A banquet hall where food spilled from broken dishes and bluntly distorted bullets were scattered around.
A yellow police line hangs at the entrance of the event hall, which was closed without proper cleanup.
I headed upstairs using the escalator that stopped on the first floor where the event hall was located.
After going up to the 5th floor like that, I stopped heading to the next floor.
Then he turned his head and stared at the open center of the department store.
Gwangma-dong, the first and best experience of the main character.
The gate leading to it should be somewhere around there.
Observing it carefully, I saw a small hole in the air that barely fit three fingers.
[So what exactly are you trying to do?]
In a building filled with silence, Maegu asked in a voice that only I could hear.
Instead of speaking with my mouth, I communicated to her with my thoughts, pointing with my finger.
‘See over there?’
[Where are you talking… Aha, there’s a hole in the space. The boy you call the main character. Did that child suddenly appear from there?]
‘Yes, I was able to escape after hundreds of years of long training there.’
[He was a child who seemed to be the same age as you, but he was so strong that he was incomparable to you.]
It was an objective fact that I was aware of, but it felt strange to hear it from someone else’s mouth.
I tried my best, but I couldn’t keep up with the growth rate of the main character.
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Just by looking at his current strength, he is superior to Namgoong Ik, who is my swordsmanship teacher and is at the same level of transcendence.
Beyond genius, Shin Sung-ah, who is said to be a monster of talent, is on the same level or higher.
I know that there is still a long way to go, but it is also true that I feel impatient after meeting them in person.
‘Yes, strong. And I will become stronger in the future.’
[Is the secret of that strength in there?]
‘right. After hundreds of years of training there, I got the strength I have now.’
[Hundreds of years? You don’t look that old, do you?]
‘The flow of time inside is different from outside. Go much faster in there. Did you say 500 times?’
However, even if I were given the same amount of time as the main character, I would not gain the same strength.
So, if you want to hold on to the main character’s trouser leg, you have no choice but to diligently intercept even such an opportunity.
[Then, are you trying to get into that too?]
‘Do you think I’ll go into that dangerous place myself?’
[Looks like you tricked something again.]
‘I can’t even go in now, because the hole is too small.’
Kang Min-hyeok got the ridiculous feat of Gwangma’s martial arts in Gwangma-dong beyond that gate.
However, I only obtained the martial arts of Gwangma, I did not completely conquer and close the gate.
That is why the gate does not disappear and remains there.
‘On the other hand, it’s also an opportunity to bring what’s left from there.’
Although it was a problem that I wasn’t the only one who was aiming for this.
On the contrary, it also meant that there was someone else who would venture into it instead of me.
Those who worship the mad horse and claim to be his descendants.
Hiding in the shadows of buildings, I hoped to heighten my senses to detect approaching presence.
[Dear… .]
‘I felt it too.’
number is eight.
As befitting those who claimed to be the descendants of the light horse, they were all warriors who achieved a considerable level of achievement.
Among them, the strength of one was different.
Looking at the unique atmosphere, he seemed to be a master of transcendence.
Even if it was the same level of transcendence, it would have to be one step lower than Kang Min-hyuk, who was facing the wall of the flower scene.
「Nevermore-there was nothing.」
I immediately cast Jackdaw’s Poem and hid behind the darkness.
Although the moonlight seeps through the floor-to-ceiling windows as the clock points to midnight.
Soon, even the moonlight was covered by clouds, and the inside of the building sank into complete darkness.
Then, people wearing black clothes and masks entered the department store.
I looked down at them, wrapped in thick darkness.
“Are you sure this is the place?”
“That’s right. Lord.”
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to feel my presence.
I was thinking of putting a thicker darkness in if necessary.
It was fortunate.
“To figure out the exact location.”
“Johnny.”
At the words of the man called the master, a man in black walked out in the lead, took out something, and tied it to his finger.
The pendulum at the end of the thin chain began to sway.
Pendulum.
It was also called a water maekchu.
Of course, what I’m looking for right now isn’t water veins.
A black mineral contrasting with the pure white chain was being used as a pendulum.
The black mineral was dark as if it would absorb light.
[It’s not an ordinary mineral. It has a considerable ghost.]
Maegu said as if shuddering with a dusky body.
Even with my own eyes, that black mineral did not look like an ordinary object.
Artifact.
It also seemed to be something that could be used for tracking or searching.
shake-
I thought the pendulum, which was repeating the pendulum movement from side to side, stopped slowly.
Suddenly it rose up and pointed upward.
At that appearance, Lee Tae-baek, the man who was called the master, spoke.
“Above? Walk ahead.”
And I started walking up the same escalator I came up on.
2nd, 3rd, 4th floor.
Every time I climbed a floor, the angle of the rising pendulum came down little by little.
When we reached the 5th floor, the pendulums were finally parallel.
“That place. Get ready to go in.”
“I will take it out.”
At Lee Tae-baek’s words, the black man put down the large box he was wearing.
Then they put the eight keys they had kept in the box.
Eight locks were unlocked, and what came out of them was a tree branch with a common appearance anywhere.
[Kurrurer!!]
When the branch appeared, Mae-gu suddenly started growling.
It was fortunate that only I could hear this sound.
If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t be able to take it off or beat it.
Why was that, I wanted to ask.
Putting the question aside, I continued to watch the actions of the black men.
“I’m reluctant.”
Contrary to the ordinary appearance as Lee Tae-baek said, the atmosphere emitted by the branches was unusual.
ominous, itself.
Even if I touched it lightly, I naturally thought that something bad was going to happen.
A man in black held up the branch.
“aagh!”
Immediately after, a terrible scream came out of his mouth.
The screams didn’t last long.
This is because the black man’s body began to dry up in an instant, and soon after, he collapsed on the floor.
However, as if the tree branch were sucking up nutrients from people, a single dark red leaf appeared at the end of the bony branch.
The others did not bat an eye at the sight and retrieved a branch with red leaves from the man’s hand.
“Your sacrifice will be remembered by me.”
Right after that, the skinny black man’s body started to burn like a mummy.
This may be because Lee Tae-baek used martial arts with the nature of the extreme yang.
The mummy-like body of the black man was completely burned without leaving a single bone fragment.
“Open.”
Let Lee Tae-baek swing the branch with the dark red leaves hanging from it.
It fluttered, the leaves swayed, and flew away.
The leaf touched a hole in the air that must have been the size of a finger.
In an instant, the gate leading to Gwangma-dong grew to the size that one person could easily come and go.
“Go in.”
The black righteous men, one reduced to seven, threw their bodies into the hole all at once.
They all disappeared beyond the gate, and all that was left was the scorched floor.
After confirming that they were gone, I opened my mouth.
“Dirty bastards. It seems that sacrificing one ally for the sake of absolute martial arts is not a chore.”
The enlarged gate was maintained as it was.
I could still go inside Gwangma-dong if I wanted to.
I didn’t feel like going inside.
‘When you enter, seven. One when it comes out.’
Six out of seven of them will never come back.
If I go in, six only become seven.
I intend to wait here.
Lee Tae-baek will bring the goods.
[Now I know your plan. If you wait and come out from there, you’re thinking of attacking.]
‘answer.’
Even if you don’t tell me the plan, it seems to be predictable.
If it’s something that goes to the wicked anyway, wouldn’t it be better for the world if I intercept it?
Of course, I’m not planning to use it for something grandiose like world peace.
Either way, it’s closer to fulfilling my self-interest.
Since I don’t know when those who entered will come out, I decided to keep talking with Mae-gu only with my thoughts instead of words.
‘So what was the growl just about?’
[…] Can’t you forget it?]
‘Do you think I’ll just forget about it?’
[It’s nothing. I just sensed the terribly nostalgic energy from the tree branches that those black men used.]
‘It must have been related to foreign media.’
foreign god.
They are the final bosses of a novel that cannot be compared to the Great Devil.
It wasn’t until the latter half of the novel that the story finally began to unfold properly.
Even I don’t know much about them.
It ended because the main character of the novel died in an assassin’s attack while preparing for the final battle with the foreign press.
‘And that assassin became me.’
I wondered how these self-proclaimed descendants of Gwangma could enter Gwangma-dong.
If the item was transferred from a foreign believer and used, the explanation before and after was sufficient.
Obviously, the explanation that appeared in the novel setting book…
＜Branches of ■■■＞
classification
-■■/Others
Explanation
It is part of -■■■.
– The power of ■■■ is imbued with it.
-Use people as food to make leaves.
It must have been so square.
Perhaps the true name of a foreign correspondent is included in the square.
Maegu suddenly asked me if he had any questions.
[According to what you said, dozens of days have already passed in there?]
‘Probably so.’
[It’s amazing. How can such a thing be possible with only human power?]
It was rare for the flow of time inside and outside to be as different as Gwangma-dong.
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Just like the forest that was used as a training ground, the flow of time is the same no matter how inside the gate.
[If it were you, you’d know what the black righteous people would come out of there with.]
‘I know.’
The core that maintains the light arch.
It was because Taebaek Lee and his men in black went inside to get it.
[No matter what that item is… You don’t have to ask, you can check it yourself.]
‘come.’
The gate shook.
Soon, he vomited up a human body inside it like a devoted partner.
There was only one body, plummeting to the floor.
None of them were complete, and Lee Tae-baek’s tattered body was missing an arm.
‘Aside from that, there are not one or two minor wounds, and it looks like I’ve used up most of my energy.’
The gate, which had grown in size enough for people to come and go, was closed.
The scenery that the space filled was quite mysterious, but it was also a scenery that I would see many more times in the future.
Lee Tae-baek’s only left hand was holding something tightly.
“Ha ha, ha ha ha ha!”
Hearing a laugh of joy burst from his mouth, I quietly approached like a hyena on its prey.