Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 73
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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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73
Blitz raked his claws through the air, releasing five streaks of aura that sliced through the Devil’s Tears, but even after slashing frantically multiple times, he managed to destroy only one.
Blitz didn’t pause, continuously evading the incoming projectiles by pushing off the empty air to change direction or leaping high into the sky.
Sono Rim unleashed azure flames through magic to burst the approaching spheres, but the cold sweat dripping down his face revealed how dire the situation had become. Even a Master-class mage had finite mana, and at this rate of expenditure, he’d collapse within moments.
I charged forward recklessly, extending a fist infused with life force to strike the Devil’s Tears. When explosions erupted, I leaped backward to mitigate the impact, but the problem was that I was taking considerable damage myself. No matter how far back I jumped, I couldn’t outrun the blast radius, so the shock waves were devastating. Continuing to absorb explosions at this rate would exhaust me far too quickly.
Unlike the three of us struggling, Jung Min-gi unleashed consecutive sword strikes, destroying at least one Devil’s Tear with each slash—sometimes three or four at once.
If a chain reaction explosion occurred, we could drastically reduce their numbers, but the Devil’s Tears passed through each other’s explosions as if they didn’t exist, continuing their assault on us.
We exchanged glances and instantly created distance between ourselves and Franklin.
“What? Already giving up? That knight over there was at least somewhat entertaining. Why not come to The Empire? I’ll treat you well.”
“The Empire doesn’t seem like a place I’d fit into.”
“Then die here.”
Before I could even catch my breath, more Devil’s Tears came flying.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Over a hundred Devil’s Tears detonated in rapid succession before reaching us.
Dust billowed from the massive explosions.
“What… is…?”
For the first time, bewilderment crossed Franklin’s face.
Turning around, I saw Bae Na-young in the distance, her staff pointed toward us. Her wide-ranging curse was Corruption. The Devil’s Tears’ surfaces crumbled and burst apart. Watching them detonate in a chain reaction, the despair I’d felt began to lift.
“Your girlfriend… doesn’t have a Guild?”
“This isn’t the time for that, is it?”
“We’ll need to talk after this.”
Jung Min-gi unleashed another barrage of sword strikes. With Bae Na-young’s attacks, the number of Devil’s Tears decreased significantly. With more openings created, Franklin deployed even more projectiles between himself and Jung Min-gi.
“I don’t understand why the witch opposes me, but I can’t let her rampage any longer.”
Franklin swept his hand, and dozens of Devil’s Tears flew toward Bae Na-young from all directions.
“No!”
Jung Min-gi, Sono Rim, and Blitz all rushed forward, intercepting more than half of the Devil’s Tears heading toward Bae Na-young, but still over a dozen continued their approach. Bae Na-young attempted to use Corruption to destroy them, but they moved faster than bullets and were too small for her curse to reliably hit.
I burned my life force and rushed forward at maximum speed, detonating one. There was no time to evade the explosion. I took the full blast with my entire body and pushed through.
As my battered form regenerated, I continued destroying them one by one.
Thanks to the three behind me desperately holding Franklin back without sparing themselves, no additional attacks reached Bae Na-young. In fact, seeing the smile never leave her lips, she seemed to still be enjoying this.
Bae Na-young stopped her counterattack upon seeing the rapidly approaching Devil’s Tear and fled backward, but they were moving too fast for her to escape.
Three left.
The distance was merely hundreds of meters. At this speed, it would take mere moments.
Two.
Boom! In my haste, I took the explosion head-on, and my body was knocked backward.
I pushed off the ground again and charged forward. By the time I approached, Bae Na-young had already entered the blast radius of the final Devil’s Tear.
Bae Na-young deployed a violet barrier, but the Devil’s Tear tore through it like thin paper. When I got close, it had already attached itself to her neck.
“Witch, kill them. Unless you wish to die.”
Franklin’s face gleamed with sadistic delight as he watched us, clearly savoring this moment. This man could have killed us all from the start if he’d fought seriously, but his use of the Azure Dragon Guild members and his current treatment of Bae Na-young revealed a fundamentally twisted nature.
“I’m sorry, oppa…”
“Oppa… I’m sorry.”
She had come to help, and thanks to Bae Na-young destroying a significant number of Devil’s Tiers, we finally had a fighting chance.
Jung Min-gi, Sono Rim, and Blitz all ceased their attacks and stared at the Devil’s Tier clinging to Bae Na-young’s neck.
“Count to three.”
“Two.”
Crunch.
“What?”
I bit through the Devil’s Tier on Bae Na-young’s neck down to the skin and swallowed it whole. The blood vessels remained intact, but crimson streaks ran down her pale throat.
Then I pulled away from her.
“Brother!”
“I’ve never detonated one from inside a stomach before. This should be entertaining.”
The creature raised its hand, and I concentrated every ounce of my life force and aura into my abdomen for maximum defense.
Blitz rushed over, scooped Bae Na-young into his arms, and bolted.
“One down.”
Franklin snapped his fingers.
A deafening explosion erupted from my solar plexus.
“Impressive—protecting your insides while leaving one point exposed. More cunning than I expected.”
Franklin was battered and torn, yet I remained standing. I had wrapped my interior with aura while deliberately leaving my front exposed. The result was a gaping hole in my abdomen, but my body remained intact. My remaining life force slowly knitted the wound closed.
I stood on both legs, though I had no idea how much longer I could endure. I had taken multiple direct explosions while rushing toward Bae Na-young, and the detonations within my body had nearly drained my life force entirely.
“That lizard is finished, the mutt fled, the orc is out of mana—now only you remain.”
Dozens of Franklin’s Devil’s Tiers hurtled toward Jung Min-gi. At a glance, I had destroyed more than half, but the initial swarm had been so vast that he still had overwhelming numbers.
Jung Min-gi gripped his sword with both hands, raised it vertically, and closed his eyes.
“Full Moon.”
Light radiated from the blade’s tip, forming a luminous sphere like a full moon around him.
Boom boom boom crash!!
Dozens of Devil’s Tiers collided with the Full Moon and detonated, engulfing the area in dust.
As the dust settled, what remained was Jung Min-gi’s Full Moon riddled with countless holes. His armor was tattered in places, stained with blood—he hadn’t managed complete protection.
“Respectable.”
The creature mocked us, but I saw no way to counter. It still possessed overwhelming reserves of power, and we hadn’t even scratched it.
“Now, if I eliminate all of your nation’s so-called Hunters, you won’t be able to seal this Gate. I don’t understand why Helen couldn’t manage something so simple.”
The creature clicked its tongue.
It was right. We had already lost hundreds of Hunters today, and if we suffered more losses here, Korea’s Gates would become unsealed, triggering a cascade of Breaks.
I couldn’t accept this outcome. I was absorbing life force from the earth, but it was far too little for what I needed.
Franklin had never appeared in my previous life. The events that occurred then were already overwhelming for me to prevent—so why do these creatures keep emerging? It feels as though God himself is obstructing my attempt to change the future.
Despair weighed on me, and my head drooped.
“Chairman!”
I turned my head weakly and saw Jae-in calling to me from a distance.
“Catch this!”
A high-speed drone flew toward me.
I caught the drone with my hand as it approached. At its center gleamed a brilliant crimson core.
“What is this?”
“I made it with a new catalyst! It should be stable!”
Continuing my research with the magical engineering knowledge I’d received from Sono Rim, it seemed I’d finally achieved some results.
Life force surged from the core in my palm. The vitality that flooded my body in an instant was incomparable to what I could draw from the earth or absorb from monsters.
I couldn’t keep fighting while holding it in my hand. I unfastened the armor at my chest, pressed the core close to my heart, and covered it again with the plating. It looked as though my heart was glowing crimson from within the armor.
“That is… what? Could that overflowing life force be a Dragon Heart?”
I didn’t know what a Dragon Heart was, but now I had a way to counterattack.
I released the life force I’d drawn from the core throughout my entire body. It wasn’t as refined as Jung Min-gi’s technique, but if quality fell short, I could simply overwhelm with quantity.
A crimson aura erupted violently around me. It felt like I’d become a super-powered being from a shonen manga.
I burned life force without restraint across my entire body, enhancing my physical capabilities.
After bringing Bae Na-young to the rear, I locked eyes with Blitz as he returned. I nodded in gratitude and turned my gaze toward Franklin.
Sensing something, he hurled Devil’s Tears at me. When I batted away the ones flying directly at me with my fist, explosions erupted, but my body only shifted slightly—my brutishly thick aura wasn’t penetrated.
I observed the countless Devil’s Tears streaming toward me next. They were so densely packed that even with my speed, I couldn’t dodge them all, but I found the optimal route with the least impact and rushed forward rapidly.
He seemed flustered—his eyes changed, and he moved from his position for the first time.
As he retreated, he gathered the widely scattered Devil’s Tears. Thanks to that, what had been roughly a meter apart now clung together at ten-centimeter intervals.
There was no way through, so my feet stopped.
“That’s… right! You’re not capable of breaking through!”
“It wouldn’t be fun if you handled everything alone.”
“As a human of our world, you cannot exclude me from this.”
Jung Min-gi unleashed a flash of his blade, Blitz tore through with his claws’ aura, and Sono Rim unleashed blue flames. I too poured out life force without restraint, detonating the clustered Devil’s Tears.
The Devil’s Tears on the outer edges of his formation began exploding one by one.
“How arrogant these vermin have become, playing around with me for a moment.”
Seeing his Devil’s Tears dwindling, Franklin grew anxious and reabsorbed them, plastering them thickly across his body.
“Sono Rim, what is that?”
“I don’t know… I’ve never heard of it.”
“Everyone who’s ever seen this has died.”
Black Devil’s Tears enveloped his body seamlessly, and his form transformed into something demonic. His small stature gained elongated legs that made him roughly my height, while his torso and limbs thickened considerably.
He lifted his feet and appeared before my eyes in an instant.
I dodged backward upon seeing his arrival, but it was already too late.
Boom!
His fist struck my crossed arms guard. The force was so tremendous that my body flew backward like a cannonball and crashed into the ground.
Jung Min-gi and Sono Rim unleashed their attacks, which Franklin took directly with his body, but his skin only scratched slightly before healing instantly.
“This is infuriating… Is that thing similar to Geomancer’s armor? It keeps regenerating?”
“It appears so. However, if that’s the case, it should have the same weaknesses. Infinite energy cannot exist.”
“So if we keep hitting it, it’ll eventually run out? How long?”
“I’m uncertain…”
“This is one hell of a mess.”
Jung Min-gi sighed.
As I tried to crawl up from the ground, his silhouette blurred again.
Whoosh!
Unable to track him with my eyes, I unleashed poison mist around my vicinity.
“Gaaaahhhhh!”
Franklin, who had been advancing, was struck by the venom and began clawing at his skin.
“Did Ji-seok’s attack actually land?”
“Poison…? There’s no way poison could affect someone of his caliber…”
“You barbaric wretch! You dared spit at me!”
It wasn’t the venom that had affected him—he was enraged that he’d been struck by blood spilling from my mouth. Regardless, he was riddled with openings.
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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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