A distinct boundary tore the sky in half, swallowing the plummeting stars into the darkness and reducing them to harmless ash. Staring blankly at the powerless embers scattering in the wind, Lee Han belatedly snapped back to reality, coordinating with Mi-jeong to sever a lesser angel’s neck.
Drip. Drip.
White blood slid down the blade, a stark reminder of the entity’s otherworldly nature. Although he had successfully slain the foe that had forced them into a grueling melee, Lee Han felt absolutely no thrill of victory. The battle raging above them was simply too surreal to allow any sense of accomplishment from such a minor kill.
Wordlessly, he tilted his head to gaze at the heavens.
The apocalyptic meteor shower dissolved into instant ash, and the descending black lightning detonated harmlessly within the consuming darkness. Despite the battlefield being choked with murky shadows, the spectacle possessed a horrifying splendor. Whether it was the elegant trajectory of the sword strikes or the paradoxical grace of the vicious shadows, it felt less like a battle and more like an orchestrated theatrical tragedy.
Consequently, it also felt as though the rest of them had been entirely excluded from the stage.
“It seems we can’t intervene.” Mi-jeong’s murmur cemented Lee Han’s awe.
They had trained together and entered this gate as a unified front, yet the stage was now fundamentally segregated. Unable to dare interfere in the clash of titans above, Lee Han tracked Geon-joo’s movements for a long moment before his gaze shifted to Sa-yoon, who hovered motionless in the air. Seeing the man watch the fight with a mix of mild surprise and the swelling pride of a master, an old suspicion reared its head in Lee Han’s mind.
“Just what do you think his true identity is?” Lee Han asked.
When Sa-yoon had first revealed himself to the world, he was considered an unparalleled disaster. The global community was already suffering immensely from the Scorpion guild, but then Night Rats emerged, engaged in a brutal turf war, and utterly annihilated the opposition to solidify their reign. Even if Night Rats wasn’t involved in Scorpion’s brand of vicious crime, the mere existence of a syndicate powerful enough to eradicate them was a massive global threat.
Countless assassinations, intense intimidation, and all-out wars had been waged against Night Rats, yet the guild never crumbled. Eventually, the Hunters began to view its leader, Sa-yoon, as a living, breathing calamity—an indestructible catastrophe that could neither be killed nor contained.
That was why the entire world had once united to eliminate him; such bizarre, overwhelming power was an existential threat to those in authority. The panic only subsided when Sa-yoon finally drew his blade and initiated a ruthless purge.
Once the storm passed and the hierarchy was violently restructured, an unspoken system settled into place: the world would maintain a superficial resistance to Night Rats’s criminal activities but would never cross the line, ensuring they never provoked Sa-yoon’s wrath again. Everyone operated under this silent consensus.
Up until that point, Sa-yoon was undeniably a walking disaster.
However, as time passed, those who actually interacted with Sa-yoon realized he possessed a fundamental goodness that contradicted his terrifying infamy. Lee Han was among them, which was why he hadn’t opposed Sa-yoon joining Noah.
By then, Sa-yoon had transitioned from a disaster into an invaluable asset—humanity’s best countermeasure against the increasingly impossible gates, the escalating enemies, and the impending apocalypse. Yet, as the absolute end drew closer, forcing them to either survive or face extinction, the more Sa-yoon revealed his true character and unfathomable power, the harder it became to define exactly what he was.
First a calamity, then a savior. Back then, he was still undeniably perceived as human.
KABOOOM!
But what about now?
Could a man who commanded the terrifying force currently unleashing those absurd attacks above—keeping him as both a subordinate and a lover—truly be just human?
Could someone harboring impossible knowledge about the gates and the war of the gods belong to the same mortal race?
Lee Han’s grip on his sword trembled lightly. Just as he was drowning in the chaotic blend of awe and terror that accompanied every thought of Sa-yoon, a carefree voice cut through the noise.
“What do you mean, what is he? He’s Sa-yoon,” Mi-jeong said.
“…Excuse me?”
“His identity. Who else would he be other than Kwon Sa-yoon?”
“You know perfectly well that’s not what I’m asking.” Lee Han stared at her, flabbergasted.
Obviously, he knew the man’s name. The question was whether the entity buried beneath the name ‘Kwon Sa-yoon’ was human or monster, a benevolent deity or an evil god.
Completely unbothered by his incredulous glare, the woman watched Sa-yoon plunge back into the fray to coordinate with Geon-joo, a soft smile gracing her lips.
“Who cares about his true identity?” she mused. “As far as I’ve seen, that child has always just been Sa-yoon.”
“Mi-jeong-nim.”
“Digging too deeply into matters of true identity will only bring you misfortune.”
Lee Han snapped his mouth shut. Mi-jeong was a woman who forcibly commanded overwhelmingly powerful evil spirits through sheer dominance. Thus, a warning from the ‘Shaman of the Hunter World’ carried immense weight. Chuckling softly at his silence, Mi-jeong tapped his shoulder with her folded fan.
“So drop the useless thoughts and let’s move,” she said. “We’re supposed to be Korea’s representative Hunters. We can’t just sit around slaughtering the small fry down here.”
Her blunt, poignant critique scattered Lee Han’s distracting thoughts. She was right; Sa-yoon’s true nature didn’t matter right now. The only thing that mattered was dragging the apocalyptic angel down from the sky.
“Let’s go.”
At Lee Han’s command, the Hunters of Noah launched themselves back into the aerial battlefield. Observing their ascent, the Night Rats guild members rolled their tense shoulders and turned to their executives.
“Should we head up too, boss?”
Having already dispatched two lesser angels, the executives tilted their heads back to assess Sa-yoon’s condition. The sight of him using Geon-joo’s shoulder as a springboard to launch himself over the Fallen Angel and execute a brutal downward slash was terrifyingly vicious. Yet, the atmosphere felt ominously heavy. Normally, Sa-yoon would be sporting an ear-to-ear grin during such a battle, but now his expression was rigidly set, issuing only terse commands as if executing a grim resolve.
“Hmm…” Yen and Jongsik hummed in unison.
As the guild members tilted their heads, confused by the delayed response, Gyeongjin finally spoke.
“We provide support from the ground.”
“Good idea,” Yen agreed.
“Seconded,” Jongsik added.
“I-I’m in favor too!” another chimed in.
“…Wait, we aren’t following hyung-nim?” a guild member asked, baffled by the unanimous agreement to hang back.
Gyeongjin let out a dry scoff, shooting a sidelong glance at Sa-yoon. “Look at hyung-nim’s aura right now. That’s not a fight we can interfere in. If they need close-quarters support, the Noah bastards who just flew up will handle it. Our job is to lock down the ground and cover them so none of this miscellaneous trash gets near.”
Gyeongjin’s gaze flowed smoothly across the battlefield, landing on the writhing masses scattered across the scorched earth. They were the black feathers the Fallen Angel had shed during its earlier wingbeats. What had initially been mere plumage was now melting and reforming into twitching, obsidian monstrosities radiating an awful premonition.
Recognizing the silent warning that these things would soon birth another disaster, the guild members firmly nodded.
“We’ll burn them to ash immediately.”
“If fire doesn’t put them down, drag them over to me,” Gyeongjin ordered. “I’ll lock them in my territory.”
Moving with practiced precision, the guild members scattered to execute the purge. The executives tracked their subordinates for a moment before turning their eyes back to Sa-yoon.
At that exact second, Sa-yoon, mid-swing with the Dawn of Spring, violently vomited blood.
“Hyung!” Geon-joo screamed, his face draining of color as he kicked off the air to reach him.
“This fucking piece of trash body…” Sa-yoon ground his teeth, glaring through his suddenly blurring vision.
Even as another mouthful of dark blood surged up his throat, the relentless countdown in his mind never paused. Roughly eight minutes had passed since Han Geon-joo initiated his incantation. They only had two minutes left. Was it even possible to slay the monstrosity before them in just two minutes?
Having mastered the majestic power of Defiance, Geon-joo was undeniably formidable. In terms of sheer, instantaneous output, he was arguably the strongest entity on the battlefield. However, when factoring in overall control and combat experience, the angel before them remained overwhelmingly superior.
“Hyung, are you okay? Lean on me,” Geon-joo pleaded. “Can you keep fighting? If we pull back now—”
“Spit out something that actually makes sense.” Sa-yoon smacked the back of Geon-joo’s head, cutting off the nonsense as he forced his spine straight.
Judging by the sudden hematemesis, his error progression had likely breached the eighty percent threshold again. His expression hardened into a grim scowl. With his body rapidly deteriorating, he lacked the confidence to finish Noah in the remaining two minutes. He had expected the angel to be strong, but this level of monstrous growth was completely absurd. He still desperately wanted to end Noah with his own two hands, but reality was brutally deviating from his plans.
Masking his agonizing condition, Sa-yoon tightened his grip on his sword and pushed Geon-joo away. Every single second was too precious to waste. He gathered his aura for another strike, but Noah noticed the buildup. Shoving Jaehee’s stalling summons aside, the angel casually twitched a finger.
KRRR-RUMBLE!
The sky roared as black lightning plummeted. Sa-yoon gritted his teeth and parried the bolt with his blade, but the concussive shockwave rippling from his toes shattered his balance, sending him staggering backward.
“Hyung, please!” Geon-joo caught him, his voice cracking with frantic anxiety.
Sa-yoon swallowed a bitter curse, deeply frustrated by his own frailty. If his body were just in its normal state, parrying that strike would have been effortless.
Just as he was about to vocalize his irritation, an ominous surge of energy entwined with deep shadows blasted in from the flank, slamming violently into the angel.
KABOOOM!
Caught off guard, Noah stumbled.
Two men instantly capitalized on the opening, rocketing toward the angel to pummel its body and batter its wings.
The Fallen Angel’s brow twitched in annoyance at the sudden influx of enemies. But before it could even initiate a counterattack, a colossal wave conjured from thin air crashed over its black wings, heavily suppressing its movements.
It was a flawlessly coordinated blitz executed in under ten seconds. Sa-yoon snapped his head toward the source of the attack.
“So foolish,” a voice chided. “If you’re pushing yourself to the point of vomiting blood, you should learn how to share the burden.”
Standing at the edge of his vision, a woman smiled behind a fully unfurled fan.
“When we get back, the first thing I’m doing is fixing those terrible habits of yours,” Mi-jeong said.
At her stern reprimand, Sa-yoon forced his blurred vision into focus. Spotting the rest of the Noah guild members falling into formation behind her, a dry chuckle escaped his lips. Still leaning heavily against Geon-joo, he shifted his gaze back to the Fallen Angel. In that brief moment of distraction, the black entity had torn free from the wave, rocketing even higher into the sky to glare down at the mortals below.
The angel’s lips parted to chant another verse of apocalypse.
“Formation Three!” Sa-yoon roared.
Proving that their grueling joint training hadn’t been in vain, the entire raid party snapped into a flawless, unified formation the instant the command left his lips. Swallowing the blood pooling in his mouth, Sa-yoon launched himself off the kinetic footholds generated by Lee Han and Taeseok. Geon-joo flanked him, surging upward on a tidal wave of shadows conjured by Mi-jeong and Dong-ju, while Jaehee took the opposite flank astride his Griffon.
The remaining members of Noah trailed closely behind the vanguard, unsheathing their ultimate skills. Armed with unwavering resolve and devastating power, they slammed into the master of the gate for their second monumental clash.
KABOOOM!
The Ark, built by mortals, had arrived. Now, it was time for those carrying the will of defiance to board.