BRDM 216

“Do they finally look like they’ve entered the dungeon?”
Anwi lowered the telescope from the Palmyra ruins beyond the desert and slowly looked down.

The subordinate who’d been reporting bowed his head and smiled cruelly. It was the kind of smile you’d expect from the leader of a place once called the Rising Demon of the Near Front—Swaeyoung-gi.

“Yes. We just confirmed the gate opening on the drone camera a short while ago.”

“The gate is the desert city’s gate, right?”

“There’s only one functioning gate right now, so yes, sir.”

SPLAT!

The subordinate’s head burst like a watermelon while he was smiling and speaking.

“I told you when reporting to only bring me verified information. And yet you go spouting guesses like that? Hey, you!”
Anwi retracted his hand with a cold tone and fixed his gaze on the other subordinate at his side.

“Y-yes!!”
The man straightened his spine, bristling.

“Report again.”

“The gate’s color was yellow. I’m certain it was the desert city’s gate.”

“Good. That’s how you report.”
“Th-thank you.”

“If you can report like that, what were you doing when your senior was talking nonsense instead of stopping him?”

“W-well…! I’ll correct it—please spare my life—”

He smirked.
“Nope.”

SWOOSH!

That man’s head was torn open and his body collapsed, blood gushing. The sand floor soaked up red almost instantly.

“Geez… I told you many times not to kill subordinates so easily. It makes it hard to rebuild forces.”
At that, footsteps sounded as someone sighed and stepped over the two corpses—polished dress shoes that didn’t match the heat and sand. Anwi licked the blood off his hand with his tongue and scoffed.

“This world’s full of corrupted people pouring in by the dozens every day anyway. Use ‘em until they’re no good and grab more from somewhere else.”
“So that’s the budget… Ugh. What can I say to people whose only thought is how to eat up money all day?” The man was Chairman Peng’s right-hand.

“Have you come with a message from the chairman?”
“Yes. He asked me to convey this to Lord Onma and to you, Anwi-nim.”

“What is it?”
“‘Sun Wukong has finally fallen into the trap.’”

“……!?”
Anwi’s eyes widened and he turned his gaze toward the place where the Sata King was.

At that moment—

KUUOOOAAAH—!!!

BOOM! BOOM!
Rumble—

“……!!!”
The Sata King, wandering in a half-dream state, suddenly let out a monstrous cry and went berserk. A raging storm snatched through the air. Even though it was a considerable distance away, the ground beneath Anwi trembled and the sky seemed to warp.

[Warning! A fragment of Logos that fell to the lower world has awakened from a long sleep.]
[Warning! The Logos fragment is beginning to rage.]
[Warning! To the safe zone….]

Anwi watched the warning messages filling the area and smiled coldly—an expression equal parts fear and ecstatic thrill.

“Ha! Hahaha! Finally! Finally the Sata King’s awakened body falls into our hands! The essence of immortality—it’s almost within reach…!”
“‘Whatever happens, be sure to recover the ‘leash’ from the lab.’ That’s all.”
The man spoke to him after Anwi had been laughing for a while. Anwi’s smile cut off at once.

Since the Samaa Council surfaced, Chairman Peng’s personality had become much different than before. Where he used to be kind and warm, he had become tyrannical and oppressive. Sometimes cruel—truly demonic. Lately many people feared him—Anwi included. Even his right hand, Onma, was afraid.

“…Anything else?”
“No.”

Anwi ran his hand through hair disheveled by the storm.

“You’re worrying over petty details like a chairman.”
“It’s just that he inspects even the smallest things.”
“I’m passing on exactly what I see: like with Sun Wukong, Jet has also been lured into a trap.”
His gaze shone indifferently—the look of a predator eyeing prey. “Sha-wing is standing by in the desert city dungeon. The moment Jet sets foot in the desert, Sha-wing will grab his ankle… and we’ll come in and cut his head off.” A classic anvil-and-hammer plan.

“After that, reclaiming the lab will be that much easier. The will to resist in the city will be broken once and for all.”
Anwi wore a dank smile. “If Jet resists more than expected, Onma will be deployed immediately. He’s not far from here. Should be enough, right?”
“If we only look at the operation, it’s sound.”
“Of course.”

“But that’s only if everything goes according to plan, isn’t it?”
The man smiled oily as if waiting for a slip, and Anwi frowned. “What are you getting at?”

“It seems things are not going entirely as you planned.”
Before Anwi could snap and shout what nonsense that was, another subordinate came running in trouble. “B-boss! Sir! It’s a disaster! From the dungeon—!!”

“What’s the matter?”
“There’s been an emergency signal from Sha-wing’s connected comm channel since a short while ago—!”
“……!?”
Anwi scowled and snatched the radio his subordinate brought, urgently turning it on.

CHIIIII—

“This is Sha-wing! …Spirit, answer…! Repeat… This is Sha-wing! Swaeyoung…!”

“Jet… ambush… …hold… this place… attack…! At this time… annihilation…!”

“Damn… repeat…! …one more…!”

“……!!!”

Support requests flooded from many channels. Whatever had happened in the dungeon, the messages made it clear that Sha-wing’s ambush had been precisely detected by I-hyun, and they were in danger of annihilation.

“If the anvil breaks right now, the lab will fall into Jet’s hands… can we allow that?”
All of the Samaa Council’s demons knew I-hyun’s target was the lab where the Sata King had been. If the dungeon went entirely into I-hyun’s hands, it could even threaten Swaeyoung-gi instead.

“If we fail to recover the ‘leash,’ I can’t bear the chairman’s wrath.”
“Damn it!!” Anwi snarled and hollered to the motorcycle squad. “Support request! All units, move to the dungeon! Inform Onma of the current situation, now!”
“Orders confirmed!”
“Orders confirmed!!”

At that, a hundred or so bikes howled at once and charged along the desert ridge like a pack of starving wolves.

SCREEEETCH—

I-hyun raced so fast that his group could hardly keep up. A single-point breakthrough. Where he ran like a shaft of light, a mighty thunderclap followed like a sonic boom.

RUMBLE!!
Where his teeth bite, lightning struck down hard and explosions spread in all directions. Flash! Flash!! BOOM!!

Nothing remained where his jaws struck.

The problem was how precisely he located the ambush units disguised around him—so accurate it made him suspect a traitor in their midst. Still, it was easy for I-hyun to find their positions.

BOOM!!

“……!!”
Fear fell into the eyes of the demon watching spectacular tank detonations. These things weren’t supposed to crumble like sand castles at the hands of a mere human.

The luminous man, bound in pale-blue lightning, pressed the axe’s edge under the demon’s chin and hissed, “Where are the units linked to you?”

“We won’t tell—”

SPLAT!
I-hyun detached the demon’s head without hesitation, then pressed the axe under the next demon’s jaw. The demon went pale; the lightning snarled as if about to devour him.

“Location?”
“I’ll tell you! So spare my life—!”
I-hyun knew the demons’ psychology better than anyone. They were trash with no loyalty—self-interest and life above all else. Threaten a few and the rest would spill everything.

‘Peng’s biggest mistake was precisely this—reducing the Samaa Council to just another demon gang.’ When they hid under the shadow of the Central Heroes Committee, they could boast of being in the light; once degraded to a crime group, loyalties and calculations change entirely. ‘When there’s no need to be careful, you stop caring. Run straight ahead and you’ll only later realize you were standing on a blade.’

“I told you everything. Now please spare my life—!”
“I never said I’d spare you.”
“You—You said I did what you asked and now you call me a hero—”
SZZT!

“I don’t like heroes who kill you all off. I hate that.”
Four years ago, I-hyun had been exactly like that: reckless and blind to consequences. He’d come to learn too late that he’d been standing at a cliff’s edge. But that was different now. Thanks to Sun Wukong, he had another chance and now walked carefully, testing each stepping stone—how? By having comrades.

CHIIIK—

“Slow down, senior! If you keep going like this we’ll drop dead first!” a tired Kim Min-jung’s voice complained.

I-hyun smiled lightly and placed the brooch to his mouth. “This is Jet. The city is in sight. Repeat, Jet here. City is in sight. So run a little harder. Over.”

“Ah! That man again—how much—”
I-hyun cut the radio and looked back. As he’d said, there was an oasis city much larger than the Palmyra ruins—medieval, of great scale. Tall, reddish-brown walls stood out first.

Having cleared the ambushes one by one and pressed on, they had reached the city center without wandering in the dungeon. Torturing the demons turned up a lot of information: the city’s location, its state, the survival groups, and more. But—

“Alright. That’s enough cleaning up here….” I-hyun had no intention of entering the city immediately.

“Time to welcome some new guests.”
There was one important piece of information from torturing the demons: ‘Anwi is right behind us.’ The anvil-and-hammer tactic using the dungeon as a trap. But the anvil (moru) had already been dismantled—so the hammer would have realized this and tried to hurry into the dungeon.

So I-hyun planned to hunt them instead—just like they planned to use the dungeon as a trap. Now he would use the dungeon as the trap.

‘And since they’re saying they must secure the lab located in the desert city, their anxiety will be through the roof.’ I-hyun twisted one corner of his mouth. “If I blow that psychopath’s head off, Onma will be dragged in by the hair too, won’t he? Two birds with one stone.”

I-hyun had seen Anwi on the battlefield before. The one called Sand Hunter (Sayeopsa), with that notorious codename. Although low in Peng Jinghao’s retinue, his personality was cruel and memorable. He had cast envious looks at I-hyun when Peng took interest in I-hyun, despite being younger. He and Onma made a perfectly matched pair.

So if Anwi and the Swaeyoung-gi were buried in the dungeon’s sand, even sluggish Onma would be stirred. Then next would be—

‘Peng Jinghao. You’re up.’
“Onma, I’ll set a grand banquet hall just for you. Hurry up and come.”
PAAT!

Clearing his thoughts, I-hyun turned into a spear of light and ran toward the gate. The remnants of Sha-wing and securing the city could be left to the others.