Chapter 74: Kop-Yul [1]

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"Hai!"

"56..."

"Hai!"

"78..."

"HAI, GODDAMNIT!"

"Oh, ah, yes, sweetie?" Hai turned toward the fortress where Hong Li-Wei was screaming while he strangled a snow wolf to death.

"There are some people coming here from the eastern side!" She screamed from atop the fortress while constantly checking the screens in her vision.

The data displayed there showed that there are at least 4 vehicles approaching their location at high speed.

"Oh…" He muttered and crushed the wolf's neck.

"Don't "oh…" me! What are we going to do?" She clicked her tongue noticing on her radar that the newcomers were picking up speed.

"Hum… Well, let's try to talk." He shrugged while sidestepping an attack from a snow owl, spinning his body and slashing his hand at the monster's neck, thus decapitating it.

"…" Hong Li-Wei went silent and stared in his direction with no visible reaction on her face.

"Sweetie, they are coming this way." Chang Hua's voice suddenly resounded in Hai's ears and he turned in his aunt's direction.

There, he saw four dots fast approaching their location.

Coating his eyes with mana, he noticed that there are around 10 people inside the vehicles, all of them fully armed.

In a sudden burst of speed, Hai's figure blurred and he vanished from where he was.

"Eh?"

"Young master?"

"Wha-"

"What are you doing!?"

"Young master Hai?"

"…"

Not even a second later, Hai reappeared back where he was, however, this time not only he but everyone was wearing the same mask he used back in the night when he along with Elena invaded the power plant.

As he cast a simple effect of blurring the face on the mask, he calmly started to walk toward his aunt's side while behind him had turned into a garden with ice thorns piercing the monsters.

<If I didn't see it wrong, they must be part of a military group or affiliated with some corporation…>

Hai's thoughts jolted awake the girls who still hadn't understood what was happening and they all started to pay attention to the approaching group.

Stella and Bing Qing who were the most pressured when dealing with the monsters, suddenly found that their burden turned lighter.

Briefly looking around they saw a few ice golems lending a helping hand to them so they weren't too pressured.

Elena used her magic and started to attack the monsters from a ranged distance while going close to the fortress and Hai's side.

Chilly who was lost on the battlefield this entire time, decided to simply wait near the fortress.

She didn't entertain at all the idea of helping when the two monsters (Hai and Elena) were around.

As Hai arrived beside his aunt, he passed her one mask and turned to observe that the four HUVs-like cars didn't lower their speed; instead, guns appeared from the roof and side of the vehicles.

Enchanting his hearing, Hai's ears perked up hearing their conversation.

"Captain, the weapons are ready."

"Ok, fire."

"What about the people, cap?"

"There are people? Give a warning, this is the most we can do in this situation."

"Roger."

Then, after a brief beep sound, everyone could hear a hoarse masculine voice.

"To the people fighting the monsters, get down if you don't want to get shot." The voice echoed far and wide before the weapons started to move.

Hearing it, Hai saw as the weapons glowed and started to rain down bullets in their direction, targeting monsters and them with no discrimination.

"Sweetie, let me handle this." Chang Hua said with her eyebrow twitching beneath the mask.

"Sure, go ahead, aunt." He crossed his arms and looked at the incoming fire.

Chang Hua looked at the bullets and snorted.

She had also overheard their conversation through her heightened senses which are even better than Hai's and she didn't like it one bit.

She already deals with enough unreasonable people back in the palace, but now even random passing ones are testing her patience?

Manipulating her aura, she made a whitish barrier in front of her and Hai, one big enough to cover the fortress and everyone near it.

*TATATATATATATATA*

*TATATATATAAATATA*

With the non-stopping sound of bullets being fired, everyone watched as the bullets touched Chang Hua's barrier and vanished.

As the HUVs kept firing without stopping, they divided into two groups and started to move in a circular motion in opposite directions and from behind the monsters that were near the fortress.

*TATATATATATATATA*

*TATATATATATATATA*

Chang Hua felt a vein throbbing on her forehead as she split the barrier into two and moved them to match the HUVs' pace and block all the bullets uncaringly shoot their way.

"…" Meanwhile, Hai was smiling beneath his mask while his eyes could freeze even a demon from how cold they were as he carefully observed the vehicles.

He kept his senses sharp and paid attention to their small conversations, but he didn't obtain anything useful.

Finally, after 2 minutes, all the monsters were dead and painting the snow red when the HUVs stopped moving.

Chang Hua brought her barriers closer to the fortress and everyone observed as the vehicles' doors opened.

From there, people fully dressed in military high-tech armor and equipped to survive in this cold desolate land stepped out.

Hai observed them as one of them, the one who wore an armor with a black cape stepped out.

The guy stepped out of the HUV and then walked toward Hai and Chang Hua.

Each step he took forward, his teammates mirrored and followed right behind him.

And after a few seconds, he arrived less than 10 meters from Hai.

"You and your group have attracted quite a horde of monsters… What are you doing here?" He questioned with an authoritative tone and glaring at them from behind his helmet.

"…" Hai silently looked at him before taking a single step outside the barrier and silently seizing up the group in front of him.

"…" Noticing that they weren't talking, the guy raised his arm and his teammates immediately pointed their weapons toward Hai and Chang Hua.

"Apologies, but I have been tasked with the safety of a place close to here, and this horde was quite a dangerous episode, even if it didn't directly do any harm. So, if you could be cooperative, I would appreciate it." The guy with the black cape, supposedly the captain, spoke while maintaining his arm raised.

Hai calmly looked at the captain and without hurry, opened his mouth.

"If you want to talk, I would suggest for you to put your weapons down." His voice came out colder than the ice desert around them.

"…" The captain narrowed his eyes behind his helmet and glared at the ones on his team that wanted to pull the trigger.

'Who the hell did we cross with?' A drop of sweat formed on his forehead and slid down to his cheek, and then fell off from his chin.

It has been quite some time since he felt this pressured.

While the masked man in front of him didn't do anything except for speaking a single line, he, a trained soldier felt danger just from that line alone.

It was more of an instinct than an actual logical basis.

Looking at the ongoing conversation, Elena who by now was at the fortress' gate, frowned beneath her mask.

She wasn't liking the group's attitude of pointing weapons at her young master.

Taking in a few breaths, she calmed herself down and let him deal with things for now. She knows that she wouldn't be the best person to offer any help right now as she would probably just walk up to them and kill those bastards.

Reining in her anger, she limited herself to only looking at them.

Only this and to think of means of torture.

Meanwhile, other people who weren't liking one bit of this situation were the duo Bing Qing and Stella.

The former was due to her new interest in Hai as a potential master(?), and from the fact that while they haven't a deep relationship yet, he has so far treated her right, with respect and some goodwill. Something that she hadn't all those years back in her clan and while teaching Ye Chen and traveling around the world.

Her fox ears twitched and her tails started to slowly dance in the air as she observed the situation with an impassive face.

As for Stella, she was seriously annoyed by the people pointing weapons at Hai.

She is cold and calculative most of the time… and a bit arrogant, but she also knows how to recognize talented or competent people, and Hai is both of those.

So, for her, it is plain annoying this situation to even be happening when she knows of his skills and all.

Looking at him, her eyes faced his back and the image overlapped with another.

A trembling and lonely little girl.

As quickly as the image came, it went away.

Slightly gritting her teeth, she looked away from the scene and tried to calm herself down.

Back with Hai, he was still relaxedly standing in front of the group with weapons pointing at him, and with a small smile beneath his mask.

However, his eyes weren't smiling.

"I assume that the gentleman doesn't want to talk then." He commented in a neutral tone before scratching his neck.

"…" The captain looked at the individual before him and reluctantly motioned his team to lower their weapons.

Taking a better look at the person before him, the captain's eyes narrowed even more when he noticed an almost imperceptible transparent-like smoke around Hai's body.

'A mage…' When he concluded this, he was glad that he didn't try to shoot him.

"Before I answer anything, I believe it's a minimum courtesy for us to get each other's names." Hai stated while ignoring the small hostility directed at him by some of the unsatisfied members behind the captain.

"Yes, that is true. Apologies for my late introduction, I'm the captain of the 4th Squad of Kop-Yul Colony, you can call me "captain", it's simpler this way." He brought his cape back and performed a small formal bow.

<Huh… I knew it, he is part of an affiliated militia. Or maybe calling it "city guard" might be more direct. And this guy… He is good. His body language alone already gives away the amount of experience he has.>

Chang Hua whom all this time kept her barrier up, narrowed her eyes.

'I don't remember such a colony being anywhere near here.' As an elder of the Paradise Palace, she, of course, is required to keep up with the news and geopolitical situation of at least the Antarctic Continent in case of need arises.

And thanks to a certain brat a few years ago, she is one of the few that takes this seriously.

This is why she is surprised, after all, she doesn't have any knowledge about a colony with this name.

This either means that this is a newly founded one, or that it wasn't on the map.

"I'm… You can call me Armageddon for now. And I'm someone who hunts down monsters." Hai spoke after a few seconds of silence.

The captain pursed his lips under his helmet.

"That is… a peculiar name." He commented with a small sense of discomfort.

Right now, Hai is using a mask with magic to hinder one's vision, and his figure has a barely visible smoke surrounding it, thus giving the impression that he is using some magic around himself to, most likely, hide his true appearance.

And his attitude coupled with his words until now, everything results in a vague and relatively mysterious persona, and this is giving him a sense of discomfort.

"You aren't much better, "captain"." Hai commented with some sarcasm and scratched his neck.

"…" The other party didn't have any reply to that.

"So, what was it that you wanted to talk?" Hai asked even though he and everyone else already knew.

Coughing, the captain fixed his expression and with a serious gaze, faced him.

"Mr… Armageddon, could you possibly be the one who caused this stamped to form or do you know anything about the one or the reason for this to happen?" The captain inquired and observed Hai's reactions.

Hai, on the other hand, maintained his calmness and looked back at the captain.

"If I told you that I'm not the reason and that I don't know what is, would you even believe in me?" He asked back as he knows that his answer is pretty much worth nothing in this situation.

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