Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 117

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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117
“Do you wish to die?”
The researchers fell silent at Takashi Jun-teukwi’s threatening words.
“…”
“I’m not saying I will kill you. If we fail, Prime Minister Saika will make us the next sacrifices. I have no desire to die like that.”
Takashi pointed to one side. There, dozens of corpses drained of blood and bleached white lay stacked—used as offerings.
The researchers swallowed hard.
“If we don’t finish in time, we die. If the magic circle fails, we die. But if we succeed, we live. That’s the only possibility. Prepare immediately!”
“Yes!”
The researchers began constructing the magic circle based on their existing research.
First, they carved grooves into the concrete floor to a depth of one finger joint, creating channels for the blood to flow.
They fitted premium mana stones—procured in secret to avoid detection by the World Hunter Association—into each element of the magic circle.
Finally, they moved the naked sacrifices, their minds stripped away by drugs and drool dripping from their mouths, into position.
“Divine one… forgive us.”
Takashi closed his eyes and prayed.
As the researchers placed the final mana stone, the magic circle blazed white.
“Mana stone energy conversion to light attribute complete! Estimated magic circle duration: 60 minutes! Counter reset!”
The digital clock on the wall began its countdown from 60:00:00.
“The sacrifices…”
The research director spoke with grim resolve, and ten researchers in preparation simultaneously drove daggers into the throats of the drooling sacrifices.
“Gack…”
The sacrifices drowned in their own blood. Their blood flowed into the magic circle, mingling with it.
* * *
“Prime Minister! Tell me right now! Where is it?!”
Akiko, one of Japan’s two S-rank Hunters, cried out. Despite her small stature for a hunter and her gentle appearance, she was renowned for her surprisingly violent physique. Akiko enjoyed immense popularity worldwide, known for her virtuous and kind image.
“Tsk… could you lower your voice?”
“How dare you speak to the Prime Minister that way?!”
Kanemitsu, the Prime Minister’s loyal aide and chief secretary, stepped in front of Akiko, pointing accusingly as he shouted.
“Step aside.”
Secretary Kanemitsu, who had been blocking the Prime Minister, flinched and took a step back. Though Akiko was famous for her good character, Kanemitsu lacked the courage to stand against a hunter whose anger had reached its peak.
“Akiko, restrain yourself.”
Takahashi, one of Japan’s two S-rank Hunters, looked up and spoke to Akiko. His long bangs obscured his left eye.
“Sacrificing humans—have you abandoned human dignity?”
Akiko ignored Takahashi and spoke to the Prime Minister.
“Tsk… did you see it through future sight? They are criminals and the disabled. They contribute nothing to society!”
The skills that made Akiko an S-rank Hunter were precognition, future sight, and telekinesis.
Precognition allowed her to see the near future by expending mana, enabling her to evade enemy attacks with minimal movement. Since precognition wasn’t constantly active but only functioned while consuming mana, she couldn’t sustain it for extended periods. Yet even accounting for this limitation, it was an overwhelmingly powerful skill.
Future sight, meanwhile, revealed random futures. Sometimes they pertained to her directly, but most were random future events that proved of little practical use.
“Human dignity, you say? Dignity can only exist when a nation exists! If we continue like this, we’ll be devoured by monsters or consumed by stronger nations. We could even be consumed by Korea!”
Prime Minister Saika trembled, as if unable to tolerate even that possibility.
“I’d rather we use sacrifices to maintain the nation. It would be better than this.”
Akiko, who generally held favorable feelings toward Korea, couldn’t comprehend the Prime Minister’s logic.
“Tsk…. Be careful, Hunter Akiko. I’m restraining myself out of respect for your abilities, but if you insult the Great Japanese Empire, even an S-rank Hunter won’t get a second chance.”
“Try it.”
“…”
“Where are they? The sacrifices?”
“What are you planning to do?”
“Obviously, I have to stop it.”
“Akiko…. Don’t make me draw my gun.”
Takashi undid the retention strap button on the pistol holster at his waist and hooked his finger on the trigger.
As the fastest S-rank Hunter in terms of attack speed, Takashi was confident he could subdue even Akiko.
“The moment you draw that gun, you’re dead.”
Steel spheres began floating around Akiko. They were golf-ball-sized steel orbs made from mithril metal obtained from an S-rank Gate—utterly unadorned and indestructible.
Akiko wielded her telekinetic power to launch the indestructible steel spheres at high speed to attack her opponent. Evading with precognition and attacking with the spheres—that was her combat style.
The two locked eyes, tension hanging thick between them.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Then the ground shook violently.
“An earthquake?”
The Prime Minister scrambled under his desk.
“There was no alarm, but… Prime Minister, I should also….”
The secretary, wanting to survive as well, thrust his head under the same desk where the Prime Minister was hiding.
“Damn it…. Didn’t you say it was an infinite healing magic circle, Prime Minister?”
Takashi peered beyond the wall using his left eye, which possessed X-ray vision. To use his X-ray ability, Takashi had to cover his field of vision, so he kept one eye covered at all times.
“Wh…. What is it? What’s wrong? Hunter Takashi?”
The Prime Minister lifted his head above the desk and questioned Takashi.
Sensing something amiss, Akiko hurled a steel sphere at the wall Takashi was looking through, obliterating it.
“Good heavens…. Prime Minister. Look at what you’ve done.”
A beam of light shot from the ground pierced a massive hole in the sky. The hole in the heavens was at least a hundred meters in diameter, and from it, white Angels poured down like a deluge covering the land.
What opened in the sky was a Gate of a form never seen before. Unlike the existing ones, this Gate was completely visible from the inside, and beyond it, countless Angels lined up waiting to cross over.
Fortunately, some kind of force was obstructing them. The Angels pushed through an invisible transparent barrier with their bodies, unable to emerge all at once. Had it been otherwise, tens of thousands of Angels would have descended simultaneously.
“Wh…. What?! Kanemitsu~~! What’s happening?!”
The Prime Minister, witnessing a sight that left his mouth agape, shouted at Kanemitsu. Seeing the light shot from the magic circle heading toward the Gate, it was clear the infinite healing magic circle experiment was somehow involved.
“I…. Just a moment…. I’ll find out!”
The secretary, his face drained of color, fumbled with trembling hands to pull out his phone.
His hands kept slipping, but he finally managed to dial the research facility and press the call button.
“Pick up…. Please pick up….”
“Prime Minister! Mobilize the Hunters and Self-Defense Force immediately! Takashi, we’ll hold them off until then.”
The Angels gathered in the sky, and as their numbers increased, they slowly descended toward the ground.
“Damn it…. Of all the days to die….”
Akiko threw herself forward first, with Takashi following close behind.
“P-Prime Minister, sir…”
“What is it?! Speak quickly!”
“The experiment has failed. To expedite the process, they activated an unverified magic circle, apparently…”
“You idiots! Why on earth did you do such a thing?!”
The words ‘You ordered it yourself!’ rose to my throat, but I swallowed them back down with the political finesse I’d honed over years.
“I will immediately mobilize all special Self-Defense Force units and hunters.”
“…Call only the minimum necessary forces. We’re evacuating.”
“Pardon?”
“Look at those numbers. Even if we deploy every hunter in our country, we can’t stop them.”
Thousands of angels descended from the sky, and behind them, countless more waited in dense formation. Moreover, there were angels I’d never seen before. Angels wielding law books, angels with great swords—their massive frames made them appear far stronger than the angels that had descended last time.
That wasn’t all. A grotesque monster composed of overlapping rings studded with countless eyes existed beyond the Gate. Fortunately, unlike the other angels, it was caught more forcefully by the Gate’s invisible barrier and couldn’t emerge. But even now, it was pushing as if to tear the Gate apart. The Prime Minister predicted that this creature would be more powerful than anything else.
“Then… what do we do?”
“Don’t we have a prototype mana stone engine? It’s been problematic because it keeps exploding, so we’ll use it as a bomb. We’ll annihilate them all at once with firepower several times stronger than the experimental version!”
“B-But we cannot synchronize the explosion timing. If it detonates too early, it will explode before impact, and if it’s late, all the angels will escape and it will detonate long afterward. That would only cause casualties among our own forces.”
“Isn’t that why I’ve been funding massive research expenditures?! Summon the researchers immediately!”
“What about the hunters currently engaged in combat?”
Akiko and Takashi, along with the hastily mobilized hunters and special Self-Defense Force units, were fighting the angels.
“It’s a sacrifice to protect the nation. They will be recorded in history as heroes. Ah, make sure to inform Takashi beforehand so he can be extracted before detonation.”
“What about Hunter Akiko… Won’t you extract her?”
“A defiant warrior is worse than useless. Execute the order immediately.”
“Long live the Great Japanese Empire!”
The secretary saluted with an exaggerated flourish of his entire body, and Prime Minister Saika slowly raised his hand to accept the salute.
Rumble, rumble, rumble…
As the building shook, the two men screamed and, hunched over with their hands shielding their heads, rushed toward the evacuation helicopter.
* * *
“Brother! Ji-seok!”
Yang Sang-heon came running, his face gaunt and thin. But his expression wasn’t the strained one from before—it was joyful.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes! In the shade of the World Tree, I’ll recover soon. But look at this!”
Yang Sang-heon infused his blade with the light attribute.
“Your skill level increased?”
When I first met him, the power was so weak and it only emitted light that I couldn’t tell if it was a light baton or an offensive weapon. Now the light was strongly compressed, and the blade appeared twice as large, with mana still remaining.
“My skill level rose and my total mana increased too. My destructive power is several times greater than before.”
Yang Sang-heon slashed the blade horizontally and vertically through the air. Though his muscles had wasted away, his movements were flawless and efficient.
“That’s incredible. But how?”
“Gaff helped me.”
“… Did you make some kind of deal?”
“I didn’t. When the angels started coming, he just suggested that I should prepare light attribute attacks to counter you, and I accepted. I didn’t give him my soul or anything.”
“Be careful. Though he appears as a child, his true form is the Demon King who corrupts humans and takes their souls.”
As I harvested Franklin’s soul, I recalled what Gaff had said back then.

‘It took a long time to create something like this.’
“Gaff might derive power or satisfy his desires by corrupting humans.”
“It’s fine. I haven’t done anything worth corrupting myself over. But now the angels are crossing over, aren’t they? Let me train you.”
His words offered to help me, yet a desire to strike me gleamed in his pupils. This bastard had accumulated quite a lot. Was this corruption, if anything qualified as such?
Still, since he’d put me through rigorous training, it was only fair to consider it my turn now. Besides, this was genuinely necessary training. Princhipatus was nothing special, but stronger angels with greater power might come, so it was wise to prepare in advance.
“Alright, let’s head to the Training Facility.”
“Hehehehe.”
Yang Sang-heon chuckled. His gaunt frame and pallid complexion made him look like a contemptible villain.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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