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Chapter 36
“What—what the hell!? What just happened?!”
“The communication equipment isn’t working! Suddenly, everything just—!”
As the tremors that had shaken the entire building subsided, even among the escort warriors, who had been subjugating the monsters, unease began to spread.
Their equipment had suddenly become useless.
The artificial bodies of the escort warriors, controlled by precision electronic circuits and network systems, also began to malfunction and refused to work properly.
Amidst this chaos, newly spawned monsters from the rift lunged at the escort warriors, disrupting what had once been a smooth suppression operation.
“Damn it, they’re coming! Hold the formation…!”
“The weapon systems built into our artificial bodies aren’t responding!”
Unlike the experimental monsters they had fought before, these were freshly emerged monsters straight out of the rift.
With their artificial bodies failing, facing such entities became impossible.
“W–wait! If this keeps up—! Graaahk?!”
A monster pierced through their fire net, driving its claws deep into an escort warrior’s chest. The painstakingly established line of defense began to collapse.
At this rate, the escort warriors themselves might be annihilated.
But at that moment—
Swish—!
A massive spear flew in from somewhere, skewering the lunging monster.
“Reinforcements?”
The captain muttered, but the moment he saw the spear that pierced the monster’s body, his face turned deathly pale.
On the shaft of the spear was engraved the Chinese character “Forbidden” (禁).
The overwhelming Aura Power contained in the spear’s blade, and the suffocating pressure emanating from behind it—
“The Golden Army… they’ve already arrived?”
Golden Army.
As he repeated that name, dozens of identical long spears rained down toward the monsters.
Swish-Swish-Swish!
Spears, carrying destructive power on par with tank shells, struck with devastating force.
When their spear blades—filled with Aura Power—landed, the monsters’ bodies disintegrated into dust and vanished.
“Frontline monster cluster—suppressed.”
“Confirm rift location. Degree of corruption: Level 1.”
“Proceed according to the manual. First division, draw blades.”
At the command of Commander Kang Gam-hyeok, some of the Golden Army soldiers stepped forward, drawing the curved sabers strapped to their belts.
“Kruagh?! Kwooooaaargh—!”
Their targets: the monsters pouring out of the rift.
With unwavering eyes, the Golden Army soldiers swung their sabers without hesitation.
Thud—!
With the sound of stone statues shattering, the monsters that had been threatening the escort warriors disappeared in an instant.
“First division, advance while maintaining Aura Power density. Second division, switch weapons and suppress the rift.”
Following the command, the soldiers picked up the spears embedded in the ground and charged toward the rift.
Spears imbued with overwhelming Aura Power.
Though monsters rushed forward to defend the rift, they were powerless to stop them.
The Golden Army advanced unhindered, thrusting their spears into the rift’s core.
Paaaaaah—!
With a dazzling flash of light, the black hole that had been spewing monsters disappeared without a trace.
“H-Hah…!”
“We—we’re saved… saved…!”
The research facility, which just moments ago had been a battlefield, was now clean and intact, as if the chaos had been a mere illusion.
Exhausted, the escort warriors collapsed one by one, their tension snapping. Yet one man, the captain, stood stiff-faced.
The Golden Army appearing here meant that the court had already been informed.
And with research on monsters, experiments, and even the opening of a rift, this amounted to treason against the dynasty itself.
‘In that case, those of us who tried to conceal this are equally guilty. Which means…!’
The thought barely formed when—
Swish—!
The spears in the Golden Army’s hands shifted shape.
From long spears with single blades, they split into tridents with three blades.
And those tridents were aimed squarely at the escort warriors, whose artificial bodies were now useless.
“W-what is this…?!”
“To the escort warriors of the Pungyang Cho Clan.”
As some stunned warriors groaned under their breath, Commander Kang Gam-hyeok fixed his eyes on them and declared:
“You are hereby accused as suspects in the rift incident and will be sent under guard to the Royal Inquisition Bureau. Do you object?”
At last, realizing the full gravity of the situation, the escort warriors’ faces turned pale.
But to oppose the decision of the Golden Army was to defy the emperor himself.
The captain lowered his head in surrender. Still, he asked one final question of Commander Kang Gam-hyeok.
“My lord… what of Young Master Cho Seong-hwan?”
With cold eyes, Kang Gam-hyeok answered:
“He is currently in confrontation with Lord Kim Hyunwoo, heir of the Andong Kim Clan.”
“Hah…!”
Hearing this, the captain’s strength drained, and he collapsed to the floor.
A rift had opened in the heart of Hanseong, and the Golden Army had suppressed it—a worst-case scenario.
And now the Andong Kim Clan had moved directly, with Kim Hyunwoo himself stepping in.
“It’s over.”
Every effort their clan had made to cover up this incident had gone up in smoke.
* * *
“Kruwek! Kwooooorgh—!”
Breaking through the escort warriors’ defensive net, a group of monsters charged toward the shattered wall.
For a moment, Cho Seong-hwan was frozen in shock at the sight.
Kwa-ruuung—!
From above, a bolt of lightning exploded, frying dozens of monsters where they stood.
The creatures crumbled into ash and vanished.
Moments later, Kim Hyunwoo leapt down from the hovering helicopter, landing directly in front of Cho Seong-hwan.
“Explain to me what is going on here.”
“……!”
Like a thief startled by his own guilty conscience, Cho Seong-hwan instinctively stumbled backward.
But only for a moment.
Clenching his teeth, he raised his voice, refusing to show weakness before Kim Hyunwoo.
“It was the Hahoe who infiltrated the family laboratory. Yes, it was wrong to research monsters, but…! This catastrophe was orchestrated by them!”
“Hahoe… Hahoe, you say…”
A familiar name.
Repeating it, a faint smirk curled across Kim Hyunwoo’s lips.
“Of course. Invoke the name of traitors, and perhaps you might wriggle out of such disgrace.”
He himself had often used that excuse, throwing the name of Hahoe around whenever he wanted to eliminate troublesome opponents.
“But how utterly foolish.”
“What… did you say?”
The smirk vanished. Kim Hyunwoo’s expression hardened as his cold eyes bore down on Cho Seong-hwan.
“Just the fact that you conducted monster research in the heart of Hanseong is a crime you cannot evade. And now, those monsters rampaged and even opened a rift.”
He raised his hand. The agents of the Royal Inquisition Bureau at his sides immediately deactivated their optical camouflage.
“This is the same Hanseong that, even when His Majesty personally hunted monsters, not a single breach occurred. Yet now, it has been defiled by monster filth—and a rift has been opened.”
“……!”
“You claim it was Hahoe’s trickery, some treacherous conspiracy… but such pitiful excuses cannot cover what happened here.”
The way Kim Hyunwoo looked down at him—like a king himself, smug in judgment—made Cho Seong-hwan grit his teeth, forcing a strained smile.
“I am heir of the Pungyang Cho Clan and a member of the Golden Army. You would dare dismiss the testimony of someone like me?”
“You are also the master of this laboratory that bred monsters. The prime suspect, who tried to conceal the rift incident and failed. Speak of Hahoe’s schemes all you like—your words are nothing but petty excuses.”
Cho Seong-hwan had no rebuttal.
Because it was true. The Pungyang Cho Clan had indeed conducted monster research. And it was also true that things had spiraled out of control.
An impossible situation, with no escape.
Yet even in this desperate moment, a single thought gnawed at Cho Seong-hwan.
‘Why… was it discovered so quickly?’
Yes, the rift had opened. But until then, information control had been airtight.
Not even a single journalist—or so much as an ant—could get near this place. The court should not have had any way of knowing about it.
And yet—
How could Kim Hyunwoo have arrived at such flawless timing?
With an entire company of the Golden Army already prepared?
It was as if…
‘As if they were waiting for the rift to open here.’
The realization made a name flash across his mind.
The only man deeply involved in his schemes, yet capable of leaking information about this laboratory to Kim Hyunwoo—
Kim Chang-woon.
The bastard who killed Dok Go-seong, who handled human trafficking for their clan, sabotaging family operations, then used that chaos to wedge the Andong Kim Clan into their affairs.
“Ha… hahaha! Hahahahaha!”
Cho Seong-hwan burst out laughing like a madman.
“To think… I saved the one discarded by my family, and this is how he repays me—betraying grace with enmity?!”
Yes. It was him. It could only have been him.
He had swapped the cargo. He had bound Cho Seong-hwan here with Hahoe’s interference.
He had allowed the monsters’ corpses to fester into a rift, arranging it so that Kim Hyunwoo could storm in fully prepared.
‘And what comes next is as clear as day.’
Kim Hyunwoo would pin the charge of opening a rift in Hanseong on him. Brand him with treason.
He would be dragged off to the Royal Inquisition Bureau, interrogated under torture. The Pungyang Cho Clan, stripped of its heir, would be dealt a devastating blow.
And no one would dare support a clan tainted by treason.
Which meant, in the end, who stood to gain most from this entire chain of events?
The Andong Kim Clan.
If the Pungyang Cho Clan—the only power capable of challenging their authority—were to collapse, then the Andong Kim Clan would, without question, become the supreme ruling power of Joseon.
‘And I… I was dancing in the palm of their hands without even realizing it.’
That naïve thought—that taking in the illegitimate son of the Andong Kim Clan would give him a useful pawn.
That same thought had cornered him into this disgrace.
What a pitiful farce.
“To join hands with traitors just to bring down a rival clan… the Andong Kim Clan has truly sunk to its lowest.”
“What was that?”
At Cho Seong-hwan’s muttered insult, Kim Hyunwoo’s face twisted into a frown.
Traitors? Join hands with them? What nonsense was this?
It was only natural for him to be confused. After all, he had only been tipped off about the laboratory’s existence by Kim Chang-woon; he did not know the full details of the incident.
But Cho Seong-hwan couldn’t have known that.
All he saw was:
An unexpected disaster.
Sabotage by the Hahoe.
And then, the Golden Army and the Andong Kim Clan appearing at the perfect moment.
To him, Kim Hyunwoo was the mastermind who had manipulated Kim Chang-woon, luring him into a trap.
The shadowy hand behind everything.
“Cho Seong-hwan, young master. As an important witness to this case, you are to accompany us to the Royal Inquisition Bureau.”
“It would be best not to resist. Please, comply with the order…”
The Royal Inquisition Bureau agents approached with formal courtesy.
In their hands were restraints—devices designed to suppress the use of Aura Power.
If those shackles were clamped on him, it was the end.
He would become a body incapable of wielding even a fraction of his Aura Power, tortured until he spat out whatever testimony the Andong Kim Clan desired.
Just like that fool Captain Yu Sang-hyeon of the Commander of Iron Tiger Corps, who had once knelt to the very enemies that killed his daughter.
“I won’t end like that.”
Kuuuuung—!
The storm of Aura Power that had earlier subdued the Imaetal surged once more.
If his opponent was the heir of the Andong Kim Clan, then he would have to unleash everything.
With that thought, Cho Seong-hwan pushed his Aura Power to maximum output.
“Cho… Cho Seong-hwan, young master?!”
“What are you doing?! If you defy the order, you will be charged with treason…!”
The flail in Cho Seong-hwan’s hand crushed the faces of the Royal Inquisition Bureau agents who had cried out in panic.
Their headless bodies crumpled to the floor.
Then, unable to withstand the storm Cho Seong-hwan had unleashed, the Andong Kim Clan’s helicopter slammed into the opposite building and exploded.
Koo-kwaaaang—!
Explosion. Flames. Corpses.
Kim Hyunwoo’s eyes narrowed at the carnage.
“To resist even after being charged with treason… it means you defy the will of the court. Do you raise your weapon knowing this?”
“The court? Don’t make me laugh. What you mean is nothing more than the puppets of the Andong Kim Clan.”
They monopolized the highest offices of Joseon, wielding the authority of Phase-wielders to force everyone beneath them to kneel.
Those puppets—nothing more than Andong Kim Clan’s creations.
“And those worthless puppets dare accuse me of treason? Dare to drag me to the Royal Inquisition Bureau? Me, the heir of the Pungyang Cho Clan?!”
Unacceptable.
His clan. His plans.
He could not, would not, throw it all away.
“That means…”
Grinding his teeth, Cho Seong-hwan leveled his flail at Kim Hyunwoo, standing opposite him.
The overwhelming Aura Power, the storm that made it impossible to see even an inch ahead—
In the midst of that killing aura, Kim Hyunwoo’s expression remained utterly calm.
The Aura Power was threatening to crush him.
The storm was raging like a hurricane.
He looked at them as though they were nothing more than a child’s tantrum.
The sight made Cho Seong-hwan seethe with rage. With a snarl, he tightened his grip on his weapon—
“So, you intend to spill blood after all.”
Kwa-ruuuung—!
A thunderclap tore the air apart, and an ocean of Aura Power so dense it was hard to even breathe flooded the space.
Power far beyond anything Cho Seong-hwan could muster.
At its center stood Kim Hyunwoo, radiating a majesty so overwhelming that to even look upon him was unbearable.
“Kim Hyunwoo… you… don’t tell me…!”
The man born with the greatest Aura Power output in the history of Joseon—Kim Hyunwoo.
Facing that power head-on, Cho Seong-hwan clenched his teeth in despair.
Looking down on him… Kim Hyunwoo.
Because he recognized the killing intent etched across that face.
“Don’t tell me… from the beginning, your intention wasn’t to take me to the Royal Inquisition Bureau, but to kill me outright?”
“…Well. Who’s to say?”
Kim Hyunwoo did not answer clearly.
“If we drag you off to the Tribunal as you are, the Pungyang Cho Clan’s defense would surely rally.”
After that, a long and tedious legal battle would begin.
‘It was without the young master’s knowledge.’
‘It was the unilateral act of a few employees.’
‘The young master had no direct involvement.’
All manner of excuses would be thrown around, an effort to pull Cho Seong-hwan out from prison.
“And then, through an appropriate bargain, my father would release you, using it as leverage to curb the Pungyang Cho Clan’s power.”
No matter how heinous the crime, because the Jo Clan was still part of the aristocracy, they would find a way to end it quietly, without lasting consequence.
“But I am not my father.”
It was not Kim Junghun who stood here now, but Kim Hyunwoo himself.
The new master of the Andong Kim Clan. The one destined to lead the future of Joseon.
And in the Joseon he envisioned, there was no place for a man like Cho Seong-hwan.
A man of noble birth, yet so debased—consumed only by desire and indulgence.
Such vermin were nothing more than pests gnawing away at the future Joseon he would build.
“Cho Seong-hwan, 24th descendant of the Pungyang Cho Clan.”
Calling his name, Kim Hyunwoo declared in a solemn voice:
“You have committed the great crime of researching monsters in the capital of Joseon, Hanseong. You opened a rift. You murdered agents of the Royal Inquisition Bureau dispatched to arrest you, and you even raised your weapon against a fellow noble.”
“……!”
“Therefore, I, as one of the nobility sworn to safeguard Joseon—”
At his waist, Kim Hyunwoo drew his saber. Its blade gleamed white.
The pallid reflection of Cho Seong-hwan’s terrified face appeared across the steel. Blue lightning coiled around the blade, crackling as if it would explode at any moment.
“…shall strike you down, and set the law of Joseon right.”
---The End Of The Chapter---
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