Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 185

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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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185
“All three of you, fall back. Don’t approach under any circumstances—just provide support from a distance.”
As the Death Knight wielding an aura advanced, I stepped forward alone.
Death Knights typically charge on horseback and attack, but this one approached slowly. Once the distance had narrowed sufficiently, it dismounted.
Then it leveled its sword at me—as if proposing a fair duel.
“Is this… even a monster anymore?”
I found the Death Knight’s human-like behavior far more unsettling than raw aggression.
“Fine. Let’s do this.”
Though I still couldn’t wield an aura, awakening Ji-seok left me no choice but to fight.
As I clashed with the Death Knight, torrents of light and darkness erupted like lightning in all directions.
“Ugh! Get behind me!”
Hyung-bin raised his shield to protect Jang Mi and Si-hwan.
My attack power couldn’t overcome the aura, but I parried the Death Knight’s strikes and dodged, seizing openings to counterattack.
The exchange between me and the Death Knight was nearly invisible to the three of them.
“Is Yang Sang-heon going to be okay?!”
“We can only trust him and wait.”
“Brother, we don’t even know how to get out of here anyway, right?”

“Oh! That’s true?!”
“But… it looks like he’s being pushed back a little?”
Jang Mi, whose dynamic vision was the sharpest among the three, tracked my movements and the Death Knight’s with her eyes.
Though I used an acceleration skill to move swiftly, I had to evade or deflect attacks, whereas the Death Knight simply absorbed my strikes with its body and bulldozed forward relentlessly.
“Can you see it, Jang Mi?”
“Barely.”
“I can make out a little too…”
Si-hwan squinted his eyes.
“I have to help—”
“No! If you go, you’ll only get in the way.”
Hyung-bin stopped Jang Mi.
“Brother, should I attack from range then?”
“Will your attacks even land? That thing’s surrounded by an aura. And can you keep up with that speed? You might hit Yang Sang-heon instead.”
The three of them found no viable option and could only watch. Then my sword was knocked away by the Death Knight’s attack, and my chest lay completely exposed.

“Huh?!”
Jang Mi’s eyes widened in surprise.
“No!”
The moment the Death Knight’s blade descended, Si-hwan cried out, and the sword caught as if tangled in a spider’s web. But it didn’t stop completely and resumed its trajectory toward Yang Sang-heon.
The Death Knight’s blade scraped across Yang Sang-heon’s breastplate before clattering to the floor. Yang Sang-heon rolled across the ground, reclaimed his sword, and took a defensive stance.
If the Death Knight’s body hadn’t frozen in that instant, it would have certainly suffered a fatal wound.
“Brother, again! Try again!”
Jang Mi grabbed Si-hwan and shouted.
“Me? You’re saying my shout just now did that?”
“Yes! It wasn’t just a sonic wave—a debuff came out too!”
Jang Mi, with her keen senses, had caught what others missed.
“I knew it! I do have talent!”
“Stop wasting time and do it again!”
“Right… okay. Stop! No! Cease!”
Si-hwan continued shouting, but his voice, though loud as a megaphone, produced no change in the Death Knight’s movements.
“Hurry! We’re being pushed back again!”
This time, as the Death Knight’s blade swept horizontally, Yang Sang-heon’s body seemed about to be cleaved vertically.
“Dodge!”
Si-hwan cried out urgently without thinking, and Yang Sang-heon felt his body lighten as he moved faster, narrowly evading the Death Knight’s attack.
“…That was a buff this time?”
Jang Mi tilted her head in confusion. The buff lasted only a brief moment, but thanks to it, Yang Sang-heon survived once more.
“I’m not a buffer though?”
“You are now! Hurry! Focus!”
“Run! Faster! Stop! Freeze!”
As Si-hwan repeatedly shouted, awakening his newfound ability, his roars accelerated Yang Sang-heon’s movements and disrupted the Death Knight’s rhythm.
“Get down!”
Si-hwan’s debuff wrenched the Death Knight’s neck, forcing it to drop to one knee. Though the force was faint, it was enough to shatter the balance of the high-speed moving Death Knight.
Yang Sang-heon seized the moment, piercing through the Death Knight’s breastplate and leaving a long diagonal wound across its body.
The Death Knight glared at Si-hwan with eyes overflowing with mana—not at Yang Sang-heon, who had just wounded it.
“Eek!”
“Where are you looking!”
Yang Sang-heon swung his sword again. The Death Knight abandoned its initial noble composure, rolled across the floor to evade, and hurled itself toward Si-hwan.
“Run!”
“Brother! Save me!”
At Si-hwan’s scream, Hyung-bin felt strength surge through his body—the same sensation he’d felt when protecting Ye-seul.
Hyung-bin raised his shield to meet the Death Knight’s aura-infused blade. Without Si-hwan’s buff, the attack would have split him in two.
“Yang Sang-heon! Faster!”
Empowered by Si-hwan’s buff, Yang Sang-heon’s speed increased. He caught up to the Death Knight and drove his blade into its back.
[Grrk…]
The Death Knight fell to both knees on the ground.
“Brother, is he dead?”
[ROOOAAARRR!!!]
Magical energy erupted from the Death Knight’s body in all directions, hurling the four of us backward.
“Fall back now!”
Light enveloped my body as well. Unlike the Death Knight’s chaotic, irregular magical aura spreading in all directions, mine was a composed, steadfast radiance.
I gripped the sword hilt firmly with both hands and advanced, slashing through the encroaching darkness wave after wave. My blade of light cleaved through the shadows, yet it felt like cutting through a river with a sword.
To withstand the relentless onslaught of darkness, I needed to amplify my power further.
‘I need to compress the light more, more intensely.’
I recalled the training I’d done with Ji-seok at the beginning. I often thought back to that day during practice sessions.
I focused my mind and compressed my mana. Sharper, stronger.
My sword blazed with such brilliant light that it scattered all the darkness around me. The radiance spread in all directions, but its power concentrated in the blade.
The surging darkness no longer impeded my advance, and I faced the Death Knight directly. Until now, I’d evaded and dodged it, but this time I parried its thrusting blade head-on and slashed diagonally across the Death Knight’s chest.
The Death Knight, bearing a deep X-shaped wound across its chest, fell backward and crumbled into dust, vanishing.
“Huff… huff…”
I’d drawn on my strength so forcefully that my breath came in ragged gasps.
“Was that just now an Aura?!”
“Yes.”
My strength drained away, and I planted my sword in the ground, leaning against it. Exhausted as I was, I felt elated at breaking through this barrier.
“When did Si-hwan learn something like that?”
“I only just realized I could do it.”
“Hmm… both you and I are growing well in here, aren’t we?”
“This growth will continue even after we leave, right?”
“I hope so.”
I had no time to savor the joy of awakening my Aura. I led the three of them toward the Hilltop where the Gate awaited.
No other monsters appeared as we climbed to the summit.
The Hilltop was flat, and a massive Gate stood at its center.
The space around it was torn to shreds.
“What is all this…”
We approached the colossal Gate.
“Yang Sang-heon! There’s something in here!”
Si-hwan pressed his face close to the torn gap in space, peering at something inside.
The rest of us moved closer and looked through the fissure.
“…Dad?”
Inside the gap, Jung Min-gi was drenched in blood, fighting against an army of monsters. His expression was unlike his usual self. His face, now bearing only venom, looked like a completely different person.
“Dad!”
Jung Min-gi, fighting desperately, had his chest raked open by the Blue Dragon’s claws.
“Wait… hold on! Jang Mi, calm down! That’s not your father! Don’t you remember? It’s the President’s mental world!”
Si-hwan grabbed Jang Mi as she tried to leap through the torn gap.
“Dad! Dad!”
Jang Mi had lost her composure, watching her father dying before her eyes.
“Jang Mi, look inside again.”
At my words, Jang Mi peered back inside to find Jung Min-gi locked in battle once more against a colossal horde of monsters. He fought, died, fought, died—an endless cycle of carnage and resurrection.
“Ji-seok, do you hold some grudge against Father? Why would you imagine something like this?”
Despite knowing it was merely a phantom, the scene before Jang Mi was far from pleasant.
Similar visions flickered from other rifts as well.
In the space I gazed into, Bae Na-young stood cloaked in black, a serpent-headed staff in her grip, slaughtering Hunters with merciless efficiency. Her pallid, malevolent visage had nearly rendered her unrecognizable at first glance, but it was unmistakably her.
“…This is nothing much.”
I ensured the others couldn’t see Bae Na-young’s form.
“Ye-seul is here too.”
Hyung-bin had located her presence.
Ye-seul wielded magic that demanded her own sacrifice. As her life drained away and the spell dissipated, she vanished beneath the tide of surging monsters, swallowed entirely from sight.
“The monsters appearing initially made sense since we’re Hunters, but why would the Chairman imagine something like this?”
Si-hwan spoke, and I fell into contemplation as I observed the visions within the rift.
“…Let’s stop wasting time. There’s something in there. Steel yourselves.”
Hyung-bin and I took the lead, with Jang Mi and Si-hwan following as we passed through the Gate.
The interior of the Gate mirrored the exterior perfectly.
Crash!
Within it, Ji-seok battled a colossal monster.
The creature dwarfed the Blue Dragon by several times over—a grotesque fusion of dragon and lizardman—its multiple blade-like tails striking at Ji-seok in relentless succession.
The monster moved with speed that surpassed even Ji-seok’s.
Ji-seok unleashed aura beams and slashed with his blade, yet the beast bore not a single scratch.
“Is that the Destruction God?”
“I’m not sure—I’ve never seen one either. But perhaps this is how he imagines the Destruction God to be.”
The Destruction God unleashed its breath upon Ji-seok.
“Brother!”
“Chairman!”
All four of us surged forward, only to be halted by a barrier of crystalline glass. We pounded against it, slashed with our blades, yet it remained unmarred.
“What is this?!”
We were not alone in our helpless vigil over Ji-seok’s suffering.
Behind Ji-seok stood countless allies—not true souls who had entered, but figments of his imagination dwelling within his mental realm.
Formidable companions like Bae Na-young, Emily, Jung Min-gi, and Hong Long bore grievous wounds, while the weaker Hunters among them could not stand against an enemy that obliterated or incinerated with a single strike.
Ji-seok’s back stood solitary and desolate against the monster. His body crushed, burned, dissolved, and cleaved in two—yet he regenerated each time, hurling himself back into the fray.
“Brother, do you think we’re useless to you?”
I clenched my fists tightly.
“Chairman! Hold on! Faster! Stronger!”
Si-hwan’s voice rang out.
“Si-hwan, what are you doing?”
“You said my power acts as a buff, didn’t you? Wouldn’t this give the Chairman some strength?”
Si-hwan refused to yield to despair, striving by any means to aid Ji-seok. Witnessing his resolve, I felt shame wash over me. If Ji-seok had lost faith in us, it was because of my weakness—who else could I blame?
I drew my blade and took my stand before the barrier.

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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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