Chapter 68 - Encirclement (2)
10 min read ·
The sun had set and darkness had fallen.
A logistics storage warehouse where containers were stacked in layers.
One of Chairman Kim's hideouts.
A secret workshop for supplying human flesh, just like the Weekend Ranch.
"Haa... haa... damn it...!"
There, Chairman Kim drew ragged breaths.
His face contorted and his fists clenched tight.
An incomprehensible, inexplicable large-scale attack had stripped him of his forces in an instant, reducing him to a fugitive.
The horde of ghouls he had gathered in the building's basement in preparation for a Special Operations Division raid.
The privately armed soldiers.
The collaborators he had lured in over the years by dangling the promise of youth.
Even the blood relatives he had raised as wizards, low-ranked though they were, by giving them copies of grimoires.
...All of them were gone.
All that remained were a handful of subordinates who hadn't been in the building the day before, a mistress who lived separately, and her children.
And a small hideout.
".........."
Chairman Kim squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them.
No... no! Being alive was enough!
Chairman Kim looked down at the grimoire in his hand, its cover a dark crimson: <Cultes des Goules>.
What mattered was magic.
What he had lost was painful to the bone... but he could rebuild his forces with magic.
As for being hunted by the Special Operations Division, he could later get his hands on <De Vermis Mysteriis>.
Then he would use forbidden magic to switch bodies and wash his identity clean.
As he followed that train of thought...
Chairman Kim paused for a moment.
"...?"
Thinking of the Special Operations Division had raised a question.
The subordinate beside Chairman Kim spoke.
"Quite a few of our secret workshops got raided by those Special Operations bastards recently. Good thing this place wasn't discovered."
At those words, Chairman Kim's expression hardened.
He realized the source of the doubt he had been feeling.
Starting with the Weekend Ranch that Kim Mi-ryeo had been managing getting exposed, all the other secret workshops had been raided.
...So why had some hideouts, like this one, gone undetected?
It wasn't as though they were harder to find or less suspicious compared to the other workshops.
A chill crawled up his spine.
That's right, it was a trap to lure him in once he fled.
He had walked right into the cage on his own two feet.
The smell of gunpowder from firearms he had assumed belonged to his men.
The sound of muffled footsteps gradually closing in around them.
Chairman Kim bared his teeth and bit down hard.
"Fuck...!"
He immediately extended both arms and grabbed the necks of the two subordinates on either side.
"Huh?"
He used their bodies as meat shields, holding them in front of himself.
Tatatatatatata-!!
Muzzle flashes sparked from the front as a hail of gunfire poured toward Chairman Kim.
Automatic rifles fired in rapid succession, and in an instant, the subordinates he had propped up were shredded into ragged meat.
The fatal blows were blocked, but not entirely.
The baptism of bullets pounded through the meat sandbags and punched out the other side.
"KRAAAAAGH-!"
Several rounds, their force diminished, still embedded themselves in Chairman Kim's body.
Lights flooded out from the darkness.
Tatatatatatata-!!
And after emptying an entire magazine,
Whooooo....
In the brief gap as fine smoke rose from the muzzle tips,
Team Leader Park, the leader of Special Operations Division Team 5, assessed the situation during the reload.
".........?"
In the darkness, among the mangled corpses, the eyes of a beast glinted.
"Damn it! Resume fire-."
Thud-.
The two bullet-riddled corpses toppled forward.
The Special Operations agents' eyes went wide.
"...!?"
As if a magician had hidden behind a single cloth,
and the cloth slid down to reveal the magician had vanished,
Chairman Kim was nowhere to be seen.
But the difference from a magic trick was that this was no sleight of hand.
It was the power of real magic.
"...!?"
One of the agents, rapidly scanning for the vanished Chairman Kim, looked up at the sky and flinched.
On a dark night where clouds veiled the moonlight, another shadow fell across them.
Chairman Kim, who had leaped, landed with a crash.
CRACK-!
With a massive, bestial arm, he crushed a Special Operations agent's head and killed him.
Muscles that had swelled and burst through his clothes.
Elongated arms and legs. Teeth protruding like a beast's and hardened nails. A form like some enormous, hairless bear.
"Haaaaaa...."
But the face still bore the shape of an old man's face, lending it a grotesque quality.
Like a man-eating monster with a human face.
A form resembling a manticore.
Excited by the scent of flowing blood, adrenaline surged through him involuntarily.
His body, enhanced by the power of the grimoire <Cultes des Goules>, moved.
Both of Chairman Kim's arms swung simultaneously.
He slashed deep across the torsos of two startled agents nearby.
"Urgh!"
SLASH-!
Their armor split open and blood sprayed outward.
As another agent aimed a rifle at Chairman Kim's back,
CRACK-!
"AAAGH!"
Chairman Kim immediately bit into the shoulder of the agent in front of him, spun his body in a rotation, and shoved the agent into the one aiming at him.
"...!?"
He closed in rapidly and slashed with his nails.
Diving into their formation to avoid getting shot, using the agents as shields, Team Leader Park shouted loudly and took command.
"Spread out! Scatter!"
Team Leader Park grimaced at the situation on the ground.
"AAAAAGH!"
Chairman Kim wasn't simply killing them; he was creating casualties.
Making the other agents worry about the wounded.
...And creating an opening to escape.
'Damn it! This is exactly why high-ranking wizards need to be killed by ambush!'
The problem was that any wizard of that caliber would naturally have countermeasures against ambushes.
Whether by casting protective magic or transforming their body into a monster.
Just then, a calm voice rang through Team Leader Park and the agents' radios.
[Team 3, Shin Si-on. Fixing bayonet.]
A low shadow darted past the agents.
"Whooo...."
Exhaling a breath, her enhanced body gripped the sword.
"...!"
Chairman Kim sensed the danger from behind and swung his arm back quickly.
But Si-on was faster.
Si-on's body leaped and rotated forward.
Swish-.
The markings of the Four Tiger Sword, the demon-slaying blade, glinted.
It severed Chairman Kim's transformed, massive left arm.
THOOM-!
The thick arm, like a log, fell away, and blood gushed from the cross-section.
"Kh, KRAAAAAGH-."
The moment Chairman Kim screamed from the pain spreading through his body,
Si-on, having landed, immediately twisted her body and raised a pistol in her left hand and fired.
A pistol couldn't deal significant damage to Chairman Kim's currently transformed body.
So what she was aiming for was his eye.
BANG-! BANG-!
One of the fired rounds pierced Chairman Kim's left eye.
His screams grew even louder.
"AAAAAAAAGH-!"
Chairman Kim frantically covered his face and body with his right arm and stumbled backward.
Team Leader Park used this opening to quickly rally his agents.
"Pull the wounded back! Prepare to fire!"
Chairman Kim exhaled ragged breaths and clutched the bleeding stump of his left arm with his right hand.
"Haa... haa...!?"
With his one remaining eye, he looked at the being that had done this to him and was shocked.
A tiny girl with black hair.
'What the...!'
Was she some kind of Rejuvenation master like the ones in the martial arts novels Yoannis had been reading lately?
What an absurd notion-!!
And yet... the fact that he had lost his left arm and left eye in an instant was undeniable.
".........."
In the darkness, the Four Tiger Sword glinted.
There were no openings to be seen.
Si-on's composed face filled Chairman Kim with dread.
No emotion was visible. She simply watched him, sword and gun in hand, ready to finish him off.
The agents who had pulled the wounded back also pointed their rifles on Chairman Kim once more.
Chairman Kim's face twisted.
"Damn it... damn it... damn it...!"
If he had had his ghoul horde and private soldiers! If the building hadn't been raided!
Chairman Kim ground his teeth in frustration, then,
clutching his severed arm,
"KRAAAAAGH- Yoannis!"
He screamed his master's name.
"Yoannis! Yoannis! Yoannis!"
The moment the agents looked puzzled by the sudden outcry,
"Huhu~ You could have just asked for help from the start."
Si-on hastily retreated backward.
"...!?"
Green flames bloomed from beneath Si-on's feet.
Whoosh-.
The clouds veiling the moon drifted past.
From the darkness, the figure of a blond vampire with a great sword strapped to his back emerged. Blue eyes curved like a crescent moon.
At the name Yoannis that Chairman Kim had just screamed and the face now revealed, Si-on's and Team Leader Park's eyes widened.
They had seen that name and face in documented records.
The head of a vampire clan.
And the former captain of the Nazi Vampire unit.
'Yoannis.'
Team Leader Park cried out in shock upon seeing Yoannis's face.
"The Nazi Vampire...!?"
"T-Team Leader Park!"
One of the agents spoke, looking at the vampire horde that had encircled them before anyone noticed.
Yoannis gave a light shrug at Team Leader Park's outburst.
"Why do people always call me the Nazi Vampire?"
He looked at the agent aiming at him and snapped his fingers.
"If you're going to use an old title-."
Green flames bloomed from Yoannis's fingertips and an arrow of flame shot forward.
"AAAAAAAAGH-!"
It burned the agent to death in an instant.
A product of Greek alchemy.
Green flames rose like a boundary line among the Special Operations personnel.
Greek fire bloomed.
Yoannis's blue eyes flashed.
"Call me the Alchemist of Constantinople."
Team Leader Park reached for his radio at the dire atmosphere.
But a subordinate vampire rushed in, grabbed Team Leader Park's arm, pressed his back, and wrenched it.
"Stay still."
"Grrk-!"
And so Team Leader Park, too, shouted at the top of his lungs.
"D-Director! Director! Fuck! You said you were coming! Save me! Director!"
"...What's he saying?"
And the moment the vampire frowned,
VROOOOM! CRASH!
A motorcycle came barreling off the top of a container and dropped down, its front wheel smashing squarely into the vampire's face and sending him flying.
SCREEECH-.
The motorcycle left tire marks on the ground as it skidded to a stop.
"Whew... -nim."
Director of the Bureau for Abnormal Phenomena Countermeasures, Si-on's father.
Shin Do-ryong furrowed his brow and spoke to Team Leader Park.
"Director-nim. Add the -nim, you bastard."
The reason he had been reaching for the radio was to confirm where the Director was.
The situation had already been dire, so he had requested backup from the Director in advance.
Shin Do-ryong dismounted the motorcycle and squared off against the vampire horde.
And then.
A certain book floated gently in the air beside Shin Do-ryong.
Si-on's eyes narrowed at the sight of it.
Along with the <Dongui Bogam>, it was another grimoire held by the Bureau for Abnormal Phenomena Countermeasures.
However, it merely possessed mystical properties and was categorized as a book, making it a grimoire by classification; it was not actually a magic-related item.
And that made sense... given that its very name was...
<Muyedobot'ongji>
One of the vampires blinked and looked at the grimoire floating in midair and spoke.
<Muyedobot'ongji>
The moment one of the vampires stared at the grimoire floating in midair,
"...What's that?"
SLASH-!
Drops of blood fell from the tip of the Crescent-Moon Blade in Shin Do-ryong's hand, and the nearby vampire's head dropped from its shoulders immediately after.
Thud-.
The vampires' eyes went wide.
The speed of the decapitation had been invisible. But... a Crescent-Moon Blade? Where from?
"Push inside!"
The vampires, horrified as they were, used their numbers to surround Shin Do-ryong and close in.
But Shin Do-ryong discarded the Crescent-Moon Blade and simply murmured.
"Twin Swords."
SLASH-!
The pages of the <Muyedobot'ongji> fluttered and two swords of the same form launched outward.
Catching the Twin Swords as they flew to him, Shin Do-ryong's wrists rotated.
"...?!"
The dazzlingly swift blades severed the vampires' limbs and heads.
The ability of the <Muyedobot'ongji> was weapon storage and retrieval.
Being a martial arts manual, it did teach the usage of weapons, but the user had to observe and master them personally.
That was the extent of its power. No other abilities.
Of course, weapon storage was a useful ability, but it didn't make its owner any stronger on its own.
For Shin Do-ryong, however, that was more than enough.
He cut down the approaching vampires in an instant.
".........."
Shin Do-ryong and Yoannis locked eyes in a standoff.