In the deep predawn hours when even moonlight could not seep through, the Blue Dragon Guild's secret branch in the heart of Seoul was wrapped in a quiet tension. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary mid-sized company's office annex, but this was the covert base the Blue Dragon Guild used to process back-office dealings and coercive contracts too inconvenient to acknowledge publicly.
The executive office on the building's top floor. Choi Seongguk, who had lost consciousness under Somyeong's pressure during the day, sat buried in the sofa with a bloodless face. Before him stood Park Jintae, the branch chief of the Blue Dragon Guild and a battle-hardened A-rank hunter, smoking a cigarette.
"So you're telling me the second that porter glared at you, your three B-rank bodyguards dropped, and you fainted?"
At Park Jintae's question, Choi Seongguk hunched his shoulders and nodded.
"Director, you have to believe me. That was no ordinary hunter's pressure. I genuinely felt as though I had been to death's doorstep and back."
Park Jintae snorted and ground his cigarette into the ashtray.
"You've let fear get the better of you. The White Tiger bastards must have used some trick. Drugs, maybe, or some unidentified relic. Do you know how much we've invested over that Kang Jina girl? And you want to back off now?"
Choi Seongguk continued glancing around with anxious eyes, but Park Jintae's voice only grew more vicious.
"We move at dawn tomorrow. We raze the White Tiger Guild office to the ground, kidnap Kang Jina, and lock her in our underground training facility. As for that porter brother of hers—break one of his legs and dump him on the roadside. That's all it takes."
"But if the Association finds out......"
"Don't worry. I've already greased our lines into the Association. Disguising it as an accident is child's play."
Park Jintae wore a vile grin as he reached to pour himself a glass of whiskey—
KWAAANG—!
With an ear-splitting roar, the entire building shook violently. It was an impact as though a colossal hammer had struck the building's very foundation. Alarms began to blare belatedly, and the security camera feeds on the monitors flickered with static and died, one by one.
"What?! What's happening?!"
Park Jintae shouted, snatching the dagger at his hip. From beyond the radio came screams and frantic shouting.
- Branch Chief! The main gate...... the main gate is gone! Someone's coming in...... AAAGH!
With a crackle, the transmission cut off. Park Jintae could not hide his shock as he rushed to the door. But before his hand could even reach the handle, the office's thick fire door crumpled like paper and blasted inward.
Through the billowing dust, the silhouette of a man walked slowly in.
The fluorescent porter vest from the daytime was nowhere to be seen. Dressed in comfortable black activewear, Somyeong swept his indifferent gaze across the room. Around him swirled an energy so dense and heavy it defied description.
"Y-You!"
Choi Seongguk pointed and screamed. Park Jintae instinctively sensed his opponent's energy and took a step back. The man before him was, by every magical energy measurement, a mere F-rank. But the overwhelming presence he felt right now dwarfed every S-rank hunter he had faced in his entire life.
"Who are you?! Do you have any idea where you're standing?!"
Park Jintae roared, drawing up his magical energy. A dozen guild combat personnel waiting in the corridor surrounded Somyeong from behind, weapons drawn. Every one of them was a hunter seasoned by real combat.
Without halting his stride, Somyeong murmured quietly.
"Noisy."
The moment the word fell, Somyeong's foot pressed lightly against the floor.
THOOM—!
An invisible, massive wave radiated outward in every direction with Somyeong at its center. It was less a collision of magical energy than a pressure that crushed space itself. The hunters lunging at him froze in midair, unable to move a single step. No—they had not frozen. Every muscle and bone in their bodies had locked rigid, unable to withstand the pressure.
"Begone."
Somyeong swept his hand lightly, and the hunters were hurled into the walls like leaves scattered in a typhoon. With a single motion, the branch's core fighting force had been neutralized.
"You...... you monster!"
Park Jintae gritted his teeth and activated his signature ability. Blue sword energy erupted from his dagger and surged toward Somyeong's heart. A sharp shriek of parting air filled the room.
But Somyeong, as if he had no intention of even dodging, casually extended his left hand.
SHATTER—!
The instant the blue sword energy—capable of cleaving through solid steel—touched Somyeong's palm, it shattered into pieces like fragments of glass. Somyeong seized Park Jintae by the scruff of the neck and slammed him into the floor.
THUD—!
The marble floor split in a spiderweb pattern as Park Jintae's upper body was driven deep into it.
"Khergh! Ugh, urgh......"
"I warned you this afternoon. Never appear before my sister again."
Somyeong's voice was sunken and cold, stripped of all emotion. He turned his gaze toward Choi Seongguk, trembling in the corner, paralyzed with terror. Choi Seongguk was already staring at Somyeong with vacant, unfocused eyes, his mind half gone.
"Where are the documents you were using to strangle the White Tiger Guild?"
"Th-the safe over there...... please, just spare my life......"
Choi Seongguk pointed a shaking hand at a large safe concealed in the wall. Somyeong flicked his finger lightly, and the special alloy safe door—engineered to withstand tons of pressure—crumpled and dropped to the floor.
Somyeong pulled out the stacks of documents piled inside. Unfair contracts bearing Jina's name, and fabricated debt certificates designed to seize the White Tiger Guild by its weaknesses.
'Trying to twist people's lives with garbage like this.'
Crimson-tinged internal force flowed from Somyeong's fingertips. In an instant, scorching heat enveloped the documents, and the stacks of paper scattered as white ash without so much as a whimper. It took less than a single second.
Somyeong looked down once more at Park Jintae, groaning beneath his feet.
"Speak of tonight to no one. If a single word about my identity leaks out, I will erase the Blue Dragon Guild headquarters building from the map—whole."
Meeting the crimson light flickering in Somyeong's eyes, Park Jintae felt a despairing terror. This was not a category of power that human beings could oppose.
Somyeong turned without a backward glance and exited the building on the verge of collapse. The moment he stepped through the main entrance, the branch building's interior walls finally gave way and began to crumble.
***
The next morning, a savory aroma filled the kitchen of Kang Somyeong's home.
Somyeong, wearing an apron, poured beaten egg into a frying pan with practiced hands. In the figure of him carefully rolling the golden egg roll and plating it, not a single trace of last night's merciless war god could be found.
"Oppa, you're up already?"
Jina shuffled into the living room, scratching her disheveled hair. She plopped onto the sofa and turned on the TV out of habit.
- Breaking news. At approximately 3 AM today, an explosion of unknown origin occurred at a building in Gangnam District. The building is known to be an auxiliary facility of the major Blue Dragon Guild. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, though numerous injuries have been reported. Experts are raising the possibility of an explosion caused by a defect in the magical energy control system......
"Huh? The Blue Dragon Guild? Isn't that the guild of that mister from yesterday?"
Jina pointed at the news screen in surprise. Somyeong calmly set the stew pot and egg rolls on the dining table as he answered.
"Looks like it. What a dangerous world we live in. How badly do you have to manage your magical energy systems for a building to collapse?"
"Wow, talk about divine punishment. After being so rude to us yesterday—serves them right!"
Jina sat down before the breakfast her brother had prepared and picked up her spoon. She bit into the thick egg roll Somyeong placed on her rice and beamed with happiness.
"Your egg rolls really are the best, Oppa. By the way, you seem to be in a good mood today?"
"Of course I'm in a good mood when my sister's eating well. Hurry up and eat. You said you have to go to the guild today."
Somyeong smiled benevolently and stroked Jina's head. Knowing nothing, Jina spooned up her stew and wiped yesterday's unpleasant events cleanly from her mind.
But unlike the peaceful breakfast table, the site of the collapsed Blue Dragon Guild branch was utter chaos.
Among the rubble cordoned off by yellow restriction tape, a man in a crisp suit was examining the ground with sharp eyes. Hunter Association Special Investigation Team Leader, Han Minwoo.
He ran his fingers along the strange marks left on a cross-section of broken concrete.
"Team Leader, the analysis results are in. No trace of a magical energy explosion was found whatsoever. The building's frame appears to have collapsed instantaneously from an external physical impact."
At his subordinate's report, Han Minwoo's brow furrowed deep.
"A physical impact? Do you believe it's possible with modern hunter technology to produce this kind of destructive force without magical energy?"
"That's...... by conventional understanding, impossible. But not even one percent of residual magical energy remains at the scene. It's as though a colossal pressure simply existed in the air itself."
Han Minwoo recalled the bizarre incident reported at the White Tiger Guild the previous day. B-rank hunters collapsing without cause, and a Blue Dragon Guild director losing consciousness. And the only civilian present at that scene—Kang Somyeong.
"Too many overlaps to call it coincidence."
Han Minwoo gazed past the rubble of the collapsed building and murmured under his breath.
"Kang Somyeong. What in the world are you?"
A chill morning wind swept across the ruined site. Somyeong stepped out of his house, adjusting his bag. Sensing a gaze on him, he paused for a moment and looked up at the sky.
"Beautiful weather today."
Somyeong made his way down the alley with the clumsy gait of an unremarkable porter, same as always.