The Hero Returns

"Ah, yeah, we meet again."

Su-hyeun froze up for a moment there, but he quickly calmed his pounding heart.

Suppose he hadn't already run into the illusion of the past Fafnir back in the Land of the Dead Gods. In that case, he might have ended up getting far too agitated at this moment.

Whatever the case might be, though, Su-hyeun regained his calm very quickly. And that's why he was able to come to a decision really quickly.

"Sorry, but I'm kind of busy right now."

Snap—

Rumbleeeee—

Su-hyeun snapped his finger, causing the divine Flame to burn Fafnir's image created through the energy from the destroyed stele.

"So, stop messing around with clones like this and show up yourself if you want to fight me."

"The reason you're busy is you're trying to stop the doorway to the Dark Realm from opening up?"

"That's right. The crappy mess you left here is huge and stinky."

Pazzzzik—!

The "clone" withstood even the divine Flame, so Su-hyeun gripped a Thunderbolt next. "That's why you should keep your trap shut and—"

"If that's what you're worried about, fret not."

"What? Why?" Su-hyeun furrowed his brow deeply and glared at Fafnir's gradually fading image. He was trying to figure out the meaning behind what the Predator said.

"Originally, I planned to take a little more time before invading you, but this should be enough of a preamble. I shall simply go with a smaller scale invasion and open the doorway right away."

"You know, that doesn't really line up with what you said earlier about not fretting."

"That's to be expected since no matter how much you struggle in vain, you cannot stop me. Besides, this is your fault as well."

"My fault?"

"The doorway was designed to automatically open up when the number of the mediums decreased past a certain level for some reason. Although the doorway's size will become that much smaller, the end result of your world coming to an end again will not change much."

"Aaah, is that so?"

Su-hyeun didn't need to listen anymore.

Flash—!

Rumbleeee—!

The Thunderbolt in Su-hyeun's hand flashed, and Fafnir's clone was sucked into the maelstrom of crimson-gold light before getting extinguished altogether.

"Thanks for the good info. It'll come in handy later."

He didn't have a lot of time left.

Since the information came straight from Fafnir's mouth, Su-hyeun wasn't totally sure if he could trust it, but even then, the odds were good enough.

"First of all, finding out the location of the doorway takes priority."

This fight wasn't simply against Fafnir. No, it was against a huge world called the Dark Realm, too.

It was a race against time as well.

"The scale of the doorway. If I want to find that out..."

Su-hyeun looked up.

Rather ill-fitting for the current crappy situation, the sky above was so pristine, blue, and utterly beautiful to behold.

Ba-dump—!

Su-hyeun's heart powerfully pounded away.

Why hadn't he thought about it before?

No, more than that, why hadn't he been conscious of it until now?

"The sky!"

The Godhood of Sky he now possessed was definitely not some sundry ability to strengthen the Thunderbolts and do nothing else.

Su-hyeun closed his eyes. When he did, it felt like his body was floating up.

And then, he became the sky itself.

"I can see it."

It felt as if he was sitting by a desk and taking a look at the world through a globe, and as he looked down on the planet, the power of his Insight activated.

"Found it."

There it was, in the middle of the vast, blue expanse of the Pacific.

Quite a large area there had become dyed in "darkness." The affected area seemed to be around one-third of the Pacific's entire surface area.

It was the doorway connecting to the world on the other side—to the place with a name literally meaning a world of darkness, the Dark Realm.

"It's already halfway open, isn't it?"

The color, for now, hadn't completely turned black yet. Technically speaking, it would be right between gray and black.

However, it seemed the color wouldn't need a lot of time before completely turning black.

"So, it was true."

Honestly, Su-hyeun was inwardly hoping that Fafnir was just bluffing or trying to mislead him with false information. Unfortunately, neither of those seem to be the case.

Dudu, dudududu—

Ku-gugu—

Rocks strewn about on the seafloor were trembling. Then, the terrain itself began rumbling ominously.

"It has begun, huh?"

It began even sooner than he expected.

Just like what Fafnir said, the doorway was opening up.

[Earth Shrink Technique]

[Leap]

Su-hyeun activated both the Earth Shrink Technique and Leap at the same time. He stepped on the empty air several times and reached his destination, the center of the Pacific, in a matter of minutes.

His eyes soon caught the sight of the blackened ocean. There it was, the passageway connected to the Dark Realm as he saw just now.

"What on earth is going on here, Mister Su-hyeun?!"

Bzzzt, vrrrr—

Luslec's voice came to him almost at the same time as the phone tucked in his pocket began noisily ringing.

It seemed that both of his helpers had sensed what was happening here to some degree.

Su-hyeun reached inside his pocket to pull the phone out and answered it. He then spoke to both Luslec and Gordon Rohan at the same time, "From this moment on, please make sure that not one person comes near the center of the Pacific. And also, please don't try to join me during the battle."

"Has the doorway opened up already?!"

"I don't know what's going on here, but...Will you be okay?"

The two men's reactions contrasted each other. Luslec was stunned to learn that the doorway had opened up, while Gordon Rohan, seemingly having understood how grave the situation was, asked in a serious voice.

What a relief it was, though. If Gordon Rohan recklessly tried to come here, saying he wanted to fight alongside Su-hyeun, the latter would have had no choice but to send a summon to stop the American.

Gordon's role was to destroy the steles, and that was it.

"Yes, I'll be alright."

Crunch—

Su-hyeun stopped talking, then crushed the phone and dropped it to the ocean below.

"It'll have to be alright."

He no longer needed to receive calls or even make one.

Su-hyeun sucked in a deep breath. He stared at the vast ocean that was gradually getting darker in hue and enhanced the power of Insight.

"I wonder. If all of the steles were still intact, just how wide would this thing have been?"

Maybe a doorway so large that it exceeded the Pacific and covered the half of Earth might have opened up. Compared to that, this size wasn't all that special.

"Well, now..."

That's why doing this was also possible for him.

Ruuuumble—!

Massive flames traveled through Su-hyeun's arms and spread out to the surroundings.

The flames soon blanketed even the sky and eventually created a massive enclosed sphere.

This enclosed space of fire had completely surrounded the gigantic doorway.

[Flame - Territory Declaration]

A space that burned and killed all those Su-hyeun recognized as enemies had been created now.

"As I thought. Doing this eats up a chunk of my magical energy, but still..."

Even then, maintaining a space of this size didn't burden him all that much.

"Hurry up and come already," Su-hyeun muttered as he stared at the slowly opening black doorway. "Fafnir."

* * *

"Mmmm?"

Munch, munch—

Sun Wukong raised his head as he continued to munch on the food that filled up his mouth.

Both of his hands were holding the large thigh meat of a deer. He was in the middle of devouring his meal as if there was no tomorrow since he hadn't had meat in a while.

"Wukong."

"Fi—rst Bro—ther…you…also…sensed…that?"

Sun Wukong quickly turned his head and looked at the Bull Demon King across the bonfire in the front yard with deer meat sizzling on top.

The Bull Demon King was rendered speechless by Sun Wukong's face just then. He then slowly face-palmed and replied, "You should swallow first before saying something."

Gulp—!

Sun Wukong forced all the meat in his mouth down his throat, then shot up to his feet while even throwing away the meat he had been looking forward to enjoying so much. "What was that just now?!"

"Isn't this the moment you've been waiting for?"

"Wait, so today is that day? Really?"

He sounded both excited beyond words and worried deeply at the same time. Even Sun Wukong himself found it hard to figure out his own emotions.

The Bull Demon King staring at him chuckled hollowly as well.

"Will you head out, then?" As such, the Bull Demon King decided to ignore Sun Wukong's state.

Because there could be only one answer, after all.

"Isn't it obvious, First Brother?" Sun Wukong hurriedly packed up the deer's thigh meat to eat, then waved his hand in another direction, "I'll be back soon, old man."

* * *

Wiggle, wriggle—

The darkened ocean began "writhing." The black color, which used to be closer to gray, had now become completely black.

"Here they come."

POW—!

Kkyaaaah—!

A monster resembling a huge centipede rose rapidly from the depths of the Pacific Ocean. It was a Prey.

"Gluttony."

Split—!

And then, a mouth so huge that it dwarfed the centipede appeared mid-air.

"Devour them all."

Chomp—!

Crunch, munch—

Gluttony's mouth began swallowing up and devouring the Preys rushing outside the doorway. Initially, only one or two Preys showed up at once, but some time later, they appeared in dozens upon dozens.

"Are the weak ones crossing over to this side first?"

Su-hyeun didn't do anything at the entrance of all these Preys.

There was no need for him to directly get involved in the current stage. Gluttony and Prince Nezha were more than enough. And if it got a bit too close, then he could even deploy a hidden card called Kali, too.

One of the most important things in a battle of numbers was one's endurance.

Even if he had acquired the Godhood of Sky, and the amount of magical energy required to fire Thunderbolts had decreased, and even if all of his stats had risen up overall, his individual strength still remained finite.

Crunch, munch, chew—

Slurp, drool—

Gluttony continued to devour the Preys that showed up. In all honesty, it was now basically strong enough to enter the tail-end of the list of the One Hundred Evils, so these Preys that didn't even possess much intelligence or ego wouldn't have served as good snacks to satiate the summoned creature.

Despite that, though, Gluttony seemed quite satisfied right now.

"So...tasty..."

It was not important whether they were strong or not. To Gluttony, who suffered from the desire of "insatiable appetite," any food that could fill its stomach up would come across as delicious.

"Sure, sure. Eat to your heart's content, okay?" Su-hyeun slowly unsheathed the sword he got from Kim Dae-ho. "Today will be a huge feast for you."

Pazzzik, bzzzzzzik—

Arcs of electricity began dancing around the sword next.

"So, they are finally here."

Su-hyeun raised the sword up high.

He sensed a profound, heavy aura emanating beyond the Preys rushing out from the blackened ocean waves.

Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands...

Innumerable Preys practically impossible to count caused writhing movements in the depths of the ocean. And when he detected them...!

[Thunder Sword]

[One Sword Cutting Through Everything - Ocean Divider]

FLASH—!

KA-RUUUUMBLE—!

The currents of the Thunder Sword split the ocean apart along with the flames surrounding it.

SPLAAAAASH—!

The ocean was split in half.

For a greeting, this attack seemed a bit on the excessive side.

The dark passageway revealed itself on the seabed after all the seawater parted ways.

The sword strike slashed straight through that passageway, and ashes that used to be Predators scorched to death by the electrical currents were scattering everywhere. That single strike was enough to kill about 20 percent of all the Predators that had shown up this time.

He had expected the strike to deal with at least half of them in one go, but even so, he wasn't all that disappointed by the result.

"As I thought, it's not going to be that easy." From the get-go, Su-hyeun's true target wasn't all these small-fries. "So, you finally decided to show up."

Gu-wu-wung—

The ocean undulated violently, and waves tumbled about. The skies beyond the range of the divine Flame were suddenly dyed black, while the visible land and vegetation instantly lost all vitality. Even winds stopped blowing.

The whole world was shrinking back just because one creature had made its appearance.

Below the split-open ocean...

A giant that had traveled through the passageway connected to the Dark Realm to reach this world had raised his staff to block the Thunder Sword.

This giant's creepy red eyes locked glares with Su-hyeun's eyes shining in a blue hue.

It was an unforgettable giant with the head of a black dragon—Fafnir!

Perhaps the long wait was to blame here because rather than getting all tense, Su-hyeun was actually feeling glad about this long-delayed reunion.

But then...

"Have I remembered you wrong?" Su-hyeun stared at Fafnir that had finally come, and asked, "You aren't even going through puberty, so why do you look even bigger than before?"