The rain that had started pouring across all of Daejeon since morning had, before he knew it, turned into a downpour.
Watching the raindrops that battered the window roughly before streaming down weakly, Kang Tae-yang drank the coffee he had just brewed.
“Hmm…….”
A deepening, contemplative hum.
The reason his thoughts grew needlessly heavy was because Eclipse had been managed far more haphazardly than he had expected.
Even if people pointed at it and called it a criminal organization, he had thought internal discipline and order should be strict.
What hadn’t been visible from the outside became unmistakably clear once he was inside.
Eclipse, to the point that he wondered how it had even managed to fight for influence against the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps and Heuksaja…… was a mess within.
Perhaps his younger brother Kang Dong-hyun’s power and charisma had been barely filling the gaps.
Just then, Kang Dong-hyun—quietly sipping the coffee his older brother had handed him—stretched and finally spoke.
“Like I thought, it’s easier to leave the thinking to someone else. This is great. I should’ve done this ages ago.”
Hearing him casually say it was comfortable not to use his head, as if the world were at peace, made Kang Tae-yang’s insides boil.
In the first place, if not for Casey Rex, they wouldn’t even be having this touching(?) reunion.
Casey Rex had forcibly reattached the severed bond between brothers—using a powerful adhesive that would be hard to peel off.
If their will was firm, they could peel it off again, but then neither of them would survive.
“Dong-hyun, you…… How can you be so relaxed after managing the organization into this kind of wreck? The discipline is completely ruined. They only bow to you in front of your face—there’s no rank order among themselves.”
“Fuck! Cut it out already. How many times have you shoved the same talk into my earholes?”
Kang Dong-hyun’s hostile reaction.
It was the reaction he expected, so Kang Tae-yang didn’t even blink.
Even if they resented and opposed each other, their relationship was still a brother’s love-and-hate.
He knew without being told. Even like this, they couldn’t truly abandon each other. Their mother’s death was only an excuse.
When Kang Tae-yang stared at Kang Dong-hyun with a blank face without saying anything, Kang Dong-hyun sharply averted his gaze and lowered his tone.
“You look smug because Casey Rex put you in that seat personally. In the end, you’re just a piece on the board too.”
“I’ve never once thought I wasn’t. If anything, I’ve considered it an honor just to be allowed onto the board.”
“Don’t get too drunk on it. That Eclipse leader seat can get your head chopped off anytime—like mine.”
“At least I won’t get cut off the way you did. Unless I cut myself off.”
“……This bastard, seriously.”
Kang Dong-hyun irritably put a cigarette in his mouth and tried to light it.
Unfortunately, the lighter acted up, so it didn’t catch properly. All that remained was the ugly sight of him holding a cigarette between his lips.
“……What a mess.”
“Get to the point. You walked into my office on your own two feet, and you’ve been saying nothing but this.”
Kang Tae-yang pressed him.
If his brother—who wouldn’t come no matter how often he was summoned—had come to the office himself, it meant there was something he had to say.
It wasn’t that he had no guess, but he wanted to hear it directly from his mouth. It also felt like that was why he had come.
When Kang Tae-yang pulled out his own lighter and lit it for him, Kang Dong-hyun puffed smoke and continued.
“Shin Kang-hoo. He was bad blood from the start. Ever since he caused that trouble and left Cheongmyeong Detention Center, he’s been a huge curse on me.”
Irritation was plain on Kang Dong-hyun’s face as he recalled the past.
In hindsight, he felt they should have killed Shin Kang-hoo then, even if it meant throwing in a lot of manpower.
Too many subordinates had been dragged into Shin Kang-hoo’s mess and died, and Eclipse’s entire operational plan had gotten twisted.
Losing Cheongmyeong Detention Center in the end to the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps–Heuksaja–Jeon Se-hyuk alliance had been a fatal blow.
The reason Eclipse couldn’t mount any meaningful counterattack now was the aftershock of losing Cheongmyeong Detention Center.
The many mana-stone mines inside Cheongmyeong Detention Center had been like a goose that laid golden eggs for Eclipse.
They had lost it far too easily.
The culprit wasn’t Lee Ye-rin of the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps, nor the Heuksaja brothers, nor Jeon Se-hyuk.
It was Shin Kang-hoo.
Everything had gotten tangled because that bastard infiltrated the detention center alone and assassinated Warden Jo Hwan-seong in a surprise attack.
With the control tower gone before they could even respond, Cheongmyeong Detention Center’s fate had already been sealed back then.
Kang Dong-hyun continued.
“Now it’s time to cut that bad blood. Every link in the chain that ended with all my plans smashed has Shin Kang-hoo in it.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Since my brilliant older brother will manage and clean up this damned organization just fine, I’m going to do what I want.”
“……That’s why I’m asking. What do you want to do?”
“I told you. Cut the bad blood. Is there a more certain way than killing that f*cking Shin Kang-hoo?”
“Dong-hyun.”
“Don’t think about sending people. If you put eyes on me, I’ll start by killing those eyes. Don’t try to stop me either. If you stop me……”
“If I stop you?”
“Kang Tae-yang, I’ll think you’re Shin Kang-hoo’s plant and kill you too. That’s your warning. Don’t dig into what I’m doing.”
“You crazy bastard.”
“The problem is the guy trying to live in this fucked-up world with normal thinking. Is the crazy one the problem?”
Tsssss.
Kang Dong-hyun roughly ground the cigarette butt into the ashtray and spun on his heel.
He didn’t forget to clamp down once more, just in case anything annoying happened.
“Either you kill Shin Kang-hoo by using my hand. Or you choke my hand and help Shin Kang-hoo. Choose. There’s no other option, hyung.”
Around then.
“Looks like I found the right place.”
Vincent had arrived near the base camp where Kang-hoo was presumed to be staying.
He got out where the car could go no farther and left it parked there.
Once he eliminated Shin Kang-hoo, it would be the car he rode back in anyway.
He didn’t regret coming alone. If anything, it felt better.
If he brought company and some guy loitered next to him pretending to be an escort, he’d have to pay them later and the math would get complicated.
This was a job to kill someone with a hidden skill. He didn’t want to share even scraps with anyone.
‘Seventy-seven hidden skills. If I add Shin Kang-hoo’s skill to the three I already have…… this is the jackpot.’
Greed oozed from Vincent’s face as he repeatedly licked his lips with the tip of his tongue.
The fight hadn’t even started, but he couldn’t calm his heart pounding with excitement.
It was only a matter of time. In Vincent’s mind, there wasn’t even a shred of expectation that he might lose to Kang-hoo.
He had heard that a fairly capable hunter named Ishihara Yuji had recently been killed by Kang-hoo.
But Yuji was two—no, three—moves below Vincent by his own standards.
Would he judge that his own risk increased just because that guy died? That premise was flawed.
The level gap and skill gap between Shin Kang-hoo and him were clear.
Levels didn’t exist for hunters for no reason. They were symbols of experience and seasoned years.
“Even the weather’s helping.”
The picture was good.
All the way here, he had checked the situation around Nampo City, and it was still inaccessible.
There was nowhere else to train outside, so the only place Shin Kang-hoo could be was the base camp.
There were no CCTV cameras here to monitor the area.
In the first place, electronics didn’t work well at Ground Zero. Supplying that much power was difficult too.
It was a route hunters almost never used, so he didn’t have to worry about onlookers.
He could hit Shin Kang-hoo’s back with peace of mind. The one-on-one setup wouldn’t change.
At that moment—
Woooong.
It was brief, but he clearly felt something wavering behind him.
Like a change had occurred in space itself! Vincent’s sensitive senses caught that tiny shift.
But the problem was that an unexpected situation formed far faster than his catching it.
Puhk!
“……!”
【Danger of a fatal wound detected. The ‘Emergency Protection’ option embedded in the breastplate was activated.
All remaining uses have been consumed, and Emergency Protection has been removed from the breastplate’s configuration.】
Emergency Protection.
A protective mechanism built into the breastplate item Vincent wore.
It had the effect of reducing a severe injury into a minor one, efficiently preserving about half a life.
From the very fact that Emergency Protection had triggered, Vincent instantly sensed that Kang-hoo was already on site.
How the hell? The situation was too urgent to dwell on that question.
Because by that point—
Puhk! Puhk! Puhuuuk!
“Kuaaaagh!”
Kang-hoo’s dagger was stabbing into his flank several times over.
Each strike was lethal enough to tear muscle apart without pause and send searing pain through every nerve.
Drip-drip-drip.
Blood poured out as it forced its way from the torn wound in his side. It was unclear whether it was only blood pouring out.
Since Kang-hoo was an “assassin,” Vincent hadn’t expected a straightforward duel head-on. Kang-hoo would never oblige.
But he hadn’t expected Kang-hoo to appear suddenly here, still quite far from the base camp.
By the looks of it, it was something that couldn’t even happen without teleporting several kilometers in an instant.
And that wasn’t all.
Kang-hoo’s appearance point was precisely behind him, as if he had calculated it perfectly.
Even granting a hundred concessions—that Kang-hoo, an assassin, could use an absurd teleportation ability— he could try to understand that much.
But appearing right behind him, like measured with a ruler, was a different story.
Unless Kang-hoo had been waiting here the whole time, it was a picture that was hard to make work in any way.
From the moment his companion disappeared, Vincent had maximized every sense to scan the area, but not once had he felt Kang-hoo’s presence. He had definitely used teleportation.
No useless replaying of what had already happened. First he needed to escape the crisis.
For rapid withdrawal and evasion of Kang-hoo’s follow-up attack, Vincent chose the easiest option.
Swaaaaah!
He shifted into a Dark Energy condensate form.
By temporarily vaporizing his entire body as he moved, it had the trait of being immune to physical attacks.
Though called a “condensate,” it wasn’t something that could be easily cut or torn by a blade.
Of course, it didn’t last long. But there was nothing more useful for escaping a danger that had exposed him before he could even respond.
But then—
“……?”
As he fled the scene in Dark Energy condensate form, Vincent was thrown off by the alien sensation surrounding his whole body.
It was definitely Dark Energy.
No matter how he thought about it, it was certainly Dark Energy—yet some of the Dark Energy encircling him wasn’t his.
It seemed to be Kang-hoo’s Dark Energy.
But why? The moment that question rose sharply in Vincent’s mind—
the answer returned as reality.
Fwoooosh!
“Kkeuaaaagh!”
Kang-hoo’s Dark Energy Ignition!
It was the moment a massive accident occurred—burning Vincent’s vaporized body in midair, whole and complete.
Hell unfolded.
