[Faceless Hunter 2] Chapter 42: The Strike Team (Patreon)

Cassius von Stormbringer rushed with his strike team to defend the Guardian. Having been made aware of the Abyssal Rift ahead of time, they had come here with the purpose of farming as many abyssal cores as possible before achieving the honor of defeating the first-ever Guardian and saving Tokyo.

He had even gone all the way to Korea to level up and recruit an old friend of his father.

"I wasn't aware Japan had an S-rank lightning mage," Jeokhon, the most powerful Vampire in Korea, mused. Unlike the rest of them, he appeared unhurried despite easily keeping up. His overall decorum was that of an old, albino man, but his ears were as sharply pointed as his features despite his age, and his blood-red eyes gave him a monstrous edge.

"That's exactly what concerns me," Cassius narrowed his eyes. "We don't have an S-rank lightning mage."

"An outsider then?" Jeokhon frowned. "Could it be Tiangang?"

"The Chinese lightning empress? Isn't she SS-rank?" Cassius shook his head. "It would be an international incident if she were seen outside of Beijing."

"What about me then?" Jeokhon smiled, showing two rows of sharp teeth. "Wouldn't Seoul miss me dearly?"

Cassius snorted. "Vampires are different. Governments have long given up on containing your kind, and you know that Korea has a disproportionate number of high-rank Hunters for the number of gates you have. They will be fine without you."

"Hurtful, but true. It's all thanks to Chagwan."

Cassius nodded as they continued to rush toward the Guardian.

It was also because of Chagwan that he had gone to Korea to level up. Chagwan was an S-rank artificer who specialized in spatial manipulation. Because of her, spatial gates were established throughout the World Dungeon below Korea, allowing for quick travel between areas and floors. Prime monster spawning locations were carefully mapped out, and Hunters were given strict windows to cull them to maximize leveling efficiency.

They had trained on the 32nd floor. While teleport hubs existed every five floors in every country, in Japan he would have to waste time battling through floors 30, 31, and 32 to reach the monster spawn area. But thanks to Chagwan's spatial gates, no time was wasted. They had even used one of her gates to travel between Japan and Korea. It was established on the 11th floor because the floor was dark and cavernous, perfect for the Vampires who had funded that particular gate's establishment.

"I wish Chagwan would set up her gates in Japan too," Lyra, the strike team's elven healer, said softly. Thanks to special artifacts, she was able to keep up with them easily, despite usually being rather lazy. "I find the transport hubs so tiresome."

"Her services are on the open market, you know," Jeokhon said.

"Really?"

"Don't get your hopes up, Lyra," Cassius grumbled. "My father looked into it before, and do you know what she asked for? A nuclear submarine. One per gate."

Lyra frowned. "What could she need a nuclear submarine for? Is that the government forcing her to ask for them?"

"The government doesn't dare to control Chagwan. She's just rather... eccentric," Jeokhon said, unable to find a better word. "She believes the end of the world is coming and wants an army of her own."

"Eccentric? No, the word you're looking for, Jeokhon, is greedy. Those submarines cost billions of dollars, and since the appearance of dungeons, their demand has only gone up. Especially those equipped with dungeon tech. Her gates are useful, but not worth billions. No offense, of course..."

Jeokhon abruptly halted.

Cassius stopped with the rest of his strike team.

"What?"

"Something—" Jeokhon began, but didn't get to finish.

The detonation reached them as light first, then pressure, then sound. The entire cavern lit up with a blinding flash of light, distinct from the lightning they had been chasing.

Cassius instinctively raised his arm to block his eyes as a wall of hot, pressurized wind slammed into him, followed by a deafening thunderclap. A tremor tore through the cavern, shattering the amber crystals overhead and prompting Cassius to call on their elven tank.

"Garrick!"

"On it!" The Level 81 Storm Bulwark raised his shield over his head. "Earthed Stance!" A spectral dome of earth mana bloomed from its surface just in time to weather the falling rocks and shards of amber crystal.

A second explosion tore through the distance, followed by another pressurized wall of wind. Garrick's dome flared wider to guard them against the onslaught.

Cassius turned to Jeokhon. "That wasn't lightning, was it?"

"No," the Vampire's face was tense with seriousness. "It reminded me of a physical attack. But for it to produce such force, it would need to be above the realm of S-rank."

Cassius's eyes flickered to the system notification in the corner of his vision and confirmed the Abyssal Rift was still open, meaning the Guardian hadn't been defeated yet.

"Do you think you can win against whoever did that?" Cassius asked.

Jeokhon licked his lips. "I'd have to see the situation first, but to feed on the blood of such a powerful foe would be quite the delight."

Good, if we pulled back now, my father would kill me after all the strings he pulled to smuggle Jeokhon into Japan for this.

Cassius decided to press forward. "We can't be far away now. Let's keep going and see what foreign powerhouse has joined us."

***

The shockwave caught Hina mid-jump and slapped her out of the air. She hit the ground hard and tumbled, winded, before Alex and the others reached her side.

"What the hell was that?!" Alex yelled. Hina's vision blurred as Alex loomed over her and they all huddled under his tower shield while the cavern shook, raining broken stone and crystal upon them.

Hina covered her head and felt blood between her fingers. Her head was bleeding.

Another shockwave of hot air slammed into them a moment later, almost toppling Alex to the ground. Once Hina's head had stopped spinning, she opened her eyes to a cataclysmic scene. Piles of rocks and shattered amber crystals were all around them, and she could barely see a few meters through the thick dust haze.

"Was that... Ghostwire?" Daisuke said and then coughed hard. The dust made it hard to breathe.

"I don't think so," Alex replied. He sounded utterly exhausted as he tilted his battered shield to the side, letting rubble fall off before lowering it and leaning on it, panting. "It sounded like... the Guardian falling over or something."

"What was the second shockwave for then?" Kenji asked, pulling up his shirt to cover his mouth.

Hina nursed her pounding head and forced herself to her feet. "Does it matter—" she coughed as the dust burned her throat. "—we need to keep going."

She began staggering in the direction the shockwave had originated.

"You're insane," Alex said, but joined her anyway. This time, he took the lead, and Hina noticed his arms trembling—likely from exertion rather than fear.

***

Xen experienced Newton's third law of motion firsthand with his very own flesh and bones.

Like a rock dropped on a windshield, his empowered fist delivered 1,866 strength that cratered the Guardian's back, covering it in webbed fractures. That's where his progress stalled, and the Guardian's 1,199 stats of resistance fought back by hurling back at him the same force he'd delivered.

The result was instantaneous and total.

His knuckles didn't break so much as disintegrate, and the destruction raced up from there—wrist, forearm, elbow—each bone imploding a fraction of a second after the last, a wave of ruin traveling up his limb.

[Warning: Human (Spellblade) form has sustained catastrophic damage]

As if a bomb had gone off, he was sent spiraling until he crashed into the ceiling that quaked around him.

Heal me.

Biomass flowed into his body, and a putrid stream billowed out of his ruined arm as it regrew. His shattered ribs, back, and neck also snapped back into place. Peeling himself free from the ceiling, gravity reclaimed its hold, and he hurtled toward the Guardian, but this time, Xen led with the punch and finished what he had started.

A second bone-breaking shockwave sent him flying as his punch connected, and the Guardian toppled over from the force. Managing to grab hold of a thick amber crystal jutting out of the ceiling with his working arm, he hung there and surveyed the situation for a second while he healed.

Guardian's down, for now. That leaves the rift open to attack, and I'm sure it will feel my strikes. He dropped down from the ceiling with a thud that dented the porous ground, strode through the dust haze until he had passed the Guardian and stood before the Abyssal Rift.

"One more time," Xen muttered, pulling his fist back. If not for Buff of the Berserker dulling the pain, he might have been knocked out by those previous strikes. Using nothing but his raw strength, he threw his everything into punching the Abyssal Rift.

Once again, he was thrown back by his own punch. But this time, he was grinning behind his mask as he hit the ground. The Abyssal Rift shattered behind him like a pane of glass, and while not destroyed, abyssal mana was no longer flowing from it into the surroundings.

It was only drawing it in to heal.

The closed loop had been broken.

Xen rose to his feet as steam enveloped him.

The Guardian has no way to heal or sustain itself now. He rolled his shoulders as he walked over to the mountain-sized monster that was trying to right itself. I'll end this quickly.