Chapter 84: Vanished (2)
Tremble! Tremble!
A man with rugged looks and cut-off arms trembled on the ground.
He didn’t seem to be in good condition, considering all the burn marks on his body.
They were torture marks.
“Haa… Ha…”
The man clicked his tongue as he looked at Chun Yeowun sitting in front of him.
His body froze, so he a.s.sumed that he had died.
Since his body was enhanced, there was a self-destruct device planted in his brain and other parts of the body.
They should have melted his body from the inside, but when he gained consciousness, he found himself still alive.
[H-how am I still?]
[Did you think your plan would work?]
Pieces of metal, which seemed to be parts of a detonator, were scattered on the floor.
He couldn’t figure out how they were extracted.
‘This guy is a d.a.m.n monster.’
And because of that, his body didn’t melt.
He was tortured.
“Where is your people’s base?”
“Haa… Ha… I really… don’t know.”
Snap! Pang!
“Kuaak!”
Chun Yeowun snapped his finger, and the big toe exploded.
The man had already been in this kind of pain for an hour.
Chun Yeowun put the nano bombs inside him.
“Kuak… I, I told you before. This earphone…. We just got a call from it. I went to the contact point and executed the order…”
“Hmm.”
Chun Yeowun patted his chin and looked at the man.
50 nano bombs were detonated in an hour, but he kept repeating the same words.
‘Nano, your results?’
[Pupillary contraction, movement of facial muscles, heart rate. All the same. The chance of lying is less than 5%.]
Chun Yeowun sighed in disappointment.
Clearly, this organization was meticulous about the spread of information.
‘It is like abandoning everything when needed.’
To be able to dispose of the workers at any time.
Those related to the MS group didn’t have any information either.
What was more absurd is that when he asked Nano to search through the internet, it said that they disbanded 15 years ago.
It was as if the organization didn’t exist. It felt like a waste of time.
‘I think it would be better to find someone of a higher position.’
Chun Yeowun got up from his chair.
And without hesitation, he decapitated the man.
Slash!
“Kuak!”
The man who was slashed in an instant, fell to the ground with a slight groan.
After all, if this guy was already abandoned, then it was definite that the MS groups would have blocked all the networks this man could use to contact them back.
“Hu Bong.”
“Yes!”
Wheik!
When Chun Yeowun left the tent, Hu Bong set fire to the man.
Hu Bong’s fire was much hotter than normal flame, so it was the best to erase the traces.
‘Nano. Which is closer? Zhumadian or Datong city?’
According to Marayun, Zhumadian and Datong city were the other two places the legacies were hidden.
He decided that getting the two subordinates would be better because there was a possibility the MS group could find them.
[I will mark it on the map.]
The locations of the two were marked in augmented reality.
Datong city was located to the left of Beijing city, so he’d have to go up a long way north.
‘It would be better to stop at Zhumadian city and then to Datong.’
Hu Bong, unaware of this, approached Chun Yeowun and asked.
“Lord. Hm, where are we going first?”
“Zhumadian.”
“Huh? Where is that?”
There was no way Hu Bong could know the names used in the current time.
“To the south of Henan.”
“Ah…”
Hu Bong couldn’t help but be disappointed.
From that reaction alone, Chun Yeowun could guess that the person who was hibernating there was Baekgi.
“Hu Bong.”
“Yes… Lord.”
“I think it is a good thing that you have grown strong.”
“Sorry?”
Hu Bong understood right away why Chun Yeowun said such a thing.
Chun Yeowun had a nano suit on and hugged Hu Bong as he flew into the sky.
Swoosh!
“Kuaaak!”
When they crossed the sky at a speed of Mach 13, the impact of the air hitting the body was beyond imagination.
Had it not been for Hu Bong’s regenerative power, he would have died right away.
‘Zhumadian, it was said to be near the reservoir on the west.’
He definitely heard Marayun say that.
It was difficult to get to the place since it was outside the wall, but that was no problem for Chun Yeowun.
At least, that was what he thought.
Chun Yeowun and Hu Bong both arrived at the coordinates Marayun had mentioned with stiff faces.
“Lord… didn’t you say that there is a reservoir here?”
Unexpectedly, what should have been there was no more.
The place was devastated, as if it had been bombed.
‘I heard that there was a huge underground cave near this reservoir.’
There was no cave, just a huge pit formed from the aftermath of the explosion.
If there was anything stranger, it was the huge hole in the ground that seemed to be made to bring something out.
“L-Lord. What happened to Baekgi?”
Hu Bong’s expression darkened.
Hu Bong’s case seemed to have been a lucky one.
No one could know what could happen when one was hibernating inside the mountains for long.
“Wait.”
As the problem couldn’t be solved by jumping to conclusions, Chun Yeowun asked Nano to investigate the site.
Nano was capable of ultrasound detection and lipid a.n.a.lysis.
Nano’s voice echoed in Chun Yeowun’s mind.
[Ultrasound detection results. No site has been found. What is believed to be an underground cave seems to have sunken due to the explosion.]
‘If we dig here, will we find something?’
[Nothing is present according to the ultrasound.]
The image below the ground was shown to Chun Yeowun in augmented reality.
As Nano said, not even human remains could be found.
‘Just what happened here?’
[As a result of a.n.a.lysis of shape and geology of the ground, traces of lava flow are found.]
‘What?’
Lava.
It means the magma which is ejected to the surface.
The hot lava is a phenomenon that usually comes when a volcano erupts.
The west side of Zhumadian was hilly but definitely not a volcanic area.
‘There are traces of lava flow in here?’
[Yes.]
It was Nano’s a.n.a.lysis, but it felt hard to believe.
Nano added.
[According to the a.n.a.lysis, the magma isn’t from earth.]
‘Then?’
[This is lava from the Gate.]
It was highly likely that they were traces of lava from the Gate.
There were three forms of Gates.
One of them was disaster type. These were occasionally occurring and were more devastating than a natural disaster on earth.
‘Was Baekgi swept away by the lava when he was hibernating?’
Chun Yeowun looked at the lava.
However, the pit at the hidden coordinates where Baekgi should’ve been hibernating showed signs of an explosion.
An explosion which seemed to have pushed aside the lava.
‘If lava flowed through this point as it is…’
Then lava should have entered the city behind.
Perhaps to prevent that, the humans caused an explosion.
He concluded that the place where Baekgi was sleeping was caught up in the explosion.
‘Baekgi was this easily beaten?’
Chun Yeowun looked at the vast pit.
If he really died here because of the explosion, then the wait of Baekgi for his Lord was so futile.
Grunt!
Chun Yeowun clenched his fists. That was when Hu Bong approached him and said,
“Lord. Could it be that someone coveted the Blood of the Dragon Turtle?”
“What?”
Chun Yeowun frowned at those words.
Hu Bong was unaware of this time, so he guessed what he could think of.
The blood of the Dragon Turtle.
“There was a vial of a spirit beast blood where Baekgi was kept?”
In the place where Hu Bong was hibernating, there was a vial holding the blood of Flame Qilin.
It was Chun Yeowun who never asked about it.
“Well, we kept them in case we woke up from hibernating and were unable to recover.”
It was for their own selves.
After Chun Yeowun disappeared, the people in the Cult studied the blood of the spirit beasts.
One of the things they discovered was that even the cut-off body of the person who could absorb the blood of the spirit beast and embody it, could recover.
“It was like that.”
The blood of the spirit beast was to promote their recovery from hibernation.
For Hu Bong and the others who decided to hibernate, it was a recovery drink, but for the other Murim people, it was an elixir from heaven.
That’s why Hu Bong ended up thinking that.
“Hu Bong. Now that you say…”
Chun Yeowun, who was trying to explain what happened to Hu Bong, stopped.
And then looked at the ultrasound map in augmented reality.
“Lord?”
Chun Yeowun didn’t answer his call and kept looking at the map.
He found out something.
‘Ah! Right!’
As a result of taking a closer look.
“Hu Bong, follow me.”
Phat!
Chun Yeowun jumped into the pit.
“Uh? L-Lord!”
Hu Bong hurriedly followed him.
The pit, which was the result of an explosion, was so ma.s.sive in depth and surface.
Chun Yeowun, who reached the pit, stopped and reached out his arm.
The hardened soil began to dig.
Papapapk!
“L-Lord, what are you doing?”
“Take a good look.”
He couldn’t have done it faster because Chun Yeowun was trying to calm himself.
After digging a few meters, Chun Yeowun stopped.
The artificially-made cave shook, and something came out.
“Uh? Altar!”
Hu Bong recognized it.
The same altar which Hu Bong was placed on during hibernation.
The altar was made of sapphire.
“The altar is unharmed.”
“The altar is in good condition, but here is no sign of Baekgi and the vial.”
“Ah!”
Hu Bong’s eyes widened.
It was then that he understood why Chun Yeowun had done this.
If everything was destroyed, but the altar was still safe and unscratched, then it meant that Baekgi was safe somewhere else.
“Did Baekgi wake up?”
“I don’t know.”
All they knew was that Baekgi wasn’t hurt in the explosion.
There was no way of knowing if he woke by himself or had fallen into someone else’s hand.
There were no traces on the altar which could have given an answer.
‘Huh?’
At that time, Chun Yeowun saw that the sapphire altar was partially cut off.
Looking closer, it seemed to be a man-made cut.
‘The place which is cut…’
It wasn’t a smooth cut with a sword, but an irregular cut.
‘To be cut like this means…’
When Chun Yeowun raised his hand up, an invisible sword appeared.
Of course, the sapphire would be cut very easily with the invisible sword, but Chun Yeowun was using another method.
Drrr!
The sword trembled.
The invisible sword was imitating the ultra-vibrating sword.
Clash!
Chun yeowun brought it down to the altar, making the sapphire altar split in half.
Shhh!
Chun Yeowun pulled back the sword and looked at the cut section on the altar.
Hu Bong noticed it too.
“L-Lord! The traces are the same. How did you do this?”
The microscopic irregularities were the same.
At that, Chun Yeowun narrowed his eyes.
“Ultra-vibrating sword… those guys again.”
In this era, there was only one group of people who had the tech of ultra-vibrating swords.
“MS Group!”
“MS Group? What is that?”
“I think they took away Baekgi.”
Chun Yeowun was convinced that they were involved in this.
“How dare they! Lord! Let’s find them right away and punish them! Let’s bring back Baekgi!”
Hu Bong was furious at it.
It felt like if given a chance, he would tear them all down.
But Chun Yeowun shook his head.
“Huh? W-why? Lord! Without Baekgi, you may not be able to return to our time.”
Baekgi had one of the three codes.
Hu Bong was worried about Baekgi, but even more concerned that Chun Yeowun wouldn’t be able to go back.
“Hu Bong, calm down.”
“What? But without Baekgi...!”
“Just tracking back is a waste of time. We need to find clues.”
If the MS Group was an exposed organization, it would have been easy to find them, but they were strongly hidden.
Looking for the MS Group was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
It would take up too much time.
“Ah! I hope they come to us directly. We can catch and kill them.”
“Ho-uh?”
Chun Yeowun’s eyes shone at Hu Bong’s grumbling.
“That is a good idea.”
“Huh?”
Chun Yeowun smiled at the furious Hu Bong.
“Right. We don’t have to search for them.”
After receiving a commission from Chun Woo-kyung, they aimed for Chun Yeowun.
It was likely that the MS Group had covert ties with other organizations too.
And if Chun Yeowun could use that, he could pull them out.
“Hu Bong.”
“Yes! Lord.”
“I promise you. I will make it possible for you to slaughter each one of them with your own hands.”
“Yes!”
Hu Bong stopped grumbling after that.
Because the Chun Yeowun he knew was a man who would definitely get that done.
“Before that, Mun Ra-yeong…. No, your wife, we need to go for her.”
“L-Lord! Let’s hurry then.”
At Chun Yeowun’s words, Hu Bong wanted to hurry.
Because Baekgi was gone, he was worried that his wife might be in trouble too.
Shhh!
Chun Yeowun wore his suit and spread his arms.
“Come on.”
‘Ugh…’
Hu Bong, who had already experienced the tremendous speed once, hesitated for a moment.
But what could he do?
Deeply frowning, he went and hugged Chun Yeowun.
Once again, Chun Yeowun flew into the sky.
Swosh! Phut!
“Kwaak!”
Datong city.
It was a city in the northern part of the Shanxi province, west of Beijing.
Chun Yeowun, who almost reached it, frowned.
‘What is this?’
He was still several kilometres away, but he could feel an energy wave spreading from Datong city.
‘Gate?’
Such an energy wave could only be felt when a Gate was open.
The energy which shook the s.p.a.ce was stronger and gloomier than the ones he felt before.
It wasn’t this strong when he fought the Shivaras.
Bang! Bang!
As they got closer, the sound of some heavy sh.e.l.ling could be heard.
It sounded like explosions.
Chun Yeowun, who thought something weird was happening, lowered the speed and gave Nano an order.
‘Nano. Enlarge the field of view.’
[Understood.]
The field of view on one side of the eye was enlarged.
However, on the outside of the wall, a huge number of tanks surrounded and fired into the air.
[PGZ-15 aircraft tank.]
It was a tank specialized for air.
The tanks’ guns were busy firing into the air above the wall. But it was obvious that they were aiming for something.
‘What is it?’
It was strange.
It was invisible to the naked eye, but something was surely there.
Bang! Bang!
As he was wondering, he saw something like a hazy smoke fly in the air.
‘What is that thing?’
It left a trail of white particles with each movement.
Like a ghost.