likely a mid-class monster.
Lee Haru looked at the grainy footage on the tablet and blurted out:
“Macrophage type.”
She knew about the new models.
She shook her head.
“I can’t help you with that one.”
“You were planning to?”
“Yeah. Seung-hwan asked personally. But now...”
She shrugged, her glowing eyes flashing.
“That one’s designed to kill Awakened.”
At that, the gagged fanatic in the back began laughing again.
CRACK!
Amid the rciless beatings, the eyes of Defender and his hunters turned to .
“...”
I thought for a mont.
Three beliefs clashed here.
The belief that humanity cannot defeat monsters.
The belief that old-school hunters cannot defeat monsters.
And the belief that our thods weren’t wrong.
“Let’s go.”
Ti will reveal which belief holds true.
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