Apocalypse Hunter

The Dead Spirit spell, the most evil and offensive of all spells, was not very well-known, even among sorcerers. As a result, no student of the Emperor had been trained in that heinous and vicious spell.

The fact that his fellow sorcerer was practicing that spell was unthinkable to Cho-yul, and he had no idea where she could have learned it.

At this point, it would be more correct to call Asura the Commander of the Dead, or a necromancer more than a sorcerer.

“I don’t know how it happened, but she knows the Dead Spirit spell. What I am about to tell you is just my guess.”

No one had a choice but to listen to what Zin had to say.

“For whatever reason or because of some event, Asura became the leader of the Group. We don’t know if Asura killed the previous leader to take over the Group or if some kind of internal fight led to the leader’s death, and she took over the Group.” That was Zin’s biggest question, but this wasn’t the right time to ask it. “However, the Group isn’t really a centralized group. Rather, it’s a confederation of Reavers consisting of many different Reaver groups.”

It wasn’t that the original groups were destroyed and then a new group came to be; the original groups still existed, but they were under a new leader.

It wasn’t a monarchy. It was more like a nation of states.

“Asura killed the leaders of the Reavers, and then brought them back to life as her puppets, completely under her control.”

In other words, she had turned the leaders of the nation states into slaves. If every leader leading a group of Reavers turned into one of Asura’s slaves, everyone in that group would have to follow Asura’s commands. The Reavers had a clear chain of command.

Of course, mounting complaints would blow up some day, but the Reavers thought differently.

Asura would’ve chosen to use the spell only on those she needed. Creating a large number of puppets would take too much time.

“They seem to believe that becoming a corpse is Asura’s blessing.”

“Whoa…!”

“If you think about it, if you’re already dead, then you’ve just become immortal, and you don’t even have to eat.”

So, when the Reavers saw their leaders become something not human, they were awed by Asura’s power. Thanks to Asura’s blessing, they became more powerful, something beyond human.

Therefore, hoping to become that one day, they obeyed Asura fully rather than complain. Even though he was a living corpse, the City Administrator was fully capable of making his own decisions and acting on those. From a broad point of view, he seemed no different than a living being.

A mix of fear of Asura’s mysterious power, and the hope of being the beneficiary of that power was driving the Reavers to fully obey their leader.

Her ruling style was simple, yet absolute.

“That kind of power… shouldn’t exist in the world.”

Unable to believe that his fellow student had fallen that low in order to have access to that power, Cho-yul shuddered.

He was scared of SoSeoLan, but he had been secretly happy. They were different, but he had started to think that she was actually trying to create a better world for the people. As he walked around Shane, he had been leaning toward Zin not killing her. Even though he hated her, they were colleagues. What she was planning didn’t seem all that bad, and he had been relieved.

However, it was an entirely different matter if she was using a spell that no one should be using.

With the Dead Spirit spell, one could chain the soul of the dead and mutilate the corpses. It was too grotesque for a human, and it was too heinous to even talk about.

“I heard that if you use the Dead Spirit spell, your mind eventually becomes polluted, and you turn into a monster.”

Cho-yul looked to Zin for confirmation and he nodded, “Yes, that’s true.”

Apparently, controlling the spirit of someone who’s been killed or dead corrupted the mind. The inevitable result of wielding such enormous power was that that power eventually destroyed you.

You become the monster leading the army of the dead. How can anything be more sinister?

“We need to stop her before that happens.” Cho-yul believed she needed to die if she was willing to use that kind of force.

After a long silence, Zin said, “I agree with you.”

They needed to find a way, but he continued, “But think about what would happen if SoSeoLan died now? If the Group were feasting on human flesh in their colonies, then I would’ve said the same thing and killed her. However, the Group is managing their territory with care and reorienting themselves under Asura’s rules. There is no pillaging or cannibalism.”

“When Asura dies, the living corpses will return to being dead corpses again.”

“That means…” Realizing something, Leona became pale.

“The Reavers would go crazy when they lost their bases and their leaders,” said Ramphil.

Corpses aside, if the Reavers were to lose their leaders, after some brief confusion, many would start acting crazy again.

Right now, they were suppressing their desires in a state of half-hope and half-fear, but when all the leaders disappeared, only the armed soldiers would remain. What they might do was not difficult to imagine.

When time bombs started to blow up one after another, many deaths would certainly follow. If those Reavers were to get together, things could get even uglier.

Together or alone, there would be problems. Cho-yul realized that it wasn’t such a simple problem after all.

———–

They still had no idea of what SoSeoLan’s end-goal was with the Group, although the team was getting a better sense of what was happening. What they had found out wasn’t all that bad, and it was becoming clear that killing SoSeoLan would create a big chaos.

“The problem’s become even more of a headache,” said Leona with vexed expression.

Everyone agreed. The hard decision had become even harder.

Killing the devil hunter headed toward her own destruction would create a whole new problem.

“Oh, right! The kid I met today said that he’d like to meet you. He said he had a proposal.”

The boy was older than Leona, but she still called him a kid.

“A proposal?”

Zin tilted his head in confusion and surprise. Leona explained that the kid was the heir to one of the gangs that used to rule Shane.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested, but I had to ask, just in case.”

Knowing Zin was fond of chips, she was covering her bases.

Shane was a fairly big city, so the heir to the mob that used to control a third of the city would be loaded with chips. Even if their assets were impounded by the Group, organizations like that always hid away their assets, so getting paid would be no problem.

“Let’s hear what they have to say. We’ve got nothing to lose.”

In order to figure out what to do about Asura, they needed to stay in Shane for a few more days anyway. Zin had been hired by the Reavers, so he had no reason decline the child’s request. In the end, it didn’t matter who the client was as long as he was getting paid with plenty of chips.

—————-

That night, Cho-yul peered blankly out the open window.

What was the Dead Spirit spell? It was the most evil and sinister of all spells. Even Cho-yul had only heard about it and didn’t know how to acquire such a spell.

He knew some spells that worked with the spirits and, since he was a high-level sorcerer, he also knew a lot about rituals and ceremonies. However, using spells to bring the dead back to life as zombies and using them as slaves was hard for him to accept.

As Zin got up from his seat, he noticed Cho-yul standing by the window.

“Having trouble sleeping?”

It was just the two of them in the bigger room; Leona and Ramphil were sleeping in another room.

“Yes… I’m having trouble accepting the use of the Dead Spirit spell.”

“Hmm…”

Among sorcerers, using spells that controlled the dead was the taboo of all taboos. It was so sinister that it was the closest thing to being evil. Of course, not all sorcerers were good, and some had attempted to use the Dead Spirit spell before, but Cho-yul was a master sorcerer, and masters avoided taking the corrupt path, choosing to achieve their goals by going through a lengthy process.

But what SoSeoLan, his colleague, was doing was far more horrific than anything other fallen sorcerers had ever done.

It was obvious that Cho-yul was confused. Zin spoke up, “It’s unclear when sorcery started to gain power, and it’s the same for the Dead Spirit spell.”

When the world was destroyed, and science was near extinction, people went back to believing in superstition, and the superstitions became powerful after some time.

Cho-yul couldn’t figure out why Zin was telling him this.

“Sorcery may have come into being after the world became what it is now, or it may have always existed, but we just didn’t understand its power.

There could’ve been sorcery back when people were painting on cave walls.

“What are you… trying to say?”

“In any case, once sorcery came to be, the Emperor was the best of the best. He, the first immortal hunter, had the best set of skills and was the most knowledgeable.”

The Emperor knew almost all of the spells and had the widest range of sorcery in the world.

“I… am really not sure why you’re telling me this…”

“The Emperor was the best sorcerer. Don’t you know what that means?”

As Cho-yul’s pupils started to quiver, Zin continued, “The Emperor was also the best at using the Dead Spirit spell.”

“That… that’s ridiculous!”

Cho-yul was shocked beyond belief when he heard those words come out of Zin’s mouth. The teachings that had been passed down from the first immortal hunter had been good. They rejected the use of the Dead Spirit spell, and it was imprinted on him that anyone who used it should be torn to death.

‘But he was actually the one who had reached the highest level of the Dead Spirit spell?!’

With a bitter smile, Zin stood up and focused his gaze on the moonlight falling on the dark street.

“There were only seven devil hunters.”

There were seven hunters corresponding to the seven devils.

“…”

“But what about the devils? Each one of them represented a species.”

‘Each of us had an obligation to exterminate one species, but how would one carry out that impossible task in reality?’

The seven demons each met their end, and not just because of the seven devil hunters who had been active. The devil hunters, however, had played a central role in it.

“We didn’t always fight fair. Shotguns were not the only things we used.” The devil hunter was telling him the most brutal truth.

The devil hunters were basically outnumbered and weaker in strength, so it wasn’t difficult to imagine what sort of terrible things they had to do in order to win. The Emperor had resorted to using the Dead Spirit spell.

When he was fighting with his men, if any of them were killed, he would bring them back to life so that they could keep fighting. That sort of thing was the norm as the devil hunters’ hunting methods were completely devoid of morality and ethics.

Hearing that directly from his teacher’s friend put Cho-yul in a dismal mood.

“The Emperor had students, but he never taught the Dead Spirit spell to them.”

He had chosen not to teach them it because he knew how much the spell was destroying him. By the time the training was almost over, the Emperor was half-mad as a result of using the insidious Dead Spirit spell.

“But as it often is with great power, there comes a time when it’s needed.”

“You mean…?!”

Although the Emperor did not want to teach that spell, he also didn’t want the knowledge to be lost forever.

“The Emperor made a book of all Dead Spirit spells.”

The spell had been hidden somewhere in the world. Zin spoke slowly and with a stiff expression, “He shared the location with me before he died. I don’t know how, but it looks like your colleague may have found the book.”

The only one who knew the location was Zin, but that didn’t mean no one else would be able to find it.

“Guess that makes her the most perfect successor of all times.” Zin gave him a wry grin.

Since she had almost all of the power of her teacher, she would be the best one among his students. Having been exposed to so much secret information, Cho-yul’s head was spinning.

The Emperor was actually a master of the Dead Spirit spell, and he had written it down somewhere, and SoSeoLan had found it.

“I really don’t know what to do.”

The spell that SoSeoLan was using was evil, but what she had achieved with it wasn’t evil. It was an ironic situation where she could not be left alone, but also could not be killed. Zin was waiting to make his decision, and Cho-yul also had a big decision on his hands as well.

“What’s important is what you do.”

In this situation, it wasn’t Zin or anyone else’s decision that mattered. It was Cho-yul’s choice that mattered the most.

“Yes.”

Cho-yul understood what Zin was talking about and nodded. As a high-level sorcerer, he knew the ritual of life, but he needed to wait to see if that was absolutely necessary.

Zin went back to bed, but Cho-yul couldn’t fall asleep for a long time.

————

The next day…

They had a good amount of info on Shane, but Zin decided to stay for at least one more day. He wanted to hear the child’s proposal and also give Cho-yul some time to think things over.

Leona led the way to the children’s secret hideout. Zin was dumbfounded as he watched Leona skillfully circle around the outskirts of the city and move her way through the abandoned buildings.

“How did you manage to find this place?”

“Children are so freaking predictable,” said Leona with a smirk, and Zin chuckled.

“You mean that, because you’re a child, you know how they think.”

“You have a way of making things sound awful,” grumbled Leona as she diligently made her way across the ruins. She had been through that road only once, but she was able to find the exact same route she had taken the day before. Her sense of direction was rather keen.

Naturally, in addition to having a sharp sense of direction, Zin thought she was bright.

“Shane is definitely a good place to live.”

“Why do you say that?”

“If children can get together and play mobsters in a place like this, it definitely means the living is good in the city.”

“Guess that’s true.”

Zin’s logic that only the children living in a good city could get together to do stupid things seemed fairly reasonable to Leona.

However, strictly speaking, the children playing street lords were actually the children of the powerful gangs of the past. Other kids were hanging out with each other or already working and didn’t have the freedom to do it. So, not everyone was doing great.

“It’s over there.” Leona spotted the same entrance from the day before and pointed toward the area where the lookout had quickly disappeared.

“Alright, shall we go meet the little boss?”

Zin smiled as if he was excited to hear some crazy ideas. He didn’t seem to be taking things seriously at all.

Leona protested, “Don’t belittle them. They have really big egos.”

For whatever reason, the much younger Leona was giving Zin a warning. Zin shrugged as if to say that there was nothing to worry and said, “To a hunter, pleasing the client is easier than breathing.”

“You’re still not taking this seriously…”

Leona was already regretting bringing him along.