Their first priority was to subdue Sangun. However, Ungnyeo’s response was cold and sad, “I can’t control him.”
She continued in an exhausted manner, “I tried everything I could. Even when I tried to pull out the energy of the demonic curse using the mana of the seal, the aura around him was too strong…it’s impossible.”
Basically, she was saying that they had no other choice.
“Are you saying that I have no other choice but to kill him?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked incredulously.
Ungnyeo trembled at his harsh words. However, she eventually had no choice but to nod slowly.
“Yes.”
Ungnyeo was at a loss with how to proceed. She had tried to end her life here together with Sangun, but all of her plans had gotten twisted with Lee Jun-Kyeong’s sudden appearance.
‘I…’
She stood, her world falling apart around her.
‘What should I do?’
As Ungnyeo worried, she heard something whisper into her ear, “Go rest for now.”
It was Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“And…”
Lee Jun-Kyeong ran forward wielding Muspel's spear.
"I might have a way.”
As he ran forward without hesitation, Ungnyeo looked at the figure advancing in front of her. His back as he stepped forward while holding the spear looked incredibly wide to her.
It was only then that Ungnyeo felt how he had changed.
“That's…impossible…”
She was left speechless. His transformation seemed so incredible that it didn’t seem possible.
‘He was able to get this strong in that short of a time…?’
His seemingly wide back wasn’t something that she was imagining. No, the mana emitting from him shimmered around his back, warping the outline of his body. That was why he looked so huge.
That figure then became even bigger.
Boom!
As if.
“A giant…?” she gasped involuntarily.
As if he had turned into a giant.
Lee Jun-Kyeong's appearance was distorted by his mana, so it had become as colossal as a giant. He was pushing down Sangun while cloaked in flames.
Fenrir looked down at Ungnyeo while gesturing with his snout as if telling the woman to take in the sight of the Hunter.
“Grrr.”
Thump! Thump!
Ungnyeo's heart began to pound.
‘If…If it’s him.’
She was filled with desperate hope that there would be a way if it were the man in front of her. Ungnyeo found herself entrapped in the sight, nervously watching the fight between Sangun and Lee Jun-Kyeong.
A spear whistled through the air while a giant front paw crashed down.
Fortunately, the tiger was unable to use any spells or skills because he had succumbed to madness, but, even if Sangun had been in good shape…
‘Could he have won…?’
The man in front of her had only been away for a few days, but it seemed as though he had come back having gone through a few years.
She wondered.
Could she, who had stayed at Mt. Baekdu and stagnated in the same place, and Sangun take down the man who had come back with a complete transformation?
She couldn’t tell.
No. She could. They couldn’t win.
While she was lost in thought, suddenly, Sangun cried out, “Grahh!!!!”
Lee Jun-Kyeong’s spear had pierced into the heart of the great tiger.
“...!”
Ungnyeo’s eyes widened in astonishment, but as if Lee Jun-Kyeong had noticed her shock, he gave a short answer, “Don’t worry. I didn’t pierce his heart.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong looked back over at Sangun again. The tiger thrashed ferociously, but the spear stayed into his chest.
Wriggle.
The Dragon’s Bloodstone was sucking up the power of Sangun.
Naturally, the harmony between Lee Jun-Kyeong, who had obtained the dragon heart, and the Dragon’s Bloodstone was now at the highest synergy. Now, not only was he able to use the abilities of the Dragon’s Bloodstone that he couldn’t have even dreamed about manipulating before, but it was also possible, by combining some of his own powers with said abilities, to make the impossible possible.
Sangun’s blood flowed through Muspel’s Spear. The tiger’s mana, which not only contained Sangun’s blood but also the spirit of Mt. Baekdu, used the channel of the weapon and was absorbed into the Dragon’s Bloodstone.
From there, the energy flowed through the spear body again and went into Lee Jun-Kyeong.
‘Not this, though,’ Lee Jun-Kyeong said in his mind as if the Dragon’s Bloodstone was a sentient creature.
As soon as he did, something black started to extrude into the flow, mixed with the blood.
“...!”
The black and red thing was the main culprit that had driven Sangun crazy.
[Madness is being absorbed.]
***
The Madness that was in Sangun quickly flowed into Muspel’s Spear.
However, that also meant that the other powers that Sangun controlled also flowed into the spear, intertwined with the ore.
“Grahh!!”
The spirit of Mt. Baekdu.
The mana that Sangun had built up for a long time.
The sponsorships that the tiger had obtained.
Even.
‘I’m even consuming his vitality…!’
Lee Jun-Kyeong tried to control Muspel’s Spear, but the spear, which had become a demonic spear by this point, refused to listen to his orders.
‘I can control it.’
However, Lee Jun-Kyeong didn’t give up and began to flex his control.
Although he wouldn’t be able to prevent the spear from absorbing the tiger’s vitality in place of it, he filtered the energy that accompanied Madness and redirected it back into Sangun.
He was basically using himself as a conduit to purify the colossal tiger.
Moreover, on top of that, he added a skill.
[Purity.]
It was the newly created skill that combined the various resistance skills that had been sponsored by <The Sky of the Apocalypse>.
Purity had activated, allowing his filtering to become more efficient. Finally, the redness within the colossal white tiger’s eyes began to recede.
“Cough cough…”
If Lee Jun-Kyeong had tried to do this before his transformation, then he would have gone crazy after intaking this level of madness.
‘But the black beads…’
The other black beads, the ones that didn’t become the dragon heart, were devouring the Madness from his system. Slowly, a silence draped over the landscape.
“...”
The lava-infested seal began to stabilize again, and Sangun began to stabilize little by little.
“…”
He was coming to his senses.
“Cough…cough…”
Sangun, who had been crying out like a beast, all of a sudden spoke out with the voice of the being who had originally been the King of Mt. Baekdu.
–This is…
Thud.
However, soon after, the tiger collapsed in place.
Lee Jun-Kyeong quickly pulled out Muspel’s Spear. Blood gushed from the wound caused by the spear tip like a fountain, soaking the ground.
“Sangun!” Ungnyeo screamed out, running toward the two.
She quickly tried to heal the deep wound with her energy, but it wasn’t enough. Not only had she used up an incredible amount of energy, but even if she still had the reserves, Sangun also wasn’t in a state to bear the power and use it to heal himself.
However, the three soon heard a voice call out, “What a relief. It’s not too late.”
It was Hua Tuo.
***
The disaster at Heaven Lake Village had subsided, and the crimson blazes and blooming black smoke had died down as well.
Even the screams of the residents and the cries of the monsters had stopped.
However, that didn't mean everything was back to normal.
"Our village...”
"Heaven Lake Village is…"
Heaven Lake Village had been burned down and destroyed, turned to ashes, and part of Mt. Baekdu had been burnt down as well, turning the peak into Mt. Balddu.
Although more of them had survived than expected, that didn’t mean that there weren’t any dead people whatsoever.
The residents who had fled down the mountain had climbed back to the peak and cried blankly when they saw Heaven Lake village.
-…
Furthermore, Lee Jun-Kyeong stood at the entrance to the cave where Sangun resided.
“Have you had a chance to sober up a little?” he asked.
Sangun responded in a hoarse voice.
–I…have.
The voice from before had been so powerful that it could make souls tremble, but it had disappeared.
The remnant voice was as if it had its soul stripped away.
‘He’s dying.’
While Madness had been driven out of Sangun, the tiger was dying.
Lee Jun-Kyeong wasn’t to blame. Even before the Hunter had absorbed the Madness and power from the tiger, Sangun had been weak.
“Just who in the hell.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong brought up the subject in his mind.
“Who is the man in black?”
He had cut straight to the point.
The man in black had injected Sangun with Madness and had even spread the ore to the monsters around them. He was the culprit behind the destruction of Heaven Lake Village and the person who had almost killed both Sangun and Ungnyeo.
However, Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t understand it.
“Who the hell is he that you would meet with him?”
Sangun had lived for countless years, and accordingly, he was incredibly cautious.
As someone so wary of strangers, Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t understand why the tiger had met such a suspicious man dressed in black and ended up subjected to such a thing.
There was something else as well.
"Why on earth did you accept that power?"
Sangun opened his mouth and spoke carefully.
–Let’s talk…
His eyes, a little clearer than before, turned to Lee Jun-Kyeong.
–A little slowly.
Then.
"Sangun!"
Her adult form having disappeared, Ungnyeo appeared in the distance in the form of a little girl again.
As if she knew nothing of what had happened, she approached Sangun and handed over some strawberries. Although it must have been precious food that she had hidden away in the middle of this entire mess, Jeong In-Chang, unable to read the atmosphere, still thoughtlessly asked, “Do tigers even eat strawberries…”
***
In the aftermath of the crisis in Heaven Lake Village, Lee Jun-Kyeong gave a message to the residents through Jeong In-Chang.
"You have a choice,” Jeong In-Chang said after gathering everyone around.
"There are three options, and you can choose between any of them."
Jeong In-Chang spoke calmly while the residents listened carefully.
"The first is to rebuild Heaven Lake Village. It's going to be a little hard, but... you will all still be able to live while protecting your home."
This was the first option.
It wasn't such a bad option, if Sangun was still okay.
Jeong In-Chang carefully swallowed the words he had been about to say and continued while properly adjusting to the atmosphere of the gathering this time, “The second option is to go to Korea. Although we’ll have to speak with the Association or the government, it’s still not a bad choice.”
It would be a safer option than staying here. Further, most of them were Hunters, so they should have been able to settle in Korea without any problems.
They would have been able to continue their lives in Korea once again.
‘If it wasn't for the cataclysm…’
It could have been even safer as well.
Jeong In-Chang swallowed that thought as well.
"The third choice is..."
Jeong In-Chang looked around.
“To go to Beijing.”
The residents began to murmur after he dropped the third option.
They had expected the first and the second choices, but none of them had ever expected the third.
"Why Beijing…?” the residents asked Jeong In-Chang carefully.
“There are Chinese people living in Beijing within a settlement. It’s not too far away, so living there together with them is another option.”
Jeong In-Chang had delivered all the options that Lee Jun-Kyeong had given him, so it was now time for the residents to choose.
“We’re leaving in three days. You have until then to choose whatever you would like to do. Furthermore, it’s also okay for each one of you to make your individual choices.”
Jeong In-Chang looked around at the crowd and finally let out the sigh that he had been holding in.
“Whew…”
Heaven Lake Village was a place where he had formed an attachment to the time he had spent there. He wasn’t comfortable seeing it be destroyed by the monsters, and it was the same for the shabby appearances of the residents.
"I'm sorry…"
That was the only thing he was able to say.
1. ???, or Mt. Mindoong, is a mountain in Gangwon-do. The name Mindoong means Bald mountain and is meant to reference any mountain that gets burnt down by wildfire, making it bald.
Their first priority was to subdue Sangun. However, Ungnyeo’s response was cold and sad, “I can’t control him.”
She continued in an exhausted manner, “I tried everything I could. Even when I tried to pull out the energy of the demonic curse using the mana of the seal, the aura around him was too strong…it’s impossible.”
Basically, she was saying that they had no other choice.
“Are you saying that I have no other choice but to kill him?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked incredulously.
Ungnyeo trembled at his harsh words. However, she eventually had no choice but to nod slowly.
“Yes.”
Ungnyeo was at a loss with how to proceed. She had tried to end her life here together with Sangun, but all of her plans had gotten twisted with Lee Jun-Kyeong’s sudden appearance.
‘I…’
She stood, her world falling apart around her.
‘What should I do?’
As Ungnyeo worried, she heard something whisper into her ear, “Go rest for now.”
It was Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“And…”
Lee Jun-Kyeong ran forward wielding Muspel's spear.
"I might have a way.”
As he ran forward without hesitation, Ungnyeo looked at the figure advancing in front of her. His back as he stepped forward while holding the spear looked incredibly wide to her.
It was only then that Ungnyeo felt how he had changed.
“That's…impossible…”
She was left speechless. His transformation seemed so incredible that it didn’t seem possible.
‘He was able to get this strong in that short of a time…?’
His seemingly wide back wasn’t something that she was imagining. No, the mana emitting from him shimmered around his back, warping the outline of his body. That was why he looked so huge.
That figure then became even bigger.
Boom!
As if.
“A giant…?” she gasped involuntarily.
As if he had turned into a giant.
Lee Jun-Kyeong's appearance was distorted by his mana, so it had become as colossal as a giant. He was pushing down Sangun while cloaked in flames.
Fenrir looked down at Ungnyeo while gesturing with his snout as if telling the woman to take in the sight of the Hunter.
“Grrr.”
Thump! Thump!
Ungnyeo's heart began to pound.
‘If…If it’s him.’
She was filled with desperate hope that there would be a way if it were the man in front of her. Ungnyeo found herself entrapped in the sight, nervously watching the fight between Sangun and Lee Jun-Kyeong.
A spear whistled through the air while a giant front paw crashed down.
Fortunately, the tiger was unable to use any spells or skills because he had succumbed to madness, but, even if Sangun had been in good shape…
‘Could he have won…?’
The man in front of her had only been away for a few days, but it seemed as though he had come back having gone through a few years.
She wondered.
Could she, who had stayed at Mt. Baekdu and stagnated in the same place, and Sangun take down the man who had come back with a complete transformation?
She couldn’t tell.
No. She could. They couldn’t win.
While she was lost in thought, suddenly, Sangun cried out, “Grahh!!!!”
Lee Jun-Kyeong’s spear had pierced into the heart of the great tiger.
“...!”
Ungnyeo’s eyes widened in astonishment, but as if Lee Jun-Kyeong had noticed her shock, he gave a short answer, “Don’t worry. I didn’t pierce his heart.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong looked back over at Sangun again. The tiger thrashed ferociously, but the spear stayed into his chest.
Wriggle.
The Dragon’s Bloodstone was sucking up the power of Sangun.
Naturally, the harmony between Lee Jun-Kyeong, who had obtained the dragon heart, and the Dragon’s Bloodstone was now at the highest synergy. Now, not only was he able to use the abilities of the Dragon’s Bloodstone that he couldn’t have even dreamed about manipulating before, but it was also possible, by combining some of his own powers with said abilities, to make the impossible possible.
Sangun’s blood flowed through Muspel’s Spear. The tiger’s mana, which not only contained Sangun’s blood but also the spirit of Mt. Baekdu, used the channel of the weapon and was absorbed into the Dragon’s Bloodstone.
From there, the energy flowed through the spear body again and went into Lee Jun-Kyeong.
‘Not this, though,’ Lee Jun-Kyeong said in his mind as if the Dragon’s Bloodstone was a sentient creature.
As soon as he did, something black started to extrude into the flow, mixed with the blood.
“...!”
The black and red thing was the main culprit that had driven Sangun crazy.
[Madness is being absorbed.]
***
The Madness that was in Sangun quickly flowed into Muspel’s Spear.
However, that also meant that the other powers that Sangun controlled also flowed into the spear, intertwined with the ore.
“Grahh!!”
The spirit of Mt. Baekdu.
The mana that Sangun had built up for a long time.
The sponsorships that the tiger had obtained.
Even.
‘I’m even consuming his vitality…!’
Lee Jun-Kyeong tried to control Muspel’s Spear, but the spear, which had become a demonic spear by this point, refused to listen to his orders.
‘I can control it.’
However, Lee Jun-Kyeong didn’t give up and began to flex his control.
Although he wouldn’t be able to prevent the spear from absorbing the tiger’s vitality in place of it, he filtered the energy that accompanied Madness and redirected it back into Sangun.
He was basically using himself as a conduit to purify the colossal tiger.
Moreover, on top of that, he added a skill.
[Purity.]
It was the newly created skill that combined the various resistance skills that had been sponsored by <The Sky of the Apocalypse>.
Purity had activated, allowing his filtering to become more efficient. Finally, the redness within the colossal white tiger’s eyes began to recede.
“Cough cough…”
If Lee Jun-Kyeong had tried to do this before his transformation, then he would have gone crazy after intaking this level of madness.
‘But the black beads…’
The other black beads, the ones that didn’t become the dragon heart, were devouring the Madness from his system. Slowly, a silence draped over the landscape.
“...”
The lava-infested seal began to stabilize again, and Sangun began to stabilize little by little.
“…”
He was coming to his senses.
“Cough…cough…”
Sangun, who had been crying out like a beast, all of a sudden spoke out with the voice of the being who had originally been the King of Mt. Baekdu.
–This is…
Thud.
However, soon after, the tiger collapsed in place.
Lee Jun-Kyeong quickly pulled out Muspel’s Spear. Blood gushed from the wound caused by the spear tip like a fountain, soaking the ground.
“Sangun!” Ungnyeo screamed out, running toward the two.
She quickly tried to heal the deep wound with her energy, but it wasn’t enough. Not only had she used up an incredible amount of energy, but even if she still had the reserves, Sangun also wasn’t in a state to bear the power and use it to heal himself.
However, the three soon heard a voice call out, “What a relief. It’s not too late.”
It was Hua Tuo.
***
The disaster at Heaven Lake Village had subsided, and the crimson blazes and blooming black smoke had died down as well.
Even the screams of the residents and the cries of the monsters had stopped.
However, that didn't mean everything was back to normal.
"Our village...”
"Heaven Lake Village is…"
Heaven Lake Village had been burned down and destroyed, turned to ashes, and part of Mt. Baekdu had been burnt down as well, turning the peak into Mt. Balddu.
Although more of them had survived than expected, that didn’t mean that there weren’t any dead people whatsoever.
The residents who had fled down the mountain had climbed back to the peak and cried blankly when they saw Heaven Lake village.
-…
Furthermore, Lee Jun-Kyeong stood at the entrance to the cave where Sangun resided.
“Have you had a chance to sober up a little?” he asked.
Sangun responded in a hoarse voice.
–I…have.
The voice from before had been so powerful that it could make souls tremble, but it had disappeared.
The remnant voice was as if it had its soul stripped away.
‘He’s dying.’
While Madness had been driven out of Sangun, the tiger was dying.
Lee Jun-Kyeong wasn’t to blame. Even before the Hunter had absorbed the Madness and power from the tiger, Sangun had been weak.
“Just who in the hell.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong brought up the subject in his mind.
“Who is the man in black?”
He had cut straight to the point.
The man in black had injected Sangun with Madness and had even spread the ore to the monsters around them. He was the culprit behind the destruction of Heaven Lake Village and the person who had almost killed both Sangun and Ungnyeo.
However, Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t understand it.
“Who the hell is he that you would meet with him?”
Sangun had lived for countless years, and accordingly, he was incredibly cautious.
As someone so wary of strangers, Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t understand why the tiger had met such a suspicious man dressed in black and ended up subjected to such a thing.
There was something else as well.
"Why on earth did you accept that power?"
Sangun opened his mouth and spoke carefully.
–Let’s talk…
His eyes, a little clearer than before, turned to Lee Jun-Kyeong.
–A little slowly.
Then.
"Sangun!"
Her adult form having disappeared, Ungnyeo appeared in the distance in the form of a little girl again.
As if she knew nothing of what had happened, she approached Sangun and handed over some strawberries. Although it must have been precious food that she had hidden away in the middle of this entire mess, Jeong In-Chang, unable to read the atmosphere, still thoughtlessly asked, “Do tigers even eat strawberries…”
***
In the aftermath of the crisis in Heaven Lake Village, Lee Jun-Kyeong gave a message to the residents through Jeong In-Chang.
"You have a choice,” Jeong In-Chang said after gathering everyone around.
"There are three options, and you can choose between any of them."
Jeong In-Chang spoke calmly while the residents listened carefully.
"The first is to rebuild Heaven Lake Village. It's going to be a little hard, but... you will all still be able to live while protecting your home."
This was the first option.
It wasn't such a bad option, if Sangun was still okay.
Jeong In-Chang carefully swallowed the words he had been about to say and continued while properly adjusting to the atmosphere of the gathering this time, “The second option is to go to Korea. Although we’ll have to speak with the Association or the government, it’s still not a bad choice.”
It would be a safer option than staying here. Further, most of them were Hunters, so they should have been able to settle in Korea without any problems.
They would have been able to continue their lives in Korea once again.
‘If it wasn't for the cataclysm…’
It could have been even safer as well.
Jeong In-Chang swallowed that thought as well.
"The third choice is..."
Jeong In-Chang looked around.
“To go to Beijing.”
The residents began to murmur after he dropped the third option.
They had expected the first and the second choices, but none of them had ever expected the third.
"Why Beijing…?” the residents asked Jeong In-Chang carefully.
“There are Chinese people living in Beijing within a settlement. It’s not too far away, so living there together with them is another option.”
Jeong In-Chang had delivered all the options that Lee Jun-Kyeong had given him, so it was now time for the residents to choose.
“We’re leaving in three days. You have until then to choose whatever you would like to do. Furthermore, it’s also okay for each one of you to make your individual choices.”
Jeong In-Chang looked around at the crowd and finally let out the sigh that he had been holding in.
“Whew…”
Heaven Lake Village was a place where he had formed an attachment to the time he had spent there. He wasn’t comfortable seeing it be destroyed by the monsters, and it was the same for the shabby appearances of the residents.
"I'm sorry…"
That was the only thing he was able to say.
1. ???, or Mt. Mindoong, is a mountain in Gangwon-do. The name Mindoong means Bald mountain and is meant to reference any mountain that gets burnt down by wildfire, making it bald.
