Chapter 217
Chapter 217: The Smell Of Another World
Udeuk!
"Kkeuk!"
Baek Woohyun didn't stop moving, systematically clearing the 3rd floor, then the 2nd floor, and finally the 1st floor in order.
The security guards' discipline was lax, and they never expected someone would infiltrate from the rooftop and attack from behind, making the elimination incredibly easy.
It honestly felt like a simple repetitive task of approaching from behind and snapping necks.
Of course, just because it looked easy didn't mean it actually was.
Originally, techniques flaunted by skilled individuals often seem incredibly easy. Only after trying it yourself do you realize it's nowhere near as simple.
What Baek Woohyun was doing to eliminate the security guards was exactly like that. The solid techniques contained within infiltration and assassination were something ordinary people couldn't even dare to imitate.
***
"······."
"······."
"Aren't you all tired of this situation by now, everyone?"
"Not at all. It's fun every moment. It feels new each time."
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ This is hilarious
-There's just no way to pretend not to notice this ㅅㅂㅋㅋ
-He's doing infiltration assassination like it's eating a meal, you know? How can we pretend not to notice?!
-A suspiciously suspicious agent ㄷㄷ
"Everyone! I'll tell you exactly and clearly! No! Woohyun didn't have that kind of job you're all thinking of!"
'ㅋ' donated '1000 won'!
[Strong denial is affirmation, they say]
"I said it's not—!"
-Sure sure
-Everyone heard that, right? They said it's not~
-ㄹㅇ If they're saying it this much, it must not be, right ㅇㅇ What's not must not be ㅇㅇ
-Remember this. Hackphysical is not special forces background
*
'This ends the preliminary battle.'
Though he had cleared all the security guards on the ground floors, Baek Woohyun knew very well this was only the beginning.
The real battle would always take place after entering the actual research facility—meaning, underground.
"···!"
'This is.'
Baek Woohyun's body, having immediately found the entrance leading to the underground research facility, flinched. A distinctly ominous energy could be clearly felt from beyond.
This was a discomfort he could detect because he was someone who had spent a long time in life-threatening battlefields, fighting countless battles of killing and being killed against enemies.
He judged that something threatening enough for him was lurking below the stairs. And such somethings were generally predetermined.
'A trap.'
Baek Woohyun clicked his tongue with narrowed eyes.
It seemed the research facility had confirmed his clearing of the ground floors. Whether there was a CCTV he missed and passed by, or they employed some other method.
Or perhaps when he came down to the 1st floor, they tried contacting the 3rd floor via radio and discovered the truth when there was no answer.
In truth, this couldn't be called particularly strange. He wasn't an infiltration specialist.
Though viewers were clamoring that he was suspiciously skilled at infiltration and assassination just from the techniques shown, this was all merely learned over someone's shoulder.
The real thing would be quieter than this, more chilling than this. For example, like Kim Youngjun.
'Well, being detected is being detected.'
How he was detected didn't matter.
Now was the time to focus on the current situation.
He'd noticed a trap had been prepared. So what should he do now?
'...I have to enter.'
Unequivocally, Baek Woohyun had only one choice given to him: entry.
Reason? Very simple. There was absolutely no way he would leave the research facility bastards alive and retreat.
He would completely smash the research facility that would be underground. The security guards inside would meet the same end as those on the ground floors, and the researchers would be torn to death.
Just as it was 'over there,' even in 'Reverse Planet,' they had to meet death. An unavoidable death named Baek Woohyun.
"······."
Collapsing the ground floors to starve those in the research facility to death was impossible.
Just like when he previously raided the research facility using the telekinesis build, every research facility had an emergency exit.
To trap and starve them to death, he first had to block that side from the inside. Collapsing the ground floors to block this entrance came after.
Therefore, Baek Woohyun had no choice but to enter. Even knowing it was a trap.
Jeobbeok.
Baek Woohyun walked down the stairs with large strides.
The stairs leading underground with their gloomy atmosphere were quite long, but before him who descended fearlessly, it was over quickly.
Eventually, standing before the firmly closed iron door, the corners of his mouth lifted.
'They're here.'
To not leave a single one alive, from the moment he infiltrated through the rooftop, Baek Woohyun had kept his Ki perception extremely sharp.
Therefore, he could immediately detect the existence of enemies on guard on the other side of the thin wall. Furthermore, that there were quite many of them.
If he opened the door and entered as is, bullets fired by those bastards would pummel him.
"Ha!"
Kwaaang!
Baek Woohyun, letting out a short hollow laugh, kicked the door in front of him with all his might. It was a front kick drawn like a picture.
Having chosen [Perfect Being], he possessed monstrous strength that could crumple even steel with his bare hands. And generally, a person's leg strength is several times their arm strength.
There's no way a mere iron door could withstand the force of his kick.
Udangtang!
"Euak!" "Keok!"
"What are you doing?!"
The iron door shot inward—literally 'shot'—struck down the enemies who had been aiming from behind.
The weight of the iron door was one thing, but the force contained within it was truly terrifying, so probably three or four met death just like that.
This was barely even the beginning. Through the dust that rose as the door was torn and ripped away, Baek Woohyun charged in.
"Shoot! Just shoot!"
Tadadadang!
Kiing!
The enemies weren't fools either, so they immediately responded.
Those not hit by the iron door swiftly pulled their triggers, and the Etinels at the forefront flashed their red main sensors and advanced to meet him.
Not even knowing that such actions only hastened their own deaths.
"──!"
"···?!" "What!"
A fierce roar no longer thinking of hiding!
Before the howl containing the killing intent condensed from 'over there,' the security guards' bodies momentarily froze.
Like helpless prey becoming soaked in fear before the roar unleashed by a fierce beast.
And Baek Woohyun didn't miss the momentary opening revealed between the enemies.
Kwadeuk, stomping and crushing the ground to draw out speed, he slashed through the three Etinels that had stood before him and advanced in one breath.
The Etinels were models whose versions had been upgraded, yet they couldn't hold him for even a moment. The same result as 'over there.'
Seogeo! Seogeo!
The Etinels that should have held Baek Woohyun breaking through so helplessly meant, in raid terms, that the raid boss had torn through the tanker.
In other words, the rear of the raid party—the DPS and healers—were exposed to the raid boss, and then what follows is an obvious matter.
A truly gruesome massacre unfolded. Enough that the fairly spacious corridor became completely drenched in blood.
"Kkeok!"
Seogeo! Seogeo!
Security guards who at least left behind death throes were rather fortunate.
The rest had to see their own headless bodies swaying with their own eyes once they came to their senses.
Becoming a single gust of wind, executing three-dimensional maneuvers by stepping on floors, walls, and even ceilings, before Baek Woohyun the security guards died helplessly.
Even more terrifying was the fact that all this occurred in an extremely short time.
For ordinary people it was barely time to exhale one breath, but for a superhuman, even that was time enough to kill three or four people and more.
It didn't take very long for the powerful force of thirty-two security guards and ten Etinels to be halved.
"Euaaak!" "R-run!"
Seogeo!
Security guards who realized they absolutely couldn't stop this opponent screamed and cursed while attempting to flee.
They hoped to save their own lives by sacrificing the Etinels, but it wasn't very effective. Even that now had only four units left.
When the first three Etinels to step forward were slaughtered in mere seconds, who could they possibly help with four units?
The military dagger Baek Woohyun wielded seemed like the Grim Reaper's scythe to the security guards.
Though it wasn't even shaped like a scythe that reaps lives—just an ordinary military dagger—their faces were stained with fear before it.
Perhaps the blade that was merely a few dozen centimeters appeared to them as dozens of meters. Even more so since one swing cut down two or three people.
"Damn it! He's an ability user! Where the hell are those Hunting Dog bastards?!"
Seogeo!
Eventually, as the security guards met death in turn at Baek Woohyun's hands, they even cursed at the Hunting Dogs and Hellhounds that didn't appear.
Though security guards and Etinels would step forward first, if the intruder was an ability user, it was planned that Hunting Dogs and Hellhounds would step in.
The reason they somehow bought time was to wait for support from Hunting Dogs and Hellhounds, but those bastards didn't show even their noses.
For the security guards who died futilely and collapsed, resentful feelings were inevitable.
'Strange.'
Having destroyed numerous research facilities 'over there,' Baek Woohyun also knew the research facility defense system, so he felt doubt.
Either Hunting Dogs or Hellhounds should have popped out by now trying to stop him, but there was complete silence, which was puzzling even for him.
If there were no Hunting Dogs and Hellhounds here, the security guard who just met death at his hands wouldn't have let out that resentful cry.
'Is there a reason they can't come out?'
Slowly wiping the blood from his military dagger, Baek Woohyun's pure white eyes flashed.
When he first looked below the stairs, he had felt something threatening enough for him was there. He'd speculated it was a trap set by security guards and Etinels.
But even now, having caught and killed all the security guards and turned all the Etinels into scrap metal, the sense of threat he felt remained.
That meant there was something else further ahead. Something threatening even to him.
***
"As expected, Hackphysical showing overwhelming strength!"
"Oh, no matter how numerous, the security guards and Etinels are just scarecrows before Mr. Cheater."
-ㅋㅋ This is why we watch Hack Tour ㅋㅋ
-Seriously so strong ㅅㅂㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Originally that number of troops would just be a disaster
-Even though they're late-version Etinels, getting one-second-killed just makes me laugh hollowly ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
"Mmm."
"···? What's wrong, Nayeon?"
"This, looking at Woohyun's expression, it seems like there's something more?"
"You mean···."
"The situation doesn't seem to be over yet."
***
"······."
Something threatening even to Baek Woohyun.
To confirm it, he had to enter deeper inside.
It wasn't particularly difficult. He intended to annihilate all enemies here anyway, and to do that, he had to keep advancing.
Trampling on the wreckage of Etinels he'd destroyed, he moved his steps toward the deeper parts of the research facility.
Jeobbeok jeobbeok.
Perhaps because he'd annihilated the defensive forces that had come out first, no one was seen blocking his way.
Even openly making footstep sounds, only silence lingered within the research facility.
Despite the smooth advance, Baek Woohyun's expression hardened more and more. Though it should be clean air from the research facility's internal air circulation system, he caught a murky scent.
And it was a very familiar smell to him at that.
'The smell of the Otherworld.'
A smell like that coming from stagnant blood.
An ominous stench that would make ordinary people shudder and retreat the moment they smelled it, was permeating the research facility.
So thick and vivid it couldn't possibly be mistaken.