Chapter 459

"It's sky blue."

The orb was slightly different in shape from the purple item that had summoned the [Iron Maiden] gate.

"I can roughly tell what that item does. But that's a magic tool that takes a long time to activate."

To be honest, Kim Giryeo wasn't particularly eager for the battle that was about to unfold.

From the perspective of a soul well versed in magical theory, every strange phenomenon occurring here was so obvious that it felt as though he could grasp the entire situation in the palm of his hand.

"Besides, among these awakened beings... none of them seem capable of spatial movement. If I just keep the staff from escaping, that should be the end of it."

So there was only one thing the outsider was curious about.

"Then why did Kang Changho tell me not to use a skill in the first place?"

From the perspective of someone from Alphauri, there was nothing particularly remarkable about this dungeon-type artificial awakening clinic.

The dungeon within the dungeon had only appeared because humans had activated an item.

Still, he was a wanderer who had fallen into a world called Earth, so...

"Let's not jump to conclusions."

The alien chose to exercise patience.

"Maybe there's some device unique to this planet nearby—something difficult to detect through magic."

Kim Giryeo did not disregard Kang Changho's warning.

And now, with no one recklessly interfering anymore...

"Even if only a handful of Koreans are involved in artificial awakening research, things have still gone remarkably smoothly."

The dark-skinned elderly man began to speak.

"But we were genuinely grateful for all the work you've done for us until now. Getting an S-rank to work without even paying minimum wage... You don't get opportunities like that very often in this world."

"You called me all the way here even though you knew I'd betray you?"

"That's right, you b*stard. Why'd you go poking around, saying you wanted to analyze our organization...?"

"You've got some nerve."

Clack. Clatter.

At that moment, something heavy and metallic struck the floor.

The awakened being dressed entirely in black, helmet included, had just removed two artifacts.

Apparently, the elderly technician's chief bodyguard had been using those items all this time to conceal his true amount of mana.

"What is this, some kind of weighted-training routine?"

Once revealed, the chief bodyguard's true rank was overwhelming.

The extraterrestrial, still bearing a faint red stain on his T-shirt, quickly assessed the Earthling.

"That guy... He seemed so insignificant in front of me that I barely noticed him, but his mana reserves are almost on par with Jeong Haseong."

Brooklyn Morgan.

Korea's Rank 1.

Awakened beings like them were among Earth's greatest talents, born from odds so absurdly low that their very existence seemed miraculous.

And yet now, out of nowhere, an utterly nameless powerhouse without even a title had appeared?

"Why are geniuses—people who should only appear once in a divine age—so common here?"

The Alphauri native sensed something statistically impossible.

"Ah."

But the moment he focused, the flow reaching the alien felt strangely familiar.

[Dragon's Lung].

The helmeted lightning-type sorcerer was, in fact, using such an item.

Honestly, when Kim Giryeo had encountered an artificial sorcerer in Japan, he still hadn't been certain.

But now that he had a clear example right in front of him, the method used to draw out high-grade power through artificial procedures became perfectly obvious.

"Japan's fifth S-class wasn't implanted with the item because his organs had been weakened by severe illness."

Those high-ranking ability users with suspiciously high rates of dungeon-organ implantation...

The craze for such items among Middle Eastern tycoons had mostly died down by now.

So considering the stabilized market price of the [Dragon's Lung], today's outcome wasn't particularly difficult to understand.

"Humans really are a clever species. Dungeon items, regardless of rank, are fundamentally materials with extremely high compatibility with mana particles, and they took advantage of that."

Mana and magical tools.

Electricity and electrical wires.

It might not have been a perfect analogy, but still—

What would happen if you built a pathway inside a human body that allowed a particular substance to pass through with exceptional ease?

Judging from the circumstances, the members of this illegal clinic first implanted a [Dragon's Lung] into an ordinary person.

Once the body became sufficiently compatible with mana, they placed the subject under intense stress.

That was how they managed to produce high-quality superhumans with such a high success rate.

"Of course, someone with almost no talent wouldn't even survive the mutation process to begin with."

And even if awakening succeeded, pouring too much water into a vessel that couldn't contain it would inevitably cause problems.

"It's an evolutionary method that can only end in a vegetative state... or an early death."

The Alphauri native regarded the method of using the [Dragon's Lung] he had just deduced with clear disapproval.

"The somewhat fortunate part is that Earth still has almost no awakened doctors. Once otherworldly flesh fully fuses with a body part, it can't be cleanly removed. So in cases like Choi Jin, who has already used an item, fortunately they won't become targets."

Boom!

But that line of thought didn't continue for long.

More precisely, it ended around the moment the physical-enhancement superhuman and the awakened being presumed to possess an electric attribute collided.

"Hmm."

The blond youth turned his head toward the deafening noise.

The emergence of a new human possessing transcendent amounts of mana would normally be something worth celebrating.

But the human created here had undergone a process with severe underlying problems, so there was no reason to dwell on it further.

"On top of that, there are signs they even tried to harm one of South Korea's representative hunters. From this point on, I should treat this as an incident clearly connected to someone I know."

The alien decided to completely dismantle everyone involved in the illegal procedures.

Since Kang Changho's warning still lingered in his mind, however, he had no intention of using any conspicuous offensive magic for the time being.

"What the hell is that?"

But before the outsider could even begin throwing his clumsy punches, the artificial awakened beings inside the pocket dimension suddenly revealed their vicious true nature.

"Crack!"

The black-clad personnel pressed healing kits stained with dark red liquid directly against their own skin.

"They're planning to keep restoring their stamina without limiting the number of uses!"

No matter how beneficial a medicine might be, reckless overuse always produced side effects.

Seeing such blatantly suicidal behavior, Kim Giryeo recoiled inwardly in disgust.

"Don't worry about Kang Changho. Everyone else, capture that outsider."

"Yes!"

"The target changed, but if he's speaking Korean, he's no different from Jeong Haseong on the inside anyway! Shoot him and capture him!"

Once again, there was no room for negotiation.

Apparently, the members of the illegal enhancement clinic couldn't simply leave the outsider alone.

They immediately changed targets and rushed him.

"Damn it."

The alien suddenly found himself dragged into unfamiliar hand-to-hand combat.

Kicking.

Punching.

Blocking.

Naturally, these were movements that even someone without specialized training could perform to some extent.

Crack!

Kim Giryeo frowned slightly as he attempted a simple strike that looked nothing like the jab of a trained fighter.

"W-what... is he so hard?"

"An item!"

"He took a bullet earlier, but he doesn't even look cold!"

Stopping the mammals wasn't difficult in itself.

But the longer the fight dragged on, the more troublesome the alien's position became.

-Thud!

A living soul was, by its nature, delicate, sensitive, and inherently vague.

So what if he casually broke someone's bone and the opponent suddenly went into shock?

Or what if a wound accidentally caused excessive bleeding and he ended up witnessing someone die from blood loss?

"It's not easy trying to subdue my own kind with a body that practically doesn't even belong to me."

To be fair, the alien wasn't someone who rigidly adhered to a no-killing principle.

But neither was he reckless enough to murder people blindly without fully understanding the situation.

"The problem is that nothing is certain yet. And with so many eyes on me, I can't even comfortably use a simple knockout spell. What am I supposed to do?"

Unable to simply kill them, the alien maintained a sluggish defensive posture.

Still, for a mage, the amount of mana contained within one's body was a status symbol.

His power was so overwhelming that simply blocking everything through brute force caused no difficulty whatsoever.

"Hey, Korean!"

At that moment, someone else's voice rang out.

The tone was flat, but the volume was loud and forceful.

"Get out of the gate first!"

"Me?"

"I'll handle things here myself."

Kang Changho shouted.

"We'll talk later! And absolutely do not use your skills."

Strangely enough, he was scolding him while smiling.

But even after hearing that, the alien still hadn't found the slightest sign of the youth he had been looking for, so he wasn't ready to leave.

"If I were going to leave just because someone told me to, I wouldn't have flown all the way here..."

Elusive movements.

Golden hair.

A Korean speaker.

And so on.

Based on everything revealed so far, this body's identity was probably already mostly exposed anyway.

Still, when the same warning came up again, Kim Giryeo became cautious.

"If I reveal my attribute here, could the clinic have prepared some additional countermeasure?"

It was only a brief thought.

"Ahhh!"

"What the!"

"Behind you!"

"Just shoot that one too!"

Thud.

But just as the blond man stopped moving, the physical-enhancement awakened being suddenly changed direction and crossed the distance in long strides.

Whether Kang Changho had decided that the Korean would use a skill if left alone or had some other reason, he advanced aggressively, even abandoning the electric-attribute awakened being he had been subduing.

"Huh?"

And the moment he noticed the S-rank approaching, Kim Giryeo widened his eyes—

for a somewhat different reason.

"Come to think of it, I only looked away for a few seconds. Why is this Korean practically blind now?"

The super artificial awakened being equipped with the [Dragon's Lung].

Only after turning his head did Kim Giryeo finally notice the condition of the short figure.

To exaggerate only slightly, the opponent could practically be compared to an SS-rank, yet he stood frozen in place with blood running down his limbs.

"Against a mage whose attributes aren't even compatible..."

The miracle of generating electricity was ordinarily fast, required little concentration, and could scatter mana across a wide area.

That made it a natural enemy of ordinary physical-enhancement awakened beings.

And yet Korea's S-rank had managed to drive back the central figure of the illegal procedure facility.

Of course, considering the innate difference in their physical constitution, Kang Changho hadn't escaped unscathed either.

"His skin is scorched and mottled. Well, how could a human body possibly dodge lightning?"

Even after suffering injuries like that, he had still rushed over to help a fellow Korean.

It really did make you see a person differently...

"This won't do."

Kim Giryeo finally changed his mind.

"I expected as much. Earthlings normally aren't very good at sensing external mana fluctuations caused by dungeons."

It seemed that, as a seasoned mage, he had finally encountered a situation where he would have to cast at least one spell.

Smirk.

Far behind them, beyond the reach of Kang Changho's [Dragon's Eye].

An old man with wrinkled hands stood there.

And the sky-blue crystal cradled in his arms had already begun manifesting its power.

"Bold enough to act like this in front of two S-ranks. So there really were two powerful items."

It was an entirely white artificial pillar, barely perceptible to mammalian eyes.

More precisely, it was an object often seen in EX-rank gates when an entirely wrong answer was given—gates designed to test a creature's emotions or intelligence.

And given the gate creator's habit of placing such things above humanity's heads, the extreme heat emitted by the pillar of light was naturally...

"If that hits you directly, you die."

Kim Giryeo no longer hesitated.

He unleashed his power to destroy the pillar.

But he truly hadn't expected the primitive man named Kang Changho to react in such an extreme and reckless manner, completely ruining the sorcerer's work.

Bang!

The enhanced human, having closed the distance, drove his jaw forward.

He struck Kim Giryeo directly under the chin with all his strength.

Had the alien not possessed an SS-rank awakened body, the impact might have torn his head clean off.

Kang Changho's overwhelming physical interference caught the stranger completely off guard.

Kim Giryeo's spell shattered instantly.

"Are you crazy?"

And the blow itself was so powerful that the broken concentration was almost the least of his concerns.

A flash.

When the whiteness finally cleared from his vision, several members of the illegal clinic had collapsed like autumn leaves.

The attack fired from the pillar of light had swept directly through the humans.

"_ _"

"_ _"

Kim Giryeo had fortunately been knocked out of the attack's range by Kang Changho's blow.

Kang Changho, however, had suffered exactly the kind of damage the illegal clinic had intended.

Left waist.

Forearm.

Part of the thigh.

None of the organs essential for survival had been damaged, but the patient's condition had clearly become unsuitable for broadcast television.

Technically speaking, Kang Changho was human.

But from the archmage's perspective, it was unbearably burdensome that a creature more valuable than a guinea pig had ended up taking the damage in his place.

"You didn't need to help me."

Utterly dumbfounded, the alien first pointed out Kang Changho's mistake.

But at those words, the Korean ex-convict gave an odd response.

"Yeah. I was just about to say the same thing."

Srrk, srrk, srrk.

Since Kang Changho was standing with his back turned, the owner of the illegal clinic probably hadn't noticed the change in the thirty-something Korean yet.

"Same here. Honestly, I don't need help from any other awakened being."

Kim Giryeo was certain.

From the very beginning, the illegal clinic's staff must have had a solid plan.

They possessed an overwhelming artificial awakened being whose mana reserves alone were practically a status symbol, as well as an artifact capable of manipulating the mysterious phenomenon known as a dungeon as though it were their personal tool.

Without this unexpected disruption, the old man's rosy future would surely have unfolded exactly as he envisioned.

But everything collapsed the moment Kang Changho revealed the hidden "ace up his sleeve" he had kept secret.

The face of the man whose upper eyelids had been scorched by the artificial awakened being's electrical attack finally began to change.

Bright red blood rippled beneath the skin.

Fresh flesh neatly grew over it.

Regeneration.

At that moment, Kang Changho revealed an extremely efficient [Regeneration] skill related to self-healing.

When debris from the building had fallen on him, there had been no need for a caster's ritual to sustain the magic.

When he had been burned by Jeong Haseong's attack...

he had simply chosen not to waste his most effective means unnecessarily.

"Normally, anyone who saw this would end up dead. But you'll have to start thinking about what you're going to do now."

For a moment, consider the situation from the enemy's perspective.

A physical-enhancement awakened being was already tougher than others and reacted faster than they did.

But after barely managing to injure someone like that, what if the response was flawless, safe [Regeneration]?

How would that make them feel?