chapter 209 – First Sight(5)


    -You received ten ‘Advanced Spirit Potion’as the VIP roulette reward! Congrattions!


    Under a night sky and a full moon, an oval gate ofdark and hazy fog had appeared in the middle of downtown Seoul, spinning round andround as it spewed unusual mana.


    -Be prepared! SS-ss gate [Apuseof the Weak] has been released!


    “Interesting gate name.” Kang Shin-hyuk stood before the gate,correcting the position of his mask over his nose. Next tohim, Baek In-ha was on-top of the blue cow,muttering tohimself.


    “SS-ss… Shinyuk, will I be okay with this?”


    “That’s why I rented you the bike and the orb.By fighting strong enemies, you’ll be able to grow faster.”


    “Well, if you don’t die.” Baek was forced to nod in response, ashe had experienced an unusual amount of growth while working asa part of Masked Bhus the pastfew months. His status had risen as high as fourtimes in thest month. Even his agility showed signs of growth,so if he kept this up, he would reach the level he wasaiming for by the first semester of his third year.


    “Shinyuk, do you fight like this all the time?” Baek asked socasually, but he was gripping his pistol asthe gate gradually expanded. Kang Shin-hyuk contemted which of his twopistols he shoulduse.


    “I’ve fought with ire a few times.”


    “Oh, really? You two lovebirds.”


    “What am I to do? ire’s potions have saved memore than once.” Whenever Shin-hyuk was in danger, ire had preparedhim those miracle potions. Honestly, he thought it was a cheatkey. He sometimes wondered how it was possible. He hada hypothesis, but he knew no one would want to hear it. Therefore,there was only one thing he could say.


    “It goes so well with me… is it the power of love again?”


    “…”


    “Is itluck?”


    “Uh.” Eleanor, who was standing next to KangShin-hyuk with a pistol, began to pout. Baek wasquick tointervene.


    “Eleanor-noona, abandon Shinyuk tonight ande with me…”


    “Oh, the gate is opening.”


    “…” Eleanor took a step away from them while looking seriously at thegate. Kang Shin-hyuk raised one hand andsaluted Baek’sloss.


    “I salute your spirit of endless determination.”


    [Stop joking! It’s reallyopening!]


    ire’s voice came through the receivers in their ears. Shewas waiting in the air on her bike. Lee Na-hee, who wasused to moving on the back seat with ire, was using adrone she made with ire’shelp.


    -Gigigi.


    -Gigi.


    The gate opened, and insectile legs began to protrude from it. Kang Shin-hyukpicked up his Phoibos and fired right at it, contacting ire.


    “We’ll need a shield.”


    [It is an SS-ss after all. I’ll activate the field.]


    With the gate at its center, a shield made of mana rose up from allsides. In an instant, the area around the gate became an enclosed space.Superhumans referred to this as a field. Inrgescale situations, installing barriers was useless, but when there wasonly one gate urring, it was important to prevent coteral damage and monsters’ escape. Of course,it wasn’t impossible for monsters to pass through it with their fullpower, but it made it easierto monitor where theywere.


    -Bang!


    “Oh, they die in one shot? I used plenty ofmana, but it’s still too weak for an SS-ss monster…”


    “Don’t waste your breath on needless chatter.” Kang Shin-hyuk yelled at Baekand fired off severalbullets himself. But it was true that they werereally weak. They weren’t fast nor durable. Crawling outwith a strange crackling sound, they were shot beforethey could even do anything. But what he didn’t like wasthat there were no dead bodies left behind. Kang Shin-hyuk checkedtheir movements with his gun and contacted ire again.


    “How does it look from above?”


    [The rate at which the life reactiondisappears is oddly fast. Grab one and take a closer look.]


    That meant to examine itwith spiritual power. Kang Shin-hyuk nodded and immediately grabbed his other gun.Unlike Phoibos, which symbolized light, it was a gun that symbolized darkness.


    [Thyrsus No.0-Erebos]


    [SSS+ Rank]


    [Special Abilities: Supply Ammunition, Dark Bullet, Encroachment, Protection]


    *Supply Ammunition: As long as you have the ammunition, itis automatically loaded into the magazine even if you do not load it individually. Increases the destructivepower of bullets by40%.


    * Dark Bullet: In the dark, speed and power are maximized, andin the shadows, bullets move faster. When live ammo is loaded, the energyconsumption is extremely reduced, but the effect of theability is reduced by half.


    *Encroachment: Forces the enemy to assimte with the darkness, inflicting damage over time by instilling poison intothe darkness itself. Extremely lowersthe enemy’s dark resistance andtraps them in shadows. When live ammo is loaded, the energy consumption is extremely reduced,but the effect of the ability is reduced by half.


    *Protection: The blessing of deep darkness inhabits the gun to protect the user and strengthens theirability to deal with the darkness.


    [The hidden series of a luxurypistol made by a great craftsman. It has the ability to supply ammunition butis recognized as No.0 because it shows its power when shooting without liveammunition. It was made using extremely rare materials, but unfortunately, the creators’ understanding ofthe darkness is a bitcking, so it remains atthe limit of mortality. Because it has a user-limited imprint, it cannotbe used by humans other than the owner, but its power increases whenit is held by theowner.]


    The gun was one notch higher than Phoibos. A + was added tothe rank, but it meant that this gun had actuallyreached the limit of an artifact. To go beyond it, into therank of X, meant reaching a status that couldn’t be measured bymortals like Kang Shin-hyuk. If hehad a skill like [Dark Mastery], it might’ve beenpossible to push the gun into thatrealm.


    ‘I used the mana stone and by-products left by the Sedimentof Chaos.’ Although the Sediment of Chaos had a lowrank of SS+, its potentialcould bepared to the X-ss. Had KangShin-hyuk not beenable to deal with it using the Dark Spirit Pearl, everyoneelse would have been devoured and turned into asacrifice to raise its grade.


    “Now, it’s a good material for my gun.”


    -Bang!


    A bullet pierced through an insect crawling out of the gate andstuck into its shadow. At that moment, he began torattle offbullets.


    -Bang, bang, bang, bang!


    Like Phoibos, it was a gun thatcould be fired without ammo,though it consumed more energy than Phoibos. You couldn’t be too vignt whendealing with an SS-ss gate, so he made sure to conserve hisenergy. The bullets embedded in the area resonated, expanding the shadowsto stop those not directly pierced by bullets.


    “Wow, it’s impressive everytime.”


    “Each one is an artifactparable to a high-ranking trait…” Baek and Eleanor broke intoa cold sweat as they quietly spoke. They were also armed with pistols Shin-hyukhad made, but his was certainly of the highest quality.


    “Only deal with the new ones. I needto figure out why these guys are dying so fast.”


    “Okay.” He let his spiritual power flow through the shadows onthe ground and into the source of the monsters thatwereimmobilized.


    “Huh…” He always felt filthy after searching forthe source of a creature whose very concept ofexistence was so different from his own, hat held such hostility toward humans. Hepressed it back and continued to search through them, searching their lives, defenses, abilities,those unpleasant crackling sounds…then he lifted hishead.


    “Stop shooting.” He fired off another bullet into the center of the gate, elerating itwith the darkness of the night. A ck hemisphere shaped area unfolded around the bullet, blocking everythingthat entered it. The insects wriggling on the floor, and the onesprotruding from the gate were allpaused.


    “Wow… that’sawesome.”


    “From now on, don’t use the pistols and kill them one by onewith maximum power. Youunderstand?”


    “Have we not been killing them so far?”


    “Ah.” Kang Shin-hyuk produced the high-grade spiritual potion hereceived from the roulette and drank it. He had been really disappointedwhen he ran the roulette and just received tenpotions. Well, he was stilldisappointed.


    “ire?”


    [Got it. I’m preparing to intercept the gate…]


    “These guys teleport when theyare shocked. They don’t die; they sacrifice a little magic power to teleport away.”


    [Wow…]


    Fortunately, Kang Shin-hyuk could keep them bound.


    [Wait a minute, but you couldn’t catch them moving? Is that even possible?]


    “They’re teleporting into a gate.”


    [Say thatagain.]


    “They’re teleporting into a nearbygate.”


    [What kind ofndmine-like poweristhat?!]


    ire urgently contacted the Superhuman Association HQ. Meanwhile, KangShin-hyuk worked with Baek In-ha and Eleanor to clean up the frozenbugs. With them tied down by darkness, they couldteleport away before theydied.


    “We have to clean this up quickly and go through all thenearbygates.”


    “Do you know their range of movement?”


    “Yes, fortunately, I think we only need to check200gates.”


    “What a mess…” The three sighed but somehow cleared all the bugs inthe gate. At that point, they could hear a bang fromsomewhereafar.


    “ire?”


    [Straight line, 20 kilometers away at a C-ss gate…do those monsters have the ability to explode?]


    “…The one I looked athad the abilityto freeze enemies around it.”


    [Maybe each one has differentabilities…?]


    He felt his heart sinking at ire’s words. Kang Shin-hyuk met his colleague’sgaze and struck the gate with his sword.


    The total number of bugs that had teleported away was 33.


    Their hellish night had only just begun.