Chapter 84 – Making a Move (Part Three)

Inside the bag were thick documents written in English, along with a watch, a book, and other items.

Nothing in particular stood out; it was filled with things you could find anywhere.

But what caught Il-hyeon’s attention was in the far corner.

Lifting a stack of documents revealed a round, black device. An attached digital clock was ticking away.

The numbers were counting down from just over eleven minutes, decreasing by one second at a time.

‘What in the world is…’

Il-hyeon frowned and reached for the unidentified black object.

He had never seen Ether energy clustered like this before.

It wasn’t processed, yet it wasn’t completely pure energy either.

*Crack!*

The brutish man’s fist slammed into Il-hyeon’s abdomen, sending his body flying backward.

*Crash!* The glass display case he crashed into shattered into pieces, and the screams of civilians echoed through the air.

“Shit, we don’t have time for this annoying crap.”

The man turned his head, spat on the ground, and muttered.

One of the man’s arms, the one that had struck Il-hyeon, was glowing a fiery red.

His arm, shimmering with a vivid red light, looked monstrous. People scrambled in panic to get out of the building.

Watching this, a foreigner stammered in broken Korean.

“The people are leaving. Things have gone wrong. What do we do?”

“We stick to the plan.”

The brutish man said dismissively and strode forward.

Il-hyeon, seemingly knocked out by the single blow, lay on the floor amidst the broken glass, the unidentified black object clutched in his hand.

The man approached Il-hyeon and tried to pry the black object from his hand.

“Ugh! What the hell.”

But the black object wouldn’t budge.

If the fallen Il-hyeon had been tensing his hand, the man would have seen the muscles move, but the object showed no sign of coming loose from the still hand.

It was a confusing situation, but pressed for time, he had no choice but to scowl and pull with all his might.

Only then did the muscles in the hand gripping the black object twitch, and at the same moment, Il-hyeon’s eyes snapped open.

“Who the hell are you people?”

“Uh… Ugh!”

As Il-hyeon, who he thought was unconscious, opened his eyes, the startled man tried to back away.

But Il-hyeon pulled on the man’s arm he was holding and swung his fist at the same time.

*Smack!*

Il-hyeon’s fist closed the distance in an instant, twisting the man’s jaw far to the side.

The man lost consciousness and collapsed sideways.

Stunned by the unexpected turn of events, the foreigner reflexively shouted and charged at Il-hyeon, but vines sprouted from the floor and wrapped around his ankle.

Before he could react, his center of gravity shifted, and the foreigner pitched forward.

He fell right in front of Il-hyeon, who promptly kicked the man squarely in the stomach.

*Crash!*

Sent flying like a ball, the man shattered a large glass window and tumbled across the floor for some time.

Looking at the unconscious foreigner, Il-hyeon glanced down at the black sphere in his hand.

The timer had ticked down even further. The device was an explosive containing a significant amount of Ether.

It seemed it would detonate when the timer ran out, so Il-hyeon absorbed the Ether within it directly into his body.

It was by no means a small amount of Ether. If just two or three of these had gone off, the building and the nearby overpass would have collapsed entirely.

If they had detonated in such a crowded place, the loss of life would have been immense.

He had found a total of four explosives in the briefcase.

He picked up the three black objects rolling on the ground and absorbed them one by one.

Calling in a bomb squad now would be too late; there wasn’t enough time to solve the problem. Il-hyeon’s decision to absorb the Ether was, in many ways, the right call.

Just then, a woman on the upper floor leaped down.

Like the man from before, she had a blazing red arm and tried to ambush the momentarily distracted Il-hyeon.

But Il-hyeon spun around and easily grabbed the woman by the throat.

“Kuh!”

“So it wasn’t just the two of you. What the hell are you people trying to do?”

Il-hyeon asked, his eyes scanning the woman’s body as she struggled in his grip.

Again, one arm stood out, its skin glowing a fiery red.

He could tell they were both Awakened, but this woman looked exactly like the man from before.

He couldn’t tell if it was a type of ability or something else, but two people in a row having the same appearance was definitely suspicious.

“As if I’d tell you…”

“Didn’t think so.”

*Thud!*

Il-hyeon violently threw her sideways, slamming her head into the wall, then dusted off his hands.

‘There’s not much time.’

If the explosives he’d recovered and neutralized weren’t all of them, he had less than ten minutes.

The area, connected to the subway station, was vast, and the situation wasn’t leisurely enough to hold the woman and chat.

Il-hyeon stomped his foot, transforming the floor, and soon hundreds of mice were summoned.

The summoned mice scattered in all directions, searching for the scent of Ether.

Il-hyeon used his transformation ability again on the pitted floor, and the depressions began to clump together into a long shape.

Soon, a long, black sword was formed and stood upright on the floor.

‘This should do.’

Il-hyeon looked down at the embedded sword and pulled the weapon out with force.

Although it was a crude weapon compared to the Ether Sword he usually carried, it was the most useful weapon he could procure from his surroundings in terms of strength and power.

Just then, one of the mice sent a signal, and Il-hyeon headed outside.

The location was the underground platform in the subway station.

Feeling even more Ether than in the department store, it seemed they were determined to harm people.

As he left the chaotic department store and moved down into the subway station, his mind was filled with complex thoughts about who these people were and what their intentions were.

But for now, stopping them was the priority.

“Ahh, you scared me!”

“What… what the?”

Unlike the department store where civilians were fleeing, the people in the subway station seemed unaware of the commotion, enjoying a peaceful moment.

In fact, they were startled by the sight of Il-hyeon, who had glass fragments in his hair and was holding a jet-black sword.

Just as Il-hyeon was about to tell people to evacuate, another terrorist attacked him from behind.

*Crack!*

Il-hyeon ducked to avoid the flying fist, which shattered the wall, sending fragments raining down.

The man who attacked this time also had a red arm and threw a menacing punch.

*Clang!*

The fist had extraordinary durability, not even getting scratched when he parried it with his sword, and its power was clearly far greater than the man’s other arm.

The spot where the first man had hit him while he was distracted by the unfamiliar Ether still throbbed.

Of course, it wasn’t enough to knock him out, but it was still a level of power he couldn’t ignore.

Il-hyeon ducked under the terrorist’s outstretched arm, grabbed him by the collar, and slammed him into the wall.

*Thud!*

A few blows were exchanged, but to ordinary people, it all happened in a fleeting moment.

The fight was decided in an instant as the terrorist was embedded deep into the wall as if stamped there.

Startled by the sudden fight, the civilians recoiled in fear.

Amid the chaos, some people recognized Il-hyeon’s face, marveling, taking pictures, or whispering among themselves.

“A bomb has been found in the station! Everyone, please evacuate!”

Il-hyeon cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.

Only then did people seem to grasp the situation, fleeing the station like a receding tide.

In contrast, Il-hyeon pushed through the crowd, heading deeper inside alone.

‘They seem to have realized someone is trying to stop them.’

Seeing how they were waiting as if they knew he was coming, it appeared they had been in contact with each other.

This was not good news.

If the terrorists felt threatened and decided to detonate the explosives earlier than planned, he would be caught off guard with no time to act.

While they were still alive, he had to find and neutralize the explosives as quickly as possible.

According to the signals from the scattered mice, there were three explosives in the subway station and four in the underground shopping arcade.

“First, one…”

It was in a trash can in the public area next to the subway tracks.

Il-hyeon reached into it to retrieve the black object inside.

But he soon sensed an approaching presence and turned around.

A man and a woman, both holding swords.

Both had dyed red hair, making them stand out even from a distance. The man’s face bore a gruesome scar.

“Who the hell are you to interfere…”

“Wait! That face… could it be…”

The woman, sensing something was off, cut the man off as he spoke arrogantly.

If her eyes weren’t deceiving her, the man before them was undoubtedly Kang Il-hyeon of Aegis.

When he had become a hot topic, she had memorized his face in detail, secretly finding him to be her type, so she was certain.

“Let’s make this quick.”

*Thoom!* After his brief remark, Il-hyeon kicked off the ground.

The man barely managed to react, blocking with his sword, but the force was so strong that a groan escaped his lips.

Seeing that he couldn’t possibly withstand Il-hyeon’s attack alone, the woman had no choice but to rush in and lend her strength.

But even so, it was clear they had no chance of winning.

When the unknown black blade grazed his head and then cleanly sliced off about a third of a pillar, the man recoiled in terror, scrambling backward.

He wondered where this monster had suddenly come from.

“Damn it, we can’t win! It’s Kang Il-hyeon!”

“What? Ugh!”

Before he could even react to the woman’s words, Il-hyeon closed in and kicked him in the stomach, sending the man stumbling back.

He, too, knew the name Kang Il-hyeon well.

To think they would run into a high-ranking Awakened from Aegis in the middle of their operation.

Realizing they could never win, he quickly scanned his surroundings.

He spotted a civilian hiding in a corner, trembling, too terrified to even think of running.

The man rushed over, grabbed the civilian, and pressed his sword to their throat.

“Don’t you move a muscle! If you do, I’ll slit this throat right now.”

When Il-hyeon froze at his words, the man grinned triumphantly.

The bombs were all in place, and there wasn’t much time left.

Even if they gave up the one bomb in the trash can, the remaining explosives were more than enough to sink the area around the station.

All he had to do now was buy enough time to escape.

“If you don’t want to see things get ugly, back off, you bastard.”

Emboldened, the man inched forward, securing a path toward the stairs.

Il-hyeon’s expression tightened at the sight of the tearful civilian begging for their life, and he obediently lowered his sword and stepped back.

The woman, who had been at her limit fending off Il-hyeon’s attacks, felt relieved that the fight had stopped. She gasped for breath, leaning on her knees.

But no one noticed the vines slithering at the man’s feet.

“Haha, good. Stay right there. Huh? Wh-what?”

“Hey, you idiot!”

Two vines suddenly shot out, striking the man’s hands hard and simultaneously snatching the sword from his grasp.

Another vine instantly pulled the civilian from the man’s grip.

The man blinked, stunned by what had happened in the blink of an eye.

Then, a large shadow fell over him from behind, and something’s saliva dripped down.

“Huh…?”