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chapter 209 – First Sight(5)

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

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

-Be prepared! SS-class gate [Applause of 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 to him, Baek In-ha was on-top of the blue cow, muttering tohimself.

“SS-class… 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, as he had experienced an unusual amount of growth while working as a part of Masked Bacchus the past few months. His status had risen as high as four times in the last month. Even his agility showed signs of growth, so if he kept this up, he would reach the level he was aiming for by the first semester of his third year.

“Shinyuk, do you fight like this all the time?” Baek asked so casually, but he was gripping his pistol as the gate gradually expanded. Kang Shin-hyuk contemplated which of his two pistols he shoulduse.

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

“Oh, really? You two lovebirds.”

“What am I to do? Claire’s potions have saved me more than once.” Whenever Shin-hyuk was in danger, Claire had prepared him those miracle potions. Honestly, he thought it was a cheat key. He sometimes wondered how it was possible. He had a 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 Kang Shin-hyuk with a pistol, began to pout. Baek was quick tointervene.

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

“Oh, the gate is opening.”

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

“I salute your spirit of endless determination.”

[Stop joking! It’s reallyopening!]

Claire’s voice came through the receivers in their ears. She was waiting in the air on her bike. Lee Na-hee, who was used to moving on the back seat with Claire, was using a drone she made with Claire’shelp.

-Gigigi.

-Gigi.

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

“We’ll need a shield.”

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

With the gate at its center, a shield made of mana rose up from all sides. In an instant, the area around the gate became an enclosed space. Superhumans referred to this as a field. In large scale situations, installing barriers was useless, but when there was only one gate occurring, it was important to prevent collateral damage and monsters’ escape. Of course, it wasn’t impossible for monsters to pass through it with their full power, but it made it easier to monitor where theywere.

-Bang!

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

“Don’t waste your breath on needless chatter.” Kang Shin-hyuk yelled at Baek and fired off several bullets himself. But it was true that they were really weak. They weren’t fast nor durable. Crawling out with a strange crackling sound, they were shot before they could even do anything. But what he didn’t like was that there were no dead bodies left behind. Kang Shin-hyuk checked their movements with his gun and contacted Claire again.

“How does it look from above?”

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

That meant to examine it with 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, it is automatically loaded into the magazine even if you do not load it individually. Increases the destructive power of bullets by40%.

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

*Encroachment: Forces the enemy to assimilate with the darkness, inflicting damage over time by instilling poison into the darkness itself. Extremely lowers the enemy’s dark resistance and traps 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 their ability to deal with the darkness.

[The hidden series of a luxury pistol made by a great craftsman. It has the ability to supply ammunition but is recognized as No.0 because it shows its power when shooting without live ammunition. It was made using extremely rare materials, but unfortunately, the creators’ understanding of the darkness is a bit lacking, so it remains at the limit of mortality. Because it has a user-limited imprint, it cannot be used by humans other than the owner, but its power increases when it is held by theowner.]

The gun was one notch higher than Phoibos. A + was added to the rank, but it meant that this gun had actually reached the limit of an artifact. To go beyond it, into the rank of X, meant reaching a status that couldn’t be measured by mortals like Kang Shin-hyuk. If he had a skill like [Dark Mastery], it might’ve been possible to push the gun into that realm.

‘I used the mana stone and by-products left by the Sediment of Chaos.’ Although the Sediment of Chaos had a low rank of SS+, its potential could be compared to the X-class. Had Kang Shin-hyuk not been able to deal with it using the Dark Spirit Pearl, everyone else would have been devoured and turned into a sacrifice 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 and stuck into its shadow. At that moment, he began to rattle offbullets.

-Bang, bang, bang, bang!

Like Phoibos, it was a gun that could be fired without ammo, though it consumed more energy than Phoibos. You couldn’t be too vigilant when dealing with an SS-class gate, so he made sure to conserve his energy. The bullets embedded in the area resonated, expanding the shadows to stop those not directly pierced by bullets.

“Wow, it’s impressive everytime.”

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

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

“Okay.” He let his spiritual power flow through the shadows on the ground and into the source of the monsters that wereimmobilized.

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

“Stop shooting.” He fired off another bullet into the center of the gate, accelerating it with the darkness of the night. A black hemisphere shaped area unfolded around the bullet, blocking everything that entered it. The insects wriggling on the floor, and the ones protruding from the gate were allpaused.

“Wow… that’sawesome.”

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

“Have we not been killing them so far?”

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

“Claire?”

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

“These guys teleport when they are 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 of landmine-like power isthat?!]

Claire urgently contacted the Superhuman Association HQ. Meanwhile, Kang Shin-hyuk worked with Baek In-ha and Eleanor to clean up the frozen bugs. With them tied down by darkness, they could teleport away before theydied.

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

“Do you know their range of movement?”

“Yes, fortunately, I think we only need to check 200gates.”

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

“Claire?”

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

“…The one I looked at had the ability to freeze enemies around it.”

[Maybe each one has differentabilities…?]

He felt his heart sinking at Claire’s words. Kang Shin-hyuk met his colleague’s gaze 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.