Chapter 98 – Lord of Despair and Hatred (8)
In the bustling center of the city.
The late afternoon sunlight is bright, and the rare breeze blowing in from the clear sky suppresses the car fumes and cleanses the lungs.
Despite recent incidents, the vibrancy of society has not faded. On the contrary, it is bright and healthy, just as the weather suggests.
Even with monsters wandering around, order, common sense, and trust still exist in this society.
“Scum! Hypocrites!”
He did not like what he saw.
Disgusting hypocrisy and shameless standards.
Oppressive order, shattered common sense, and double-faced trust too.
He thought to himself that the harm this society, and its members, had inflicted upon him deserved to be torn apart a thousand times.
“I found them, all of them.”
With vacant eyes glued to his phone, he soon spotted someone across the street and widened his gaze.
A group of college students laughing and chatting as they waited for the signal. One of them was his target.
“Thank you, The Lord. Thank you, O Sun.”
He silently expressed gratitude to those who revealed the location of his enemy and provided him with an opportunity for revenge, and he began to approach them steadily.
There was no reason to hesitate.
This was something he had desperately wished for, a glorious martyrdom for a true cause, a judgment and revenge against those who had wronged him without anyone acknowledging it.
“Huh?”
As he advanced without hesitation, a female student among the group noticed him and flinched. She then poked the shoulder of the man he was aiming for.
“What? Kang Jun-seok?!”
His fellow classmate from the same year recognized him and widened his eyes.
“What? I thought you were on a leave of absence. What’s going on here?”
“Leave of absence… not possible. Huh, I can’t take a leave now, not when you’re doing just fine at school.”
“Heh.”
He smirked, glaring at the surprise reaction of his opponent. Ahn Cheol-ho, the other guy, simply laughed at him.
The group with Ahn Cheol-ho reacted the same way.
In the past, no matter how righteous he felt, he would have run away from such gazes and laughter.
But not now.
“I expect an apology.”
“Apology? For what? Wow, you’re really shameless. What makes you so special as the brother of a murderer?”
Ahn Cheol-ho raised his voice, as if he was proud.
Indeed, Ahn Cheol-ho was confident he was in the right.
It was he who had spread the information about Kang Jun-seok’s brother raping and murdering an innocent woman, sharing it intentionally around his circle and on the internet.
“Shut the hell up! Justice?! You were just having fun and thrills. Just because a bunch of stupid pigs support you, do you think you’re some judge or something?”
“This bastard…”
His suppressed anger exploded with madness.
The commotion in the middle of the sunny street drew people’s attention, causing Ahn Cheol-ho’s acquaintances to panic.
“Thanks to this, I’ve realized something. You guys, and the others living in this society, are nothing but trash. The one deserving of death is my brother, not me, not my mom, not my little brother.”
Starting to chuckle, Kang Jun-seok slipped his hand into his pocket. A special dagger he had been gifted took root in his hand.
“Your petty and trivial sense of justice, your ridiculous thrill-seeking, have already led to one innocent person committing suicide and another developing autism symptoms. No one helped. In this situation, why should I endure?”
“Hey, is he…?”
“Run… run away!!”
From the hand that drew the dagger, black veins flowed and enveloped Kang Jun-seok’s entire body.
Only then did Ahn Cheol-ho and his group realize the seriousness of the situation, screaming and turning to flee.
“Ugh!”
But they could never keep up with the superhuman speed of the transformation.
Ahn Cheol-ho barely took a few steps before being grabbed by the neck and slammed into the ground.
“Aaaah! Son of a bitch, my leg!!!”
And he crushed Ahn Cheol-ho’s leg beneath his foot. The shinbone shattered into pieces, bursting out of the flesh and spraying blood everywhere.
“Kill, kill!!”
“Wait… save me. I’m sorry, Jun-seok, I’m sorry…”
The black goo spilling from Kang Jun-seok, now covered in black veins, turned him completely into a mad muscle monster.
Before Ahn Cheol-ho could say a word, Kang Jun-seok’s punch instantly crushed his face, bursting it like a watermelon.
“AAAAAH!”
His rampage did not stop with just one killed.
He sliced, stabbed, blew apart, and tossed away those who tried to flee with Ahn Cheol-ho.
“Stop… stop!”
Just then, a middle-aged police officer, who had been nearby, rushed up to the female student who had shared the information about Ahn Cheol-ho’s family and aimed his gun at the monster who was beating her face into the asphalt.
The officer’s hands trembled. He had run in reflexively, but the aura radiating from the monster cloaked in despair and hatred was unbearable for anyone with a weaker mind.
“Scum!!”
“EEEEEK!!”
As the creature, with teeth sprouting wildly, split its face and roared, the officer dropped his gun and began to run away.
Kang Jun-seok tore the already half-dead female student’s corpse in half, chasing after the officer.
“Wh-why is this happening to me!!”
The officer ran, crying. For the now-rampaging monster Kang Jun-seok, every living human in this society was an object of vengeance to tear apart, and so this was just another part of that revenge.
“AAAH!”
The officer was knocked aside, flying through the air and slamming into a nearby car, causing the door to buckle as he rolled on the ground.
Before he could feel the pain, his eyes widened. A beast’s claw was descending upon him.
“Stop it!”
And at that moment, a gleaming arrow flew and struck Kang Jun-seok’s hand.
“Magical Girl!”
The police officer, saved from the brink of death, exclaimed joyfully upon seeing a girl descend from the sky.
Monsters that ordinary humans could not face. It was those girls who specialized in dealing with such threats.
“That’s enough! Magical Girl, we’ll handle this here.”
“Oh! And the Special Task Force too!”
At the same time, a group of people quickly arrived in their vehicles.
The Awakened Special Task Force, equipped with suits and protective gear, recently trained and deployed for actual combat. The officers exhaled in relief upon seeing their sturdy appearances.
“Don’t be ridiculous! I was here first!”
“This is a public safety enforcement matter! According to the recently passed Special Law for the Awakened Special Task Force, we have priority over all incidents happening in Korea!”
“So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to arrest us?”
Naturally, the Special Task Force and the Magical Girls bickered as soon as they saw each other.
It was a sight commonly seen these days. The Magical Girls associated with the Frontier or Casilena tried to avoid clashes as much as possible, but there were still plenty of Magical Girls without any affiliation in this country.
“Heh, heh heh…”
In the midst of this, the monster that had become Kang Jun-seok fueled his hatred even more.
When he was suffering, no one offered him any help, yet here they were rushing over like flies now that he sought revenge.
And the pathetic display they were showing.
“Die!!”
Kang Jun-seok, fueled by rising hatred and overwhelming mana, attempted to attack both the Magical Girls and the Special Task Force.
“What, what’s with his strength?!”
“We need to retreat, Clea! This is at least B-class!”
The Magical Girl, evading the shockwave, performed a mid-air somersault to regain her stance. Meanwhile, her Mascot tugged at her clothing, whining about retreating.
“Attack, now!”
Thanks to the team leader’s quick command, the Awakened Special Task Force finally attempted an assault.
“AAAH!”
“He’s too fast!”
The problem was that unlike the team leader sent from The One Road, the other members comprised a ragtag group of recruits who were still inexperienced in combat.
“What in the world is that aura?!”
The biggest issue was not the lack of experience or firepower. The team leader’s eyes widened, and his body began to tremble.
To withstand the thick, negative energy emanating from the monster born of despair and hatred, one needed to possess equal mental fortitude.
Yet, none of those present had the mental strength to endure the hatred that one person had forged from sacrificing everything—including their life, body, and soul.
Only a few members, who were holding on due to their sense of duty, stood firm, but even they found it impossible to face the monster directly.
“If such monsters keep emerging…”
The team leader forcibly moved his body to draw out a sword as large as himself. He couldn’t guarantee victory.
“There! What was it again… the spell of the witch… something divine?!”
In that moment of desperate crisis, a flash like a blue lightning bolt that could turn the tide of battle exploded forth.
The team leader’s eyes widened as he saw a female student doing a running jump and twisting in mid-air off a nearby three-story building.
She was neither from the Special Task Force nor a Magical Girl.
She had taken off her coat and was only wearing a shirt, with a mask covering her face. But the outfit she wore was clearly not that of a Magical Girl, but a school uniform.
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