Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 309

309. Asura (1)

A torrential downpour painted the world in shades of gray.

The ravaged, uneven ground was unrecognizable.

The relentless rain turned the dusty earth into a quagmire, surging like a river through the furrows.

In the difficult, muddy terrain, Hunters ran, gasping for breath, their eyes gleaming as they darted around.

“There!”

The silhouette of a tall woman came into view.

Adam Fault.

Finding her in this downpour was difficult enough, but the real problem was what came next.

Adam clasped her hands together.

Kugung!

The moment an explosive force radiated from Adam, the surrounding raindrops shattered and scattered.

The circular, intangible burst was visible even from afar.

Those with abilities who had approached Adam collapsed, vomiting blood from their mouths and noses.

The impact wasn’t fatal, but their internal organs were so shaken that they couldn’t move.

“Don’t get close!”

A Hunter from the South China Alliance, seemingly a commander, shouted, trying to direct the others. However, the pouring rain and thunder made it difficult to assess the situation properly.

It was even less likely that orders would be conveyed effectively.

“Damn it, the radio? Still not working?”

“The storm is making communication impossible! We should retreat…”

“We can’t afford to lose Adam again!”

Already six times.

Repeatedly losing Adam in this downpour and being attacked had decimated their team.

Total annihilation was practically imminent, but they couldn’t retreat now.

They had to hold Adam until reinforcements arrived.

Kugung!

The commander staggered, feeling a throbbing shock as the vibration echoed. His adjutant couldn’t withstand it and slammed his head into the ground.

Aside from the internal damage, the strange, resonating boom rattled his semicircular canals [the balance mechanism in the inner ear].

Unable to maintain his balance, the commander had no choice but to kneel.

“Ugh, heuk. Ugh.”

The rain lashed at his entire body like drills. He felt like a nail being hammered into the ground.

The commander saw Adam slowly walking. Adam looked around, and when more Hunters approached, she clasped her hands together again.

Then, the moment she released her hands, another heavy shockwave reverberated.

The Hunters couldn’t withstand it and collapsed.

The commander realized Adam’s attack method. She manipulated a strange, intangible force, compressing and releasing it to create a destructive vacuum in the area.

‘Is that even possible?’

It might be possible with tentacles that had suction cups capable of creating an enormous vacuum.

However, the commander determined that the brief moment when Adam brought her hands together and released them was their only chance.

‘Somehow…’

If he could rush Adam and prevent her from moving her arms, they would have an opportunity.

The commander steadied his dizzy body and prepared to charge. The moment Adam clasped and released her hands again, the commander lunged toward her.

As he dashed forward, staking everything on a single leap, something grabbed the back of his neck.

The commander realized he was dangling in the air.

Adam was staring intently at him.

The commander realized that simply grabbing Adam’s hands wouldn’t solve anything, that Adam was an opponent they couldn’t restrain with their abilities from the start.

And that Adam was using this cumbersome method merely to avoid killing them.

“…You should have just stayed down.”

Adam looked at the commander and clasped her hands together. Instantly, the commander felt suffocated. He felt his body being tightly compressed from all directions.

There was no time to feel pain. A chilling sound echoed.

Bang.

The moment Adam released her hands, there was no trace of the commander who had been hanging in the air.

Only a few foreign substances mixed in with the pouring rain. Adam looked around.

He was the last one standing.

Then, she saw the radio the commander had dropped.

[Chik, cheeik… Team. Can you hear me? Cheeik. Kang Hyun… appeared at the sniper team’s location. Operation impossible…]

Smash. Adam crushed the radio and swept her rain-soaked hair back.

She didn’t like how her whole body was drenched. She didn’t like the heavy rain that made it hard to breathe.

It felt like the evaporated sea of the West Coast had turned entirely into clouds.

Hyun-mu wasn’t visible, but his orders were still valid.

Even as she worried if she had made the right choice, Adam moved forward.

She couldn’t afford to doubt now. Having decided to follow Hyun-mu’s plan, she had to believe that Hyun-mu was truly her master.

48 hours and 2 minutes had passed since the start of the Leviathan mission.

Less than a day remained until the mission’s end.

***

“You goddamn bastards!”

A Hunter wearing a dark gray combat uniform charged toward Song Yeo-un.

They were Warhammer operatives, elite ability users from the U.S. military.

They were skilled enough to be team leaders if they joined the Taesung Clan in Korea, but Song Yeo-un skillfully evaded them.

The moment her skill shook the Warhammer operative’s stomach, another Jeonminryeon Hunter pierced his chest.

However, the Warhammer operative moved his fingers even as he bled profusely. Just as he was about to pull something, Seo Ji-hoo used his ability on him.

The Warhammer operative, who had twisted his own fingers at a grotesque angle, glared at Seo Ji-hoo before dying.

“What’s the situation?”

Song Yeo-un shouted, sweeping the rain-soaked hair from her face. Corpses and injured people were scattered everywhere.

It was clear that a significant number of them were Hunters from Jeonminryeon. A report came back shortly after.

“Two dead, thirteen injured. Two of them can barely move!”

“The damage is too great, even considering the opponents were the Warhammer team.”

“Did you think it would be easy?”

Song Yeo-un muttered in a displeased tone, and Seo Ji-hoo replied.

While the skills and levels of the Jeonminryeon Hunters were growing at an unprecedented rate compared to any other clan, the Warhammer operatives were already powerful Hunters who had secured their place at the top of the world.

It was amazing that they had even won. But Song Yeo-un wasn’t happy.

“There were only five Warhammer operatives.”

“And they’re all dead. That’s a good result.”

Seo Ji-hoo comforted Song Yeo-un while examining the body of the last Warhammer operative he had killed.

He wanted to see what he had been trying to pull at the end.

His finger had been on a ring. Seo Ji-hoo had the other Hunters gather the bodies and injured and retreat.

Then, after distancing himself, he moved the body and pulled the ring.

With a violent explosion, blue flames erupted like a pillar of fire.

Seo Ji-hoo, who emerged from the hill after the flames subsided, discovered a space that was hollowed out to about two floors underground.

Song Yeo-un tilted her head and said.

“That’s a lot different from any ‘bomb’ I know.”

“It’s an item. If they’re carrying something like this for suicide, the U.S. must be pretty desperate.”

The situation inside the Shadow was utter chaos.

With Kang Hyun-mu suddenly joining Adam Fault and moving together, it was unclear who was friend and who was foe as they clashed, gauging each other’s interests and conflicts.

Even the U.S., where the country had become a battlefield and the strongest ability user had been killed, was collapsing from within.

“They were probably going to use it on the branch leader or Adam Fault, not us.”

The Jeonminryeon Hunters had ambushed the Warhammer operatives who were lying in wait on the hill. Since Kang Hyun-mu had joined Adam, they had been continuing these ambushes.

Conversely, they were often ambushed as well. In particular, the Hunters of the South China Alliance had been relentlessly pursuing them.

But no matter what Kang Hyun-mu was thinking, they had no choice but to move to eliminate anything that hindered his plan.

Song Yeo-un wiped away the rain that kept obscuring her vision with a tired expression.

“I feel like I haven’t slept or eaten for two days now. At this rate, we’ll collapse first. The branch leader really trained us like dogs, but he always made sure we got enough food and sleep.”

“The rate of attrition is high. We don’t have many potions left either…”

Thanks to the high-grade recovery potions, they could return to the battlefield in a day or two, no matter how severe their injuries were, as long as they weren’t fatal.

But now those potions were running out, and there were still enemies everywhere.

Moreover, the pouring rain was further draining their stamina.

“…And we have to consider morale.”

Seo Ji-hoo said, looking back at the Hunters. Unlike Song Yeo-un and Seo Ji-hoo, who were team leaders, the other Hunters were even more exhausted.

Moreover, they lacked confidence in themselves.

The Hunters from other clans were trying to defeat ‘the worst person in the world’ and save the world, but they were preventing it.

Seo Ji-hoo sighed and said.

“It’s a good thing there’s no broadcast. If they knew what people were saying outside, some of them might turn back.”

“What? Do you think our team is only that good?”

“It’s about morale and supplies. You just think you have to fight well on your own, but I’m from a command background. Don’t ignore my experience as a commander.”

“…Your experience as a commander is as a professional strategy game gamer.”

“That’s a commander too.”

Song Yeo-un clicked her tongue in displeasure and looked at the horizon.

Her vision was limited due to the rain, but she knew that Adam Fault and Kang Hyun-mu were somewhere beyond that.

Already, enemies were running rampant in this area, appearing like monsters that popped up in random encounters.

Frankly, she doubted whether they could last the remaining 24 hours with their current strength.

Then, something came into Song Yeo-un’s view.

Before she could identify what it was, her instincts moved her body first.

“Get down!”

***

Jwaaaaaak.

A massive fissure cut across the hill they were on. What they had thought was a hill until now was a massive building covered in dust.

The attack must have hit a weak point in the building, which was on the verge of collapse, because the building collapsed in an instant, splitting the Jeonminryeon Hunters apart.

Taking advantage of the confusion, a sharp katana plunged in. Song Yeo-un barely managed to block the katana that had come right before her eyes.

Teng! Three of her fingers were cut off, but Song Yeo-un managed to activate her ‘Repulsion’ skill by a hair’s breadth. The opponent was blasted into the air.

Song Yeo-un quickly scanned the identity of the masked opponent. Then, she hurriedly put the severed fingers into her pocket and shouted.

“Seo Ji-hoo! Katana, woman, mask, brown eyes, height around 165, and…”

“Tsuruya Miharu!”

Before she could even explain all the characteristics, Seo Ji-hoo’s answer popped out. He was still gathering the injured who hadn’t fully recovered.

“She’s a disciple of Endo, a 4-star Hunter in Japan, and was low in the line of succession of the Tsuruya Group. She couldn’t seem to get a seat, so she joined the South China Alliance and was exposed and exiled from Japan…”

“Okay, stop!”

Tsuruya Miharu gritted her teeth, surprised by the rapid exposure of her personal details.

The moment she turned her blade towards Seo Ji-hoo, something wrapped around her ankle.

It was Song Yeo-un’s whip.

Song Yeo-un smiled with satisfaction, but that was the moment. She felt something pierce her abdomen.

“Keuheuk.”

A stream of blood flowed from her mouth. Someone wearing the same mask was stabbing her in the back.

Song Yeo-un sensed that the place she had been stabbed was bad.

“These damn anachronistic bastards…”

Tsuruya Miharu calmly swung her sword. The whip split in half along the blade. At the same time, a stream of blood spurted from Song Yeo-un’s arm.

Song Yeo-un dropped the whip and collapsed.

The situation was similar elsewhere. Masked figures who had appeared from various places were surrounding and attacking the Jeonminryeon Hunters.

Tsuruya Miharu approached to finish off Song Yeo-un.

[First, this is for our master who was killed by your leader.]

“What are you saying? Damn it, speak Korean.”

[It’s no use begging for your life.]

“I’ll reserve your spot in hell. If it’s seniority there, I can harass you for ten thousand years, right?”

Tsuruya, who was having a conversation that didn’t make sense, soon realized that there was no need to listen at all.

Even if she didn’t know Korean, she knew that there was a very rich vocabulary of swear words in Korean.

Just as she was about to cut off Song Yeo-un’s head before her ears were dirtied, a sound that made her doubt her ears echoed.

Oooooooo!

Tsuruya Miharu widened her eyes.

Although she didn’t respect him much, Endo was still one of the top powerhouses in Japan.

Her life had begun to fall apart after Endo’s death. The line she thought she had barely grasped was cut, and her ranking within the Tsuruya Group was pushed back.

That was also the reason she resented Kang Hyun-mu.

And while investigating the dungeon where Endo had died, she had also grasped various circumstances.

Endo had been killed by Kang Hyun-mu, but before that, her master had been fiercely fighting a monster.

And the identity of that monster was none other than…

“Wolf.”

A werewolf with golden-tinged white fur was looking down at her.

Tsuruya Miharu smiled as she swung her sword.

Now, as an Apostle of the Starving Star, she was much stronger than her master.

Now she was more than capable of taking revenge. More than anything, if she took his head back as a symbol of overcoming her master…

Puk.

“Huh?”

Tsuruya Miharu staggered as she looked at something that had pierced her abdomen. A large scythe was piercing her stomach.