Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 46

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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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46
I had no intention of resorting to crude physical torture from the start, so I attempted to extract information through questioning, reading his heartbeat and facial expressions to discern lies.
However, this was the first time I’d encountered someone who maintained such composure. Whether he’d undergone special training or not, his expression and heartbeat remained unchanged regardless of my questions.
I had no choice but to inflict physical pain, but his iron will rendered it ineffective.
“May I try?”
Bae Na-young asked as I emerged from the basement with a dark expression.
“You have the Nightmare skill, don’t you? Wouldn’t that work?”
A mental approach to shake the spirit of someone with such strong willpower seemed promising. When I’d experienced it myself, it was extraordinarily agonizing. In my past life, the Death Knight’s memory of being stabbed to death repeated infinitely before my eyes, and despite knowing it was an illusion, it had induced genuine, overwhelming terror.
Even I, who possessed resistance to mental attacks, suffered to this degree—I was curious how he would fare.
“I’ll give it a try.”
Bae Na-young raised her wand and directed it toward him.
The skill activated, and black energy enveloped his head.
The restrained man glared at us, then his eyes clouded over as if shrouded in darkness, his face turned ashen, and sweat poured down his features.
“No…. Stop! This can’t be! No! Get away! You destruction deity!”
The man who hadn’t uttered a single cry even when I broke his fingers now screamed with a voice that seemed to tear his throat.
“Ahhhhh!! Ahhhhh!!”
He thrashed about like someone being devoured alive by a monster, then began convulsing.
“Bae Na-young!”
Bae Na-young ceased the skill.
“I… I applied it much more gently than I did to you….”
Bae Na-young herself was considerably shocked by this opponent’s reaction on her first attempt.
“The effect is remarkable.”
I slapped Paul across the face to wake him.
“Sleep well?”
“Gasp…. What are you doing?”
“Want another dream? Or will you talk? Fair warning—this time I won’t stop it.”
He sealed his lips, but his eyes trembled visibly.
“Bae Na-young, again.”
The Nightmare skill took hold once more, and his convulsions resumed.
* * *
After hours of Nightmare, the man’s mind had shattered. The intensity of his fear and stress was evident—his hair had fallen out in patches, and his face had turned ashen gray. In mere hours, he appeared to have aged decades. Even I had to admire the willpower it took for him to endure until reaching this state.
“So that’s what you call a Bridge Gate? Since you opened it with this item, you should be able to close it as well, correct?”
“If you channel mana into the control unit and activate it, the opened Bridge can be closed.”
Having lost all will to resist, he answered obediently.
“Did you cross the Bridge as well? Are there more people coming through?”
“If you use this item Helen created at the Gate on the Earth side, the Bridge opens and monsters cross over to Earth. However, travel between Earth and Telus is impossible without Helen. A master of spatial magic is required.”
“A master?”
“A master is someone who has mastered their field. There are few masters throughout the entire Empire. Helen may not be the strongest in combat, but she is unparalleled in spatial magic across Telus. It was Helen who discovered the existence of this place called Earth. There is no one besides Helen who can open a Gate.”
It seemed multiple nations existed on Earth as well, much like Telus.
“A master would be comparable to an S-rank Hunter, then.”
“At minimum, yes. The Masters are stronger than S-rank Hunters.”
He let out a bitter chuckle. It seemed he’d suddenly felt pride in his own world.
“If you have so many capable people, why did you try to send monsters to our side?”
“Monsters emerge from Gates on our world too. The difference is we don’t have as many combat-capable personnel as you do. Our skilled warriors and mages are doing their best, but Telus’s will has been crumbling under the invasion.”
“Telus—isn’t that just a planet’s name? Will?”
“Earthlings know nothing of the Destroyer God….”
“Destroyer God?”
“The Destroyer God is an entity that devours stars. The monsters emerging from Gates are creatures commanded by it. The Gates created by the Destroyer God connect directly to its domain. However, the planet’s will created a buffer zone within the Gate, allowing only a fraction of enemies through. Without that buffer, it would be like constant breaches happening all the time.”
“Huh…”
“Didn’t it seem odd that Gates appear near densely populated areas?”
“We thought the monsters were trying to kill more humans.”
“No. The planet’s will is commanding the Destroyer God to be stopped. When a Gate wipes out everyone in an area, it disappears, and a new one appears elsewhere with more people.”
Thinking about how the Gate disappeared from North Korea while increasing in Korea and China, the explanation made sense. Until now, I’d assumed it vanished because that region had been conquered.
“The planet’s power is limited. Earth is a relatively young star, so it overflows with power. That’s why it can even create awakened individuals like you. Meanwhile, Telus’s strength, worn down by defending against the Destroyer God for so long, has already weakened. The more Gates appear, the more breaches occur, the weaker it becomes—a vicious cycle.”
“So you abandoned us on our land? That’s just buying time, isn’t it?”
“…We were trying to find another way in the meantime.”
“Ah, and is there a reason you came at this point? Did Helen develop new technology to discover Earth?”
I was curious why they’d arrived earlier than planned. I couldn’t directly ask why they came so much sooner when they were supposed to arrive years later, so I phrased it differently.
“According to Helen, spatial rifts form when a Gate is cleared. I don’t understand what that means myself. We were conducting random experiments, and one of them succeeded.”
Because I’d cleared the Gate, the timing differed from my previous life, and it seemed to have affected their experiments as well.
“Brother…. Don’t you think other people need to know about this?”
“Yeah, we need to tell them.”
The value of this information was too great. The entire world needed to know.
“Then let’s close just one Bridge Gate and call the Director.”
Since I’d kidnapped and tortured a national dignitary, I needed to verify the information I’d just obtained to avoid being arrested.
“Get up.”
I shoved Paul, his hands bound behind his back, into the car.
He’d already lost the will to fight, his head hanging low.
I had Yang Sang-heon drive while I sat in the back with him.
“You said Masters are stronger than S-rank Hunters, right? Then has anyone ever thought about attacking the Destroyer God instead?”
“Hah…. Why wouldn’t we have tried? In the past, several nations allied and sent Masters along with hundreds of supporting warriors and mages multiple times.”
“Seeing that Helen and your group came here, it must have failed.”
“It did. We only lost valuable Masters.”
“What exactly is the Destroyer God? Is it actually a god? Can it be defeated?”
“We don’t know more than what I just told you. No one has ever returned.”
They possessed far more knowledge than us, having used mana and magic before Earth did. Unlike us Awakened, who’d only developed our abilities two decades ago according to Earth’s will and used them as skills without understanding their nature, they were different.
Yet even they didn’t know the Destroyer God’s true identity. It seemed that after long research, they’d only determined it was a powerful entity capable of interfering with a planet’s will.
The car fell silent. I’d gathered much information today, but little of it was hopeful. If Earth’s will weakened, the invasion would come faster. Earth, with few S-rank Hunters, seemed to have virtually no chance of succeeding in a counterattack that even Telus had failed at.
Lost in thought, we arrived at the Gate. Since I’d cleared it, I had access rights until it reset.
I entered with him and stood before the Bridge Gate.
“Jae-in, give it a try.”
Jae-in manipulated the device as Paul had instructed.
“Mana…. How do I channel it in?”
“You have that much mana and can’t manage something so fundamental?”
For those of us who wielded power like skills, it was difficult to comprehend.
“If you can’t sense the flow of mana and adjust it, the item won’t function.”
“Like this?”
I released life force from my palm.
“That’s an aura, not mana. Showing off your strength? If you apply that, the item will shatter. I said channel mana into it. How can you not manage this?”
I suddenly found myself on the receiving end of a lecture.
“Like this?”
A deep violet aura rippled at the tip of Bae Na-young’s wand.
“Well…. Mana of an ominous color, I must say. But yes, that’s correct.”
In the end, it was Bae Na-young, whose magical talent was superior, who operated the device. Perhaps Jae-in could learn to do it with training later.
Paul explained the detailed manipulation method to Bae Na-young.
“You’d better hope this works properly.”
When I pressured Paul, he nodded lightly. He seemed to have already abandoned all hope.
“Then, I’ll begin.”
Bae Na-young sat before the device and started the operation.
“I didn’t ask you to bring vermin along.”
The moment Bae Na-young began the operation, I turned at a woman’s voice from behind. Helen and the dwarf Adam stood there.
“It’s our mistake for placing hope in a human.”
Adam nodded in agreement with Helen’s words.
“H-… Helen, Adam. I….”
Helen looked at Paul and drew her hand through the air.
My keen senses warned me, so I kicked Paul backward.
The space warped where Paul’s head had been.
I’d kicked hastily and lost control of my strength. Paul took the blow and flew back, losing consciousness.
Paul had wielded his dagger, but Helen merely swept her hand through empty air like conducting an orchestra, twisting space itself.
“Are you using the same technique as Paul?”
“The same technique? I taught him that. Without the dagger I crafted for him, he can’t even imitate it properly. Like most of your kind, he has no talent. But…. why did you save him?”
“I still have many questions. I couldn’t let him die.”
“How foolish. Do you think you’ll even have a tomorrow?”
“Won’t know until I try.”
The moment I finished speaking, I charged at Adam. It seemed better to deal with Adam first—he appeared weaker than Helen—and then focus on her.
Adam reflexively raised his axe, but I was faster.
Just before my hand could crush Adam’s head, a barrier materialized in front of him. My right hand was sucked into it, and everything from my hand to below my shoulder twisted like wrung-out laundry. The power was certainly incomparable to Paul’s.
While my hand was trapped in the barrier, Adam’s axe swung horizontally.
With my right arm twisted, I struck down at the axe with my left hand and kicked Adam’s ribs with my right foot.
Adam flew from the impact, rolled across the ground several times, and came to a stop.
From the cracking sounds emanating from Adam’s flank, at least several of his ribs had shattered. Adam was incapacitated.
“It’s astounding your arm wasn’t severed, but can you not feel pain? To continue attacking in that state….”
Forcing movement while my arm was pinned had twisted my shoulder as well.
“Remarkable, perhaps, but that’s all there is to it.”
Helen flicked her hand, and my keen senses sent another warning screaming through me.
Slice.
“Right then. At least I won’t die from this.”
Channeling my life force into the edge of my hand, I severed my right arm—the one caught in the spatial distortion.
“Brother!!”
“Hyung!”
Both of them rushed toward me.
“Stay back! You can’t even see the attacks. Take Paul and get out of the Gate.”
Unless I could block everything myself, having them nearby would only be a hindrance.
“You think I’d let you escape?”
The moment Helen raised her hand toward the two of them, I picked up Adam’s axe and hurled it. The axe crumpled against the barrier before Helen, deflected.
“How insolent….”
Helen’s expression twisted. But her gaze turned back to me.

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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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