Chapter 36: Returning to Finish the Job, Demon Castle Cleared & A National Rank Hunter

A/N :

" " : Dialogue,

' ' : Thought,

[ ] : System, Akasha, Minerva,

"Italicized text" : Telepathy,

« » : Artificial Intelligence,

| | : Sung Jin-Woo's System Panels, Sung Jin-Woo's System Messages,

"Bold text" : Shadows & Deathborns.

We're back, baby!

BTW, I've decided that Dante and Shiraori's surname/last name will be Invictus, meaning Unconquerable.

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Narrator POV

A day has passed since the High Orc dungeon raid, and Sung Jin-Woo has finally received his first paycheck from the Dominion Guild's payment plan for its employees.

Looking at the check in his hands, Sung Jin-Woo slightly shivers in disbelief. "1... 2... 5... 9. Nine zeros. A weekly payment of ₩5 billion. Unbelievable." While he is still shocked by the amount of money that he's expecting to receive weekly, he does have plans to use the money.

Heading further down the guild building, he reaches one of the basement floors, where gears that were made by Dante and Shiraori were being kept. As he walks out of the elevator, he notices that he can't sense any mana on the entire floor, despite his powerful senses.

Looking at the wall in front of him, he sees two arrows pointing in opposite directions, with the one to the left being for weapons, and the one to the right for armor, and other wearables.

Going to the right, he soon comes across the door that has what looks like a handprint scanner. He puts his hand on it and it scans his handprint, at first. Looking at the progress bar, he notices some other lines that show that it's scanning more than just his handprint.

«Releasing Mana Interference... Reading Mana Signature.» The machine read out on its screen. Sung Jin-Woo was surprised to see that there was an interference module worked into the machine, and he asked out loud; "Why would it need something to interfere with someone's mana?"

«It's there to disable stealth and disguise skills. So that way, if someone is able to successfully sneak their way down here, it'd be impossible for them to get into the armory, or off this floor.» Aurora says as a hologram of her is suddenly projected beside him. He was a bit surprised, but otherwise fine with her sudden presence.

Heading into the armory as the door opens, he is met with a multitude of armor sets being kept in capsules that are in very long rows and columns. Close to the door, is a computer that is meant to help members of the guild that are present on the floor to find armor sets with certain attributes and enhancements.

Walking to the computer, Sung Jin-Woo searches for an S Rank armor set with high fire resistance and a high water attribute, as he has chosen to head back to the Demon Castle today to finally clear it.

The computer shows him a catalog of over 100 different armor sets that have the attributes that he's looking for, and more. He scrolls through the list, and he happens upon a set that consists of only 2 pieces , a black cloak with a purple inner coloring, hood, a metallic pauldron on the left shoulder, and some leather sewn into its lapels, as well as a pair of black trousers with a black learher belt with some metal inset into it, and a small chain hanging off the right side.

*Sung Jin-Woo in armor*

He checks the price of the armor set and sees that it costs a whopping ₩630 million, affordable for him and most other S Ranks, but a considerably high cost purchase for most other Hunters, that didn't have an affluent background.

Taking out his bank card, he walks over to the capsule holding the armor set, and slides it in the card slot. The interface shows that the amount had been transferred from his account to the Guild's account.

The capsule opens up and he inspects the set of armor, and he smiles as he sees the stats.

|Item: Cloak of the Deepwalker|

|Item Class: S

Type: Armor

Reduction in physical damage: +35%

Stamina +30, Strength +25

A cloak that holds the power of the abyss of the deep within it.

Effect 1 'Heart of the Deep' : +55% Water Affinity, +55% Fire Resistance, +55% Darkness Affinity.

Effect 2 'Breath of the Deep' : Allows wearer to breathe underwater.

The set effect will activate if this item is equipped along with:

- Leggings of the Deepwalker. (Equipped)

Set Effect: Mana Recovery +10% per second|

|Item: Leggings of the Deepwalker|

|Item Class: S

Type: Armor

Reduction in physical damage: +20%

Stamina+20, Agility +30

A pair of trousers said to be capable of letting its wearer walk the trenches of the deep without any danger.

Effect 1 'Heart of the Deep': +30% Water Affinity, +20% Fire Resistance, +30% Darkness Affinity.

Effect 2 'Deepwalker's Stride' : Allows the wearer to move underwater freely.

The set effect will activate if this item is equipped along with:

- Cloak of the Deepwalker. (Equipped)

Set Effect: Mana Recovery +10% per second.|

Quickly changing his jacket and trousers, Sung Jin-Woo looks at his status panel and nods with a smile, then places the other clothes he came to the guild building with into his inventory. Satisfied with what he had gotten, he leaves the guild building with the intention of heading back to the Demon Castle.

He would have gotten some of his shadows to guard his family, but he understands that Dante's deathborns are leagues more powerful than his shadows, so their protection is more than adequate.

He uses Shūndō to quickly make his way to the Hunter Association building, otherwise known as the World Tower, and he re-enters the Demon Castle.

What he didn't know, was that Dante had been keeping an eye on him, and he was slowly creating an illusion. When he got close to the building, Dante created the illusion that a Gate had suddenly popped up in the middle of the city.

And when he stepped into the Gate, Dante turned the surface red from its signature blue color that most people are familiar with. With how large he made the illusion of the Gate, everyone became seriously alarmed, as they would have expected for such a large Gate to be at the very least at the peak of A Rank.

To sell the illusion of the country's most recent S Rank going into a Red Gate even better, Dante created a time dilation bubble that covered the entirety of the Demon Castle, making it so that it would be similar to other Red Gates, meaning that 1 hour on Earth would be a whole day in he Demon Castle.

Sung Jin-Woo, who is oblivious to this, enters the Demon Castle. And as soon as he does, a quest notification pops up.

|Normal Quest: Collect Demon's Souls! (Part 2)|

|The Monarch of Demons 'Baran' is residing on the highest floor of the Demon Castle.

Eliminate Baran and collect its soul.

Quest completion requirement: Defeat the Demon King.|

|Reward(s):

1. Highest Quality Runestone

2. Bonus Stats +30

3. Hidden Reward.|

He looks at the rewards for the quest and checks the first one.

|Highest Quality Runestone: Shadow Exchange.

A class-specific skill can be obtained by breaking the rune.|

"These rewards are better than the last time I was here. There's even a runestone that'll give me a class-specific skill." He says to himself with expectation.

A notification pops up, showing him the available flowers, and he picks the highest floor he has gotten to, floor 87.

As he reaches the floor, he notices that it is still empty, the exact way he left it when he left the Demon Castle. It only had one other living being in it, the Demon Noble that had been his guide since he cleared the 80th floor, the princess of the Radir demon clan, Esil.

*Esil*

Letting his senses loose, he soon picks up on Esil's location, which is at the floor's teleportation circle to the next floor and dashes there with Shūndō. He soon reaches her position and lands, causing the ground to make a small quake, startling her.

"Ah, Sung Jin-Woo, you're here." She says as she forces herself to calm down. "Yeah, and this time I'm finishing what I started." He says as he pulls out his daggers from his inventory.

She looks at him with slight skepticism, as she had fully witnessed his battles from the 81st floor to the 87th floor where they are, and she knows that the battles had gotten more and more difficult for him, despite his strength and multiple abilities.

"Don't worry, it'll be a lot easier this time." He says and uses the 88th floor's entry permit to transport them to the next floor. After they are teleported, he looks forward at the massive gothic-esque castle in the distance, and uses the beginning of the strategy that he had used to attack the 7 castles before them, using Shūndō to get into the castle grounds.

As he lands, all the demons on patrol are immediately alerted to his presence, and some try to attack him, but they were too slow to react. As he summons out all of his shadows to kill the demons.

In between the chaos of his other soldiers killing the demons, Sung Jin-Woo calls Tusk and the magic soldier that he gave the Orb kf Avarice. He transfers the orb to Tusk, and its size increases greatly to match the size of Tusk's hand.

As he receives the orb, Tusk looks around to assess the situation, then immediately casts Hymn of Giants, Hymn of Strengthening and Hymn of Fire Dragon, and fires out a blast of flames that practically destroys a great number of demons, as well as parts of the castle.

Using the new level of momentum brought by the increased number of soldiers on his army, he clears both the 88th and 89th floors. As he finishes clearing the 89th floor, Esil stops to warn him of the power of the demons that inhabit all floors from floor 90 upwards.

"All floors from the 90th floor are supervised by clans of highly ranking nobles, whose powers are in a completely different league when compared to us and the other in the 80s. Maybe it might be best that you try to persuade them like you did with my clan, they might hand over the entry permits... " She says with concern, but Sung Jin-Woo stops her.

"Tell me, Esil. If I was weaker than your clan, would you have even thought of negotiating with me?" His words made her realize that they really would have opted to just kill him, if he was weaker than them back when he attacked their floor. "That's just how it is." He says with a wry smile, that disappears almost as quickly as it appears.

"Besides, you said that there's always a fierce competition between the demon clans due to rankings, so I'm sure this'll boost your Radir clan to first place." He says while stretching. She remains silent for a while.

"Um, Jin-Woo... Sir. Why did you excuse my clan?" She asks him, seeing as he just chose to kill all the other clans without making any negotiations. He turns to her, and with a calm face, speaks. "I just took a bit of a liking to you." His words make her blush, and sputter her words.

While that happened, Igris, Tank, and Baruka come forward to meet him, as if they were waiting for him to finish speaking with Esil. As he looks at them, he sees a few, new notifications pop up, that make him feel just a bit happier.

|Knight 'Igris' has requested permission for a promotion.|

|Knight 'Tank' has requested permission for a promotion.|

|Knight 'Baruka' has requested permission for a promotion.|

|Do you accept their requests?|

'So I can promote their rank if they hit Max level. Good to know. At least, I can be sure that Iron will have the next promotion.' He thinks to himself, then speaks. "I accept." As he speaks, all three soldiers are engulfed by dark shadows, and shortly after, the promotion finishes, with all three of them reaching the Knight Elite rank, making them as strong as an S Rank Hunter at their base, and resetting their levels to 1.

After this, he uses the entry permit to go to the 90th floor, and despite the vast increase in the power of the demons he faced, he was still bulldozing through them at a rather impressive rate.

..

After Sung Jin-Woo finishes clearing the 97th floor of demons, Esil looks at him with wonder. 'Even the Rank 4 Peitos clan and Rank 5 Rikado clan, all destroyed by him and his army.' She thinks, to herself as another thought that scares her pops into her head.

"Are the other humans also as strong as Sir Sung Jin-Woo?" She asks with formality, as she witnessed him thoroughly exterminate demon clans that her father, the leader of the Radir demon clan, would normally bow to with caution. Sung Jin-Woo thinks for a moment and answers. "Well, there's only two people. And they're my teacher and his... wife, I guess." He says, as he isn't sure that Dante and Shiraori are even intent on getting married.

He then downs a Stimulant and a Mana Recovery potion to get rid of his fatigue and replenish his mana faster than his gear would allow him.

He turns to Esil, who has been carrying her own bag of supplies. "You go back to your floor now. I'll handle it by myself from here on." His words surprise her, as she didn't see anything that would have led up to such a conclusion, except... "Am I... no longer useful to you?" She asks shakily.

He puts his hand on her shoulder and smiles. "Thank you, Esil. You've done well until now, but it's time for us to part ways." She frowns in disappointment, but soon her expression becomes resolute. "No. I want to come with you. I want to see the outcome of your battle."

Seeing that she wasn't going to take no for an answer, he sighs. "Do as you please then." He says as they walk into the teleportation circle for the next floor.

The last 2 floors before the final floor proved to be a bit of a challenge for Sung Jin-Woo, as he spent a considerable amount of time clearing the two floors, even more than what he had spent on all other floors at the 90s.

As he looks at the teleportation circle for the final floor, the phone that Dante had given to him rings from within his inventory. Taking it out, he sees that it's Dante that's calling him, and he picks up, putting the call on speaker. "Hello."

"You really need to work on your timing, you know." He hears Dante say, almost as if he was exasperated. "What, did something happen?" He asks, wondering what exactly would need his presence back on Earth that Dante seems to not like doing.

"First off, look at the news app on that phone." Sung Jin-Woo raises a brow, then following Dante's words, opens up the news app, and what he sees as the top story shocks him.

«First of its kind S Rank Red Gate opens in Guro district in Seoul. Dominion Guild's S Rank Hunter, Sung Jin-Woo seen entering alone.»

"What the fuck?! Hey! When the hell did I enter a Red Gate?!" Sung Jin-Woo asks, his chest heaving with each breath he takes. "How the hell do you want me to explain to the other S Ranks that you're currently occupied in a dungeon? What, you want me to tell them that you can access an isolated dimension where you can hunt monsters and demons, thanks to a system that only you have?" Sung Jin-Woo shuts up as he sees the rationale behind Dante's action.

"And besides, calling the parts of the Demon Castle where you've been hunting for the past few hours an S Rank Gate, isn't farfetched. So, go ahead and clear the castle already, so that Korea would have its first National Rank Hunter. And don't worry about your family, Il-Hwan has already calmed your mom down, and Jin-Ho sent a call to Jin-Ah's school, so they'll be fine." Sung Jin-Woo let's out a short sigh of relief, until it pops into his head that Dante said he had only been in here for a few hours.

But he also remembers that Dante had squeezed two whole years of time into only 8 hours, so he just brushes the thought away. "Okay, and thanks." He says with a smile and cuts the call, returning the smartphone to his inventory.

"Um,Sir Sung Jin-Woo. What was that?" Esil asks, pointing as Sung Jin-Woo's empty hand. "That was a communication device called a smartphone. And as for who I was communicating with, it was my teacher." He answers as he looks at the teleportation circle with a serious expression. "Well, here goes nothing." He says, and walks onto the circle, with Esil following closely behind him.

...

Sung Jin-Woo POV

The 100th floor is really different. Instead of the fiery environments that I'm used to seeing, this one is actually snowing, as if the flames have been barred from reaching this place.

Before I can continue my thoughts, I feel a powerful aura heading towards Esil and I from above. I hear a roar, and look up to see what looks like a white dragon, but seeing how its wings are fully connected with its arms, it's more accurate to call it a wyvern.

And riding on top of it, I see someone, I see him. The final boss of the Demon Castle, Demon King Baran. Like most demons, he has horns, but his are seemingly in the shape of a crown. He has a mane of hair that looks like white flames, red eyes, gray skin that looks closer to chitin than skin, and pale yellow armor on his shoulders and groin.

He is strong. Just from him standing there, I can feel the immense bloodlust wafting of him. Hell, he's strong enough that even Esil can feel his aura strongly enough to be scared.

I look at the wyvern he's riding and it clicks, it's not a demon, but a magic beast. In other words, if I kill it, I could extract its shadow and get a new soldier, one powerful enough to match and even be stronger than Tusk.

Right as I am thinking that, Baran raises his longsword, a s a few notifications pop up.

|Demon King Baran Is using skill: Hell's Army.|

A few structures that look like door frames rise from the ground, having the space in them looking like a purple colored Gate.

|Demon Soldiers have been summoned.|

|Demon Knights have been summoned.|

|Demon Generals have been summoned.|

A massive horde of demons comes out of the gates, and a small bit of knowledge bothers me. Demon Knights and Generals are at A Rank at the minimum, and S Rank at the maximum, but in this horde, I can easily see and feel at least a hundred of them.

As they begin rushing towards me and Esil, she shouts my name, probably trying to tell me to bring out my soldiers, but I say that it's not yet time for that.

A few seconds pass and the demons soon reach the point I want them to reach. "Come out!" I shout, bringing out my soldiers. At the same time, I cast Domain of the Monarch to empower them. Before their bodies come out of my shadow, they attack every single demon within the range of my domain, killing most of them, and maiming a few.

Tusk quickly casts Hymn of Combustion, and multiple explosions go off, killing another swath of demons. Tank, Iron, Baruka and Igris jump into the horde of demons, tackling and killing any of them that they reach.

As they continue attacking, I feel the mana in the air shift, then I look at Baran. He's charging what looks like lightning in his mouth, without a care for his soldiers. He fires the lightning into the sky, and soon it falls on everything within the environment.

I quickly move close to Esil and put my cloak over her head, causing the lightning to strike me. Looking at my soldiers that are getting hit by the lightning, I see that many of them get stunned by it, and of course, the notifications soon come.

|Buff: Status Effect has been removed due to the effect of 'Immunity'.|x2

Clicking my tongue, I grab Esil and dash away, placing her a safe distance away from the stronger attacks. "Wait! I..." She tries to protest, but I stop her. "You will watch from here. My soldiers can regenerate from being destroyed, you can't. Now, stay here." I say and dash back into the chaotic battle.

Looking at Baran, I see him charging up another lightning breath, but it seems that he's targeting me for real this time. He releases the breath as a single beam at me, but when it gets close, I activate Quicksilver and use Shūndō to dashout of the path of the breath, then closer to the wyvern, and use Mutilation to behead it, all before the beam fizzles out.

The sudden death of his mount messes up Baran's footing just enough for me to try and get an attack in. I try to jab my dagger into his neck, but despite his bad footing, he parries it, then tries using the momentum from his fall to try and hit me away.

He pushes me back a considerable distance, but against his expectations, I use Shūndō to get behind him. Before he can respond, I spam Mutilation on his back, ripping his armor pieces to scrap metal, and severely damaging most of his limb joints, causing his limbs to flail about uncontrollably.

Despite the pain that I am sure he's feeling, he still tries charging up another lightning breath, but before it can fully charge up, I send two powerful slashes at his neck, beheading him and interrupting the lightning breath.

|You have defeated Demon King, Baran.|

|Obtained Baran's Soul.|

|Normal Quest: Collect Demon's Souls (Part 2) has been completed.|

Even with his death, his soldiers are still present and fighting. So I bring out all my daggers, and using Ruler's Authority, I telekinetically throw all of them at the strongest of the remaining demons, blasting the daggers through their heads and killing them.

|Skill: 'Dagger Throw' has evolved into 'Dagger Rush'.|

Of course, thanks to my time using Ruler's Authority, the skill has reached the Max level, so keeping the daggers moving at the same speed at which they impacted the demons wasn't much of a task.

As I land, I look to my left, and see Esil, who I had told to stay away. I guess I had dismissed her capabilities since I was fighting beings far stronger than her, but she had somehow found a way to get this close without getting attacked by the other demons.

I and my shadows soon finish off the remaining demons, and for the first time since I reentered the Demon Castle, I sit down to rest. Turning to Esil, a small smile crawls onto my face."Hey, Esil. You can go and inform your father that the Radir clan is now first place."

She smiles with some tears, definitely of joy, falling down her face. As we converse, my soldiers go ahead and pick up the loot from the demons, and bring them to me. Iron drags the wyvern's corpse to me with a confident grin on his face.

"Thanks for that, Iron. Arise." I attempt to raise the shadow of the wyvern, and to my pleasant surprise, I succeed, gaining another soldier at the Knight Elite rank.

Thinking back to when I inspected it, I remember that its name was something along the lines of Kaisel, but I'm just missing the last few letters to its name. Choosing to spare myself the headache, I name my newest soldier Kaisel, and it roars out, as if accepting the name with joy.

I walk over to the place that Baran's corpse landed to check his loot, and it all quite pleasing to me. First, I got the Demon Monarch's Ring, finally completing the set of the Demon Monarch's accessories, and gaining 15 points to all my stats as a result of the total set effect.

I also got his longsword, and a pair of daggers that I didn't know he had. Maybe I had killed him too quickly. I also got his horn as a japtem, and I got an ingredient item, which just happened to be the final item I needed for the Spring of Might.

|Ingredient Item: Core of the Demon King|

|Item Class: ??

Type: Ingredient

A magic core created by condensing the pure essence of the Demon King's power.

It radiates powerful magical energy, but still has a great degree of contamination within it, so it must be mixed with the 'World Tree's Fragment' and 'Spring Water of the Echoing Forest' to use it as a medicine.

If consumed, either in raw form or as part of another item, it has a 10% chance to grant its consumer the Lightning attribute.|

Bringing out the World Tree's Fragment and the Spring Water of the Echoing Forest, a notification pops up, asking if I want to craft the Spring of Might. "Craft."

|Crafting {Spring of Might}.|

|Success rate and number of items crafted is dependent on the crafter's Intelligence stat.|

Seeing that notification, I smile, because despite my Intelligence stat being my lowest, it's still well over 300 points.

The system continues crafting, and soon begins a ten count. Looking at the notifications passing by, the thought that my intelligence is still not high enough starts creeping in, but the countdown finishes before it can start causing me any anxiety.

|Crafting Successful!|

|Crafted {Item: Spring of Might} X10|

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, then look at the notification one more time, and it hit me. I would get 200 points in each stat, and possibly the Lightning attribute as well after consuming all 10 of the items, effectively making me the most powerful Hunter on the planet, save for Dante and Shiraori.

After the crafting was finished, I notice that all the materials have been used up, meaning that I had fully utilized the materials to essentially get 200 level ups. It was honestly a good trade, if you asked me.

"Whoa. If we can use this wyvern, returning to Radir shouldn't take long. Hearing the news, I'm sure my father would be happy and throw a banquet for the whole clan." Esil says with excitement and expectation. It's too bad for her that I've got to get back home soon.

Looking at what I've earned, I decide to finally take my quest rewards, which are 30 bonus stats, the Shadow Exchange runestone and a hidden reward.

|Received: {Highest Quality Runestone: Shadow Exchange}.|

|Received: Bonus Stats +30.|

|Received: {Title: Demon Hunter}.|

|Title: Demon Hunter condition requirement has not been met.|

Although I feel a bit irked by that last notification, I kind of understand why it popped up. The title's requirement was most likely for me to kill every single demon in the Demon Castle, but I left Esil and her clan alive, making it so i hadn't met that requirement.

"I'm sorry, Esil, but I'll have to disappoint you on that. I have to return to my home now, as I have my family waiting and worried for me." When she hears my words, her ears droop down like a dog's in a clear display of disappointment.

"Will you ever come back to visit us?" She asks, and I think about it. The Demons Castle has only been accessible to me since I've had the key to enter it, and so far there hasn't been any sign that I'll lose the key, so maybe I could come back here. "In time, we'll see." I tell her with a soft pat on her head, then start walking away from her.

Before contacting Dante, I take out the 10 bottles of Spring of Might. Downing the first one, I feel the increments in my stats a bit, but see no notification showing that I had gained the Lightning attribute.

Cracking my neck, I down the next one and feel stronger, but still, no Lightning attribute addition. Frowning, I start downing the rest, until finally, it happened.

|You have gained the Lightning attribute!|

Feeling within myself, I spot something like a core that's buzzing with electric power. Tugging on it a little, lightning starts to spark off my hands, better cementing the fact that this power is now truly mine. "Good, now I'm ready to go."

I pull out my phone and call Dante. He picks up like he's been expecting my call, which he most likely has. "You ready?" His voice comes out with a nonchalant tone. "Yeah." I say, and a portal opens in front of me.

Taking all my soldiers back into my shadow, I let out a breath. "Here goes nothing." I say and step through the portal, which spits me out in front of the so-called Red Gate which I know is really an illusion.

...

Narrator POV

Almost 6 hours after the Red Gate had manifested and been measured, most of the active S Rank Hunters in Korea had converged upon the illusion that was the S Rank Red Gate, and despite being warned to stay away, some reporters had also made their way to the limits of the area that was outlined as safe.

For the Hunters, the prospect of Sung Jin-Woo's success meant that the S Ranks would have someone that could deal with monsters that even they couldn't deal with, and for the reporters, it meant having access to one of, if not the most impactful bit of news that South Korea has ever had.

The first S Ranks to have arrived were all guild leaders. Be it Baek Yoon-Ho that leads the White Tiger Guild, Choi Jong-In that leads the Hunters Guild, Lim Tae-Gyu that leads the Reapers Guild, or Ma Dongwook that leads the Fame Guild, they were all there. The only Vice-leader that was there was Cha Hae-In.

"Geez, you'd think that those Dominion Guild people would be more worried that one of their own is stuck in a Red Gate of this level." Lim Tae-Gyu said smugly, though his face carried a solemn expression as he felt the waves of magic energy coming from the Red Gate.

"They most likely know the strength of their own members better than any of us here do, so I don't think that they're being all that carwfree about this." Choi Jong-In said, seemingly coming to the defense of the Dominion Guild.

"And besides, we've had a closer look at Hunter Sung Jin-Woo's prowess before, so we think that his emergence from this Gate would only be a matter of time." He said, and looked back at the massive Gate in front of the building.

"Oh. If you're so confident in him, how long do you think he'll take to clear it?" Lim Tae-Gyu asked with a bit of a mocking grin, that disappeared when Cha Hae-In answered him. "He should be done before the 7 hour mark hits." She said, then put her handkerchief back over her nose.

Lim Tae-Gyu and Ma Dongwook looked at her like she was overestimating Sung Jin-Woo's capabilities, but after a few more minutes passed, they saw her proved right.

The Red Gate began undulating, and its color soon returned to the cold blue that everyone was more familiar with. And out of the Gate, walked Sung Jin-Woo, Korea's 10th S Rank Hunter, and if the Gate closing behind him wasn't wrong, its 1st National Rank Hunter.

Chapter End.

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Word Count: 5,291