Chapter 134

Glys Roban had just escaped a harrowing situation where one moment of negligence could have cost a guild member their life. Even so, he found it impossible to simply rejoice. Instinctively, his fingers tightened around his staff, his eyes locked on the figure sitting beside the fallen Nam Shin-hoo.

Everyone watching Kwon Haeju slowly stroke the unconscious, curled form of Nam Shin-hoo felt the fine hairs across their bodies stand on end.

“H-He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” one of the Hunters asked, his voice trembling. “His condition…”

“Stay quiet,” a guild member beside Havirain hissed, cutting him off before he could further misread the tension in the room.

The ensuing silence stretched long enough to feel suffocating. Even the faint rustle of Kwon Haeju’s movements caused Glys Roban’s heart to skip a violent beat, stopping and starting in his chest.

In that quiet, a memory he could never escape surfaced in his mind. Four years ago, Kwon Haeju had escaped an EX-Rank dungeon entirely alone, only to lose his grip on sanity and embark on a devastating rampage.

Even now, the United States still bore the physical scars of that day, marked by the mountain range Kwon Haeju had collapsed and the river whose course he had completely severed. The desolated area where that clash had dragged on for so long had permanently become a dead zone where nothing could survive.

That was precisely why, from the moment he met Kwon Haeju again, Glys Roban had been unable to suppress the gooseflesh rising over his skin. That monster of a man had spoken like an ordinary person in front of Nam Shin-hoo, and he had even smiled like one. The massive psychological gap between those two versions of him was nothing short of terrifying.

This is insane, Glys thought.

The Kwon Haeju standing before them now was no longer the human man they had met inside the dungeon. He had fully reverted into the shape of the monster Glys Roban had witnessed four years ago.

A chilling, low temperature swept across their skin—a cold so intense it felt capable of smothering the entire dreamlike dungeon. If Kwon Haeju lost control in a space like this, there would be absolutely no one left to stop him. Inside this domain, crows and Hunters alike would share the exact same fate.

Every gaze in the room stiffened, tracking Kwon Haeju’s slightest movement. Then, Kwon Haeju lifted his head. His blue eyes caught the watery light, gleaming with a pale, cold intensity.

“Huh?”

A foolish, involuntary sound slipped out of Glys Roban’s mouth before he could stop it.

Tears, utterly out of place beneath Kwon Haeju’s fierce eyes, gathered and fell in heavy drops. Without making any effort to hide his expression, Kwon Haeju wet the floor with the tears streaming from his eyes. He did not care that the others were watching him; he simply shed large, silent tears as he gathered Nam Shin-hoo into his arms.

With extreme care, as though holding something incredibly fragile that might shatter at any moment, he cradled the back of Nam Shin-hoo’s neck and tucked the unconscious man securely against his chest. The situation was so entirely unexpected that no one in the room could move, though they were frozen now for an entirely different reason. To think that Kwon Haeju was crying, and doing so with such profound sorrow.

Kwon Haeju slowly rose to his feet and moved toward the boss room door. With Nam Shin-hoo cradled in his arms and without even holding a weapon, he kicked the enormous door open. At last, the boss room they had searched for so long stood revealed, and a wave of cold air poured out from the vast, pitch-black space within.

“Excuse me,” Glys Roban managed to say, mustering up the courage to speak.

There were so many things he wanted to ask. He wanted to know if Nam Shin-hoo was going to be all right, he wanted to thank him for saving Havirain, and he wanted to ask if Kwon Haeju needed any other help.

Yet the heavy atmosphere made it incredibly difficult to voice any of it. He wondered if he had ever felt this tense just to utter a single sentence. Uneasy in the unfamiliarity of the moment, Glys Roban barely managed to ask a single question.

“We can protect Hunter Nam Shin-hoo, so if you want to…”

“Don’t touch him,” Kwon Haeju interrupted, his answer cutting through the air like a blade. “Do not come near him.”

Kwon Haeju’s voice was bleak and hollow, utterly at odds with his tear-filled eyes. With that warning as his final word, he stepped forward into the black abyss of the boss room.

Glys Roban stared blankly after Kwon Haeju’s back as it vanished in an instant, and only then did he belatedly come to his senses.

“We’re going in after him,” Glys commanded.

His remaining pride would not allow him to receive life-saving help and merely stand by as a spectator. Besides, Kwon Haeju had both of his hands occupied by holding Nam Shin-hoo. If that was the case, the rest of them needed to provide proper support to preserve at least a minimum of their dignity.

The others clearly felt the same way. Even Havirain, who had only just regained consciousness, forced himself up and muttered that he could not stay still.

With the sole exception of Olive, who bound the collapsed spies and trapped them securely inside a barrier shield, the remaining Hunters all rushed together toward the boss room.

The very instant Glys Roban entered the pitch-black space, the first thing he felt was a crushing sensation of gravity. His body moved slowly, as if he were truly wandering deep underwater, drifting down gradually toward the floor. As they descended, a brightly illuminated floor came into view beneath them. Waiting below was an enormous, transparent jellyfish that gleamed with a brilliant silver light.

“That must be the boss of this dungeon,” Glys murmured.

Only a portion of its massive body was visible beneath the light, making it impossible to gauge its full size. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tentacles as thick as human bodies surrounded the jellyfish as it drifted through the black space with an almost regal grace. Its sheer scale and form made it hard to believe it was merely the boss of an A-Rank dungeon.

Suddenly, a small flash of light caught Glys Roban’s tense gaze. It was Kwon Haeju. Having entered ahead of them, he had already located the boss monster and was already in the middle of a fierce battle. Nam Shin-hoo was still held carefully in both of his arms, and Kwon Haeju did not even have his weapon, Jinmu, in his hand.

“We have to join the fight at once!” Silveron shouted from beside him, but his voice trailed off midway. He had finally seen it too.

He was witnessing Kwon Haeju’s true style of combat. Kwon Haeju was not attacking the boss in a conventional manner. He was not brandishing a weapon at the monster at all. Instead, he simply severed the countless jellyfish tentacles pouring toward him, wrapped them around his own legs, and then wielded them as though they had belonged to his own body from the very start.

The sight was completely overwhelming. Watching him manipulate tentacles hundreds of times larger than his own body as if they were mere extensions of himself made it difficult to tell where the boss’s domain ended and Kwon Haeju’s power began. He looked like a Weapon Master, or perhaps, an absolute ruler. The grand title Glys Roban had once thought excessive now felt entirely inadequate.

Should I even consider that being a human? Glys wondered, awestruck.

There was almost no wasted movement. Kwon Haeju floated effortlessly through the air while trampling the enormous monster beneath him. Throughout the chaos, the precious head of black hair remained tucked close against his chest. That was the reason Kwon Haeju used only the smallest possible movements, ensuring safety even in the midst of such violent combat.

“I’ve lost,” Glys Roban whispered to himself. He had lost completely.

Glys Roban’s pride and will broke entirely in that moment. Once, he had foolishly thought he might be stronger than Kwon Haeju. Even recently, he had believed he could at least follow somewhere close behind him.

Kwon Haeju, who had no way of knowing how devastated Glys Roban felt, continued his relentless assault. The tentacles multiplied, unfurling brilliantly like monstrous flowers as they pressed the attack. They were sharp, swift, and utterly devastating. Attacks stripped of all excess weight systematically trampled and subdued the enormous boss monster.

Amid the dazzling clusters of light and rippling water that embroidered the space before them, Kwon Haeju remained entirely still. Like a massive rock sunk deep into the sea, he stood firm amid countless waves and attacks, protecting what he held in his arms with an untouchable grace.

Suddenly, a language unlike anything human rang inside everyone’s heads. The booming voice seemed to burrow directly into their minds, originating from the jellyfish itself.

As the severed tentacles wrapped around its entire body and tightened, the core embedded inside the monster’s transparent head warped under the immense pressure. Bound by the very tentacles that had once been its own weapons, the jellyfish’s huge body thrashed violently. Another alien cry reverberated through their skulls, sounding incredibly urgent. It was a clear sign that the battle was nearing its end.

Kwon Haeju finally moved. He had been floating in silence, but now he launched himself directly toward the jellyfish. It looked like a signal flare announcing the final blow, and the vivid image of the jellyfish collapsing flashed in everyone’s minds.

Then, at that exact moment, a loud cry burst out from behind the group.

“Wait!” shouted Havirain, who had descended last.

At the same time, a tremendous shockwave erupted from the space where the jellyfish and Kwon Haeju collided.

Coming back to consciousness was not a pleasant sensation for Nam Shin-hoo. His limp fingertips twitched faintly as blood seemed to circulate through his entire body once more. When a small breath slipped past his lips, he instantly sensed a presence nearby.

“You’re awake,” a gentle voice murmured.

Beyond his vision, which had not yet fully returned, a soft woman’s hand moved. After checking Nam Shin-hoo’s vital condition, she carefully placed a cool hand on his forehead and gave a quiet instruction to the people waiting around her. He could tell the truth of the situation even from the mere feeling of her touch. The energy flowing into him did not belong to an ordinary person. The immense presence she exuded, in no way inferior to the countless powerful Hunters he had seen before, told him without words that she was an S-Rank.

“Josephian?” Nam Shin-hoo croaked out.

“It’s been a long time since anyone called me that,” she replied with a soft chuckle. “Yes, that is my name.”

There was a light laughter in her voice. She sounded genuinely amused, but somewhere deep within that amusement lay a lingering trace of melancholy.

Josephian was the renowned S-Rank healer affiliated with the United States, and she was the very Hunter who had once healed Kwon Haeju’s eyes. She was a healer hidden under the strictest protocols of global secrecy. Even those close to her had strongly disliked letting her true name leave their immediate circle, which is why they had always called her “she” or “that person” instead.

Nam Shin-hoo had not absorbed Havirain’s deadly poison without a calculated plan. He knew he would not die from it anyway, and one of the core reasons he had been absolutely certain the United States would treat him if he endured long enough was the presence of Josephian herself.

As his vision slowly cleared, Josephian fully came into view. Seeing her in person for the very first time, Nam Shin-hoo found that she looked remarkably ordinary, appearing to be somewhere in her forties. She had light brown hair and dark brown eyes. Though she was a foreigner, nothing about her appearance felt alien or intimidating. She looked exactly like someone he might commonly pass on a busy street.

“What’s the situation?” Nam Shin-hoo asked, his voice steadying.

“Before we get into that, how about taking care of your own body first?” Josephian replied gently.

With a practiced movement, Josephian carefully removed the needle embedded in Nam Shin-hoo’s arm. The IV needle that had been injecting a steady stream of fluid into his veins was significantly thicker and sharper than most standard medical tools.