SHADOW BEFORE CREATION

Ten Thousand Against One Hundred

Arthur returned to Sung's world.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked around with eyes weighed down by exhaustion. The training hall where he had previously fought the Japanese hunters and Sung was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a vast expanse of ruins. He knew that returning through the gate always came with a difference in time, but he had assumed he would return to the same location he had left.

However, what he saw now was not merely a difference in time, but a world that looked as though a storm of annihilation had passed through it.

Ruins were scattered everywhere, the ground was cracked, and the buildings had been destroyed down to their foundations.

"What the—"

Arthur did not finish his words before blood violently burst from his mouth. His body fell from the air like a weightless corpse and crashed heavily into the ground.

Dust scattered around him, and the earth trembled slightly from the impact.

"Damn… damn… I'm in a pitifully exhausted state."

Arthur coughed up blood, then placed his hand against his chest, where he felt something strange and painful.

He grabbed hold of it and slowly began pulling it out.

It was a necklace… but it was not merely hanging there. It had fused with the bones of his chest.

With sharp pain and blood pouring heavily, Arthur forcibly tore the necklace from his body.

"Damn… this is the storage necklace I got from Sung. Looks like that damn attack fused it with my chest."

He smiled faintly with a bitter sense of relief, then activated the necklace.

He took out its contents one by one: Bokrog's egg, the preservation bottle filled with Shoggnar Faughn and Byatis' power… then he stopped.

There was something else.

Five purple-colored bottles that he did not remember putting there.

He picked one up, revealing a message engraved upon it:

[Arthur, these bottles are filled with good healing potions. Use them when necessary. They will partially restore your health and strength. – Sung]

A small, genuine smile appeared on Arthur's face, and he lightly shook his head.

"You bastard… why didn't you tell me earlier?"

He sighed calmly, then opened the first bottle and drank it all at once.

As the potion took effect, he felt the flesh on his chest gradually returning, and his bones regaining their stability.

He opened the second… then the third… then the fourth.

He drank four bottles without stopping.

With the fourth dose, his body had almost returned to its normal appearance, and a decent amount of his strength had returned to him.

"They aren't like the miracle healing potions… but they're genuinely useful."

If he had possessed even one miracle healing potion, he would have recovered completely at once, and his strength would have returned without any delay. But Arthur was not in a position to choose or boast.

He rose from the crater his body had created when he fell and looked around once again.

The city was destroyed, and the humans had almost completely disappeared.

"Damn… where—"

He did not finish his sentence before sensing a faint threat from behind.

He immediately turned around with killing intent.

A human-sized ant stood before him, blood dripping from its mouth, its eyes staring at him like an easy prey.

"Damn… am I really in Sung's world? Or am I in another hell?"

The ant let out a sharp cry and charged toward him at high speed.

"Just an ant… know your place."

Before it could reach him, it vanished from existence.

Arthur released his magical power with nothing more than a single glance, completely destroying the ant's body without any noticeable effort.

He reached into his pocket but could not find his phone.

"Damn… did I lose it during my fight with those three bastards? I need to know how much time has passed… and where Sung Jin Woo and the others are."

He looked at his body. He was wearing nothing but partially torn black cloth pants, while his shirt had disappeared completely.

He raised his hand and tied his hair back, then moved forward to investigate what was happening.

…

After walking for half an hour, he saw a scene that froze his breath.

A group of hunters… facing an enormous army of ants.

"What is happening in this world? Where did all these ants come from?"

Questions piled up in his mind without answers: Where was Sung? Where was Kyou? Where were Astaroth and Yoo Jin Woo? Why was there so much destruction? And where were the rest of the hunters?

Arthur advanced toward the battlefield.

"Retreat, kid, if you want to survive!"

One of the hunters shouted at him, trying to protect him.

There were only around eighty hunters, facing more than ten thousand ants.

"Me, retreat?" Arthur said calmly, his voice carrying deadly composure. "Do you even know who I am?"

Before the hunter could respond, he looked at Arthur's face… and froze in place.

That face… everyone knew it.

The S-Rank hunter. Arthur Narin.

"Y-You're… Lord Arthur! I apologize, I didn't recognize you!"

The man quickly bowed, fear and respect mingling in his voice.

Arthur smiled calmly, then pressed his foot against the ground and stepped forward to stand between the hunters and the army of ants.

"To all humans… retreat now."

His voice was calm, but it carried a power that left no room for argument.

The reactions varied. Some shouted in refusal to retreat, some ignored him and considered him crazy, while others continued fighting without concern.

"Ah… damn."

Arthur raised his head toward the sky, then opened his mouth and shouted with tremendous force:

{Retreat now, you damn idiots!}

With this shout, the humans trembled in fear, while the army of ants stopped moving, looking toward Arthur with instinctive submission.

"Bastards…" Arthur mocked calmly.

He raised his right hand.

"Kill the ants without stopping… my undead army."

He spoke in a low voice, then turned away from the battlefield as though the matter did not concern him.

Behind him, nearly one hundred enormous spiders appeared and pounced upon the army of ants with overwhelming force.

The sounds of collisions and screams rose into the air, blood mixing with the shattered earth.

The scene before the hunters' eyes was unbelievable.

The ants that had nearly slaughtered them moments ago… were now being mercilessly overwhelmed.

"Now…" Arthur said with deadly calm. "Can anyone explain to me what is happening here?"

---

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