Chapter 410
Chapter 410
A sudden chill ran down his spine.
It was as if an awl was boring into the back of his skull.
Jang Woo-hang knew all too well what that feeling meant.
It was the sense of crisis.
“Damn it!”
He turned his head and saw Zeon and Levin hurtling toward them.
They were plummeting down at terrifying speed, like meteors.
“Turtle bastard!”
Jang Woo-hang cursed as he drew his Willow Leaf Blade.
It was a weapon he had procured temporarily in the Southern District.
But in terms of performance, it outclassed any weapon forged in Underground City.
“Red Blossom Invincible Blade, Third Form—Rain of Flowers Across the Bloody Sea!”
He swung the blade with a shout.
At once, cloudlike energy unfurled from the weapon, surging toward Zeon and Levin.
Zeon sent out a Sand Viper, shattering the energy, while Levin twisted aside to evade.
Zeon landed on the ground, his gaze locking onto Jang Woo-hang and Heuk-no.
Sweeping back his disheveled hair, Jang Woo-hang spat out,
“You bastard, you’re like a tick that won’t come off. What grudge do you have against us, that you chase us so relentlessly?”
“You tried to blow up Neo Seoul, didn’t you?”
“And what does that have to do with you? Someone like you could’ve easily avoided the blast radius.”
“What about the other people living in Neo Seoul?”
“Why waste concern over those kinds of humans? They’re nothing, not even worth the grime on your toenails.”
“Millions could have died or been maimed, and you say it’s nothing? You call that an argument?”
“And why not? They’re like grains of sand scattered across the desert. There are so many beneath our feet. What does it matter if some die?”
“Then what about Underground City? By your logic, I could kill three hundred thousand of your people and it wouldn’t matter either. Just a handful out of the countless grains, right?”
“How dare you!”
At Zeon’s retort, Jang Woo-hang’s face twisted hideously.
His sudden shift only made Zeon’s gaze turn colder.
There were people like this.
Those clad in the armor of self-righteous excuses.
Even when they knew they were wrong, they never admitted it. Instead, they dressed up their crimes with absurd rhetoric.
Jang Woo-hang was one of them.
And when such people took on their twisted, self-centered sense of justice, they acted like this.
They accepted the sacrifice of others as a given, but if they themselves suffered even the slightest loss, they raged like wildfire.
It was textbook cognitive dissonance.
Jang Woo-hang leveled the Willow Leaf Blade at Zeon and shouted.
“If you truly have love for humanity, then do not stand in our way. We desperately need the Mana Stone Power Plant. If we return with these blueprints, we can bring light to the three hundred thousand suffering in misery!”
“If you needed it so badly, you should’ve paid a fair price and taken it. Not tried to destroy Neo Seoul and steal it.”
“You… you cannot be a true daehyeop! You live in abundance, yet you don’t know how to share with benevolence. Do you think a nation like that will last long?”
“That’s not something for you to worry about. Even without your help, Neo Seoul has built a civilization this advanced.”
“Wangpaddan \[turtle bastard]!”
Jang Woo-hang could no longer hold back his rage. He swung the Willow Leaf Blade, sending a crescent-shaped aura flying toward Zeon.
But Zeon calmly raised a wall of sand, blocking the strike.
Still keeping Zeon checked, Jang Woo-hang bellowed:
“Han! Take Heuk-no and get out of here! Zhu Ping and I will hold them off. One way or another, the Eye of Pangu must reach Underground City!”
“Yes, sir!”
Mo Yong-han escaped with Heuk-no.
It was a plan they had agreed upon from the very start.
Even if only one survived, the Eye of Pangu had to be delivered to Underground City.
Then Levin cried out from above.
“I’ll handle them, brother!”
Without waiting for Zeon’s reply, Levin broke off to pursue Mo Yong-han and Heuk-no.
“No!”
Jang Woo-hang roared, hurling an aura blast at Levin.
BOOM!
But the attack was shattered midair by Zeon’s Sand Blaster.
“Bastard!” Jang Woo-hang screamed at Zeon for interfering.
“You don’t have to shout so loud. I can hear you just fine.”
“I’ll never forgive you.”
Snarling, Jang Woo-hang charged.
The Willow Leaf Blade in his grip was now cloaked in a vivid red glow.
It was a skill the Underground City called Sword Qi.
SHHHRK!
His strikes came like a storm, ferocious and unrelenting.
It was as though the whole world had been swallowed by the blade’s shadow.
The Red Blossom Invincible Blade, Fifth Form—Red Blossom Tempest Annihilation.
And just then, Zhu Ping made his move.
From his subspace backpack, he pulled out a fist-sized orb and hurled it at Zeon.
BOOM!
The orb burst above Zeon’s head, spilling out a white liquid.
Everything the rainlike spray touched froze solid in an instant.
It was the Iceburst Bomb, a secret weapon crafted in Underground City.
For thirty seconds, everything within its range would be frozen.
Half a minute might sound short, but in a battle between Awakened, it was more than enough to decide life and death.
CRRRK!
Zeon and all the surrounding sand froze stiff.
And in that instant, Jang Woo-hang’s strike landed.
KAAA-BOOM!
A massive explosion tore the air.
Jang Woo-hang’s eyes trembled.
“Did it… work?”
“We got him, Captain!”
Zhu Ping spread his arms wide, shouting in triumph.
Ssshhh.
But beneath his feet, the sand was stirring silently. Overcome with victory, Zhu Ping failed to notice.
GROOOAN!
He realized too late, only when he heard the sand below begin to churn.
“What the—?”
Looking down, he saw the ground whirling like a vortex.
“Zhu Ping! Move!” Jang Woo-hang shouted.
“Captain?”
“Now!”
But Zhu Ping couldn’t escape. By then, he was already buried up to his knees.
GROOOAN!
“GYAAAAH!”
Agonizing pain ripped through his legs.
The hyper-fast grinding sand had shredded everything below his knees.
At that moment, Zhu Ping’s entire body began to change.
The demonic beast’s heart implanted in his chest sensed mortal peril, and its seal broke on its own.
“GRRRAAAAH!”
With a monstrous cry, his body swelled.
Spikes jutted from his back in dense rows, his figure resembling a cross between a gorilla and a porcupine.
“So… all of you had demonic beast hearts implanted.”
Zeon emerged from the sand, speaking quietly.
Fine grains cascaded down his body like a waterfall.
In the moment of danger, he had used the authority of the Sand Mage to dive deep underground.
Jang Woo-hang’s strike had hit nothing but empty sand.
And the effect of the Iceburst Bomb had ended after thirty seconds.
A trace of chill lingered on his body, but it posed no obstacle to his movements.
“Wǒ cào \[fuck]!” Jang Woo-hang snarled, unleashing the secret form of the Red Blossom Invincible Blade.
In sync, the beastlike Zhu Ping roared and lunged.
But the sand beneath Zeon’s feet rose into a massive pillar, lifting him dozens of meters into the sky.
Standing atop it, Zeon raised his right arm.
All around him, the sands swirled up like clouds, gathering at his command.
Jang Woo-hang’s eyes shook.
He could feel the ominous flow of mana surging within Zeon.
And then Zeon roared:
“Sand Spear!”
SHHHHHHH!
The floating sand formed into spears, then rained down upon the earth.
Tens, then hundreds, a veritable storm of lances.
The sight of countless sand spears falling was magnificent.
But to Jang Woo-hang and Zhu Ping, it was a nightmare.
KABABABABOOM!
The spears exploded as they struck.
And Zeon didn’t stop at one barrage.
SHHHHHHHH!
A second rain of Sand Spears followed.
And before they could catch their breath, a third wave came crashing down.
Over a thousand Sand Spears hammered the battlefield where Jang Woo-hang and Zhu Ping stood.
KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM!
The land shook as if an earthquake had struck, dust billowing up to choke the air.
Slowly, Zeon lowered himself back down, riding the sand pillar.
A breeze caught his robe, whipping it about as he descended.
His landing, the dust swirling around him, gave him the aspect of a demon god.
He waved his hand, and the choking haze dispersed, revealing a scene of carnage.
Zhu Ping’s state was ghastly.
His entire body was riddled with holes, skewered by dozens of sand spears.
In his beast form, the spines on his back were his main weapons. But under the merciless bombardment, he hadn’t even had the chance to use them.
Yet even with his body perforated, Zhu Ping still lived.
He glared at Zeon, rasping,
“Kh-heh-heh… you damn—”
“I’ll pass on the dog comparison, thanks.”
SPLAT!
Before Zhu Ping could finish, his head burst like a firecracker. Zeon had blown it apart with a Sand Blaster.
“What about Jang Woo-hang…”
Ssshhhk!
Suddenly, a dark crimson blade thrust up from beneath Zeon’s feet.
He barely leapt back in time to avoid it.
And then Jang Woo-hang emerged from the ground.
But his form was grotesque.
His whole body was sheathed in a chitinous exoskeleton, and his arms had warped into scythelike mantis blades.
“So this is your beast form.”
“I can never return to being human now. So I will kill you… and then slaughter every last human in Neo Seoul to vent my rage!”
Terrifying power radiated off his body.
Before, Jang Woo-hang had only been a B-rank.
But now, the energy rolling off him surpassed even S-rank.
Not everyone could withstand the implantation of a demonic beast’s heart.
Only a rare few were compatible, even in Underground City.
And even then, implantation didn’t always mean a dramatic rise in power.
The match had to be perfect.
In that sense, Jang Woo-hang was blessed.
The beast heart he carried had belonged to a Qinyong—a Terracotta Warrior—captured from a dungeon.
When part of the First Emperor’s tomb had turned into a dungeon, the warriors buried there had transformed into beasts.
Underground City called the dungeon’s boss the Qinyong.
It had cost countless lives to subdue the S-rank monster.
And its heart had been implanted into Jang Woo-hang.
Looking down at his scythe-formed arms, Jang Woo-hang growled,
“Qinyong guarded the First Emperor even in death. I, too, will protect Underground City with my life. That is the reason I exist as a warrior.”
“You really do love your nonsense speeches.”
“To dare scorn the pride of a warrior! Do you lack even an ounce of respect?”
“Yes. I do. Because to me, you’re not a warrior. You’re just a petty thief caught red-handed, scrambling to justify himself.”
“You dare!”
Jang Woo-hang lunged in fury—
—but Zeon’s voice rang out faster.
“Sand Gehenna!”
KWA-AAAASH!
The entire battlefield transformed into a burning inferno of sand.