Chapter 89 – The War Begins (Part Three)

Il-hyeon quickly ran into the park.

The remaining police officers tried to stop them from entering the dangerous scene, but one of them recognized Il-hyeon’s face, allowing them to enter without issue.

Once inside, he saw three fallen Awakened and police officers.

Including the one he had encountered outside, all four Awakened from Altena seemed to have been helplessly taken down by a surprise attack.

The rift writhed as if about to spew out monsters, and there were at least eight terrorists surrounding the area.

Two of them approached Il-hyeon nonchalantly and were easily subdued. Only then did the others realize something was wrong and grew wary of him, waiting for something.

From a distance, a long gun barrel was aimed precisely at him, waiting for an opportunity.

A sniper on the rooftop of a tall building near the park slowly pulled the trigger.

*KABOOM!*

As if swept away by an explosion, a section of the building’s rooftop was completely shattered, and the sniper fell unconscious, rolling across the floor.

The giant bird made of rock, the one that had taken down the man aiming at Il-hyeon in a single blow, immediately turned its head after seeing the enemy fall.

There wasn’t just one sniper; they were scattered and hidden in various locations.

“That one! The tallest building over there!”

Seo Jeong-hwa, riding on the bird’s back, pointed in the direction.

She was supposed to have participated in the operation, but she knew all the locations where the snipers were hiding.

Furthermore, since she struggled even to speak about the organization, she couldn’t possibly help fight its members. Rather than having her dangerously stick by his side, he had her assist from the sky.

The rock bird flew in the direction she pointed, as if it understood her words.

“What is that?”

When the large monster appeared out of nowhere and approached at incredible speed, the sniper panicked and fired an EMP round, which hit its mark, but it had no effect on Il-hyeon’s summon.

*KABOOM!* Another rooftop was shattered, and the other snipers tried to resist by shooting or fighting directly with their enhanced bodies.

But it was impossible for them to stand against the summon made of thick, hard rock, and they were brutally crushed.

While they took care of the troublesome snipers one by one from above, Il-hyeon dealt with the terrorists below.

“Aaargh!”

A man whose arm broke while blocking an attack was sent flying.

He didn’t know if they were all truly brainwashed into compliance, but Il-hyeon was furious.

So he took them down with the intention of subduing them just enough so they wouldn’t die.

Without support, the flustered terrorists were quickly dealt with by Il-hyeon.

Il-hyeon twisted the last man’s glowing red arm in the opposite direction and threw him aside.

Enhanced arms or legs—as expected, they all had the same ability.

“There’s no way so many people would naturally manifest the exact same ability, especially within a single organization…”

Muttering, Il-hyeon casually glanced to the side.

It seemed there were more of them left.

They seemed to have noticed the fight and tried to conceal their presence, but their approach was so obvious that he couldn’t pretend not to notice.

Five opponents appeared.

Among them, a man wearing sunglasses stepped forward and spoke to Il-hyeon.

“Kang Il-hyeon? How did you know to come here?”

“Sorry, but I have nothing to say to brainwashed lackeys.”

The Gate was about to activate, and to end the situation before that, Il-hyeon kicked off the ground.

But just before reaching the man, Il-hyeon felt the strength drain from his body.

He tried to put power into his movements again, but his strength had already plummeted.

*Smack!* The man grabbed Il-hyeon’s arm.

“How did you find out about the brainwashing?”

“What?”

Il-hyeon’s expression twitched at the man’s question.

Seo Jeong-hwa had been able to realize something was wrong with her because of her unstable state, but someone who was brainwashed would never say such a thing.

A startled Il-hyeon quickly shook off the man’s grip, but in that instant, the man in black sunglasses pulled a pistol from his coat and pulled the trigger at him.

*BANG!* A bullet fired at point-blank range aimed for Il-hyeon.

He easily dodged the bullet, but it wasn’t a normal round, so he couldn’t avoid taking damage.

Fired slightly downward, the special bullet hit the ground, and a translucent wave spread out in all directions. The wave passed through Il-hyeon’s body, causing him to stagger backward.

The alien wave made him feel a terrible sensation, as if the energy flowing through his body was being twisted into knots.

He tried using his ability just in case, but he truly couldn’t use anything.

EMP-type weapons could cause damage even without a direct hit, but Il-hyeon had been too complacent, thinking he just had to avoid being shot. It was a lack of experience.

He had fought countless monsters in the field, but this was his first time facing a weapon designed for use against the Awakened.

“Ugh… what is this?”

Il-hyeon muttered, looking down at his arm.

He couldn’t muster any strength in his body; a wave of lethargy washed over him.

Even if it was an EMP round, it was strange that a single small bullet could do this to him.

Just then, he saw the man’s blue eyes, staring at him with confidence.

They were hidden behind black sunglasses, but Il-hyeon could see them clearly.

He had felt uneasy when the man’s eye color suddenly changed as he approached; it seemed he had an ability that weakened his opponents.

He had thought they all possessed the same enhancement ability, but the man before him had a completely different power.

Just as the cornered Il-hyeon was about to think of a plan, the men charged, giving him no opening.

The other four Awakened, excluding the blue-eyed man, all swung their respective weapons, threatening Il-hyeon.

As they were all Awakened with enhanced bodies, their weapons carried considerable force.

Il-hyeon habitually reached out, trying to transform the ground into a weapon, but his ability still wouldn’t activate.

*’Damn it!’*

As three powerful blades came at him from different directions, he ducked his head and lowered his stance as much as possible.

*Clang!* Beneath the crossed blades, Il-hyeon gritted his teeth, slipped through an opening, and threw a powerful uppercut.

Normally, a blow with his strength would have been powerful enough to rip the Awakened’s head clean off and send it flying, and it wouldn’t have been surprising.

However, the Awakened who took the direct hit to the jaw only fell for a moment before jumping back up and rejoining the fight.

The EMP round had weakened his physical abilities, and his mind was in a daze.

Furthermore, the man in black sunglasses’ ability, ‘Debilitation,’ made it difficult to even utilize his diminished physical strength, and with his special powers blocked, he was struggling badly.

He was only holding on thanks to the experience and instincts he’d honed through countless battles at Aegis.

*Thwack!* A kick to the abdomen sent Il-hyeon sliding backward.

In that instant, the man with sunglasses, who had been staying out of the fight, appeared behind him and thrust a sword forward.

The sword pierced straight through Il-hyeon’s shoulder.

A triumphant smile appeared on the man’s face.

“So Aegis is nothing spe—”

Just then, Il-hyeon grabbed the man’s neck, pulled him closer, and aimed a shard of a black blade in his other hand at the man’s eye.

“Aaaargh!”

A horrific scream echoed as blood gushed out.

Fortunately, a fragment of the sword he had created and used while fighting the enemies at the subway station was still with him, and he plunged it right into the man’s eye.

The black sunglasses shattered, and the blue eye hidden behind them burst.

Unfortunately, he only had one shard, so he could only destroy one eye.

But the man was writhing in so much pain that he couldn’t open either eye.

“Keuk!”

Il-hyeon gasped for breath, enduring the pain as he pulled the sword from his shoulder.

He threw the blood-soaked sword to the ground and staggered back, steadying his stance.

As expected, the man’s ability was a type that weakened targets he looked at, and some of Il-hyeon’s strength returned.

Dragging it out was not an option, so he had no choice but to take a risk and target the man. Fortunately, his gambit paid off.

In a situation where he couldn’t heal his wound with his ability, the severe injury that made it difficult to lift one arm was critical, but he was lucky just to have escaped that predicament.

While the bewildered Awakened hesitated, unsure whether to charge Il-hyeon, the cleanup above was finished.

“Hey, are you okay?”

The giant bird descended from the sky and landed beside Il-hyeon. Seo Jeong-hwa, clinging to its back, saw his wound and asked with concern.

“More or less.”

Thankfully, the summon had apparently dealt with all the snipers and rejoined him quickly, easing the pressure.

But before he could even catch his breath, the situation worsened.

The large rift in the center of the park began to tremble with a strange noise.

The Gate was activating before he could deal with all the terrorists.

It was the one thing Il-hyeon had feared most.

*KWOONG! CR-CRACK!*

A massive foreleg pushed its way out of the Gate, shattering the road and causing tremors.

Il-hyeon’s summon was quite large, but it was no match for the creature before him.

“Wait… this isn’t what’s supposed to come out…?”

A look of bewilderment crossed Il-hyeon’s face.

According to the information he’d gathered before arriving, relatively small, humanoid monsters were supposed to emerge from that Gate.

But the monster now pulling itself out of the Gate was clearly stepping out on the furry legs of a beast.

“Hahaha, did you think this was a B-rank? We used an analysis jammer. Now that an A-rank Gate has opened, escape is impossible. I’ll die here with you.”

The man clutched his bleeding eye, staggered to his feet, and spoke with a crazed laugh.

Seeing the other Awakened still aiming their swords at Il-hyeon, it was clear they had no intention of running.

“Damn, this is bad…”

Il-hyeon muttered.

He had naturally trusted the publicly available analysis results and never thought they could be wrong.

At the same time, he finally understood why they had invested so much in a single Gate.

“Aren’t you a team leader? I heard you can handle an A-rank Gate by yourself.”

“Who on earth told you that…?”

Seo Jeong-hwa firmly believed the overblown stories about him from the media and rumors. Given Il-hyeon’s recent achievements and exploits, it was an understandable mistake.

The four-legged monster’s body fully emerged from the Gate, followed by a flood of countless other monsters.

They all looked ferocious, but their presence was overshadowed by the overwhelming aura of the ace monster that had appeared first.

A red light began to gather in the creature’s massive, wide-open maw.

Il-hyeon, guessing what kind of attack was coming, swallowed hard.

Even in perfect condition, he would have had to take a huge risk. In his current state, there was simply nothing he could do.

But if he didn’t even try to buy time and just ran away, the city would be devastated by the monsters spreading in all directions.

There were no proper preparations in place, and an A-rank monster was not something that could be easily stopped, even with the country’s full might.

*KWAAAAH!*

A beam of red light shot from the monster’s mouth, targeting Il-hyeon and the nearby Awakened.

It was an attack that flew at incredible speed, pulverizing everything in its path—too fast for Il-hyeon to even react.

But the light never reached him.

A massive black slash suddenly appeared before them, colliding with the red flash.

The light, split in two, created gusts of wind to either side as it dissipated.

Through the billowing dust, five silhouettes could be faintly seen.

The first to be identified was Lee Soo-yeon, standing with her sword drawn.

“You look like a mess. Take a break.”

The members of Aegis’s Alpha Team, having torn through space, stood before him.