The World They Live In (3)
Meanwhile, seated among the officials were the head of the Baruk family and his only daughter, Irene.
"Irene, go back. This is a serious matter. It's not something someone your age should see."
Irene dug in her heels.
"I already know everything I need to. And they're my bodyguards. Of course I should be watching."
The hunters gathered today would be sorted by skill and deployed where needed.
But everyone also knew exceptional fighters were far more likely to be chosen as personal guards for high-ranking officials.
'He didn't come? What an idiot…'
The person Irene was looking for was Rian.
'This was our chance to make an impression on the family. I was going to pick him for something special if he showed up.'
She felt a surge of frustration.
"Huh?"
Looking around in disappointment, she spotted a familiar face near the guards.
'There he is!'
Rian was watching the interviews from the top of the Colosseum.
"Uncle—no, brother!"
Just as Irene threw both arms above her head, Zenia, who had been beside Rian, shouted.
"You bastard!"
Without giving anyone a chance to stop her, she pushed off the stairs and burst into the Colosseum.
"I'll kill you!"
The memory of her parents' bodies, torn into dozens of pieces by Nike's whip, was vivid in her mind.
"Because of you, because of you…!" She had been dragged into some nameless laboratory and subjected to horrors that couldn't be put into words.
"Aaaah!"
As Zenia swung her dark blade at Nike, there was a smack—and half her field of vision went out.
"What…!"
Rian, coming down the stairs, shouted, "Zenia! Stand down!"
The victim probably didn't realize it yet, but Nike's lash had ruptured her left eye.
'Amazing reaction speed. A strong one.' The fact this was happening in the sunlit day made it all the more terrifying.
"Rian!"
Benof stepped in front of him.
"Did you find the spy?"
Rian scanned for Zenia but she was already obscured by the ranks of hunters.
'Damn!'
He changed direction, grabbed Benof, and ran toward the officials' box as he spoke.
"There are two vampires. One is the aide in the shade and the other is the old man in the VIP box."
"Shovel."
As head of Jaive's intelligence department, Shovel would know what to do if they were dealing with vampires.
"I'll arrest them. You go save your comrades."
That had been the agreement.
"Alone? That's impossible. They're Almas too."
Benof had to close his mouth helplessly—Rian was right.
"Vampires! Kill them!"
Around the Colosseum, hunters had formed a ring with Nike at the center.
'This is a chance to show the court… If I perform here…'
They might earn the king's recognition.
'Wrong, fools.' Zenia, who had come to her senses after Nike's assault, ground her teeth.
To crave glory was to be unfit for the role of vampire hunter.
'Nothing can comfort us now.'
Those consumed by rage against the vampires kept a cold, focused distance.
"Is that Nike?"
As Zenia restored her eye with a Blood Q, an old man with a goatee approached.
"A priest who wields twin iron blades. They say he's the strongest of the Almas; even if we all attacked, we wouldn't win."
"So… you're going to run?"
"A vampire killed my mother when I was seven."
The old man looked well over sixty.
"Even then I thought: killing a person shouldn't take more than thirty minutes."
His eyes were bloodshot; tears of blood fell as he turned to Zenia.
"There is nowhere to run to, is there?"
From this hell of the heart.
"This is boring."
Nike swung both whips at once; the air howled and the hunters' bodies were shredded.
"Now!"
Using the vanguard as cannon fodder, the hunters surged at Nike with fury on their faces.
"No!"
Nike was strong.
"You're Silver Bone, aren't you?"
The old man beside Zenia pulled out an injection device and smiled faintly.
"Stay alive. Please."
Though he would throw himself into the fray, someone had to survive to finish the vampires.
"Mommmmm!"
With a scream that seemed about to tear her apart, the old man lunged forward, eyelids rolled back as if his eyes might pop out.
"Don't ask for mercy without pain."
Two 3.8-meter whips moved like living things and slashed through the hunters.
"Gah!"
Bones snapped and chunks of flesh flew like shavings as if dozens of saws had cut at once.
"This can't be."
Zenia's shoulders trembled.
"Is the difference really this huge?"
Even with injection weapons, flame weapons, and metal weapons combined, they couldn't even wound Nike.
'Fighting under the sun…'
With her hood gone, Zenia felt as if every breath she drew was like inhaling flames.
"Haa…"
Steam issued from Nike's mouth as he turned and cracked his whip.
"My God."
Every time that hot breath sank into his lungs, he felt the illusion of being alive.
"Do not forgive me."
If he could choose, of course.
"Kill him! Kill the vampire!"
By now the ground was plastered with hundreds of ripped pieces of flesh.
"Your Majesty, you should take cover."
Guarded by Jaive's elite Shinjang, King Meyer did not budge.
There were too many eyes watching to ruin everything over a single vampire.
The high officials, knowing this, stayed put as well, though inside they were burning.
'Damn it. Stop intervening. Let the hunters fight it out.'
Whoever moved first would be branded a coward, and the bystanders would later use that as an excuse to attack.
The officials smirked inwardly when they saw the king's face go pale.
'Hmpf, at least you have the Shinjang to guard you.'
They reckoned the royal guard of the Seven Kings' Castle would keep him safe.
"Civilian casualties are getting bad. Send the Third Army to suppress them."
Sensing the officials' concern, Meyer pointed to the Colosseum and ordered.
"But Your Majesty, if we split our forces—"
"They came to help the kingdom. Letting them be massacred would soil my name."
Unable to refuse the king's order, the Shinjang commander looked to the Third Army and gave the command.
"Bring the vampire in."
Twenty armored men landed in the Colosseum at once; the earth thudded.
"Ready!"
Feet together, waist cocked back slightly, hands on sword hilts.
"Capture!"
As they sharpened their drawing techniques and scanned the battlefield, the Third Army commander barked.
"Charge!"
They leaned forward at the same angle and, in an instant, vanished from their positions.
"Attack!"
A four-stage chain meant to finish any opponent was executed; twenty flashes formed a vertical net over Nike.
"Grrrr!"
The whips lost their ordinary shape; a crackling roar of static replaced them.
"My goodness…!"
The officials watching in the Colosseum widened their eyes; even King Meyer made a choking sound.
"Not even the Shinjang can stop him?"
The twenty guards—armor shredded like paper—fell in pieces of blood and flesh.
"Haaa…"
The fighting quieted for a moment. Nike lifted his head and exhaled white smoke.
If he moved his hand even a centimeter, the whip tips writhed like eels.
"Your Majesty! You must take cover!"
The commander, feeling ashamed, put priority on the king's safety.
"Hmm."
Meyer, resigned, stood, and the officials edged toward the exits.
Benof shouted, "Do not move! There are vampires here!"
Everyone froze. Shovel, the intelligence chief, leapt up and shouted, "Block them!"
An aide who had stepped out from the shade got in front of Benof, but Rian's strike severed his neck.
'Surely he can't use much power during the day.' There was something abnormal about the vampire called Nike.
"Eek!"
When Irene screamed and turned, she saw Shovel clutching the Baruk head.
"Dad! Let go of Dad!"
"Shut up! You worthless human—"
Shovel dissolved into black smoke and lunged at Irene with the family head in his grip.
"Die."
Just as he was about to strike, the Daejikdo pierced Shovel's heart and pushed him back.
"Urk!"
Smoke swirled toward the sword as if being sucked in, and Shovel reverted to human form.
"Ugh!"
Rian ran into the sunlight and drove the Daejikdo into the ground with Shovel impaled on it.
"Craaa!"
Unable to regenerate and exposed to the sun on both hands, Shovel's skin began to burn rapidly.
"Let me go! Put me down!"
He clawed desperately with steel-like nails, but the didn't even scratch.
"Brother! Over here!"
With officials' eyes suddenly on Rian after he took out two Almas in an instant, Irene quickly filled the gap in conversation.
Rian glanced back toward the Colosseum.
"Zenia."
Amid the hunters shedding tears of blood, she fought while inhaling a Blood Q.
Even with her right ankle severed, she ran, driving bone into the ground—an imposing sight.
"Take your daughter and withdraw."
The Baruk head shook his head.
"No. You come with us. Protect my daughter. I'll pay whatever reward."
The man trying to take Rian was a person of power.
"Brother, you'll protect our family, right? You will?"
Rian looked over the officials, each watching him with expectant eyes.
"From what?"
"Huh?"
He understood now.
'What it means to be strong.' What true strength was.
'Those fighting now are it.' Rage.
"The only thing I have to protect." The anger in my heart.
"I haven't truly lost anyone yet, but…"
Not born a god.
"I always stay angry."
That anger alone numbed fear and drove a human to fight something higher.
"Grrrr!"
Rian ground his teeth; a wrath rose in his chest like blood flowing backward, swelling without end.
'Yes—this is it.'
What he'd been searching for across the desert: the emotional source that could topple Imiler.
'Now I don't care what I become.' He feared nothing.
"Now, then."
Rian's hair rose strand by strand and his shirt burst outward as if it would explode.
'Not a human body.'
The muscles he thought perfect twisted like ropes and meshed into a strange new form.
"Haaak…"
Rian, reborn into the body of a wrath incarnate—the yaksha—stomped the ground and twisted his upper body.
'The Law of the Fist.'
A righteous fist extended toward Nike.
Divine Transcendence—Simkwon Maha.
Shovel, embedded in the , felt the Law's tremor and uttered a death rattle.
"Get out of the way!"
When Nike turned his head, what spread out before him was—
'What is this?'
The world's landscape crumpled toward a single point and surged inward.
'Can I avoid it…?'
The Law of the Fist arrived faster than the most pessimistic forecast and exploded Nike's torso into a ring.
"Craaa!"
From the circularly severed body, hundreds of bats poured out in every direction.
Bang! Bang bang! Bang! Bang!
Mach-level force blasted through the Colosseum walls, tearing them apart and receding, leaving an intangible tunnel.