Chapter 305
Old man Clexi furrowed his brows deeply.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It sounds like someone asking for help.”
“That’s not the point. Why the hell is it coming from underground? Don’t tell me the wastewater pipes beneath my shop connect to a crocodile den?”
“Seems like they do.”
“Goddammit!”
Zeon’s indifferent reply instantly twisted old man Clexi’s face in irritation.
He already knew crocodiles lived beneath the slums. He also knew their dens spread out like a giant anthill. But he had never once imagined there might be a crocodile den directly beneath his own shop.
“Those rotten bastards! Digging tunnels under my shop without my permission.”
“That’s not the important part right now.”
“I know! I was just saying it.”
“Where’s the nearest sewer entrance?”
“Go another block and you’ll reach an intersection. Turn right there, and it’s hidden behind a wall.”
“Understood.”
Zeon and Brielle immediately sprinted toward the location old man Clexi had described.
They reached the sewer entrance in an instant.
Massive iron bars blocked the way, but with a flick of Zeon’s hand, they shattered powerlessly.
“Let’s go in.”
“Okay!”
Brielle answered without the slightest hesitation.
Together, they entered the sewer.
“Ugh!”
Brielle, who had entered boldly, immediately covered her nose.
The stench alone was already suffocating.
Back then, she had manufactured drugs in even worse conditions without caring at all, but perhaps because she’d become accustomed to a more comfortable life, her head was already spinning.
Fortunately, Brielle possessed the magic of alchemy.
She drank a potion she had prepared just for situations like this, and once her sense of smell became numb, the discomfort disappeared.
“It’s a potion that numbs your sense of smell. Want one too, Zeon?”
“I’m fine. When did you make something like that?”
“I figured there might come a time we’d have to enter another crocodile den, so I prepared in advance.”
“Good thinking.”
“Hah… I really hoped we’d never have to come back to a place like this. Maybe unavoidable fate really does exist.”
“Maybe it does.”
Zeon nodded slowly.
Originally, he hadn’t believed in fate either.
But after enduring so many terrible experiences, he had begun to feel that there truly was some unknowable current in the world.
Whether he wanted it or not, the things destined to happen always happened.
And somehow, the world always placed him exactly where he was meant to be.
Perhaps that was fate.
The sewer tunnel sloped steeply downward into the depths underground.
After walking about ten meters, they reached a fork in the path.
Zeon examined both directions briefly before speaking.
“Let’s go right. The sound came from that direction earlier.”
“Okay!”
The two chose the right path.
Splash! Splash!
Dirty wastewater rose up to their ankles, but neither of them paid it any attention.
Right now, all that mattered was the voice they had heard earlier in the drainage tunnel.
‘Where are you?’
Zeon sharpened his senses to the limit.
Boom!
At that moment, another powerful vibration shook the tunnel.
The force was strong enough to make the wastewater around their ankles ripple violently.
“Left.”
“Okay!”
At the next fork, they took the left path.
After running dozens of meters, they heard someone’s desperate voice again.
“Please save me!”
It was the same voice they’d heard earlier from the drainage tunnel.
Zeon and Brielle sprinted toward the direction the voice came from.
Then another voice echoed out.
“Got you, little rat!”
“Let go of me, fucker!”
“This won’t do. We should just slit his throat right here.”
The situation sounded extremely urgent.
Zeon accelerated toward the source of the voices.
The moment he rounded the corner, he saw several men holding shamshirs against a young boy’s throat.
“What the hell?”
“Who are you?”
The men shouted in surprise at Zeon’s sudden appearance.
There were three of them.
All wore turbans on their heads and white robes called deshdashas.
The instant Zeon saw them, he knew.
They were the Helbrin Mercenary Corps he had been searching for.
They shouted at him again.
“I asked who you are.”
“If you don’t answer, we’ll cut this brat’s throat.”
Using the boy as a hostage, they threatened Zeon.
But their threats meant nothing to him.
Dozens of Fire Missiles rose around Zeon’s body.
The Awakeners of the Helbrin Mercenary Corps gritted their teeth at the sight.
“Fuck!”
“Kill him!”
“Hyaaaah!”
Without hesitation, they charged straight at Zeon.
Their opponent had shown hostility—there was no way they could just sit still and take it.
Their reactions were astonishingly fast.
Fast enough that most Awakeners wouldn’t even be able to respond.
But their opponent was Zeon.
Shushushushush!
The moment they moved, Zeon unleashed the Fire Missiles.
The Helbrin mercenaries swung their swords like mad, striking away the incoming Fire Missiles.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions thundered through the sewer as the mercenaries’ bodies shook violently.
“Urgh!”
“Goddammit!”
Their faces twisted viciously.
All three were martial-type Awakeners.
Each one was a C-rank capable of infusing mana into their weapons.
At this level, they would be treated well even in Neo Seoul.
That was why they possessed tremendous pride in their own abilities.
But under Zeon’s relentless barrage of Fire Missiles, that pride shattered like glass.
Fire Missile was the most basic skill any magic-type Awakener capable of using fire magic could cast.
Naturally, its power was usually unimpressive.
Yet the Fire Missiles unleashed by Zeon far exceeded their imagination.
Each individual missile carried terrifying force, but worse still, they came nonstop.
Block one, and two more flew in.
Block two, and four more followed.
They had never experienced an endless storm of Fire Missiles like this before.
Crack!
Shatter!
The shamshir blocking the attacks shattered first, unable to endure the accumulated impacts.
The Fire Missiles that destroyed the weapon slammed directly into their bodies.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Aaaagh!”
“H-hot!”
“Save me!”
The Awakeners, their entire bodies engulfed in flames, thrashed around wildly.
Two of them quickly rolled across the ground to extinguish the flames covering their bodies. But the remaining one wasn’t so fortunate.
Unfortunately for him, the turban wrapped around his head had caught fire.
The flames on his head instantly burned through his eyes and airway.
Because of that, unlike his comrades, he couldn’t put out the fire. He merely thrashed about in agony before losing his life.
For the death of a C-rank martial-type Awakener, it was unbelievably pathetic.
One of the survivors who had barely escaped death shouted,
“What the hell are you? Fuck! Why are you attacking us?”
“We didn’t do anything to you!”
The veins bulging from their necks as they screamed made them look like demons.
On top of that, the horrific burns covering their bodies made them terrifying enough to haunt nightmares.
To an ordinary person, they would’ve looked overwhelmingly vicious.
Unfortunately for them, Zeon and Brielle were not ordinary people.
Swoosh!
Zeon’s body shot forward like an arrow and arrived before the man on the right.
“You little—!”
Crunch!
Zeon’s fist exploded into the man’s abdomen.
“You piece of shit. Someone’s talking, and you attack?”
The man beside him roared in fury and swung his fist, but his attack never reached Zeon.
Zeon casually deflected the punch with his left hand before driving his right fist into the man’s jaw.
Boom!
With an explosive sound, the man’s head snapped backward.
Oddly enough, the jaw that took the punch remained intact.
Instead, the upper part of his skull burst apart.
Brain matter and blood sprayed everywhere, but Zeon didn’t even blink as he looked toward the man he had struck down first.
“T-this can’t be… Nayar died that easily…?”
The man whose upper skull had exploded from Zeon’s punch was named Nayar.
Nayar had been the strongest of the three.
Seeing Nayar die so meaninglessly made the remaining Awakener’s legs give out, and he collapsed to the ground.
“Uugh! W-what are you? What the hell are you?”
“Who I am isn’t important. What matters is who you are and what you’ve done.”
“Stop spewing bullshit!”
The man roared angrily.
He was someone who had survived the brutal desert.
Like a desert cobra, he raised his head proudly and bared his hostility.
That was the pride of those who lived in the desert.
Unfortunately for him, he had chosen the wrong opponent this time.
To Zeon, the murderous aura the man displayed looked childish.
That wasn’t what true viciousness looked like.
Growling, glaring, pretending to be strong—
Those were things only weaklings did.
People with genuine viciousness concealed themselves.
They hid thoroughly, waited for the right moment, and severed their enemy’s throat in a single strike.
What this man was doing was no different from exposing his own weakness.
It was something Zeon himself would never do.
And the price was brutal.
Thud!
Zeon’s leg slammed into the man’s abdomen.
It felt as though a giant skewer had pierced straight through his stomach.
“Guhk!”
The man vomited blood and collapsed.
Zeon stepped down on the fallen man’s neck.
Crack! Crack!
The sound of bones breaking echoed from the man’s throat.
His breathing stopped, and his mind went blank.
His eyes rolled back, and drool streamed from his mouth.
The pain was so unbearable that he couldn’t even scream.
Finally, unable to endure any longer, the man begged desperately.
“Kuugh! P-please… spare…!”
“What was that?”
“S-spare me… I-I’ll tell you anything…”
Despite his pleas, Zeon didn’t lift his foot from the man’s neck.
Crack!
The man’s neck twisted into an increasingly grotesque angle.
Now he couldn’t even speak properly and could only choke and wheeze.
Right before his breath was about to give out completely, Zeon finally loosened his foot slightly.
The overwhelming pressure vanished, and the man gasped violently for air.
“Khuhaak!”
Desperate to breathe fresh air, the man opened his mouth as wide as possible.
That was when—
“Ghk!”
Zeon stomped on his neck again.
Crack!
Another sickening snapping sound came from the man’s throat.
“J-just kill me…”
“I will.”
“You son of a—”
“You shouldn’t be begging me to spare you. You should be begging me to kill you painlessly.”
“Kuugh!”
Only then did the man finally understand.
No matter what he tried, he would never leave this place alive.
Zeon was teaching him.
This was what true viciousness looked like.
And the man was being completely consumed by it.