It was over. Andras’ life came to an end as his head exploded. And after each of the recruits landed a blow on Andras as they had been encouraged to do, everyone stood looking dazed. Since three of them were heroes, they knew fully how overwhelming Chi-Woo’s victory had been over the demon. It was like he had been playing around with a child.
Besides Hawa, the rest of the expedition team had thought Chi-Woo wasn’t a warrior-type hero. They didn’t know his ability well, but they had thought he had access to incredible resources that allowed him to prepare to ridiculous lengths. But after what they just witnessed, they changed their minds. They now thought their team captain was deeply knowledgeable about many matters and possessed excellent close-combat skills.
There were occasionally heroes with many talents like him—heroes who had used a sword and moved on to different weapons because they grew tired of it, and later went into magic, then sorcery, and many more. As they accumulated experiences and skills, they became more versatile until they were a near all-rounder. They were basically a one-man army by themself. Of course, such heroes weren’t common, and even if a hero did have interests in many fields, they rarely dived deep into most of them. And it was extremely rare for a hero to be a master in multiple fields. Given their recent experience, however, the expedition team now saw Chi-Woo as this sort of multi-talented hero.
“Impressive!” Nangnang couldn’t hide his amazement. “I almost can’t believe it even after witnessing it with my own eyes. You showed us sublime movements which were the epitome of efficiency. How did you do it?”
“Hmph. You have good eyes,” Chi-Woo—no, Philip smirked while swiping his nose and said. “But it’s nothing much, really. I’m sure all of you would be able to do this at your prime if you hadn’t lost your powers.”
In reality, Philip was already aware of Andras’ habits and perks because he had fought the latter several times in the past; furthermore, Philip made full use of the powers inside Chi-Woo’s body. Nevertheless, Philip didn’t think it was necessary for him to mention these things and spoke with fake humility.
“No, I would never be able to mimic such movements,” Snowy Mountain interjected to praise Chi-Woo as well. “It’s thanks to you that I am alive. I didn’t realize you have been hiding so much of your skills.”
“Well, main characters are always supposed to come out in times of crisis. Haha!” Philip chuckled while scratching his head. Then he lifted Andras’ headless corpse and asked, “Anyways, with this guy, there should be enough sacrifice, right?”
Chi-Woo was about to protest but decided against it. It didn’t matter whether they used demons or alien creatures as sacrifices and like Andras had said, who cared what anyone did to the bodies of those who attacked them first? However, Chi-Woo was reluctant to use corpses of humans like him. It seemed morally wrong somehow, and seemingly catching on Chi-Woo’s feelings, Philip spoke up again, “Since this is the corpse of a high-ranking demon, it would have considerable value as a sacrifice. So, even if it’s a bit bothersome, let’s put aside the human corpses from the pile. Let’s bury our fellow humans somewhere nice later.”
Then Philip murmured quietly so that only Chi-Woo could hear, “…Hey, I understand that your moral compass is super egotistical, but don’t act like this later on. We’re not sacrificing living people. They are already dead. Shouldn’t you be used to these things by now?” Chi-Woo was thankful that Philip was acting in consideration of his feelings despite what he said.
“Will that be all right, mademoiselle?” Philip asked Shadia.
“Ah, yes. It’s fine. If he has as much value as we think he does,” Shadia answered. She thought she should answer politely even though Chi-Woo was acting a bit bothersome, for he was a resourceful and skilled hero of whom she would see more. Then, she reached out to him and said, “Here, give it to me. I’ll do it.”
In response, Philip smiled brightly and gently wrapped his hands around hers.
“Huh? What?” Shadia spluttered.
“It’s okay, milady,” Philip said while looking at Shadia with mellow eyes. “Such filthy blood doesn’t suit your beautiful hands. If only you give me the permission to do so, I would like to move it in your stead…” He pressed his lips to the back of her hand. Meeting Shadia’s widened eyes, he continued with a soft smile, “Would you give me this great honor, milady?”
Inside, Chi-Woo was shouting fiercely, ‘What are you doing with my body, you crazy bastard!’
Shadia quickly looked around, not knowing what to do. “…Oh my.” She looked flustered as she stared back and forth between Nangnang and Snowy Mountain.
“Ah, no…” In the end, she turned back to Chi-Woo and tried to wiggle her hands free, but to no avail. “If you suddenly act like this…”
“Would you give me the opportunity?” Philip asked again.
“O-Okay. I will let you do it. So, please, let go of my hand… It’s embarrassing, sir.” It seemed Shadia was so flustered that she addressed Chi-Woo as ‘sir’.
“Fufu, thank you, milady. I will never forget what happened today.” Philip winked and finally let go of her hand.
Meanwhile, Chi-Woo was still shrieking, ‘Stop! Please stop! I beg you! ’
After her hand finally became free, Shadia cleared her throat. Chi-Woo was even more stunned to see that her cheeks were red. He couldn’t believe Philip’s move worked.
“I didn’t expect him to be this frivolous,” Nangnang commented after watching quietly.
“Me neither. He didn’t seem like the type… Perhaps his personality changes if he sees blood,” Snowy Mountain agreed.
Soon afterward, Philip separated the human corpses and reorganized the corpses that were going to be used as sacrifices as per Shadia’s instructions. All the while, Hawa stared at Chi-Woo suspiciously as he wandered around. Chi-Woo had been too shy to make eye contact with her while they bathed together even though she had told him that he could look. And at the least, she knew he wasn’t the type of person who would make such vomit-inducing remarks. She had suspected something was wrong ever since he beat Andras with his club. The skill he displayed just then was on a different level from what he had shown while training at the cave, and his attacks had been so fast that she failed to even see the movements.
“Good. This much is enough. It seems the demon was quite the expert in this field of knowledge. The work is meticulous.” Shadia nodded to emphasize her point.
“There doesn’t even seem to be much mana left. Would we really be able to break this huge barrier?” Nangnang asked curiously.
“That’s why we’re making up for the lack of mana with sacrifices,” Shadia replied simply and beamed while glancing at Chi-Woo. Then she quickly looked away in embarrassment and fake-coughed. “Moreover, this is mostly possible thanks to the tunnel connected to Liber that our captain had opened. It basically does 80% of the work.”
“Oh…”
“I’m going to start working on cracking the barrier now, so everyone, stay close to me just in case,” Shadia said before warning a particular someone to not bother her since she needed to focus. Then she started her incantation. It didn’t take long for muffled noises to ring everywhere, and geometric shapes emerged in the air.
“Okay, okay. I’ll return the helm to you,” Philips murmured softly so that no one else could hear him. He was responding to Chi-Woo’s threats to exorcize him if he didn’t give his body back.
“Hey, come on. You don’t have to keep pestering me, but anyway…” He massaged his shoulder and smacked his lips. “Prepare yourself. Maybe not too much since I didn’t go past your limit, and your physical capabilities are impressive. Actually, it might be nothing at all.”
Before Chi-Woo could ask what the hell Philip was talking about, he flinched. Other than the sight he had never lost, all his other senses slowly returned to him. When he finally regained control of his body, he felt a strange sensation swirling inside him like crazy. His body was hot; it felt as if an engine was running at max speed. The little amount of exorcism mana he had left was on overdrive.
“Ah?” He was about to thoughtlessly move his hand, but his arm popped out suddenly; his body didn’t feel like his.
–Don’t move carelessly. In the state your body is in, you may end up jumping over a building if you put in even a little strength.
Soon after Philip’s warning, the exorcism mana swirling inside him like a storm gradually settled down, and then he felt an extreme amount of pain. His body, which had been barely holding on, gave in at once.
“Ah…!” Chi-Woo collapsed to the ground and screamed.
“W-what the? What’s happening to you all of a sudden?”
“Don’t lose focus!”
His teammates’ shouts were the last thing he heard before fainting.
* * *
Eshnunna felt conflicted while keeping her hands stretched. Her concern was simple. ‘How long do I have to just stand here like this?’
She had been keeping her hand on the barrier since Chi-Woo asked her to send them inside, but now she wondered when they were going to return.
‘Do I just stand here until they come out?’ But when would that happen? If she’d known they would take so long, she would have agreed upon a specific time with Chi-Woo. Eshnunna murmured to herself in regret.
If it were up to her, she would pull her hand out immediately, but she couldn’t do that. The barrier was already unstable; if one thing went wrong, Chi-Woo and the others might get permanently stuck inside. Thus, while Eshnunna was waiting without knowing when it’ll ever end—
Ziing! She felt a huge shockwave from the barrier. Looking up, her eyes slowly widened. The academy buildings that had looked blurry like fragments underwater began to get clearer and clearer. Then the ripple subsided, and magnificent buildings abruptly came into view. The vast expanse of once empty land was filled with shapes of different sizes. The barrier had been lifted. As the hidden background was revealed, the unstable air currents brushing past her hand disappeared. How did this happen? Eshnunna blankly stared at the academy that filled her whole view.
Slam! The sudden opening of the front door startled her, which was further compounded when a familiar group rushed out with Chi-Woo being carried on the yeti’s back.
“What happened?”
“I-I don’t know,” Nangnang replied with a pale face. “We met a demon inside.”
“Demon?”
“We almost all died, but boss awakened his power and defeated that demon bastard. I had thought he was fine until we were about to get rid of the barrier and go out. He suddenly…”
Still reeling from the shock, Eshnunna first put her hand on Chi-Woo’s forehead; the man was clearly struggling with extreme pain, and his forehead felt like a furnace. The scene gave her a strange sense of déjà vu. She was reminded of something that had happened not long ago.
“…Did he again…”
“What are you talking about?” Shadia hadn’t missed Eshnunna’s soft murmur.
Nangnang sharply demanded, “Did something like this happen before?”
The situation was now crystal clear. Even though Eshnunna had begged Chi-Woo to never do this again, this stubborn hero must have exchanged life force for power with a forbidden technique like he had before. Eshnunna clenched her teeth.
* * *
Several days before Chi-Woo got out of the barrier, at dawn the silent capital saw a woman sitting on the outer wall, looking down at the sleeping city. She was blindingly beautiful, but for some reason, she was staring at the capital with a cold look on her face.
“He’s not here…” She was the witch known as the abomination of Babylon and a top executive of the Joint Thirty-Six Alliance. “Where did he go?”
Onorables Evelyn licked her lips. After fulfilling her promise to Chi-Woo, she was on her way back to the camp when she decided to grace the man with her presence and share a few words of warning, but her visit turned out to be in vain. She couldn’t feel his energy anywhere.
Evelyn wasn’t the kind of person to stay around after finding out her target wasn’t around. However, she was still sitting on top of the wall because something had caught her interest besides Chi-Woo. She didn’t know what it was, but she sensed a great amount of mana inside the capital.
“I wonder what’s happening… What could be happening…?” The flow of mana faded suddenly until it completely disappeared. Evelyn narrowed her eyes by a fraction, feeling a chilling sensation running down her neck. It wasn’t something like the wind. It was…
“An assassin,” she spoke with a slightly dazed voice and took flight before she could even think properly. She quickly teleported a considerable distance away and summoned skulls around her.
Bam! As soon as she summoned the skulls, they were shattered by a sharp blade spinning in a circle.
Evelyn sucked in a breath. “A warrior?” She immediately cast a spell. Thick darkness soon obscured the sky, and black clouds descended.
“!” However, holes appeared in the thick clouds, and they were pushed back up. It was a truly terrifying amount of mana. ”N-no way!” A gasp escaped her lips. It felt like she was facing an assassin, warrior, and magician all at once. However, she knew there was only one opponent. An intangible presence circled around Evelyn and hurled her directly to the ground.
“Ugh!” Evelyn tried to look up, but she was slammed onto the ground again. Somebody stepped on her head and pressed down hard.
“It’s not…a demon.” She heard a steely, slightly hoarse voice.
Evelyn trembled in humiliation and bit her lower lip.
“Pure darkness. You must be part of the Abyss.”
She twisted her head with difficulty and looked up. She flinched as she met the ice-cold eyes of a man who looked just as cold as he sounded.
“So. What is an executive of the Abyss faction doing here?”