Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 237

237. Hell’s Star (4)

Ivanov fell silent at Hyun-woo’s words.

A strange silence filled the reservoir, showing no signs of breaking.

Kirson shook his head, and even Hahyeon’s face changed as he looked at Hyun-woo.

In that situation, Hyun-woo seemed to be the only one who was unperturbed.

Breaking the long silence, Ivanov opened his mouth.

“To think you interpret it as me bestowing a favor, that’s quite something.”

His voice was filled with deep contempt.

“So, you’re saying you’re the one in charge? No, are we even dividing things into ‘who’s in charge’ in this situation? Your very existence is an opportunity created by the sacrifice of numerous powerful forces. Do you feel no indebtedness at all?”

“What? Did I ask you to sacrifice for me?”

Ivanov was speechless again.

He had thought about it countless times since the promise and had been considering this moment even while coming down to the shelter.

But he never expected Hyun-woo to be so brazen.

He didn’t expect him to gratefully accept it with thanks, but he at least thought he would be grateful for his kindness.

“…I don’t know what to say.”

Ivanov muttered, letting out a deep sigh.

“So, what attitude do you want me to show? Friend? Ally?”

“Well, if you feel indebted to the other pioneers who sacrificed for the ‘promise’…”

Hyun-woo said with a smirk.

“Shouldn’t you at least kneel?”

Ivanov felt a subtle anger simmering deep within his chest.

Numerous agents and apostles of the stars had died for the promise. Even now, many feel indebted to that fact.

That sense of indebtedness has become a factor in delaying competition and making the fighting sluggish.

“So, all that so many people, so much goodwill, so many sacrifices protected was just a selfish bastard like you.”

“Ah, sacrifice, courage, goodness. Good. Those are good words.”

Hyun-woo twisted his lips and muttered.

“But the guys who bring that up are all twisted somehow. Is that why they could only protect a patch of land even with those hearts?”

Ivanov froze at Hyun-woo’s words.

“Every one of them is quick to regret and show off after the fact, but in the end, all that’s left is destruction. In the end, you made the world like this and try to pass the responsibility on to me, acting like you’re doing me a favor by telling me to crawl under you? I want to ask if you’re even in your right mind.”

***

Ivanov understood Hyun-woo’s contempt and hatred.

He was the one who deserved to be angry more than anyone else, but his attitude was unacceptable.

What he was trampling on and spitting on now was the noble sacrifice of good people, even if they were failures.

“I wish I could persuade you, young man.”

Ivanov opened his mouth quietly.

“I respect the promise. I hope my respect is not meaningless…”

“If you can’t even kneel, then at least lower your head.”

Hyun-woo spat out briefly and rushed forward quickly.

Ivanov raised his hand to try to stop him.

He understood Hyun-woo’s hatred, but he had no intention of fighting him. But Hyun-woo wasn’t trying to attack Ivanov.

Hyun-woo brushed past Ivanov at a precarious distance and attacked Lampel behind him.

Tam’s blade struck down on Lampel’s hand.

It couldn’t cut off Lampel’s hand, but it was enough to loosen the strength of his dulled grip.

Kawaro, who had been hanging in the air, rolled to the ground.

Hanging like a lump of meat, Kawaro looked at Hyun-woo with a bewildered expression.

Lampel chased Hyun-woo away as if chasing away an annoying fly and tried to grab Kawaro again.

“Get up, Kawaro. You bastard! You’re so lazy!”

Kawaro wore a dumbfounded expression.

He never imagined he would hear such harsh words from a mere human, not even a Starving Star [a being that consumes planets].

But Kawaro wasn’t weak enough to be caught by Lampel, who had become dull due to being undead.

He barely stepped back and created distance.

“Hahyeon, release Curie!”

“Huh? Uh, what, ah, damn it. Okay!”

Hahyeon wore a complicated expression, but instead of judging for himself, he decided to entrust everything to Hyun-woo.

Curie, who had been unable to do anything because her brain’s nervous system was suppressed, suddenly regained her senses.

The moment she took a deep breath, flames soared from her entire body.

“Kugh, damn it, get out of my head!”

Curie was still flailing her hands as if recalling a moment from a long time ago.

Before Hyun-woo could shout at Curie’s pathetic appearance of struggling without her legs, Kawaro spoke first.

“Curie, you pathetic thing! Don’t lie down and fight like a bug! If you’re going to fight, stand up and fight!”

“Kawaro?”

Curie’s eyes widened and sharply followed his figure.

She seemed to lose her words for a moment at the sight of him looking like a pretty beggar without any accessories, but soon she flared up with fiery anger.

“Kawaro, you son of a bitch, you’re the one who cut off my legs!”

“What are you talking about from back then? Now is not the time for us to fight each other!”

He knew he shouldn’t be saying that as the person who first hit her in the back of the head and cut off her legs, but it wasn’t wrong either.

Curie could soon sense Ivanov’s presence, and countless numbers of the army of the dead and even Lampel. The moment her gaze stopped at Lampel, her mouth dropped open.

“Ivanov!!”

During this chaos, Ivanov stood quietly. He was just quietly staring at Hyun-woo.

“Is it all over, young man?”

His gaze turned to Kawaro, Curie, and then Hahyeon in turn.

“An apostle of a Starving Star with depleted mana and wealth, a Conquering Star [a powerful entity focused on domination] who lost her legs and comrades, and a Whispering Star [a being that influences through subtle suggestions] who hasn’t even been born yet… I don’t know what to call that. Anyway, even calling them a spectacle is not enough. Do you really think you can oppose me with things like this, even if they help you?”

“Why? There’s still one left.”

“One?”

It was finally time to pull out the card he had been cherishing.

He didn’t know if it would work, but it was still a 4:1 fight.

If this didn’t work, there was no hope. But more than any other reason, Hyun-woo desperately wanted to kill him.

“Who do you think is the angriest in this place?”

Ultimate: Beast of the Apocalypse.

Black smoke soared up with the momentum to tear the world apart.

Ivanov sighed as he watched the black smoke that instantly covered the entire reservoir.

An ominous and atrocious energy.

The black smoke containing the Beast of the Apocalypse rushed towards Ivanov in an instant.

***

The power that gnawed at the world, rusted it, and returned it to dust filled the reservoir.

The already dark reservoir was filled with pitch-black darkness where you couldn’t see an inch ahead.

Sight was no longer meaningful. He had no choice but to rely on other senses to guess the enemy’s movements.

Trapped in the darkness, Ivanov puffed on the cigar in his mouth and stared into the depths of the darkness.

“I don’t know if it’s fortunate or unfortunate for me that you are such an immature being.”

As if responding to Ivanov’s words, a tearing scream erupted from beyond the darkness.

His fingertips moved.

The sound of Thompson submachine guns rang out in succession, targeting the darkness.

The bullets futilely cut through the air, but as if responding to the wails of the bullets, the ground began to undulate and move.

It was enough to make Hyun-woo, who was trying to overwhelm Ivanov as the Beast of the Apocalypse, lose his balance and flinch for a moment.

Something was rising from the ground that was enough to disrupt even the momentum of the black smoke.

“There are no corpses here, but there are interesting materials.”

Ivanov muttered.

A giant of crimson blood was rising, containing the soil and corpses of the reservoir.

Hyun-woo could quickly realize the main material of the giant.

And he gritted his teeth.

“Young man, this is a Blood Golem made from your own blood. I wonder what it feels like to have the karma you have accumulated until now come crashing down on you?”

The Blood Golem soon collided with the Beast of the Apocalypse.

The massive bodies collided simultaneously.

The entire reservoir shook from the impact.

The beast’s claws tore apart the Blood Golem’s head and scattered it, but the Beast of the Apocalypse also felt a pain as if its neck would break.

Paradoxically, the Blood Golem contained Hyun-woo’s power deeply.

This was because Hyun-woo had used the power of the apocalypse to strengthen his poison blood.

Because of this, he was able to create a powerful poison that could work even on apostles, but now it was not beneficial.

Bang! Kwajik.

The Blood Golem’s head was naturally restored as if nothing had happened.

The golem resisted even after being struck by the beast’s attack that tore everything apart and gradually pushed the beast back.

Moreover, no matter how much the Beast of the Apocalypse tried to increase its size, it could not exceed the size of the reservoir.

‘It’s not enough.’

Ivanov was quietly staring at him from beyond the Blood Golem.

Hyun-woo gritted his teeth. He wanted to tear down and trample on his gaze, his attitude of looking down from a high place, right now.

No one can do that.

At least in this world, he shouldn’t be looking down on him with those eyes.

‘It’s far from enough.’

To do that, he lacked the power to drag him down into the mire.

No, Hyun-woo had that power.

When he went through the ordeal through Tam, the moment he first awakened his ultimate, he was the completed apocalypse. With that power, he could tear Ivanov apart.

But compared to then, the current Beast of the Apocalypse was just a small and immature wolf cub.

‘Something is suppressing me.’

He couldn’t know what it was.

However, Hyun-woo was not the only one in this place.

The moment the Blood Golem clasped its hands together and struck the Beast of the Apocalypse’s shoulder, Hyun-woo felt a pain as if his right arm was breaking.

The Blood Golem didn’t stop there and tried to strike the beast’s head once more.

But at that moment, something pierced the Blood Golem’s head. It was Curie’s burning spear.

“You weakling. Can’t you get your act together?!”

Curie couldn’t throw the spear properly because she couldn’t even stand up, but it was enough to provide support.

At the same time, he felt his right arm, which seemed to have been broken, recovering in an instant.

Kawaro was glaring at him from somewhere in the smoke.

“You bastard, you were aiming for this? You’re the real deal, huh? Damn it, damn it!”

Kawaro cursed non-stop while assisting Hyun-woo.

One joint of his little finger had been cut off.

It seemed he had sacrificed a part of his body thanks to having all his accessories taken away.

Ivanov looked at the apostles with a dumbfounded expression, but Hyun-woo grinned.

“You guys can’t stand seeing others do well. Isn’t that why the world is in this state?”

“…That’s not wrong.”

If they can’t have it, no one can.

To do that, the stars would do anything, even desperately sabotage. Rather than appealing to recognition and sincerity, they needed clear benefits or threats.

Every one of them was the same. In the end, they were no different from the cursed ones.

“But can the death march be stopped by losers?”

The army of the dead began to move.

Kawaro soon began to avoid Lampel’s brutal axing, and countless undead were swarming Curie as well.

The head of the Blood Golem, which had been destroyed by Curie’s spear, was already recovering.

Since its weakness wasn’t its head in the first place, the Blood Golem was still pushing Hyun-woo back.

And in this small apocalypse, the beings that were becoming stronger than anything else were moving.

Thud, Lampel, who had become undead, felt the blade he was wielding suddenly blocked by something.

It wasn’t anything great. A very small scythe was blocking it compared to the ax he was holding.

At that moment, a chill spread out through a small crack in the ax.

A sharp sound erupted. The ax exploded into pieces in an instant and scattered.

Lampel was covered in fragments and let out a strange sound.

The giggling sound disappeared beyond the darkness.

All Lampel had felt until then was the existence of a small scythe. He didn’t know what was holding the scythe.

Curie felt something small moving in the darkness.

All she could hear were footsteps.

The small monsters that had attacked them earlier came to mind.

Crude and weak monsters, but in the black smoke, they were a breakwater that blocked the army of the dead, and even like a volcano pushing back the sea.

Bang! The Beast of the Apocalypse collided with the Blood Golem once again.

The Blood Golem was heavily seated, blocking the beast’s movements.

“You are raising the beasts of the apocalypse even with a young body, young man.”

Thud, the beast collided with the Blood Golem once more. Ivanov watched the scene and muttered heavily and solemnly.

“But it’s just maintaining the situation.”

Ivanov was still not moving, and the army of the dead was endless.

If Kawaro died, Kawaro would become a new subordinate, and if Curie died, Curie would become a new subordinate.

They would lose their status as apostles, but their bodies alone were valuable enough.

But in that darkness, the thinnest yet strongest force was moving.

All Ivanov felt was a very weak sense of incongruity.

The moment he realized that incongruity, Ivanov gathered strength in his body and emitted cold air.

The spiderwebs that surrounded him froze and shattered the moment the cold air spread out.

But the Blood Golem didn’t have that talent.

The moment the Beast of the Apocalypse collided for the third time, countless spiderwebs tore the Blood Golem apart.

Before those lumps could reunite, the Beast of the Apocalypse tore apart the Blood Golem that had been torn apart and scattered it in all directions, and then it broke through and rushed towards Ivanov.

Ivanov tried to evade, but he was a beat late.

Kwajik!

Sharp claws sharply scraped off Ivanov’s skull.

The skull with its face split in half fell to the floor.