The Returner Chapter 319

Go-ooooooh!
Mana gathering within both of Yi Ji-Hyuk’s hands began swirling around madly.
Kurururu….
Even Oh-Sik couldn’t withstand this sight and began sneakily retreating away.
He was condensing more and more Mana as if to forcibly crush it. The magical energy failed to win against the pressure and madly wiggled about.
"H-n-ng." (Erukana)
It was then, Erukana began humming slightly.
To her, dark Mana was basically the basis of life; she enjoyed the sight of life being crushed and twisted, and then, it writhing madly around.
Yi Ji-Hyuk continued to condense Mana with quiet, still eyes.
Po-pop!
Muscles and skin on his arms, unable to fight against the resistance from Mana, blew up and crimson blood spewed out like a fountain.
"Tsk." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
No matter how much Mana he possessed, there was simply no way that his body was exactly the same as before. His body that recovered from whatever damage he suffered in an instant was gone, replaced by a slightly tougher human’s physique.
However, he didn’t regret it. Well, he got lots of things back in return. He didn’t mind this sort of handicap.
"Still, pain is pain, alright." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
Yi Ji-Hyuk wiped the blood leaking out from his mouth with the sleeve.
After repeatedly getting mortally wounded only to be healed again, he got to learn a rather useless knowledge that when a body was subjected to severe pressure affecting its entirety, the first things to go pop would be the internal organs.
If only there wasn’t so much bleeding, he’d be able to endure his organs rupturing, but man, this sensation of lumps of blood welling up in his throat? He could never get used to it.
"Ptooey!" (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
Yi Ji-Hyuk spat on the floor and stared at the battle front.
*
"Uwaaaaah!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Rhee Jin-Cheol poured out a barrage of electric attacks as if he wanted to wring out every dollop of Ether existing inside his body.
"Diiiiiie!!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Pure-white arcs of electricity buzzed violently from both of his hands.
BUZZZZZ!!!
Electrical energy powerful enough to turn a human into smoking charcoal just by touch alone fired out dozens of times.
"….What is the meaning of this?!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Even then, monsters emerged relatively unscathed.
‘I’m this powerless against them?’ (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Rhee Jin-Cheol, always confident of his own ability up until now, began shuddering at the mightiness of the monsters before his eyes. None of his abilities worked on these creatures.
Only by him focusing all of his might into one creature could he barely manage to wound it. Yet, with the situation was like this, how was he supposed to fight against thousands of similar monsters?
Despair.
Only despair remained to rule his entire body.
His teeth began clattering all by themselves.
He didn’t want to admit it, but if it weren’t for Yi Ji-Hyuk stopping these monsters’ march, Rhee Jin-Cheol and his friends would be stuck inside these creatures’ tummies busy being digested right about now.
Pyongyang would’ve fallen in no time at all, and the nation called North Korea would’ve been wiped off the map.
"Uwaaaaaah-!!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
His confidence and pride were shattering into tiny shards.
By the time he was born, the Democratic People’s Republic was already falling well behind other nations. But, that was okay - he accepted that his starting point was different from those in other countries.
However, when it came to supernatural abilities, it was a different story.
The ability user awakening only began five years ago. Rhee Jin-Cheol was one of the first to awaken his, and he was confident that when standing in the same starting line as everyone else, he’d leap forward further than anyone out there.
But now, he had no choice but to accept that he was wrong.
"Monster b*stard!!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Who was he referring to here?
"Uwaaaah!! You monstrous b*stard!!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
"Comrade captain!! Please calm down!"
"Shut up!!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Rhee Jin-Cheol began shouting out loudly enough to tear out his vocal cords, half of his mouth filled with foams.
"Kill them!! Kill them all! Kill these monster b*stards dead!!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
As more and more veins in his eyes burst, the rays of Ether fired out by the People’s Ability User Brigade grew brighter and brighter as well.
*
"That guy’s losing his sh*t." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
Yi Ji-Hyuk clicked his tongue.
"Seriously man, weaklings and their stubborn, hardcore pride." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
The truly-strong didn’t need to be overtly proud of themselves. Well, they could earn plenty of respect through their strength alone, so why should they unnecessarily be too full of themselves?
It had always been the case with those stuck in the borders being way too proud of themselves.
"You should’ve compared yourself to someone comparable." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
If they were in a race to see who was better, then they should’ve competed among themselves, so why did they try to drag him into it, too?
Yi Ji-Hyuk learned about, and used, magic for well over a thousand years. He familiarised with it for over a millennium, yet a fresh hatchling with only about five years worth of experience was trying to compare its height to him? What an utterly nonsensical notion that was.
Of course, Rhee Jin-Cheol didn’t know for how long Yi Ji-Hyuk had been polishing his ‘ability’, so there was that, but still.
"H-mm….." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
Should he show them something interesting, then?
Yi Ji-Hyuk raised the gathered Mana in both hands up to his chest level.
It was so cumbersome to alter its nature and it didn’t even suit him all that well, but simply blowing everything away wasn’t the correct solution for this situation.
He raised both of his hands up, causing the Mana swirling around his hands to rise up high into the sky.
Go-ooooooh!!
The gathered Mana the size of a basketball flew in the air and when it reached the skies above the monsters, it came to a stop.
"W-watch out!!" (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon yelled out as loudly as he could. He realised that Yi Ji-Hyuk was going to do something crazy again. Those hearing his yell stared at the mass of Mana maintaining its shape in the air with deeply tense eyes.
"What is that thing?" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Rhee Jin-Cheol’s eyes trembled.
So small.
It was too small to make him shudder in fear. However, he still felt this powerful warning bells ringing loudly inside him.
Whatever that was, it was an incredibly scary thing.
Rhee Jin-Cheol squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block that mesmerising, terrifying view.
Flinch.
It was then, he felt ‘it’.
Above his head.
More correctly, he felt something incredible right above the monster swarm. It was such an enormous power that the moment he detected it, all energy in his body abandoned him and he almost plopped down on his butt right there.
It was an amalgamation of power so enormous and overwhelming that he couldn’t even imagine such a thing existing in this world.
But such a thing was indeed existing before his eyes.
"He, he’s not human…." (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
That thing had to be a devil.
Unless that man was the devil, he couldn’t couldn't have wielded such power.
This was not a joke.
Rhee Jin-Cheol’s body shivered all on its own. His legs trembled and his teeth clattered crazily.
Was he supposed to resist?
Resist that thing?
"Comrade captain!! Comrade! What’s gotten into you!"
Rhee Jin-Cheol’s adjutants thought that they were losing their minds right about now. Their captain, usually cold-as-ice and full of confidence, seemed to be going insane and spacing out several times today for some reason.
It was as if his soul had been sucked out or some such.
"Run…. away." (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
"Sir? Did you say something?"
"Run!! I told you to run away! Retreat from this place right now!!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
"Understood!"
Although still puzzled, they heeded his order and retreated from the scene. They didn’t know why they had to run, but still, the order was given so they would follow. That was their way.
"That f*cking son of a b*tch." (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Rhee Jin-Cheol gritted his teeth.
"Just what are you trying to do here!" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Yi Ji-Hyuk heard Rhee Jin-Cheol’s roar and cackled insidiously.
Why was he going OTT like that?
"If you get shocked so soon, you’re going to have a heart attack later." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
Yi Ji-Hyuk’s eyes seemed to shine brightly.
"Well, then. Time to show it to you." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
To show what real thunderbolts looked like.
His raised hands clenched and grasped the air itself.
"Explode!!" (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
In that moment, the black Mana wiggling in the sky suddenly began expanding. At first, it seemed to be ballooning up slowly, but then, less than a blink later, its size grew and soon transformed into a storm cloud so enormous that it almost covered up the entire sky.
"Seriously….." (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon clenched his teeth while witnessing this spectacle.
This wasn’t his first time seeing Yi Ji-Hyuk start yet another incident, but what a serious matter it was, him failing to get used to seeing them.
‘You can only get used to something if it’s on a manageable scale.’ (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
The whole world seemed to be dyeing in darkness.
The Mana cloud blanketed the entire sky and didn’t permit even a speck of light to pass through. And the denser, blacker darkness spread out from its centre next.
Just as people started growing worried that the world would be stained by this darkness, the cloud stopped expanding. And it was right about here that Yi Ji-Hyuk’s loud cackles could be heard behind their backs.
"Mister Choi Jeong-Hoon." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
"Y-yes?" (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
"Have you ever committed a sin before in your life?" (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
"………."
What was this about?
Asking about committing a sin and all that out of the blue?
"I’m not completely guilt-free, if that’s what you mean." (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
That should be true for all living human beings, too.
"In that case, you should be careful." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
"Pardon me?" (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
"Because, you might get struck by lightning, you see. Kekekeke." (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
Yi Ji-Hyuk cackled all alone like a nutcase before shouting out loudly.
"Come down now!" (Yi Ji-Hyuk)
And that caused the world to be filled up with light.
FLASH
At first, it was just one single thunderclap.
KWA-BOOOOM!!
The sound exploded a bit after that flash of light. Lightning crashed down to the ground from the Mana cloud.
"……………"
Rhee Jin-Cheol watched that spectacle as his jaw slowly dropped.
Lightning.
Yi Ji-Hyuk was dropping thunderbolts from the heavens, as if to mock the others that also used electrical attacks.
That single attack’s destructive power was something Rhee Jin-Cheol could never get anywhere remotely close to. No human or monster would survive after getting struck by that.
"….A lightning, is it??" (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
How could anyone believe the idea of a human being creating clouds in the sky and start dropping lightning bolts from there?
No, it was unbelievable. No one would believe it.
But, that unbelievable thing was happening right before his eyes. He just couldn’t not believe it.
"Ha…. haha." (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
But that was merely the beginning.
RUMBLE!!
Along with loud thunderclaps, pure-white lightning bolts rained down from the heavens.
One bolt, then the second, and then….
And then, the rain of lightning brightened the entire world as they crashed into the ground below.
Ka-boom!! Boom!! Bang!!
"R-run away!!"
The adjutant grabbed Rhee Jin-Cheol and pulled him back. Even as he got dragged back without resistance, he just couldn’t tear his eyes away from the lightning bolts.
It felt as if the end of the world was happening right there.
The skies were covered by the black clouds and not a ray of light could be seen, yet lightning so searingly pure-white ceaselessly smashed down from those dark clouds. As if the god of lightning was handing down its divine punishment on the humans below.
The rain of lightning with the power to end the world continued to strike over and over again.
"Ki… kikikikikik." (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Rhee Jin-Cheol cackled like a man who lost his mind.
What should a man do to acquire such a level of power?
Should he sign a contract with the devil?
Even then, it didn’t feel like any devil could provide you with power to equal the absolute, overwhelming might Yi Ji-Hyuk was displaying right now.
This was, quite literally, a miracle.
"That person was right." (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Rhee Jin-Cheol muttered out powerlessly.
The most dangerous thing weren’t the monsters. No, the most dangerous thing in this whole world was that human.
Yi Ji-Hyuk.
That man was apparently more than enough to bring about the end of the world all by himself, and that assertion wasn’t wrong at all.
‘But, what are we supposed to do about it?’ (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Fight against him?
Him??
"Kikikikikik." (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Rhee Jin-Cheol exploded in a peal of insane laughter.
Breaking down a mountain with bare fists should be an easier, faster job; how was a measly human being supposed to fight that?
‘It’ll be impossible by myself.’ (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
Indeed, fighting alone was asking for impossibility. In that case, what about ability users uniting against him? Would that work?
Even that was uncertain.
But, one thing was for certain - without that alliance, this world would never be able to defeat this man.
Something inside Rhee Jin-Cheol snapped.
And right at that moment.
The storm cloud covering up the sky suddenly got sucked right back in Yi Ji-Hyuk’s direction.
The darkness slowly rescinded, and light filled up the world once more.
"Ah….." (Rhee Jin-Cheol)
And then, Rhee Jin-Cheol saw it - the devastated spectacle unfolding in the place where the rain of lightning crashed down.
He saw the horribly mangled monsters now resembling bloodied sacks of meat wiggling about among the choking smoke and rancid odour of overcooked flesh.
Fin.
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