Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1345

Escape (4)

“Where are you? What’s your location!”

Xu Qi, the People’s Liberation Army Senior Colonel in charge of this operation, roared.

Normally, pinpointing an enemy’s location requires stealth and meticulousness. But this was not a situation where such things could be considered.

“Signal from R4! R4! Ah, no, wait! It’s R2!”

“You mixed-breed bastards! Can’t you check properly!”

“S-sorry, but…”

“This…”

Xu Qi gritted his teeth.

‘What the hell is going on!’

The encirclement was perfect. He was confident that no one could break through it.

They had established a ten-layered encirclement around the safe house. No matter how powerful someone was, any hesitation would lead to them being caught and surrounded.

But the situation was unfolding in a completely different direction than expected.

“Alert from C7! Target moving from C7 to D2!”

“You crazy bastard!”

Xu Qi cursed, looking at the operational map in front of him.

The distance from R4 to C7 was over 2 kilometers. It would take a regular soldier with full gear 30 minutes, and even a highly trained special forces member at least 5 minutes to cover that distance.

But how could someone cover that distance in just a few tens of seconds?

“Gather troops at B1! Now!”

“Target is changing direction! Moving to F2!”

“That mixed-breed bastard!”

Xu Qi kicked the table.

It was chaos. If you connected the points that had just been reported on the map, it would create an absurd curve. This guy had no intention of escaping at all.

“Even if you’re crazy, there’s a limit!”

Escaping means leaving a space.

Therefore, to escape quickly, the common sense is to find the weakest point and move in a straight line.

And this encirclement was designed to exploit that common sense.

The moment the enemy’s escape route is identified, the front is heavily fortified, and troops from surrounding points move to create double and triple layers of defense. Those exposed to the line of fire would inevitably become corpses, weighed down by bullets.

But this Korean guy, Kang Jin-ho or whatever his name was, didn’t seem to have any intention of escaping.

He was just stirring things up in all directions.

As a result, it was they who were in disarray.

They would move troops to the enemy’s predicted escape route, only for the direction to change again. They had been moving troops back and forth countless times now.

“Move the ones in C5 to C2!”

“There are no troops in C5.”

“What nonsense are you spouting!”

“They moved to B6 a little while ago. No, they’re still moving. By now, they should be… Wait a minute, the GPS!”

The person who turned to check the GPS on the screen distorted their face.

“It’s too far.”

Xu Qi rushed over to check the monitor and gritted his teeth.

The troops were tangled up haphazardly.

Those who had been perfectly forming an encirclement at a reasonable distance were now mixed up and pushed back, becoming such a mess that it was impossible to grasp at a glance.

“Deploy the reserves!”

“Ah, but the troop losses are still…”

“Shut up and deploy them! Can’t you see the empty areas? If we let that guy get away here, you and I will both lose our heads, don’t you know that?”

“I’ll deploy them right away.”

Xu Qi threw the baton he was holding onto the floor.

“That slippery eel!”

It was not a fitting analogy for Kang Jin-ho.

‘This, it’s not even a game from the start.’

Lee Hyun-soo quickly realized what he had miscalculated.

The power analysis was completely wrong from the start.

Basically, Kang Jin-ho had always faced those who came for him head-on.

Most of the battles Kang Jin-ho had experienced were battles where he had to protect something.

That was the case when he was escaping the cultists against the Hongwang faction, when he was annihilating the Japanese on the vast sea with nowhere to run, and when he was facing the Japanese warriors who invaded Korea.

‘That was an absurd penalty.’

Facing a huge force that was pushing in without retreating was practically suicide. But Kang Jin-ho had always survived that suicide and even annihilated his opponents.

So, is Kang Jin-ho’s power only about as much as those he barely defeated?

Absolutely not.

Kang Jin-ho was now proving that fact to Lee Hyun-soo.

With no one to protect and no area to defend, Kang Jin-ho was literally roaming the battlefield like it was his own home.

There’s a flaw.

Even when facing the same number of troops, it’s not the same difficulty for a soldier with a rifle to face a thousand men rushing in all at once in an open field, versus just trying to escape in a chaotic melee.

Especially for Kang Jin-ho, who has an overwhelming advantage in speed, just moving at high speed turns a fight against a thousand men into a continuous series of battles against two or three.

Which one is easier is obvious.

It was the same now.

Kang Jin-ho jumped into the air, stepping on tree branches as he moved. It’s not something to be compared to a monkey. Even a monkey would be shocked by this sight. Jumping 50 meters with just one step on a branch is more in the realm of Sun Wukong [a legendary mythical figure known for his incredible speed and agility] than a monkey.

Then, he would suddenly disappear, and then dive down like an eagle towards the panicked enemies.

Kwaaang!

Lee Hyun-soo squeezed his eyes shut.

There was no time to ring the bell or anything. The moment the explosion went off, the three below would be crushed. They would have died without even knowing how they died, so perhaps it was a good thing?

A wolf among sheep?

‘More like an eagle among earthworms.’

Whether an eagle eats earthworms or not is beside the point, it’s clear that there’s no way to deal with an eagle.

Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu!

Those who found Kang Jin-ho immediately started firing their rifles indiscriminately. Kang Jin-ho swung his Red Spear.

Whoooosh!

With the sound of the air vibrating, hundreds of sword-shaped forms appeared in front of Kang Jin-ho, creating a perfect wall. Sharp metallic scraping sounds erupted in succession. The bullets were being blocked by the sword wall and ricocheting off.

‘No, I like stealth action!’

I hate large-scale battles and survival! Can’t I just hide and run away secretly!

But Lee Hyun-soo’s thoughts couldn’t come out as words. Instead of words, stomach acid surged up.

Lee Hyun-soo turned his head and spat out the bitter liquid that had risen into his throat.

After being shaken this way and that, his stomach had given up. It seemed to have given up on maintaining its function, constantly sending something up his throat.

And unfortunately, because he was caught by Kang Jin-ho, his neck, which wasn’t working properly, couldn’t even spit the stomach acid far away from his body.

Lee Hyun-soo squeezed his eyes shut as he watched the stomach acid flow down his chest.

Kwaaaang!

Kang Jin-ho charged forward, sending those who stood in his way flying like bowling pins.

His eyes, completely bloodshot, were radiating a terrifying bloodlust.

Lee Hyun-soo shuddered at the sight.

‘He’s definitely different from usual.’

Kang Jin-ho in battle was no different from a demon. But today, Kang Jin-ho seemed more excited than usual.

Lee Hyun-soo realized anew.

How much the constraints of the Assembly had been binding Kang Jin-ho all this time. He had to protect someone, he couldn’t retreat, and he had to inflict extreme damage on his opponents…

Kang Jin-ho had always fought with those conditions weighing on him. But at this moment, the only things Kang Jin-ho had to protect were his own life and Lee Hyun-soo’s life.

So, his steps were bound to be light.

“Shoot! Shoot, you bastards!”

Those who witnessed Kang Jin-ho charging at them aimed their guns and pulled the triggers like madmen. Pulling the trigger harder wouldn’t make the bullets go faster, nor would it increase the rate of fire, but those who had lost their minds were putting so much force into pulling the trigger that their fingers were about to break.

But it was all in vain.

Kang Jin-ho, who had leaped into the air, soared over the line of fire and glided down.

Faaaang!

The sword tore through the air. Of course, it didn’t just tear through the air.

Thud, thud.

The heads, separated from their necks, fell to the ground. The headless corpses were still firing their guns even as they fell backward.

“C-Chief!”

When Kang Jin-ho seemed to stop, Lee Hyun-soo immediately shouted.

“W-we need to get out of here first!”

At this speed, they should have escaped already, so why were they still in this forest?

Considering Kang Jin-ho’s speed, they should have arrived in Beijing by now.

This forest wasn’t the Amazon, so why were they still in the forest?

“Not this way.”

“Chief?”

Kang Jin-ho glanced back at Lee Hyun-soo.

“M-my neck feels like it’s about to break.”

“Is that so?”

Only then did Kang Jin-ho release his hand from Lee Hyun-soo’s neck.

‘If I were a normal person, I would have died, you bastard!’

Running at that speed and making sharp turns, it was unreasonable to expect his neck bones to hold up!

Still, because he had trained as a martial artist, Lee Hyun-soo had managed to avoid the tragedy of having his neck broken by Kang Jin-ho’s hand.

But the tragedy was not over yet.

Thump.

This time, Kang Jin-ho grabbed one of Lee Hyun-soo’s shoulders.

“…W-wait a minute.”

“Let’s go.”

Kang Jin-ho started sprinting at full speed without waiting for Lee Hyun-soo’s reply.

Instantly, a pain that felt like his shoulder was about to break surged through him.

‘I should have just told him to grab my neck.’

Regret is always too late.

Kang Jin-ho, who had been charging forward, suddenly jumped up in place.

“Uwaaaah!”

Lee Hyun-soo screamed without realizing it. The scenery that entered his eyes changed from a large tree trunk to a tree branch, and then the open sky and the vast forest filled his vision.

“Ah…”

Under the sky, which was dyed black without a single star, a forest that looked like a surging black wave unfolded.

It wasn’t the time to think about it, but it might be a spectacle he would never see again in his life.

“Found it.”

Kang Jin-ho kicked off the air and accelerated downwards. It was like a missile launched from a fighter jet.

Lee Hyun-soo, who was vividly feeling the sensation of his stomach rising to his throat and then falling back down to his pelvis, shed tears of blood.

‘I should have just asked him to carry me on his back.’

Who cares about appearances when a person is about to die?

But why did he jump up?

Resisting the incoming wind, Lee Hyun-soo desperately turned his head and saw a faint light.

A very faint light.

A very small light coming from a tightly wrapped field tent.

‘Wait, a field tent?’

Kang Jin-ho tore through the roof and landed inside the tent.

“W-what is it!”

“I-it’s Kang Jin-ho! The target…”

Kang Jin-ho curled up the corners of his mouth as he looked at Xu Qi, who was staring at him with a dazed expression.

“Should I at least say hello?”

“You…”

Before Xu Qi could even open his mouth, Kang Jin-ho’s Red Spear tore through the space. Xu Qi’s head, floating up into the air and then falling down, was filled with disbelief and shock.

Thud.

Kang Jin-ho glanced at the head that had fallen to the floor, then swung his Red Spear, splattering blood on the floor. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he ran out of the tent.

Those who were left behind could only stare blankly at the place where Kang Jin-ho had gone, as if they were possessed by a ghost.