Chapter 165 – Taking the Initiative (Part Three)

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

“My coat is still holding up.”

Jeong Jin-seong approached, placing a hand on his shoulder as he asked. Il-hyeon replied, telling him not to worry.

The number of Aegis Timjangs on their side had instantly swelled to three.

“Well, this is rather troublesome…”

The man in the green mask muttered, scratching his head.

But Lee Soo-yeon paid him no mind and immediately swung her sword.

Kim Yu-jin swiftly dodged the slash that swept across a wide area.

However, the man in the green mask, despite being able to avoid it, didn’t bother to move.

*Squish!*

His coat’s defensive function didn’t even activate. His back was torn to shreds by the slash, and chunks of flesh and blood splattered to the ground.

The gruesome wound from Lee Soo-yeon’s powerful strike made it look as if the man had been nearly cut in half.

But then, a static-like noise crackled around the wound, and in an instant, the injury vanished without a trace.

Seeing that familiar ability again after so long, Lee Soo-yeon’s eyebrow twitched.

“Stop playing games and take off the mask, Hwang In-cheol.”

“The nerve of this kid…”

The man threw off his green mask.

With slicked-back hair and a youthful face that defied his age, Hwang In-cheol smirked.

He spoke to them with the same overflowing confidence as always.

“It’s been a while, everyone. You’ve done a good job filling our shoes.”

“Don’t tell me former Timjang Seo Je-hyeong is with you guys too…”

“No, Je-hyeong is dead. You saw the body, didn’t you?”

A definitive declaration of death.

But Lee Soo-yeon couldn’t decide whether to feel relieved or saddened by the fact.

The current senior members, including Lee Soo-yeon and Jeong Jin-seong, had once been team members under them.

Seo Je-hyeong, a member of the same legendary generation as Kim Yu-jin and Hwang In-cheol, who had led Team A, was a mentor and a trustworthy Timjang to both Lee Soo-yeon and Jeong Jin-seong.

“You killed him, didn’t you?”

“Who knows…”

Hwang In-cheol gave a vague reply.

“What possible reason could you have for doing all this?”

Jeong Jin-seong stepped forward and asked.

Having never been given an explanation, they found it hard to believe that their esteemed seniors were behind such acts.

But Kim Yu-jin simply readied his sword and said.

“You’re going to forget anyway, so you’d be better off not asking. I don’t have time to explain things twice.”

“…Then I’ll just have to take you down and get my answers that way.”

As Jeong Jin-seong clenched his fist, a powerful ability pressed down on them.

The A-rank ability, ‘Stasis.’

Given the caliber of his opponents, he couldn’t completely immobilize them, but the pressure, like being crushed from all sides, made Kim Yu-jin and Hwang In-cheol grimace.

At that moment, Il-hyeon and Lee Soo-yeon shot forward simultaneously.

They hadn’t coordinated beforehand, but as teammates who had cleared hundreds of Gates together until just a few weeks ago, their synergy was effortless, requiring no signals.

*Kagagagak!*

With their movements now incomparably slower, Kim Yu-jin and Hwang In-cheol were relentlessly pushed back, and the tide of the battle slowly began to turn.

Kim Yu-jin was already not in peak condition due to prolonged poison exposure, and in a fight between high-level Awakened like this, numerical superiority had a massive impact.

They tried to target Jeong Jin-seong, who was using the most troublesome Stasis ability, but shaking off Il-hyeon and Lee Soo-yeon, who were stuck to them, was a struggle in itself. To make matters worse, Il-hyeon’s summon, the Valkyrie, was guarding his side.

In the end, an opening appeared before they could find a viable solution.

*Swoosh!*

Her ability, ‘Demonic.’

Lee Soo-yeon’s fist, wreathed in black energy, struck Hwang In-cheol squarely in the abdomen. It was more than a simple impact; the point of contact was blown wide open.

Under the influence of Hwang In-cheol’s ability, static flickered as his body tried to reform, but the black energy from the punch and the crushing pressure of the Stasis ability prevented it from regenerating in time.

“Kugh…”

Hwang In-cheol nearly toppled over, dropping to one knee. A blade was immediately pressed against his throat.

Lee Soo-yeon looked down on him, ready to sever his neck if he so much as twitched a finger.

As the fight between Il-hyeon and Kim Yu-jin was also nearing its end, space suddenly began to distort again.

It was the same phenomenon as when Hwang In-cheol had appeared.

This time, a woman walked out of the distorted space, her face familiar to everyone present.

“Reporter Park So-yeon?”

“Hwayeon…”

As Il-hyeon and the two Timjangs reacted differently, Kim Yu-jin, seeing Hwayeon in simple casual clothes, spoke.

“Bring your real body. A clone won’t be enough to handle this.”

But there was no reply.

After a silent, sweeping glance around, she lightly waved her hand.

*Whooosh!* A massive, translucent wave swept through the area.

To the naked eye, it looked like nothing more than a gentle breeze, but the reality was different.

The wave passed over Il-hyeon, Lee Soo-yeon, and Jeong Jin-seong.

The three Timjang-level, high-ranking Awakened simultaneously dropped their weapons, their heads slumping forward.

“…So you came yourself.”

“Go on ahead. I’ll clean this up.”

Hwayeon said with a hardened expression and a cold tone.

The two Awakened nodded without a word and departed through the twisting space.

With Il-hyeon under mind control, the Valkyrie he had summoned and sustained naturally dissipated.

The battle ended all too simply. Hwayeon walked closer to Il-hyeon.

“Just what kind of trouble have you been getting into?”

Hwayeon muttered as she picked up the fallen sword, Peacemaker.

Peacemaker trembled as if in rejection, but with its master subdued, it had no hope of escaping her firm grip.

*Swoosh.* Hwayeon reached out and gently caressed Il-hyeon’s cheek.

If only he would just stay quiet until the time came, but he kept causing one incident after another.

And just then, an unexpected guest made its appearance.

“Squeak!”

“……?”

A mouse that had been hiding inside his coat scurried up onto Il-hyeon’s shoulder, and Hwayeon’s eyes widened.

*Thwack!*

At the same time, Il-hyeon moved, his arm shooting out to grab Hwayeon’s.

Before the startled woman could react, Il-hyeon twisted his body, snatched Peacemaker back, and landed a solid punch right in her face.

“Keugh!”

The blow was a success, thanks to her not wearing even a basic protective coat. Red blood spurted from her lips.

Of course, Il-hyeon didn’t stop there.

He had to finish it the moment she showed an opening, and he unleashed a flurry of consecutive strikes.

As she was being beaten, Hwayeon, even in that frantic moment, tried to use her mind control again, but it had no effect on Il-hyeon.

“How…?”

*Pow!*

Hwayeon collapsed to the ground after the final punch.

She was still conscious, but moving her body seemed clearly impossible.

“Squeak squeak squeak!”

“It’s thanks to this little guy.”

Il-hyeon pointed to the squeaking mouse and said with a smirk.

As he had experienced several times before, mental-type abilities didn’t work on his summons.

Just like when he had successfully used mental sharing to fight the spider monsters in the Russian underground mine, he had transferred all his senses to the mouse the moment Hwayeon appeared.

The mental interference was so powerful that the connection had wavered for a moment, but now he could temporarily empty his own mind and shift his consciousness to his summon, making it impossible for even her to intervene.

Biting her lip in frustration, Hwayeon quickly sought another way. Her eyes darted over to Lee Soo-yeon and Jeong Jin-seong, whom she had subdued with her ability, and began to move them.

She intended to use the two Timjangs to overpower Il-hyeon.

But that, too, was a futile effort.

*Swish!*

Hyeon-seo teleported in front of them and immediately used her ability, trapping Lee Soo-yeon and Jeong Jin-seong in individual, small force fields.

The force fields were just large enough to fit one person.

While useful, they were more unstable than usual, liable to break under sustained, strong impacts and couldn’t be maintained for long.

But in a situation like this, they were more than enough to hold them back while Il-hyeon finished the fight.

“Hyeon-seo.”

“Yes.”

Hyeon-seo replied promptly, nodding as she extended her arms again. A large force field enveloped the entire area.

With this, they could neither call for help nor escape using their unknown spatial teleportation ability.

The process was seamless, as if they had anticipated who their opponent would be from the start.

Realizing the situation, Hwayeon’s brow furrowed slightly.

“You… you were planning to capture me from the very beginning.”

“Well, you’re right.”

In truth, the big fish Il-hyeon had really been aiming to catch in this battle was the mental-ability user right in front of him, Hwayeon.

His target of observation had obtained an unconventional weapon, and with two Aegis Timjangs intervening, the two Awakened from the past generation were in danger of being defeated.

The assassination attempt on Seok Pil-joon had also failed. If he let Il-hyeon go, their identities and objectives could be revealed to all of Aegis.

With the stakes raised this high, Hwayeon, who had been involved behind the scenes of everything with her mental abilities, had no choice but to show up.

‘And the real one, at that…’

It was information given to him directly by Aegis’s D-Timjang, Yoon In-hye.

Hwayeon, with her powerful ability, operated by spreading her clones all over the world, making it nearly impossible to find her main body among them.

That left only one method.

Instead of seeking her out, he had to make her come to him.

The reason Il-hyeon had initially gone in alone, without his team, was to draw her out without making her feel overly threatened.

“Though it ended up being simpler than I first thought.”

He had expected a tough fight and had saved some extra power and a core to feed Peacemaker, but whether she had been careless or had rushed over in a hurry, Hwayeon had come without her Defensive Coat, allowing him to subdue her easily without a prolonged battle.

*Click!*

As if there was nothing more to say, Il-hyeon pulled a pistol from his coat and aimed the muzzle at Hwayeon’s head.

He wasn’t the type to use firearms in combat, but this case was a little special.

The magazine was loaded not with regular bullets but with special rounds designed for Awakened, and Il-hyeon pulled the trigger without hesitation.

*Bang!*

Even a special anti-Awakened round couldn’t pierce an Awakened’s skin and skull.

But the main purpose of the special round was to neutralize an Awakened’s ability, and she was no exception.

“Uuugh…!”

As a wielder of a powerful ability, the backlash was equally strong for Hwayeon. She collapsed forward and began to retch.

Even after vomiting up everything in her stomach, she writhed for a long while before finally looking up at Il-hyeon, her face haggard.

“Why this… Are you not planning to kill me here?”

“Because I need to find out everything I can.”

Il-hyeon replied.

With her powerful mental abilities, she was bound to be more central than anyone else, meaning she would know every detail about the mysterious organization, Eclipse.

“Do you have any idea what will happen if you drag me away like this? Can you handle what comes next? It’s still too soon for you.”

“That’s not what you should be worried about, is it?”

Il-hyeon scoffed at her words, then struck her hard on the neck, knocking her unconscious. The culprit who had manipulated the world with all sorts of schemes was now in his hands. It was time to uncover the truth.

“Shall we head back?”

“Yeah, let’s go to Aegis.”

Hyeon-seo nodded and waved her hand to dispel the force field. A transport helicopter that had been waiting in the sky began to descend.