Chapter 82

Chapter 82

Not long after Berserker made the call, the line connected.

Choi Junho’s dry voice came through from the other end.

“Yeah, what?”

“The League made me an offer. They asked if I’d be willing to join.”

“And?”

“I was curious what you’d think, so I reached out.”

“And if I tell you to do something, you’ll obey?”

“Of course. Aren’t you my master? You need to make the call on important matters.”

Berserker said it with his lips curling upward. His feelings toward Choi Junho were, to some degree, genuine. Enough that if Junho told him to die, he’d at least consider putting on a show of it.

Clashing with him several times had built something between them without either realizing it—a bond.

Even so, he absolutely refused to accept it when Choi Junho called him a lunatic.

If anyone was the lunatic, it was Choi Junho.

The real trap was that the man himself thought he was perfectly sane.

“…Don’t talk nonsense. Kill the bastard who came to you. They’re not worth dealing with. A pack of madmen.”

“Just delusional patients, aren’t they? You think they’re insane too?”

“They were spouting off that I was born to be a villain.”

…A chill ran down his spine.

So it wasn’t for nothing that the League had sunk its roots all over the world.

Say what you will, they had a keen eye.

But Choi Junho would never admit it. Everyone around him had already accepted the truth, though.

Berserker smiled at the thought that his own assessment hadn’t been wrong.

“I’ll follow my master’s orders. But do you know Debuffer Shylo? He’s the one who came to recruit me.”

Debuffer Shylo was a rising star whose fearsome reputation had spread across the globe. Before Choi Junho appeared, he’d been considered the most likely candidate to become the youngest transcendent.

Berserker knew Junho paid little attention to his surroundings, but he was curious whether Junho would recognize the name of the man who’d once been the Top Prospect.

It was a name anyone with even a passing interest would know, but…

“Never heard of him. And also.”

Choi Junho’s voice went cold as he paused.

“Why do you keep calling me your master? Say it one more time and I’ll come find you and snap your neck.”

The call ended with that. Completely one-sided. Berserker stared down at his smartphone, then curled his lips upward.

“Kehehe, so he’s embarrassed.”

He was a Level 8 transcendent himself, yet he acted like that even when he liked it. Why did he keep calling Junho “master” even when told not to? Simple. Because it was fun. He knew it was an invitation to get beaten, but he couldn’t stop. And if he didn’t want to get hit, he just had to avoid it.

More than anything, watching Choi Junho move sent an indescribable thrill coursing through him.

Shylo, once called the world’s greatest talent, had been reduced to a nameless greenhorn in an instant, and the League—which made nations across the globe tremble—had been downgraded to a petty villain organization.

Only Choi Junho could say and do such things, and when he spoke, it felt genuine. He looked down on everything in the world without limit, and he had the skill to back it up.

Berserker’s gaze turned toward Shylo. His expression was frozen stiff—he must have overheard the call. What a greenhorn. If it had been Choi Junho, he wouldn’t have waited for the call to end before making his move.

He lacked madness. Berserker had been the same, once. If you wanted to reach the top, you had to be properly insane—like Choi Junho.

“It’s a shame, but I won’t be joining the League.”

“……”

“Anyway, seeing as Choi Junho doesn’t even know your name, I guess you weren’t all that. Kehehe. Go home and try harder, greenhorn.”

“…I was trying to hold back from running my mouth, but I can’t take it anymore.”

Shylo, who until moments ago had been courteous, now had a sharp killing intent in his eyes. He’d become the face of the murderer who’d killed over a thousand people in the United States.

Berserker snorted.

A thousand? That was nothing.

Compared to Choi Junho, that was fake madness.

“What did you just say?”

“If I can’t take you back, I’ll just have to kill you.”

“Who? Me?”

“I never liked you from the start. What’s so important about a nobody living in some backwater that you’d bother caring about it? You’re just some punk who plays boss in a narrow alley.”

“Tsk tsk. If you were Choi Junho, you’d have attacked already. You’re all flash, greenhorn.”

Shylo didn’t bother replying and drew his daggers. The blades in both hands caught the sunlight, scattering brilliant white light.

At the same time, Force began to seep out, radiating an ominous atmosphere.

“You die here, Berserker.”

This is why the world is entertaining.

Watching some greenhorn who doesn’t know his place come charging in.

“Bring it on.”

*

Shylo is a genius. He’d awakened to Force manipulation early, and from childhood he began accomplishing things adult Awakened couldn’t manage.

By opening his gift, Debuff, Shylo had walked a glittering path. Those around him exalted him as an unrivaled genius, and through broadcasts he became the biggest star in all of America.

Having achieved success as quickly as the world lifted him up, Shylo completed no fewer than twelve methods of wielding his Debuff through the transcendent senses only he possessed.

It was an unprecedented achievement—enough to send all of America into a frenzy.

But that was when Shylo began to go astray.

To grow stronger, he used people as test subjects.

The world is vast, and useless humans are plentiful. Shylo abducted them and used them as material to develop his gift’s applications. The moment he crossed the line, his achievements skyrocketed vertically.

But even that grew boring before long. He wanted a bigger thrill. So he began abducting Awakened.

His crimes were exposed thanks to an Awakened who’d been hiding his gift, but that wasn’t a bad outcome. Having joined the League, Shylo was able to see a new world he’d never known.

Argos, Blackhound, Hell Master.

The legendary villains showed him exactly why they were legends, and the Twelve Zodiac were formidable as well. Shylo set his goal on being the first to rise to the Twelve Zodiac, then challenging the League’s Three Evils.

The Berserker before him didn’t even register.

“I’ll show you just how narrow your world is.”

Until not long ago, Shylo had been blocked by a wall.

The massive wall called “transcendent.”

He was the type whose Level rose with every effort he made, but the realm of the transcendent alone was beyond his grasp.

But the League’s benevolence made even that surmountable.

Boost.

It was the fruit of condensing the Force of countless sacrifices. Inject it to trigger a clash with one’s internal Force, granting the Force capacity a transcendent can mobilize.

If the procedure failed, it meant death—but Shylo, with his genius-level talent, utilized the Boost and made it his own, ascending to the realm of the transcendent.

The only drawback was that when Boost activated, instinct took precedence over reason.

“How should I kill you?”

His brain felt like it was soaking as killing intent dominated his mind, and every phenomenon in the world began to feel vividly clear. This was the world a transcendent saw, the senses a transcendent felt.

With this, he’d completed twelve debuffs and added four more on top of that.

His eyes bloodshot, Shylo took in every piece of information about Berserker.

He saw a body trained to the point of resembling armor, and ferocious Force on the verge of exploding. The numbers were higher than expected, but he wasn’t particularly worried.

“First you’ll lose your sense of touch. Then sight, smell, taste, and hearing will vanish—you’ll lose all five senses.”

Strip away the senses a human possesses one by one, and take from your confused opponent what they have left.

Cooking an enemy mired in despair was Shylo’s method.

Having been Level 7 and now a transcendent, the power of his debuffs surpassed imagination.

He was confident that if he challenged them now, he could even take down a Twelve Zodiac transcendent.

He’d actually dealt with a transcendent who’d refused the League’s invitation, and eliminated hundreds of Hunters who’d pursued him.

The power of the debuffs was that strong—stealthy, fast, and lethal.

That transcendent who’d refused the offer had also held his neck stiff with pride before losing his five senses, falling into despair, dropping to his knees, and begging to be allowed to join the League and spared.

Naturally, the League had no need for such trash, so he’d killed him. Not all transcendents are created equal.

Taking down one decrepit transcendent was the greatest achievement of his life—so a half-baked transcendent would be brought to death’s door in an instant.

But that thought shattered the moment he saw Berserker standing there perfectly fine after being hit by the debuff.

“Is that it?”

“…What?”

“Then it’s my turn.”

Berserker wore a smile dripping with killing intent.

*

Berserker had known Shylo’s name for a long time.

A villain of a kind rarely seen, who’d shaken America to its core. That he—once the world’s greatest genius—had turned villain was a massive incident that had turned America upside down.

He’d reached Level 7 in his mid-twenties, and Berserker figured he must have grown even stronger after joining the League.

The power of Shylo’s debuffs was truly tremendous—enough that they were called essential for hunting monsters.

Shylo’s departure, wielding them with genius-level instincts, must have cut deep.

Shylo’s debuffs, which could reduce a powerful Awakened to something less than an ordinary person in an instant, were something to be wary of.

When the bastard cast his debuff, Berserker hadn’t been able to block it. With movements of uncanny precision, Shylo had slipped through his guard and struck from within.

But the debuff exerted no power whatsoever. The moment Immunity to All Poisons opened, it vanished without a trace.

“Kehehe! Kehehehe! KHAHAHA!”

What a powerful gift this was! A gift hailed as legendary had nullified even a gift refined by a genius’s overwhelming talent.

More power! A stronger gift!

All of it was what Berserker desperately craved.

Seeing Shylo’s dumbfounded expression, Berserker felt a pleasure beyond words. This was the emotion only the strong could savor. With Immunity to All Poisons alone, he felt he could destroy the entire world.

But the moment he thought of Choi Junho, goosebumps rose across his body and his mind cleared.

The realization struck him: as long as that man existed, he could do nothing.

Everything he had—Full Recovery, even Immunity to All Poisons—Choi Junho possessed.

Plus the gifts he’d originally held.

Just how strong was that man?

…What was scarier was that he went around calling himself sane after all that.

“I’d better not let my guard down.”

If not for Choi Junho, he could have lived a life of far more destruction.

Every single time something reined him in, it was because that man existed.

The League’s Three Evils? The Twelve Zodiac? None of them registered in Berserker’s eyes.

If he stayed by Choi Junho’s side, he’d be able to see the end of power.

Breaking free from the madness, he saw Shylo’s bewildered face. The bastard was the real greenhorn, living in a narrow world. Berserker felt the urge to throw him in front of Choi Junho.

But he shouldn’t hand over a prize that had fallen into his own hands.

“Let’s see just how impressive a greenhorn’s combat skills are.”

Berserker swung his greatsword and charged in.

*

“GRAAAAAH!”

A monstrous shriek and a series of terrifying booms echoed out.

The debuff hadn’t worked, but Shylo was still quite strong.

Yet he failed to impress Berserker much. Without his debuffs, the bastard was merely somewhat useful. Red Snake Kim Younghwan, whose physical abilities were inferior and whose Force couldn’t exert its full power, had actually been more troublesome.

“KHAHAHAHA!”

Berserker thought he himself was not sane.

Feeling himself going mad, he’d abandoned his family and become a villain.

He’d gone mad, but he absolutely wanted to grasp the moment of the star he’d longed for.

But the speed at which madness eroded his mind outpaced his growth in skill.

He’d thought he’d reached the point of complete insanity, beyond any hope of return.

Until not long ago, that is.

The moment he met Choi Junho, Berserker realized he wasn’t as mad as he’d thought. He’d seen the real thing.

And with that, he was able to break free from the madness that had shrouded him. Having seen a heaven beyond heaven, he realized nothing had ever truly surrounded him.

It was simply a demon of the mind consuming him.

The moment his perspective on the world shifted, Berserker smashed the walls around him to pieces.

CRACK!

Shylo’s dagger broke. Even without a weapon, he should have attacked with his bare hands. If it had been Choi Junho, he’d have welcomed it and lunged to grab him by the throat.

Belatedly, Shylo tried to concentrate Force into both hands to block, but the greatsword turned him to rags.

“Kuh!”

The bastard gritted his teeth and resisted fiercely. But that was all. The moment he lost his Debuff gift, he was nothing but an unremarkable transcendent.

In combat experience, Force capacity, and overall command of the fight, Berserker surpassed him in every way.

The finishing blow was the bone dagger Nuri had given him, driven into Shylo’s chest.

“Obtaining Force doesn’t make you a transcendent, greenhorn.”

“This can’t be… Impossible. I, who was meant to command the world from the League, in a backwater like this…”

Even on the verge of death, Shylo coughed up blood and refused to accept reality.

“Fake madness to the very end, spouting nonsense.”

He ought to show him the real thing and give him a proper education—that was the only regret.

CRUNCH!

“KUH-HUK!”

When Berserker twisted the dagger, Shylo’s heart was torn to shreds, and he died with a scream.

But the heat surrounding Berserker didn’t cool in the slightest.

He needed a stronger opponent. He needed someone else to kill.

“That only whet my appetite.”

Should he actually join the League?

The thought crossed his mind, but he shook his head.

In the end, any group with a purpose is bound to be used for that purpose.

Berserker craved freedom, and he loved it.

He wanted to unleash his urge to destroy to his heart’s content, in freedom without responsibility.

And if he joined the League, Choi Junho wouldn’t sit still.

“That guy’s a lunatic, after all. Kehehe!”

There was nothing more absurd than when a true lunatic called him insane.

Just then, the smartphone in his pocket rang loudly.

Berserker shoved Shylo’s corpse aside and pulled out the phone. The caller was Choi Junho.

“Did you kill him?”

“I did. He was quite interesting.”

“Tell me.”

“A Level 7 activated something like a gift and exerted Force output comparable to a transcendent.”

“……”

Berserker himself had been shocked seeing it in person, so it was no wonder Choi Junho was surprised too.

Berserker let out a laugh laced with killing intent at that reaction.

“Anyway, I finished the bastard off as my master ordered. Can I expect a reward?”

“I’ll come by soon and give you a pat.”

Huh? That’s not what I meant.

Berserker felt his mind clearing.

The madness that had filled his head just moments ago had vanished without a trace.

“That’s not what I was hoping for.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted a reward? You must still be worked up from fighting a greenhorn. Last time we fought, you seem to have healed up completely, so I’ll take you on.”

“……”

“You only come to your senses when you get hit. I’ll be waiting for you in Yeosu.”

In the end, Berserker got nothing back for his trouble and the call ended.

The next day.

Berserker saw the message saying Choi Junho was returning to Korea and heading straight for Yeosu, and spat out a curse.

“…Fuck.”

He immediately got in his car and left Yeosu behind.