Second Life of a Dragon Raising Hunter

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Chapter 364: Oh ho, Boy, Quite Impressive.

Dooko-hyun let out a small gasp as he watched Yeon-woo dancing with his sword right in front of him.

Where had the inexperienced kid he knew gone? Only a seasoned martial artist remained.

Countless sword strikes splintered the air around them. Did he not see the opponent’s attacks as a threat? The bats foolishly swooped in, only to be sliced into dozens of pieces and drop to the ground in shredded bits.

“Haha, I can’t lose!”

The old man snapped his fingers. There was no way he could be outdone by a mere novice, who was less than a tenth his age. If that happened, this old man’s pride would surely break down in tears.

With one hand in his pocket, Dooko-hyun swung his arm. His signature technique, the Yama Black Water, was his pride and joy.

A colorless light spread outward, and the next moment, a bat’s head was perched on his hand, looking utterly confused.

Keye, what?

As the bat’s head expressed its confusion, Dooko-hyun clenched his hand. Crunch! The tiny skull shattered in his grasp.

Normally, he would aim for the heart, but for some reason, the demon creatures of the Demon King often lacked hearts even when they had bones.

“While I might be feeling the fight, the standard weak points of living beings mean nothing to these creatures. They have no brains, and breaking their heads doesn’t lead to instant death, and lacking hearts means stabbing them in the chest doesn’t faze them at all.”

“That’s just weird!!”

Indeed, the bat he had crushed with Yama Black Water flapped its wings as if nothing had happened.

Its eyes seemed to be functioning well, as it looked around aimlessly, unable to even think about attacking someone.

That was the strange part. Bats typically lived in darkness, meaning their eyesight had degraded, so they should be using echolocation to navigate, yet this thing was actively hunting with its eyes.

“Damn it, that’s what the Demon King does!!”

Yeon-woo’s greatest asset, his experience, was rendered utterly useless in this situation. The statistics indicating that such creatures generally behave like this had become garbage.

While beings from the Gates often had traits that were different from those on Earth due to being from other dimensions, this was on another level.

No heart, no brain; they couldn’t even be described as living beings.

Those who carry the name of the Demon King possess such traits. They wield nonsensical power as if it were perfectly reasonable.

Leviathan might be acting like a friend to the kids, but when you think about it, it possesses the ridiculous ability to manipulate gold as easily as its own limbs.

Indeed, Toyo’s Demon King couldn’t be bound by common sense. In fact, it seemed to be far deeper than other Demon Kings. Just looking at how it ignored basic biological functions was telling.

‘If I think about it like that, the undead must fall into that category as well.’

Now that he had seen it too many times, he was starting to get used to it, but undead beings also couldn’t be called living beings.

First things first, he needed to find some characteristic of the Demon King from these monsters. It was necessary to prepare for a battle with the Demon King based on that.

*

[Behold, a star shining upon the earth.]

From a hole in the heavens, a man murmured as he gazed down at the lower realm. Truly splendid.

A star, perhaps it should be called a sun. Even if one star shines too brightly, it tends to overshadow the surrounding ones, but this one was different.

Sharp shards of ice flew through the sky. Blue lightning burst forth from the ground, and a solid bull charged across the earth.

Countless stars displayed their unique twinkles.

Rather than being overshadowed by his radiance, the surrounding stars glowed even brighter.

It felt more apt to describe it as the sun and a sunflower.

[Well then, beautiful things surely deserve praise.]

The man murmured as he elegantly waved his fingers. The beautiful characters he drew soon transformed into an incantation and began to act as magic.

It was an invitation. An invitation to the realm beyond the lofty heavens, where his dim-witted father slumbered in the realm of the ancients.

Only those who captured his heart would receive such an invitation. Moreover, the invited could not disregard such courtesy.

*

After Yeon-woo somehow defeated all the bats, he exhaled heavily and surveyed the battlefield. The chaos of battle showed no signs of calming.

Screams and painful moans echoed from everywhere. In such a situation, it was impossible for there to be no casualties. Corpses were strewn across the ground before Yeon-woo’s eyes.

The number of skilled fighters was overwhelmingly insufficient. They were not opponents that could be dealt with at an expert level. All they could do was stall for time. Even that was definitively an inefficient way to stretch time.

Gritting his teeth involuntarily, Yeon-woo felt a sense of helplessness. Unless one was on Na Yang-ho’s level, asking healers to get involved in this battle was tantamount to asking them to die.

They were trying their best to cast divine arts, but it was still not enough to save lives.

He heard the heart-wrenching cries of someone unable to save a person dying before his eyes. There were shouts from someone behind him trying to protect their ally.

Sadly, Yeon-woo’s keen senses were picking up all of it.

He couldn’t save everyone. However, he didn’t want to witness so many dying without being able to lift a finger. Even if that might be considered greed.

[Dad….]

At that moment, Shar spoke up with a worried voice. “It’s okay, I’m fine. I saw this coming. No problem at all.”

Just then, something fluttered down. It looked like a piece of paper, a spell, drifting through the air.

[Dad, that…!!]

Tae-oh shouted urgently. He knew. How could he not?

Without even touching it, just seeing it sent shivers down his spine with the aura of a Demon King.

The gem hastily shoved into the Doppleganger was trembling wildly. He didn’t know what it was, but it was definitely a Demon King’s artifact.

Yeon-woo clasped the spell in his hand. Fortunately, holding it posed no problem. Even though it was written in unknown characters, the moment he grasped it, its content echoed in his mind.

– I hereby invite you.

…Ah, I see? Yeon-woo crumpled up the magic in his hand. Unknowingly, his strength tightened around it. It had been a while since he felt this angry, and now he had surpassed that threshold.

It was a relief. While he had been pondering how to ascend, he was now being given a staircase to rise.

Thinking so, Yeon-woo tore the crumpled magic apart with both hands. Intense magic surrounded him. Yeon-woo didn’t reject that power.

*

“…What is he doing?”

Feeling an ominous sense, Baek In-hwa turned her head. In a corner of her sight, Nea was also frowning, watching Yeon-woo.

Yeon-woo stood in the middle of the battlefield, gazing down at his palm. Thankfully, there were no monsters around, yet an inexplicable ominous feeling radiated from him.

Soon, Yeon-woo grasped thin air as if holding a piece of paper and tore it apart. Both Baek In-hwa and Nea felt a sense of unease from that action. Without a moment’s hesitation, they dashed towards Yeon-woo.

Immense magic surrounded him. The one who best understood what that phenomenon was, standing right there, was Baek In-hwa. Naturally, she had to know. She had almost been swept away by it.

It was a Gate. A Gate created by the Demon King. An invitation from a reaper that would pull everything standing there into the void.

“No, don’t…!!”

She had never run this fast before. It was her first time unleashing her full power with the Twelve Stars Run.

Scenery blurred past her; she slipped through the crowd and reached out.

Yet, no matter what, she couldn’t reach him.

…She couldn’t touch him. No one’s hand could reach him. The sinister black-red Gate enveloped Choi Yeon-woo and swallowed him whole. Nea and Baek In-hwa could only stare in awe at the empty space left behind.

He saved her. Despite the danger to his own life, he had jumped into the Demon King’s Gate without hesitation. Inside, he had offered her courage, so she wouldn’t perish when they met.

She thought that one day she would be able to repay that debt. Perhaps this was that opportunity.

Baek In-hwa had believed that until just a moment ago….

So did Nea. The child who had saved her from that narrow, suffocating cave. Despite being a different being from before her regression, he had come to save her. She couldn’t help but feel love for him.

However, their hands could not reach him. Yeon-woo had come to rescue her from another dimension, yet she couldn’t do the same.

The two women stood there, faces stricken with despair.

*

[Welcome, hero. I shall personally show my appreciation.]

When the scenery changed, the first thing that reached his ears was a bizarre voice. It sounded both feminine and masculine at once. At the same time, it was a mix of the metallic tone of an old man’s voice and a clear child’s voice.

“Glad to meet you? Well, I’m happy too. Thanks for making me stairs so I can kill you.”

How many lives had been sacrificed for this brat? From the power given to Nephren-Ka, to the battle currently unfolding below, all of it was orchestrated by the Demon King before him. How could he not feel anger?

Even as Yeon-woo spoke harshly, he maintained a calm head. While rage could be a suitable booster, becoming overly excited because of it was the worst kind of behavior.

His body was hot; his head was cool. That was what he had to be aware of.

[Oh dear, don’t get too excited. Weren’t you invited? Fighting is good, but first, let’s have a little chat. Who knows, we might find some common ground?]

“Speak. I won’t listen anyway.”

[Impatient, are we?]

That was fine, and with that, the form of the Demon King hidden in the darkness was revealed.

It was an entity so bizarre, it was hard to call it a person. It merely took on human form but could not truly be called one.

Its form could be deemed incredibly beautiful. However, when examined closely, something was off. The area around the eyes, nose, and mouth was white, but the rest of the skin was black. Its left hand was yellow, while its right was white and covered in bumpy tumors.

The discoloration across its body was strange. It was as if various body parts had been taken from numerous people and sewn together, causing a headache just from looking.

“You look revolting.”

In response, the Demon King merely shrugged its shoulders.

(To be continued in the next installment)