Chapter 35

As soon as Siyoon wiped out the previous pursuers, new ones latched onto his trail.

The one saving grace was that he had anticipated this and thinned their numbers beforehand.

Otherwise, the situation would have been far more precarious.

“Over there!”

“Cut him off!”

“Tch.”

More pursuers flooded in from the direction Siyoon had been heading.

He clicked his tongue and slipped into a side alley.

‘Alleys are out of the question.’

A considerable number of hunters were pursuing him.

Given their numbers, some were coming from building rooftops or flanking from other directions.

Under normal circumstances, perhaps not. But this time, the odds were high that he would end up cornered instead.

“Stop being a nuisance and just let yourself be caught!!”

At that moment, a woman lunged from the side, swinging her sword.

Simultaneously, a man emerging behind her scattered throwing knives through the air.

A perfectly coordinated combination attack.

But Siyoon had already enhanced his eyes.

His dynamic vision and situational awareness were more than secured.

Tracking the trajectory of knives launched within his field of vision was well within his capabilities.

Tatatatat, kkigigeek!

“What the…?”

Siyoon snatched every incoming knife out of the air with his bare hands and let the sword sweep past him.

At the same time, he overlapped Enhancement on his arm.

[ Enhancing ‘Arm’. ]

[ Strength further increases. ]

The additionally enhanced muscles bulged instantaneously.

His raw strength had increased, which in turn boosted his attack power.

Siyoon hurled the knives back at the stunned man.

“Returning these to you.”

“You crazy bastard…!”

The viciously hurled knives pierced straight through the man’s heart.

At the absurd sight, the woman spat out a fierce string of profanity.

‘Of course she’d be dumbfounded.’

The knives he threw were several times faster than the ones the man had launched.

Exaggerating only slightly, they were comparable to arrows loosed by an archer.

He had amplified both their acceleration and penetration power using Wind of Horus.

It was, after all, a strike meant to ensure the man’s death with absolute certainty.

“Die!!”

The woman screamed, her eyes bloodshot with fury.

She must have instinctively realized that failing to kill him now would mean her own doom.

However, having relied on the combination attack, her stance was somewhat sloppy.

Tak.

Dropping his stance low, Siyoon struck the woman’s wrist upward with his palm.

He had twisted her attack trajectory off course.

Without pausing, Siyoon set his knife hand and slashed across her throat.

“Keok!”

The sound of snapping bone rang out as the woman’s mouth flew open.

He followed up immediately with a powerful knife-hand strike to her temple.

Udeuk.

Her skull caved in, and her eyeballs bulged halfway out of their sockets.

The impact had likely reduced her brain to mush.

That was when it happened.

From behind, a chilling presence accompanied the tearing sound of air being ripped apart.

Siyoon immediately twisted his body.

Tukwang!

The spear, having missed its mark, embedded itself deep into the building’s wall.

Before the attacker could grab the shaft to pull it free, Siyoon planted his right foot as a pivot and spun his body around.

A diagonal upward kick came crashing down precisely on the attacker’s temple.

“Geuk, damn it…!”

The hunter staggered and pulled a short dagger from inside his coat.

Unable to retrieve his spear, he had made a snap decision. In a way, it wasn’t a bad choice.

Though it wouldn’t work against Siyoon.

“You son of a bitch!”

“Annoying.”

Kung.

Feeling the cold rain battering his entire body, Siyoon drove his foot forward in a solid stance.

In a flash, he closed the distance into the hunter’s guard, struck his arm, and twisted his wrist.

“Aaaargh!”

“Step aside.”

Before the dagger could even hit the floor, Siyoon shattered the man’s jawbone with a fist.

[ Enhancing ‘Arm’. ]

He enhanced his arm once more simultaneously.

Loading his enhanced strength and full body weight behind it, he drove his palm into the man’s abdomen.

Ppeoeok.

“Keuheok!”

With the sound of flesh bursting, the hunter vomited blood and his eyes rolled back.

The force transmitted through the palm had likely liquefied his internal organs.

That was exactly why Siyoon had deliberately targeted his stomach.

Just then, two arrows embedded themselves in the ground at Siyoon’s feet.

‘The enemies just keep coming.’

Whether because of the bounty, it felt like the number of hunters targeting him was steadily growing.

Even now, there were archers taking aim from nearby rooftops.

Piing!

Siyoon reached out toward the incoming arrows.

And activated Wind of Horus.

At the precise moment, he warped their trajectory and enhanced the arrows.

Along with the Enhancement success notification, messages appeared indicating increased penetration and attack power.

Siyoon used the wind to maintain the arrows’ velocity and sent them right back at the archer.

Peok.

“Insane! How the hell does he have an ability like that!”

His enhanced hearing picked up the nearby archer’s voice filled with disbelief.

That was how utterly absurd the technique Siyoon had just displayed truly was.

Those arrows had carried power amplified by a skill.

Yet Siyoon had pulled it off through his enhanced senses and battle-hardened experience.

Siyoon aimed his sniper rifle at the archer.

In response, the archer nocked an arrow to his bowstring.

“You dare try to outshoot me with a sniper rifle? What an idiot!”

Pipipiping!

At that instant, the archer’s bow flashed brilliantly, and the number of arrows nocked on the string multiplied.

The arrows the archer loosed came flying toward Siyoon from various angles.

‘So this was why he was so confident.’

Five arrows cleaved through the air.

Each arrow, curved along an arc, carried a razor-sharp killing intent.

Intercepting them all with a sniper rifle would be an exceedingly difficult task.

But once again, this did not apply to Siyoon.

With a calm expression, he raised the sniper rifle.

Tututututung!

Siyoon calculated the incoming angles and velocities, adjusted his trajectory, and pulled the trigger.

Seeing this, the archer sneered.

The archer had already accounted for firearm-type skills.

He had loosed arrows from multiple angles to make targeting difficult.

Even if Siyoon could hit some, eliminating all of them was next to impossible.

Pakang!

“…What?”

Contrary to his expectations, however, the sniper rifle shot down every single arrow.

The confidence vanished from the archer’s face.

The rounds had been fired in what felt like less than a second.

Siyoon had already foreseen this outcome.

The ‘RTB-201’ he possessed was an item enhanced to +5.

It boasted multiple effects, including aim correction and recoil reduction.

In other words, as long as he enhanced his eyes and read the trajectories, intercepting the incoming projectiles was entirely feasible.

Peogeok.

Without hesitation, Siyoon blew the archer’s head apart.

But he couldn’t afford to let his guard down.

His heightened sensory field had detected a chilling presence.

‘Here comes another one.’

Siyoon immediately ducked forward.

A massive battle axe grazed through the air, missing him by a hair’s breadth.

“Oh?”

Siyoon instantly spun around and fired the sniper rifle.

The towering man, over two meters tall, who had been watching him, raised his eyebrows.

“You’re no ordinary fellow.”

The thickly muscled man swiftly recovered his battle axe and deflected the bullet.

“To turn and attack with such precision from that stance. Impressive.”

“You talk too much.”

Siyoon immediately lunged toward the man.

He had absolutely no intention of humoring the man’s banter.

It was transparently obvious he was trying to stall for time through conversation.

“And quick on the uptake, too. I quite like you.”

The man grinned broadly and spoke.

“But I didn’t come alone, you see.”

At that instant, a bone-chilling killing intent locked onto his throat.

A hunter concealed in the shadows had swung his blade.

But Siyoon’s speed did not diminish.

Kakang!

“How…?!”

Instead, he precisely blocked the sword with the short dagger from inside his coat.

“I completely suppressed my presence—!”

An ordinary hunter would have fallen for it.

But Siyoon had already survived two assassination attempts before.

With senses sharpened by Enhancement, detecting this level of Concealment was not difficult.

However, there was no need to answer the man’s question.

Instead, Siyoon made sure he would never have to wonder again.

Kwaaang!

Using gravity and acceleration, Siyoon slammed the hunter’s head into the ground.

The hunter’s body convulsed a few times before going limp.

With his arm strength enhanced as well, the man’s brain had undoubtedly been reduced to pulp.

Handling the ambush was good, but enemies still remained.

Kwajeok!!

The massive battle axe plummeted from above, cleaving the fallen hunter’s body in half.

“My, my. I was going to send him off in one blow.”

The man chuckled darkly.

He didn’t seem to care in the slightest that the hunter was dead.

It wasn’t surprising.

When capturing bounty targets, hunters often teamed up on the spot.

It was a purely transactional relationship.

“Well, keeping the entire bounty for yourself is better than splitting it two ways, wouldn’t you say?”

Kwaaang!

The man swung the massive battle axe ceaselessly with overwhelming strength.

Each strike’s intensity and speed were no joke.

Even a grazing hit would easily sever a limb.

However, that also meant the axe’s range of motion was wide.

A wide range meant that even with speed, gaps existed.

Swaeaek!

Siyoon’s knife hand shot viciously toward the man’s exposed flank.

Seeing this, the man snarled.

“Where do you think you’re going!”

The man had deliberately used a wide swing to create an opening.

Nine times out of ten, an opponent would rush in to exploit the gap like this.

Without realizing they had walked right into a trap.

Chwaak.

“…?!”

Contrary to expectations, however, a hole was punched through the wrist of the hand reaching for Siyoon.

Moreover, a powerful Gust had whipped upward along the trajectory.

“Goodbye.”

In that instant, Siyoon enhanced his ‘Hand’ among his body parts.

[ Enhancing ‘Hand’. ]

[ Attack power increases. ]

[ Damage upon strike increases. ]

A momentary surge in attack power and damage.

This sharpened his already vicious knife hand to an even finer edge.

Udeudeudeudeudeuk!!

The knife hand thrust through in a single motion, piercing clean through the man’s flank.

The man vomited blood but still tried to grab Siyoon.

But a fist immediately came flying into his temple, connecting solidly.

Kwaaaaang!!

The man’s body flew limply and crashed into a wall.

Siyoon drove the short dagger deep into the man’s twitching throat.

Siyoon had been honing his combat instincts every single day.

Reading through this level of bluffing was well within his capabilities.

Kwak!

At that moment, an arrow embedded itself at his feet.

Siyoon’s brow furrowed.

More must have caught up while he was dealing with the others.

Their pursuit speed was remarkably fast.

‘This is getting troublesome.’

Having multiple attackers converge simultaneously meant he had lingered in one spot for too long.

He needed to get out of this position first.

Siyoon swiftly fled down a side alley.

* * *

Siyoon shattered every single ambush the hunters threw at him as he sprinted onward.

Haind’s pursuit was relentless.

It was a testament to how desperate Haind had become.

He could understand why.

Each operation he had orchestrated had struck a critical blow.

It was only natural they would be fighting tooth and nail to kill him.

‘A corporation doesn’t necessarily have to be brought down purely by physical means.’

A corporation was ultimately a convergence of countless people and businesses united for profit.

And Haind was a pharmaceutical company.

A pharmaceutical company catering exclusively to hunters, selling potions and doping agents.

As such, striking at the procurement and distribution of their manufacturing materials would inevitably deal a blow.

The drop in their stock price following the Smart Farm transport truck incident made that clear.

It signaled potential disruption to their potion production.

Of course, destroying distribution channels wasn’t the only way to cripple a corporation.

Relatively boosting their competitors was another approach.

With this in mind, Siyoon had handed Filester over to their competitor, Onwol.

‘And this method worked perfectly.’

Spectacularly so, in fact.

As planned, Haind’s stock price plummeted while Onwol’s soared.

Having deliberately engineered this situation, Siyoon intended to turn it to his advantage in reverse.

Though the sudden arrival of pursuers was disconcerting, the big picture remained unchanged.

Even as the chase continued, Siyoon maintained his composure and pressed forward steadily.

But the pursuers weren’t about to let him go easily.

They scattered various concealed weapons and arrows, gradually tightening the net.

That was when it happened.

Kwadeudeudeuk!

A spear came hurtling toward Siyoon, smashing straight through the wall beside him.

It was a preemptive strike predicting Siyoon’s movement path.

This was dangerous.

It was a crisis.