Chapter 95: Ancient Constellation (6)
“Just where did all these monsters come from…?”
Lee Woohyuk frowned, unable to understand the situation.
Guro-dong was where the demon beast outbreak had happened, a place where not even commonplace 1~2-Star gates could be found.
“I don’t think they’re regular monsters,” Kim Sunyoung said while calmly observing the surroundings.
“If they’re not regular monsters…”
“Demon beasts. Ones that were made artificially, at that.”
Kim Sunyoung’s eyes shone sharply as she raised her glasses.
“…It’s the work of the Black Star Organization.”
Grit—
Lee Woohyuk fiercely ground his teeth.
No place other than the Black Star Organization could have made thousands of artificial demon beasts.
“Goddamn bastards.”
He looked at the corpses of the ones who failed to escape and were ripped apart by the hands of the demon beasts.
“…”
For a moment, the corpses of the people who were brutally murdered overlapped with the figure of Lee Shinhyuk.
—His one and only family member who was so precious that words could not explain.
“…Brother.”
There was no answer that returned to his sorrowful call.
“Sigh.”
Lee Woohyuk barely suppressed the fury that was about to explode at any moment.
‘Think about revenge later.’
Dealing with the demon beasts that were slaughtering the people came first.
“Sunyoung, evacuate the survivors.”
“Understood, Guild Leader.”
Kim Sunyoung crouched down and grasped the two daggers attached to her thighs with each of her hands.
With agile moments like a puma jumping from tree to tree, she moved to where the survivors gathered up by leaping through the building debris.
“Well, then.”
Lee Woohyuk’s eyes shone ferociously.
The eight flicks next to the stigma of Leo blazed up as sharp gusts of wind whirled around his body.
“I’m going.”
“Yes, sir!!”
“Blow them all away!!!”
The members of the Valhalla guild raised their weapons and sprinted at the tsunami of demon beasts without hesitation.
“Krrruurrriuk!!!”
The demon beasts spread out as if they were forming a crane wing formation and surrounded the members of the Valhalla guild.
“You dare?”
Lee Woohyuk quickly headed to a section of the formation.
With his sword raised up high—
“Mere demon beasts attempting to get into a formation?”
—he struck down.
Boooooom!!!!—
The blast of wind created by his sword shot forward and swept away the demon beasts that were trying to get into formation.
The demon beasts hit by the wind bled as if they were cut by a wild beast’s claws as they were sent flying back.
“Fuu.”
Lee Woohyuk, who ravaged the demon beasts with unstoppable force, slowly inhaled air.
Focusing mana into his sword, he got into a stance.
“Whirlwind.”
Sword aura swirled inside the blasts of winds that twisted and turned.
“Kuaaaaaah!!”
“Kreuk! Kreuruk!”
—A tornado of death.
The demon beasts hit by the attack were blended into minced meat and scattered around.
Swish! Swishhhhh!—
It was as if a wild beast had ended up in the middle of a flock of sheep.
From one sword strike, dozens of demon beasts were torn apart, and a part of the formation was pierced through.
“Wow.”
Ohjin let out an exclamation as he looked at the scene.
‘Is that the real strength of the Black Lion, Lee Woohyuk?’
He had seen him fight with Yujin once before, but due to Yujin running away before it developed into an actual fight, he hadn’t been able to see Lee Woohyuk’s true strength.
‘I guess he isn’t called a candidate for the Seven Stars for no reason.’
According to the rumors, the Black Lion, Lee Woohyuk, was at the peak of the 8-Star rank, just one step away from attaining the 9-Star rank.
‘He’s in a different league when compared to Ha-eun.’
The difference in ability between Lee Woohyuk and Ha-eun, who had just become an 8-Star, was incomparable.
Honestly, it was to the point where he wondered if they really were at the same rank.
‘With this… I should have a bit of spare time.’
The urgent embers were put out with the arrival of the Valhalla guild and Association members.
Ohjin shot his wire shooter at the rooftop of a nearby building.
Bang!—
After getting on the building’s rooftop using the wire, he activated the stigma of the Hunting Dogs and observed the battlefield.
‘Even with this, there are a lot of casualties.’
Casualties couldn’t be helped when thousands of demon beasts had suddenly appeared in the middle of a city.
It was especially no different from a natural disaster to the unawakened that had been unable to get selected by a celestial.
“Keeps his hands off the unawakened? Bullshit.”
Ohjin furrowed his brow and clicked his tongue.
He wasn’t certain if what happened was due to Cheon Woosung’s orders, but as long as he was the one who practically led the ‘Owl’ faction, it was highly probable that he had ties to the operation.
‘Let’s think about why he decided to do such a thing later.’
There was another urgent matter he had to focus on at the moment.
[My child, are you not going to help those people?]
“Wait.”
Ohjin utilized his senses that sharpened through the stigma of the Hunting Dogs and observed the battlefield.
The demon beasts were advancing endlessly towards the Awakeners while forming a clumsy formation.
‘As expected.’
It seemed that they tried to hide it by intentionally making it look clumsy, but…
‘Someone is secretly controlling the demon beasts.’
It wasn’t that monsters with exceptional intelligence didn’t exist…
However, the demon beasts in the outbreak of Guro-dong didn’t seem like they had intelligence capable of getting into a ‘formation’.
‘I need to find them.’
That person was likely to be the culprit of the situation.
‘Where are they?’
Nothing immediately stood out to his naked eye.
Even when he tried to sense their energy using the Black Heaven, he wasn’t able to find where they were hiding, as the energy of the ‘Black Stars’ was overflowing in the area.
“Ugh.”
The area where the fight took place was several kilometers long.
As long as they didn’t stand out distinctively to his eye, there was no method of finding the person controlling the demon beasts.
‘If that’s the case…’
Ohjin turned his head to face Vega.
“Vega, the unpleasant kind of energy you felt before, can you feel it right now?”
[That is correct. I can feel unpleasant energies overflowing all over the place.]
Vega frowned and shook her head with distaste.
“Is there an area that has an especially thick energy?”
When it came down to sensing the energy of the Black Stars, Vega was several times better than Ohjin.
Even if she had her powers restricted, she was still a North Star that made other celestials bow down their heads.
[Hmm… Wait a minute.]
Bright silver rays of light covered her body and gradually spread out.
[Haa.]
Vega, who had returned to her original form, slowly raised her hand and extended out her index finger.
Crack, crackle—
Blue lightning formed at the tip of her index finger, and as it slowly moved from left to right as if separating heaven and earth—
[Black Stars, reveal your unsightly figure.]
—A tsunami of lightning covered the earth.
“What the…”
It was delicate lightning that couldn’t even be seen with the naked eye, but Ohjin could definitely feel it.
In the blink of an eye, blue lightning had covered several kilometers of the earth.
‘Holy shit.’
She had covered the entirety of Guro-dong with a slight movement of a finger.
‘What if she was in an unrestricted state?’
What she had used was delicate lightning that couldn’t be discovered by anyone other than Ohjin, but if all that lightning was real lightning containing lethality, just imagining what would’ve happened gave him goosebumps.
‘Thousands of demon beasts would have been annihilated with the slight movement of a finger.’
Ohjin felt how absurd of an existence the transcendent beings called celestials were once again.
[Uht…]
Vega frowned as she started to feel the pain of the Commandment’s Restriction.
However, soon after—
[I have found them.]
—Vega pointed to a certain location.
Where she pointed to was one of the places where the demon beasts crawled out of nonstop.
It was the top floor of a skyscraper that was dozens of floors tall.
‘So they were hiding inside a building.’
It was a great choice when considering the fact that buildings were scattered all over the place.
* * *
“…Well then.”
Because he had figured out where they were hiding, all he had to do was go there and kill them, but the problem was that there wasn’t a satisfactory means to head all the way there.
The building was too high to get there using wire shooters, and there were too many demon beasts to go into the building.
“What a pain in the ass.”
He could fly there if he had learned the ‘Lightning Shadow Step’ that Vega mentioned in the past, but he had no skill that allowed him to freely soar the skies at the moment.
“Rookie! What are you standing around for?!”
Riak, who was fighting with the demon beasts, climbed up onto the rooftop with agile movements and furrowed his brow.
“Aha.”
Snap—
Ohjin snapped his fingers as if he had thought of something when he saw Riak.
“Riak, I have a request.”
“What is it?”
“I need to get to the top floor of the building way~ over there.”
“Are you talking about that building?”
Riak looked up at the skyscraper and clicked his tongue.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t take you there. The Commandment’s Restriction on me is weaker that the one on Lady Vega, but I still can’t use Lighting Shadow Step outside the sanctum.”
“I know.”
“…Hm? You know? Then how are you planning on getting there?” Riak asked as he tilted his head.
“Riak, you’ve seen a baseball game on TV, right?”
“I have seen it before, but why are you… wait.”
Riak opened his mouth wide.
“A-Are you crazy?”
“Can you do it or not?”
“You’ve lost your mind…”
Riak shook his head as if he thought it was ridiculous.
[What kind of method is it for you to be reacting like that?]
Vega alternated looking between Ohjin and Riak, as she still hadn’t understood what was going on.
“I’ll explain later. Riak, you don’t lack the strength, do you?”
“Grrr! What do you take this body for? That is nothing for the Star Spirit of the Star of the Weaver Girl!”
“Hehe. Then I’ll leave it to you.”
Ohjin smirked as he walked forward.
‘A linear distance of around five hundred meters?’
He wanted to get a bit closer before they attempted it, but there were too many demon beasts to do so.
“Well… alright. If that is what you want, I shall gladly assist!”
Crack! Crunch!—
Riak turned into his werewolf form.
He used his sharp claws to cut the floor and robustly tore out sections of rebar.
“Get prepared, Rookie!!”
Fwoong! Fwoong!—
He threateningly swung the bat made out of twisted rebars in the air.
“Alright! I’ll count down to three!”
[Wait. Are you…]
Vega’s face turned pale as she just then realized what Ohjin was thinking.
[M-My child!! There has to be another way!!]
“Oneeeeee!!!”
Ignoring her words, Ohjin crouched down.
“Grrrrr!!! Don’t fall off and die!!!”
“Use the time you’re spending on worrying to increase your strength!!!”
“I’m already using all of my might!!!”
Riak raised the rebar bat up high.
The triceps of his arm that grasped the bat swelled up.
“Kughhhh!!”
Groans of pain started to leak out of his mouth as the Commandment’s Restriction took effect.
“Guaaaaaah!!!”
Boom!!—
Riak stomped down his foot and roared out fiercely.
“This amount of pain… is nothing!!!!”
Ignoring the horrifying pain that made him feel like his entire body was getting torn apart, he summoned all of his mana.
Bzzt!! Bzzzzzzzzt!!—
Blue sparks violently bounced around his silver fur.
“Guaaaaaaaa!!”
Blood vessels burst as blood started to flow down from his eyes; his skin started to crack as if a metal ball had been dropped on a glass window.
However, despite that…
“This Riak… shall never succumb to pain again!!!”
—The past where his progression had been blocked by a wall for hundreds of years, forced to waste time every single day.
—The days he had spent rotting away, crushed by the feelings of helplessness and defeat.
‘I’m different now.’
Though he wasn’t able to overcome the wall yet—
The human who forced his body back up after experiencing the pain of dozens of deaths…
The Heaven-defying Star that shined radiantly in the black sky…
He had changed him.
From that day onwards, he had been born anew.
“Twooooooo!!!”
“Fuuuuuuu!!!!”
[W-Wait!! There must be a different method!!]
Ohjin curled his body up like a snail.
After wrapping his legs around in lightning and putting as much leaping force as he could—
“Threeeeeeee!!!!”
—he lightly jumped onto the bat.
And then—
“GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! LITTLE ROOKIE!!!!!!”
Boom!!!—
—with the sound of a sonic boom, Ohjin’s body shot into the air like a cannon.
“AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
—The fierce winds brushed past his cheeks.
—The sensation of counteracting gravity.
“I’M FLYING! I’M FUCKING FLYINGGGG!!!”
On the battlefield flooded with thousands of crowded demon beasts—piercing through the skies filled with ashes and dust—a bolt of blue lightning shot down onto the top of the skyscraper where the Black Star Organization was hiding.
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