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Goo Changwoo put a cigarette in between his lips and flicked his fingers. The hunters behind him aimed at Kang Hyuk in a position that made sure he wouldn’t be able to avoid the magic bullet whichever way he moved. Goo Changwoo walked up emitting cigarette smoke from his mouth.

“Damn, you must have good sense of smell for dead bodies! How did you know about this place?” asked Goo Changwoo. He tossed his cigarette onto the ground. 

Kang Hyuk could hear Desmond’s voice in his ears. The seventh legion’s spirits await Your Lord’s orders, My Lord. Kang Hyuk closed his eyes in comfort and ordered for the summoning of the seventh legion. The flattened out dirt ground of the vacant lot started to tremble like ocean waves. 

“You’ve done a lot today. Killing all the incineration plant guys and then the club. Good work, so now...” Suddenly, from behind Goo Changwoo sprang up a skeleton soldier. At the same time, the hunters’ guns were turned towards Goo Changwoo. The dirt in front of the hunters shot up into the air. 

As the dirt covered their vision, a bone blade appeared and sliced into a hunter’s gun. When the hunter’s gaze found the skeleton soldier, the bone blade was stabbed through his protective gear and into his heart. 

“Keuk!” 

Skeleton soldiers continued to rise from the dirt towards the other hunters. They were the seventh legion’s skeleton soldiers that Kang Hyuk had summoned. With an explosive sound, an enormous flame spread. Skeleton soldiers stepped out from the flames. 

Flames licked at Goo Changwoo’s two hands. “Fuck, you were a necromancer? Makes sense, your eyes have a creepy look. It made me want to kill you...” 

The skeleton soldiers continued to pop up from the ground. Oh Taeho noticed skeleton soldiers he had not seen before. Huh? They’re holding shields? They were shields made out of bone just like the bone blades. The magic bullets bounced off the skeleton soldiers. They charged with their bone blades, and the new ones that rose from the dirt grabbed at the hunters’ ankles. 

“Agh!” 

The hunters, their faces to the dirt, struggled to get up from the ground as the skeleton soldiers continued to stab their backs. Goo Changwoo shot fire balls while watching the other hunters be decapitated. Crash! Crash! The skeleton soldiers promptly dodged the fire balls. Flames burst throughout the vacant lot. 

Dammit, there are too many of them. What is this bastard? Necromancers usually have a limit to how many they can summon, wondered Goo Changwoo, looking at Kang Hyuk’s skeleton soldiers. These skeleton soldiers had much stronger and thicker bones than the other skeleton soldiers he had seen in the past, not to mention the sturdy armor and weapons they had or the way they charged at and killed the attack squad members like predatory beasts. Everywhere in the vacant lot, a skeleton’s hand popped up to keep the hunters’ feet in place. 

Oh Taeho was shocked. There are way too many. Is this really the amount of Undead that just a sole necromancer can summon? The total number of Goo Changwoo’s hunters gathered at the vacant lot was a hundred. The number of skeleton soldiers that were attacking–more like hunting–said hunters seemed to be at least two hundred. The skeleton soldiers did not have only blades. There were those with spears, axes, and bows. Magic bullets were flying through the air, but they failed to hit their target due to the skeleton soldiers’ constant movement. 

“Uaaagh!!” 

The hunters’ shot their guns into the air. Bone blades were swinging everywhere, and the hunters’ legs and arms were cut off. The vacant lot’s ground was being soaked in blood and with the bodies of the dead hunters. 

“Huff... huff...” 

Despite burning up skeleton soldier after skeleton soldier, new ones continued to rise from the dirt. Goo Changwoo raised his right hand and created a great fireball. 

“Die, you bastard!” he shouted.

Slice

“Ah...?” A skeleton soldier had swung at him from his blind spot. The right hand that had been holding up the fire ball fell to the ground. The fireball tilted over from midair and fell onto Goo Changwoo’s head. 

“Aaagh!!” 

Goo Changwoo rolled on the ground, enveloped in flames. He quickly used magic to get rid of the fire, but the damage was already done. It was an attack meant to kill Kang Hyuk to get rid of the skeleton soldiers. 

Kang Hyuk, having heard the scream, approached Goo Changwoo. Every time he heard Kang Hyuk’s footstep, a skeleton with a spear stabbed him. Blood seeped from his mouth. 

Kang Hyuk stopped in his tracks, and so did the skeleton soldier with the spear. The hunters around him had already met their pitiful deaths. Silence came faster than he had expected. 

“Huff... huff...” Goo Changwoo struggled to breathe. His skin was burnt, and each time he breathed, it felt as if his nose and throat were closing up. His death was imminent if he did not use a healing potion or magic. 

Kang Hyuk wordlessly watched Goo Changwoo, then he spoke. “Die comfortably.” 

At his short reply, Goo Changwoo’s lips twitched. Mana in his body was running against the current, and it made him cough. Blood splattered into his eyes and nose due to the constant coughing. 

“Keu..heuk!” 

A skeleton soldier that had been looking at Kang Hyuk held its spear up to pierce into Goo Changwoo’s heart. The life started to leave his eyes. Kang Hyuk watched Goo Changwoo’s eyes then started to go through his memories using Gaze of the Deceased. New information about Hwang Kyuho that he did not know previously started spilling. It was those related to his brother’s death: their names, location, association, identity, and etc. 

Desmond, record all that I am seeing right now, Kang Hyuk thought. 

I am already recording right now, My Lord. I’ve got the names and their faces, voices, and the soul’s locations, My Lord. 

I will call 7th legion’s Dullahan. 

I will relay Your Lord’s orders. 

As Desmond’s voice ended, the ground in front of Kang Hyuk split, and the dirt soared up into the air. It sprayed everywhere, and a black fog fanned out over the ground like shadow. Then it shot up into the air resembling a tornado. The darkness hovered midair, and from within appeared a stranger. The Undead turned towards Kang Hyuk and bowed. His ominous voice rang throughout the air. 

“7th legion’s lowly Dullahan, Lamur, appears in front of his owner. Please forgive me, My Lord.” 

Oh Taeho felt goosebumps all over his body upon hearing Lamur’s voice. It was a voice he had never heard before on Earth. It was like a noise that made one imagine in his head a hell where death and curses ringed. In Oh Taeho’s eyes, the Undead was not a skeleton. It was Dullahan who led the 7th legion, which was one of the seven legions that Kang Hyuk had led through Hela’s wars. 

To Kang Hyuk, Dullahan was also not just an Undead. Hela was a dimension unlike Earth where many Dullahans with various strange powers existed. He could not even discern when and where they had died, and their appearances and skills were all different. The Dullahan, Lamur, standing in front of Kang Hyuk, was a unique Dullahan as he rode no horse. He held a cane that seemed to cast dark magic, and when he first came under Kandg Hyuk’s command, he had said that the cane was his horse. What he meant was that the skeleton horse he had rode was destroyed, so he had used the remaining hind leg bone to create a cane to keep. 

The Dullahan looked normal to Kang Hyuk, but to Oh Taeho, he was bizarre. He straighted his back. Lamur in Oh Taeho’s eyes seemed like a human who just had skin draped over his bones. He could see the veins where Lamur’s dark blood flowed under the flour-white transparent skin. Lamur wore a black robe that was ripped in places, but his face was contrastingly white. On his white skin, he had deep-set wrinkles that melted together with scars to make it look as if his neck had been cut off before and put together again. His grey hair was sparse like weed in a field. The cane Lamur held in one hand resembled a winter day’s thin tree without any leaves. The top of the cane had branches of smaller parts of bones just like a tree, and in between those branches, tiny skulls the size of marbles hung. With each step Lamur took toward Kang Hyuk, he leaned on the cane, and the skull ornaments on the cane made sounds. 

“I have something to tell you,” Kang Hyuk said. 

“I look forward to hearing it, My Lord,” responded Lamur. 

“You will see soon the memories I saw with Gaze of the Deceased through Desmond. Plant memories of nightmares into the ones who killed my brother,” ordered Kang Hyuk. 

After a few seconds, Lamur bared his rotten front teeth. “I have seen myself the ones Your Lord has witnessed. I will follow the orders of the valued king.” He took a look at Goo Changwoo’s body on the floor by Kang Hyuk. “May I start with this one, My Lord?” 

With Kang Hyuk’s permission, Lamur raised high the cane he held in his right hand. At the same time, he spread his left hand’s fingers in the direction of Goo Changwoo. Black light spread into his nails and up into the air. It flowed into the roots of the cane in Lamur’s right hand. The cane’s roots suddenly grew like white tendons and spread in every direction. The tendons that had burst like roots of a plant wrapped Goo Changwoo’s body and seeped into his pores. Even when he took his hand off the cane, the cane stood still in place. 

Goo Changwoo’s body started shaking. The magic power within his body flowed out of his body and into the roots of the cane. From the cane came sounds of bone breaking. Kang Hyuk watched silently while Lamur watched as if in joy, with his front teeth bared. Amongst them was Oh Taeho, anxious. What is it? Is he consuming Goo Changwoo’s mana? 

Each time Goo Changwoo’s body shook, Lamur’s cane also shook from side to side. The shaft of the cane glowed red. 

Oh Taeho thought, he’s sucking in the blood! 

The cane was consuming the leftover blood and bodily liquids of Goo Changwoo. The bone of the cane was consumed by muscle cells, and soon, patches of skin grew. Even the small branches of bones on the top of the cane were painted red. The noise of the skulls on the cane clanking against each other grew louder. The empty sockets of the skulls grew eyes, and patches of skin also grew like on the shaft. It was turning into human heads. 

Oh Taeho felt his legs go weak, and he fell to the ground. The skulls on the branches of bones on the cane were strange, as if they were people’s heads plastered on. But what was the most shocking to Oh Taeho was the heads of people hanging from the cane. That’s... the association’s president Kang Chansoo. That’s his face. And that’s Cha Yoohyuk. That’s Hwang Kyuho...

They were faces of hunterse that Oh Taeho had seen while following around Kang Min. 

As Lamur’s cane continued to transform, Goo Changwoo’s body shrank smaller. The body that had spilled blood just earlier was  now like a mummy, dry and disappearing. The heads hanging on Lamur’s cane fixed their gaze onto Lamur. 

“I will now relay the Lord’s order to you,” said Lamur to the heads. The eyes of the heads watching Lamur turned gray. Black light spread from the ends of Lamur’s fingers and wrapped around the cane. 

The vacant lot dirtied with dead bodies and Seoul were far apart from each other, but the hunters spread apart felt a weird sensation collectively. 

Crash-! 

“Kyaah! Oppa, what’s wrong?” 

“Ah, it’s nothing.” 

Cha Yoohyuk got up, leaving behind naked women. What was that just now? Hallucination magic? There’s no way... I didn’t feel any magic power. 

Hwang Kyuho, who had been hiding in a club owned by the Charnel House Sect, screamed. 

“What? Why are you screaming out of nowhere?” 

“I-it’s nothing.” Hwang Kyuho swallowed his spit and looked around. 

Kang Chansoo, alone in his office in the association building, turned his gaze out the window. 

They had all gotten a glace at Lamur’s terrible face from different places all at once. The hunters felt that they had been cast with hallucination magic. The first to react was the association’s president, Kang Chansoo. He pressed the interphone on his desk. 

“Was it Hwang Sangwook who’s in charge of returner Kang Hyuk? Tell him to come up.”