Chapter 164 - Chapter 164 (2/2)

The stone statue's head split into two and the monster was flung away as if it got swept up in an explosion.

"Huh....?"

His mind abruptly woke up from that. He blinked his eyes and shook his head to clear his mind, and finally spotted a familiar man standing next to him.

"Are you alright?"

"Ah....."

Woo Jin-Cheol could only gasp out at that moment. That familiar man was none other than Seong Jin-Woo.

Woo Jin-Cheol kept that look of surprise on his face as he managed to leak out a question.

"By any chance, you only used bare hands to.....??"

"Let's talk about the details later."

Jin-Woo left behind the dazed Chief of the Monitoring Division and dashed away to elsewhere. Even then, he never stopped searching and eventually, he spotted a certain something reflecting the light just over yonder.

It was his missing 'Demon King's Shortsword'.

'Found it!!'

Jin-Woo extended his hand out to the weapon. He activated the 'invisible hand' and sucked his shortsword back into his grip.

Grab!

The sense of grip transmitted through his hand remained top-notch.

Boom!!

First of all, he kicked away an annoying stone statue blocking his path and began slicing all the statues that had been tangling with human Hunters.

Fuu-woop.

In the midst of doing that, he took a deep breath.

Time slowed down greatly, but only he remained unbound and free. Right afterwards, Jin-Woo seemingly vanished from the spot and, while using the movement that not even the top-ranked Hunters could follow, he began destroying all the stone statues.

Slice!!

Thud!!

Four stone statues fell apart simultaneously.

The Hunters who barely made it out alive thanks to Jin-Woo's timely intervention could only look on dazedly as their jaws dropped to the floor.

"Uh....?"

Woo Jin-Cheol eventually made his way next to these Hunters and quietly spoke to them.

"That's all you can think of, am I right?"

"....Yes."

Hunters nodded their heads.

"Yes, I'm the same as you."

Woo Jin-Cheol had seen this spectacle a few times by now, but even then, the only thing coming out of his mouth was a gasp of astonishment. He grinned wryly and placed a cigarette between his lips. A Hunter from the Monitoring Division stood next to him.

"Chief, will it be alright for us to step back like this?"

"What's wrong?"

"Right now, Seong Hunter-nim is still engaging the monsters....."

The Hunter from the Monitoring Division turned his head towards Jin-Woo, but even his jaw fell.

"Huh.....?"

Woo Jin-Cheol placed another cigarette in the slack mouth of this guy and even lit up for his subordinate.

"Can you see how should we go about helping him?"

"No, sir... I can't."

"So, stay here and quietly smoke that."

"Y-yes, sir."

Hunters gazed at Jin-Woo with eyes of awe but still, didn't forget to swarm around Woo Jin-Cheol. And as a result, his stash of cigarettes ran out very quickly.

But, for some reason, his nose began stinging just a tad.

'I can't even remember how many times I nearly died in this place.'

He thought those monsters were a wall he could never overcome, no matter what he tried. But now, seeing Jin-Woo single-handedly sweeping those things away, the sense of relief and powerful emotion of delight were flooding into his heart.

"Section Chief? Are you crying, sir?"

"No, I'm not, you idiot. It's just this spicy cigarette. Okay?"

"Right. It's also too spicy for me."

"Yeah, me too."

"Me three."

Maybe this batch of cigarettes tasted far too spicy for them today since teardrops were clearly visible within the eyes of all these Hunters.

SLAM-!!

Sohn Ki-Hoon managed to block the punch of the god statue with his shield and gasped out a pained grunt.

"Keo-heok!"

His knees were bucking hard. With no Healer around, he had no choice but to take on the impact force all by himself, but he knew that anything more than this was asking for too much.

"S-someone.... Anyone!!"

He painfully turned his head to the side and spotted a quiet gathering of his fellow Hunters sitting over there.

What the hell.

He was sh*tting blood trying to block the attacks of the god statue all by himself, yet why wasn't anyone trying to lend him a helping hand here??

Sohn Ki-Hoon was royally p*ssed off and angrily yelled at them.

"What do you all think you're doing?!"

When he did, the Hunters all pointed above him. Sohn Ki-Hoon interpreted that as them warning him of another attack, so he flinched greatly and raised his shield up again.

However, the expected attack didn't materialise.

'…...??'

He finally noticed that the surroundings had become eerily quiet for some reason.

'What's going on here?'

He sneakily scanned his surroundings below his shield, and finally noticed that all the stone statues in the vicinity had been destroyed.

"What's this?!"

He got startled out of his skin and hurriedly lowered the shield. And that allowed him to see what was going on above him. He saw the sight of the god statue, as tall as a skyscraper, and Jin-Woo standing on the d*mn thing's shoulder.

"Huh....??"

Even before Sohn Ki-Hoon was done with his surprise...

Ka-boom!!

Jin-Woo's punch blew away the other remaining half of the god statue's face. With its head gone now, the massive statue began unsteadily tottering around.

"....Uh? Ehhh?"

Sohn Ki-Hoon sensed something awry was afoot and ran as if his back was on fire. And just as his senses had warned him, the god statue crashed down right where he used to be standing a second ago.

Kwa-boooom!!

A choking dust cloud kicked up and filled the entire interior of this place.

"Cough, cough!"

Choi Jong-In coughed out repeatedly and while blowing away the dust from himself, he quickly made his way to Cha Hae-In.

"Hunter Cha."

"Chairman....?"

"How are you feeling? Can you stand up?"

She was still lying on the ground, moaning in pain. She shook her head at his question. Not one part of her body was okay right now. Choi Jong-In's brows furrowed as he felt somewhat helpless at this.

"Let me help you. Try to slowly stand up."

Just as he was trying to support Cha Hae-In, Jin-Woo arrived next to him, having finished off all the stone statues in the room.

"Will it be fine if I aid Cha Hunter-nim?"

"Pardon me?"

Choi Jong-In shifted his gaze towards the direction of that voice. It was then, he thought that for a little bit there, Cha Hae-In was pushing his hand away. He replied in somewhat of a daze.

"Oh. Uh, yes. Why not."

Jin-Woo quickly lifted her up in an embrace. Cha Hae-In's face reddened instantly.

"Please, hold on for a little while longer."

Jin-Woo promptly ran over to the exit and kicked the closed door, hard.

BOOM!!

A locked door such as this only needed a good kick from him. The sturdy door that didn't even want to budge an inch when these high-ranking Hunters pushed at it got destroyed in an instant.

He cautiously laid her down outside the chamber and summoned up his Store. Her current condition was considerably bad. Jin-Woo quickly purchased a superior grade healing potion and carefully emptied the vial in her mouth.

Gulp, gulp.

Her wounds began recovering at a scarcely-believable rate.

"But, how...??"

"Shh."

Jin-Woo raised his index finger and pressed to his lips. Right now was ill-suited to explaining himself, wasn't it?

Hunters emerged from the chamber one by one. Could this be called a silver lining within the sea of misfortune? Their current appearance was truly wretched, but thankfully, none of them required emergency medical assistance.

Jin-Woo closed the Store's interface.

Not knowing the existence of the healing potion, Hunters and their eyes could only pop out of their sockets when Cha Hae-In stood back up as if nothing was wrong.

"Huh?? But, Cha Hunter-nim, weren't you.....?"

"Well, I...."

She was about to answer back reflexively, only to sneak a glance at Jin-Woo and quickly diverted the conversation away.

"This isn't the right time to discuss that, so let's get out of here first."

Hunters all agreed with her.

"Are there any more survivors?"

She asked Jin-Woo, who possessed the best sensory perception among the group. He looked into the interior of the chamber and shook his head.

Only seventeen remained standing outside the chamber. Over half of who stepped inside had died. Their joy at surviving this encounter only lasted for a short while and the atmosphere grew gloomy and heavy.

"In that case...."

Cha Hae-In turned around with a stiff face, but Jin-Woo reached out and held her wrist. She turned to face him.

The reason why the Hunters Guild came here was secondary. He was a lot more curious about something else at the moment.

"Excuse me, but... what happened to Japan?"

Jin-Woo had entered here just before the dungeon break of the rank S Gate occurred and so, he was getting legitimately curious of the news coming out of Japan.

Cha Hae-In hesitated slightly, but eventually, came up with a suitable description.

"They have been destroyed."

< Chapter 164 > Fin.