Chapter 171

Chapter 171
## Chapter 171

Kyushu Crisis (3)

Given that the task force assembled in Japan to hunt down Hahoe Mask had been brought together with a precise objective, they proved to be an incredibly formidable opposition.

The dozens of operatives present all appeared to be top-tier elites who remained entirely unfazed by Hans’s imposing presence. Furthermore, roughly five individuals among them—including the swordsman who had loudly proclaimed his technique—possessed sufficient capability to trade blows effectively with the savage warrior Harley.

Beyond that, the martial prowess exhibited by the male leader of the state agents and the woman commanding the Guardians matched the caliber of Conwell, the renowned commander of the Empire’s Royal Knights.

‘Why does that old knight always end up being my metric for combat strength?’

Naturally, this comparison did not imply that these awakened individuals possessed the exact same foundational power as the commander. They simply excelled at maximizing their lethality by utilizing their distinct, extraordinary supernatural gifts.

Strictly speaking, their overall capability placed them at the peak of mastery, occupying a similar tier to Harley.

Which ultimately meant…

“Agh!”

“What kind of freak is this…”

They lacked the power to halt Hahoe Mask, Hans, by their own merits.

[Kekeke— That was a moderately entertaining diversion. However, you are still a long way from being capable of standing against me!]

The female operative clad in shinobi gear, who had been warping through the area at blinding speeds while launching an array of bizarre strikes, found herself thoroughly ensnared in a web of dark abyssal tendrils that saturated the atmosphere.

Concurrently, the heavily muscled man who had been charging forward like an unstoppable juggernaut while shrugging off damage finally collapsed to his knees, utterly broken by the relentless, devastating bombardment of black magic raining down upon him.

The two commanders were sent crashing down alongside the rest of their squad, who lay scattered across the churned-up battlefield from the intense engagement.

At this point, the sole opponent remaining was…

Clang—!

Right then, a sudden, stealthy strike that defied detection until the literal microsecond of impact collided with Hans’s protective aura of abyss, failing entirely to pierce it.

“Tsk! Dammit!”

It was the young blade-wielder in his twenties who had initially caught his eye.

Regrettably, the youth had ceased shouting out his battle arts after those opening exchanges, as though he had grimly accepted the reality of his predicament. It felt somewhat melancholy to witness, reminiscent of a young man of the modern era abandoning his aspirations to settle for a compromised existence.

[Death’s Grasp.]

Rumble!

“Gah!”

Naturally, Hans had no intention of showing leniency merely out of sentiment. The detail that this opponent happened to be the youngest person on the field carried zero relevance at this moment.

‘The primary thing is that I have finally neutralized all of these irritating obstacles.’

The skirmish had dragged on far longer than anticipated simply because he was exerting effort to incapacitate them without taking their lives. He could not bring himself to slaughter them out of mere annoyance when they were simply executing their official duties. Doing so would only serve to degrade the established reputation of Hahoe Mask.

‘My intention was to wrap everything up today and depart from Kyushu, yet I have squandered precious time on an irrelevant distraction.’

Fortunately, it was not an irreparable delay, as only a single objective remained on his list.

He walked over to the perimeter of the engagement zone and extended a hand to touch the barrier enclosing the space. The barrier, which the squad had triggered concurrently with their surprise assault, had managed to hold together until now—likely because the operatives were anxious about containment and the collateral damage of the clash.

Hans cast a brief glance over his shoulder before shattering the boundary to make his exit.

The awakened warriors were strewn across the earth, groaning in a deeply pathetic state of defeat. He paused to observe them for a fleeting instant…

[Hmph— That was quite amusing. I shall take my leave now. I handled your responsibilities for you on this occasion, but see to it that you manage your own affairs going forward, understood? Kekeke!]

With that, he departed, tossing back a parting statement of genuine encouragement.

He felt a brief flash of concern that his distinctive cadence might cause his words to be misinterpreted as a taunt, but genuine intent always resonated in the end, did it not? Surely his underlying kindness would be understood.

Thus, leaving behind a battlefield of utterly humiliated and overturned awakened fighters, he rapidly advanced toward his intended destination.

However, circumstances failed to unfold seamlessly according to his design…

Just as he had anticipated to a certain degree, the sanctuary was completely deserted.

‘Well, despite the containment barrier, there is no logical reason they would remain stationary while a massive supernatural conflict erupted right on their doorstep.’

It was a scenario where the enigmatic executioner—famed throughout the criminal underworld as a lethal predator of syndicates—and their inherent adversaries, the government’s awakened task force, had engaged in a violent showdown right outside their front gate. Escaping rapidly by capitalizing on that chaotic window was the most logical course of action.

When all was said and done, they belonged to a clandestine syndicate whose primary expertise lay in staying hidden.

‘This complicates matters. This is precisely why I wished to settle this swiftly. Now that they have dispersed, hunting down and executing them individually will consume an exorbitant amount of time. Perhaps I should simply abandon the pursuit?’

His initial purpose in visiting Japan was merely to conduct a rapid purge of the major criminal syndicates. It would be vastly more productive to transition to neighboring territories like Shikoku or Honshu to carry out his campaign rather than remaining bottlenecked in this region over a single fractured group.

‘I must broaden my operational scope moving forward, even if it proves tedious, to prevent a recurrence of this evasion. Pinpointing careless targets should be simple enough utilizing “Abyssal Eye”.’

Rooting out the core leadership of underground syndicates was inherently challenging due to their evasive nature, but “Abyssal Eye”—which possessed the utility to perceive malevolent intent and karmic accumulation—offered an immense advantage in this scenario.

By synthesizing the intelligence gathered from the destruction of prior organizations with this specific technique, he could track his targets with near-flawless precision. It stood as his most effective asset under the current constraints, particularly since he could not deploy the expansive monitoring network he utilized back in Korea.

‘Well, one can never be entirely certain, so I might as well perform a final sweep.’

Hans, his ocular cavities swirling with the dark energies of the void, focused his gaze to meticulously survey the perimeter of the abandoned hideout. Concurrently, auxiliary skills like “Path of Magic” and “Magic Domination” surged to life, searching the environment for any lingering metaphysical imprints.

Even as he conducted this investigation, his expectations remained low.

The targets were, after all, survival experts who had successfully navigated the perils of their respective alternative worlds, possessing enough competence to assemble a massive syndicate upon returning to Earth. They undoubtedly possessed numerous methodologies to obscure their flight paths, and bridging that gap was not a simple matter of level disparity, given the diverse dimensional magic at their disposal.

Yet…

Despite his skepticism…

‘…This actually yielded results?’

As his gaze swept across the area once more, he abruptly locked onto a microscopic, lingering trace left behind within the otherwise cleansed sanctuary. It was an incredibly faint remnant that would have eluded virtually any tracker other than himself, indicating a deliberate yet imperfect attempt at erasure.

‘A vast multitude of them fled in scattered paths, but the majority of those are low-level grunts. The individuals bearing heavy karmic burdens shifted along a separate trajectory, sticking together. Are these the high-ranking executives?’

“Abyssal Eye” successfully isolated actionable intelligence from the fragmented residue, and his suite of active skills instantly decoded the parameters. The data yielded the exact same coordinates, regardless of how many times he cross-examined the results.

‘Shall I pursue?’

He had been on the verge of walking away, but now that a definitive path had manifested, Hans pursued the trail without a moment’s hesitation. Leaving things half-finished would have left a lingering sense of dissatisfaction, and given the sudden opportunity to cleanly eliminate the core executive branch, there was zero incentive to delay.

‘Is this their designated safe house? Utterly predictable.’

Tracking the residual energy signatures, he arrived before a modest structure nestled within the mountain ranges flanking the urban center where the original hideout sat. Likely owing to the isolated nature of the property, the only biological signatures detectable within the rustic mountain lodge belonged to the targets he had been tailing, with no other human presence anywhere in the vicinity.

‘There is no purpose in delaying any further. I will conclude this business swiftly and advance to the next territory. Hiroshima is up next…’

However, the very instant Hans stepped into the domain where the targets were sheltering, his forward projections were abruptly derailed.

‘Hmm?’

An intense sensation of mismatch washed over him. An alien variable began to violently trigger his survival instincts.

Crackle—

He perceived the spatial distortion and shifted into a defensive posture at the exact moment a microscopic fracturing sound echoed through the air.

Whirrrr—!

Jet-black magical energy erupted from Hans’s form like a towering inferno, causing the ambient temperature of the immediate area to plummet below freezing in a heartbeat.

Abyssal tendrils manifested from his core, coiling protectively around his body while baring ethereal fangs toward every quadrant, as the surrounding environment instantaneously dimmed as though a dark overlay had been dropped across reality.

The entire transformation materialized within a fraction of a second.

And then…

Crack— Shatter!

Accompanied by a violent sound resembling splitting glass, the localized continuum—encompassing both the firmament above and the earth below—fractured completely.

And standing just beyond the boundaries of that ruptured space,

A contingent of nearly thirty individuals, arrayed in full combat readiness, glared directly at him while projecting a razor-sharp, hostile aura.

[…An isolated subspace. This was an engineered ambush?]

Hans clicked his tongue internally as he subtly extended his magical pulse to evaluate the parameters of the environment, thoroughly astonished by this unforeseen element that had managed to evade his initial senses.

This bizarre, artificial environment, which remained partially fractured from his explosive mana release, was far more complex than a standard containment field. It constituted an entirely sealed pocket dimension, severed from all external reality.

It functioned as a trap identical in nature to his own demon king fortress, the ‘Eternal Labyrinth’, meaning…

Short of possessing the overwhelming might required to completely obliterate the architect or directly manipulate dimensional frameworks, escaping its confines was an impossibility.

He extended his senses to locate the syndicate members he had been trailing inside the lodge. As anticipated, they remained stationary within the structure, frozen in place.

‘It appears the faction that just manifested utilized those executives as simple decoys to lure me in. Did they snap the entire geographic area into this dimension the moment I set foot near the lodge? A degree of spatial manipulation on this scale is truly something… ’

In truth, he had briefly weighed such a development when he initially uncovered the trail and initiated his pursuit, but he had dismissed the concern out of sheer confidence that no trap on Earth could realistically threaten him. He simply had not anticipated an operation of this magnitude.

“Remarkable… I previously assumed that designating him as a Demon King-tier threat was nothing more than hyperbole. It seems those assessments were not entirely groundless.”

“Lower your voice! The creature literally distorted reality through the sheer release of its ambient presence!”

“…Listen, are we genuinely prepared for this? That entity radiates the authentic aura of a true Demon King… That level of necromantic energy cannot possibly belong to a standard player utilizing an undead transformation skill…”

“@#$%#! %$#!”

“Maintain order. This development falls entirely within our calculations.”

This pocket realm was evidently the manifestation of an individual’s unique system skill.

Hans shifted his focus toward the assembly currently engaged in hushed calculations.

‘ Fascinating. Every single one of them is an anomaly.’

Quantifying their exact parameters proved challenging due to the disparate nature of their unique skills and the varying metrics of mastery across different dimensions. However, Hans could formulate a precise estimate of their raw threat potential based entirely on the pressure they exerted…

‘The entire roster has achieved at least the master tier. Furthermore, the five leading the vanguard have actively broken through to transcendence.’

They were not merely relying on temporary status buffs to amplify their combat statistics like the pair of awakened commanders he had broken earlier; their fundamental level and evolutionary rank had shattered past mortal limitations.

When factoring in the unpredictable synergy of their unique personal skills, it was impossible to calculate the full extent of the power they would wield once active hostilities commenced. They comprised an incredibly elite extermination squad, legitimately capable of bringing down a localized Demon King—a concentration of specialized force he had never encountered even during his time in Auterica.

He briefly entertained the notion that they might be a clandestine black-ops unit deployed by the domestic administration, but their compositions quickly dispelled that theory.

‘I suspected as much ever since my encounter with the Heavenly Demon Emperor.’

Entities radiating a foul, demonic pressure and immense karmic corruption were seamlessly integrated into the ranks, their numbers actually eclipsing the individuals who appeared superficially human.

‘This scale eclipses my forecasts. It appears Heaven’s Turn Society has only recently initiated its push into Korea. The disparity in quality compared to the regional branches in other territories is staggering.’

While the vast majority communicated in Japanese, a significant contingent was utilizing Chinese, indicating that the syndicate had orchestrated this operation with immense foresight, mobilizing elite foreign reinforcements well in advance.

Furthermore, they appeared entirely capable of comprehending one another despite the linguistic barrier, likely utilizing some form of systemic translation methodology.

[Oh— So you represent the Heaven’s Turn Society. Tell me, has your council concluded its deliberations?]

Hans, having finished his rapid tactical assessment, addressed the gathering with immense condescension.

The operatives, who had been maintaining a cautious distance while conferring, instantly fell silent before gradually elevating their combat focus, drawing their weapons and channeling their energies.

“…The creature actually extended us the courtesy of concluding our dialogue. It truly possesses the arrogant bearing of a textbook Demon King.”

“Cease the foolish commentary. The entity merely required a momentary window to assess the structural trap it walked into.”

“Hmph, my initial intent was to launch an immediate decapitation strike the precise millisecond he was dragged across the threshold. But his reaction time was far too anomalous, shattering my opening.”

The individual clad in a formal suit, who clearly held the position of supreme commander among the group, clicked his tongue in irritation as he monitored the defensive vortex of void energy swirling around Hans.

The undulating abyss, moving with a predatory consciousness of its own, radiated a freezing, absolute lethality that effectively locked them in place, preventing a reckless opening salvo.

“At this stage, the true identity hidden beneath that Hahoe Mask is entirely irrelevant.”

Regardless of the pressure, withdrawing was no longer an option now that the trap had been sprung. Furthermore, retreating out of mere intimidation was an absurdity, given that the collective might of the Heaven’s Turn Society assembled within this space defied conventional imagination.

The literal monarchs of the criminal underworld from multiple territories were unified in this vanguard, bolstered further by the arrival of the elite mainland forces from China! It would be an embarrassment to display fear when backed by a deployment of this caliber.

“…We simply need to terminate him and dissect the remains.”

“Heh, indeed, that aligned with our primary objective from the outset.”

“Still… I cannot shake this sense of foreboding…”

“@#%$$%#!”

Backed by this absolute numerical and qualitative superiority, the commander in the suit could confidently declare their triumph.

Today, this isolated pocket dimension would serve as the final resting place for Hahoe Mask, who had dared to disrupt the grand designs of their syndicate.

‘Hmm… This is admittedly quite an extravagant welcoming party. I remain blind to the specific nature of their secondary attributes, so making an absolute deduction is impossible. I shall have to engage them directly to map their capabilities.’

Naturally, to Hans, their grand declarations amounted to nothing more than the barking of doomed dogs.

Even if their capabilities posed a genuine hazard and placed him in a theoretically disadvantageous environment, what tactical value did a spatial isolation field hold against an entity of his nature?

[Kekeke— You manage to stage a highly entertaining performance. Let us discover precisely how long that bravado endures.]

And Hans, by his very definition, was an entity that lacked the capacity to retreat.