Chapter 235

Chapter 235: 235

The red light from the charcoal hearth inside the forge didn’t flicker when the sea wind slammed against the iron door frame. It stayed low, a thick, blood-colored glow that pooled over the stone counters and turned the oily soot on the floor blocks into a dark crimson glaze. The air was heavy, smelling of old sulphur, unrefined lead ore, and the cold, sharp static coming off the Monarch’s Torc hidden beneath Jun-ho’s collarbone.

Jun-ho stood exactly two paces from the granite counter, his large rubber boots caked in dried grey volcanic crust. He didn’t drop The Ash Remnant onto the wood. His left hand kept an iron-hard grip around the matte-black hemp wrap of the handle, the blunt tip of the five-thousand-fold blade resting quiet against a rusted anchor rivet in the floor plates.

Right at the lower corner of his left eye, the solid black status text remained rock-steady.

[Level: 36]

[Mana: 2700/9000]

[Active Trait: Ashen Domain (Phase 4 – 70-meter radius)]

[ Inventory: The Monarch’s Ledger (Bound)]

The fence—an old unranked broker named Master Hong—didn’t touch the silver stylus resting on his ledger book. He had thin, scarred fingers that were permanently stained with black machine grease, and his small, watery eyes stayed fixed entirely on the four ancient characters etched near the hilt crossguard of Jun-ho’s sword. He could feel the cold, heavy vibration of the Phase 4 domain leaking through the threshold, turning the liquid inside his iron cooling basins into solid white blocks of ice without a single breath of wind moving through the room.

"Gyeong-su always was a clumsy fool," Hong said, his voice deep and gravelly, like two grinding wheels catching on loose gravel. He didn’t look at the girls crowding behind Jun-ho’s shoulders. "He forged the core wedge, but he didn’t give it the Ministry tracking seal because he knew the legacy families would buy the data logs the second the iron went cold. You’re running a seventy-meter perimeter, kid. That’s corporate business. The Sun God main office just updated the priority wire loop at the lower harbor gate. They’re offering fifty million won or five thousand high-grade crystals just for the location log of this shop."

"The wire loop is blind past the reef line, Hong," Jun-ho said. His voice was low, completely flat under his dark gray hood.

Lilith slid right up to his left arm, her long, exceptionally smooth legs cutting a clean line through the low purple mist of the forge floor. The tight crimson leather of her outfit pulled dangerously flat across the voluptuous, perfect curve of her round hips, her narrow waist twisting with a lazy, deliberate rhythm that brought her frame right against his denim trousers. Her massive, half-visible chest rose and fell in quick, deep gasps against his bare upper arm, her full red lips parting into a low, breathless murmur that carried the sharp scent of raw sulfur and dark incense straight to his neck.

"The old man wants a clear percentage of the unrefined stones, big guy," Lilith whispered, her wide crimson eyes glowing with a lazy, dangerous fire under her long ink-black hair. Her long fingers, tipped with sharp crimson nails, slid slowly up his bare arm, her palms burning hot against his cool skin as she marked her placement. Her primitive demon instincts were completely unraveled, her spirit locking onto his presence with a fierce, submissive passion that made her knees tremble against his boots. "He knows the Monarch’s Ledger can rewrite the drop tables inside the First Ancient Sea King Gate. Let me handle his registry files, Jun-ho... I want to watch you clear the inner vault from the inside of my skin."

"The registry belongs to the collective detail, demon," Eun-bi’s sharp, furious voice barked from the opposite side of the iron pillar.

The little nurse walked two long steps across the wet soot, her heavy canvas bag slung tight across her waist. Her dark hair was wet and messy, loose strands sticking to her forehead from the sweat of the lower channels, but her sharp face was completely rigid with an intense, biting jealousy. She jammed her heavy rubber boot directly between Lilith’s leather trousers and the side of Jun-ho’s jeans, her bare thigh pressing hard against his shins for stability as she gave the demon girl a cold, biting look. She kept a tight, angry grip on her silver trauma scissors, her fingers clicking the blades together with a sharp, impatient snap.

"The database log is still running the core synchronization, Jun-ho," Eun-bi said, her voice dropping into that flat, quiet public-sector drawl that was thick with an intense, sharp irritation. "If you let this rogue broker crowd the narrow track with her hair and her incense, the system will trace the mana displacement before we can even clear the drainage outlet. The registry belongs to the collective detail, not her private bedroom."

Rea slid off a secondary workbench five paces away with a slow, fluid stride that made the high-slashed silk of her black tunic rustle loudly against her long bare legs. Her golden-blue eyes spun slowly in a lazy, dangerous circle under the gray sky, her full crimson lips tightening into a thin, jealous line as she wedged her own voluptuous hourglass shape tight against Jun-ho’s opposite sleeve, her wild orchid perfume cutting sharp through Lilith’s sulfur incense.

"The little nurse is right about the timer, big guy," Rea murmured, her bare arm rubbing against his shirt fabric with a heavy, possessive friction that competitive edge turning her tone sharp. "The demon girl is a bit too forward with her placement. She thinks because she signed the soul bind she owns the whole ledger line. I have the master key for the lower drainage grid already logged on my console. We don’t need her sulfur codes to clear the path."

Jun-ho didn’t pull back an inch from any of them. He reached out his bare right hand, his fingers closing around Rea’s narrow waist under the loose silk fabric of her tunic, while his left shoulder remained pinned against the hot, firm line of Lilith’s leather top. The dual friction made the suppressed lake behind his ribs pulse in a deep, slow rhythm that filled the entire dark hold with a silent, heavy weight.

"The registry is clear," Jun-ho said flatly.

He didn’t lift his sword. He reached into his duffel bag with his bare right hand, his fingers closing around the cold brass lock of The Monarch’s Ledger, and focused his mind entirely on the old broker’s master book.

[The Monarch’s Ledger Active.]

[Target Object: Master Hong’s Unranked Ledger Registry.]

[Extracting Sealed Coordinate Data for Sector 0-South Access...]

[Mana Cost: 500. Current Mana: 2200/9000.]

A sharp, heavy click exploded through the entire forge—a mechanical sound that didn’t travel through the ears, but froze the room instantly. Inside Hong’s old book, the ink lines didn’t melt; they turned a deep, solid blood-red color, the thin blue mana threads inside the paper twisting and turning like living wires as the ancient ledger extracted the exact marine coordinates for The First Ancient Sea King Gate.

[Data Extraction Successful: The Sea King’s Vault Coordinates Unlocked.]

[Location: 4.2 miles south of current coordinates.]

[Zone Tier: 5 (Primal / Unfiltered Variant).]

Before Hong could even pull his stylus back, a sudden, massive CRACK exploded from the front entrance lane outside the shop.

The heavy iron door didn’t just rattle; it was kicked completely off its top hinge, the wooden frame splitting down the middle as a massive corporate reinforcement wave from the Sun God Guild’s main flagship detail hit the outer threshold. Forty heavy enforcers in thick, polished grey steel plates burst through the dust, their automated crossbows primed with blue tracking arrows.

"Target identified!" the lead enforcer shouted through his visor, his hand already releasing his string. "Kang Jun-ho! The private contract is closed! Drop the black bar and get on the floor!"

Tae-woo and the four elite vanguards moved in a single, synchronized motion. They didn’t drop back an inch. They hoisted their wide blocks of dark basin rock with both hands, slamming the stone edges flat against the dirt floor to form an unbroken mountain wall across the narrow aisle.

The forty blue tracking arrows hit the dark rock barriers with a rapid series of dull, harmless clicks that didn’t leave a single white scratch on the stone.

Jun-ho raised The Ash Remnant with his left hand, the new black hemp wrap solid and dry in his grip. He didn’t drop into a defensive stance, and he didn’t use his back. He let the lake of cold mana behind his ribs break its banks completely, the Ashen Domain - Phase 4 expanding outward in a flat, seventy-meter ring of thick grey frost that turned the wet grease on the floor boards into solid white discs of ice instantly.

[Ashen Domain Phase 4 Active.]

[Perimeter State: 70 meters (Extended by the Monarch’s Torc).]

[Mana Cost: 500 per minute. Current Mana: 1700/9000.]

He simply snapped his left wrist, driving the sharp matte edge of the five-thousand-fold blade straight down onto the lead enforcer’s grey steel visor.

The thunderclap was faster this time, a localized earthquake that shattered the thick steel mask into thousands of tiny iron shards that blew straight back into the alleyway. The force of the strike, multiplied five thousand times by the weapon’s bound trait, didn’t just clear the front line; the shockwave tore all forty killers off their feet, throwing their broken bodies through the wooden rails of the pier straight into the dark sea water.

[Target Neutralized: Sun God Main Detail Enforcer x40.]

[Experience Gained: 80,000 XP.]

[Applying 100x Multiplier to Resource Logic...]

[Total Experience Gained: 8,000,000 XP.]

[Level Up!]

[You have reached Level 37.]

[You have received 5 Unassigned Attribute Points.]

The gray notification boxes piled up across his vision in clean lines before vanishing, leaving only the ink-black text of his new level waiting on his screen. Jun-ho lowered his sword, his fingers uncurling from the rough hemp grip as the frost around his boots began to melt back into regular oil brine. He turned his back on the ruined doorway, his dark eyes locking onto the three women standing by his shoulders as the dark engine below the deck plates let out a steady, dark roar, launching the boat straight into the deep water toward the Sea King’s Vault.