The Returner

Chapter 409

“Ku-hahahahaha!” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Yi Ji-Hyuk dashed towards the demon king Narusius with one-metre-long claws on both of his hands made out of magical power .

“You insane fool!” (Narusius)

Narusius roared out and got ready to engage the human still madly rushing towards it . Even if the demon king was currently in the injured state, Yi Ji-Hyuk was a sorcerer . To think that a mere magic user dared to close the distance against a warrior . There wouldn’t be a worse insult than this .

“Yi Ji-Hyuuuuk!!!” (Narusius)

Narusius, a demonic aura densely emanating from its whole body, threw itself at Yi Ji-Hyuk dashing straight towards it .

Kill that man .

The demon king would definitely rip that insolent human’s head off while he’s still breathing .

Mana gushing out from Narusius’s body seemed to coalesce, then wrapped around the demon like some kind of an armour .

Kwa-du-du-duk!

Once that strange armour fully encompassed it, Narusius began dashing at least twice as fast towards Yi Ji-Hyuk .

“Kekekeke . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

The latter let out a twisted cackle while witnessing this spectacle . His eyes, scarily red after all the blood vessels in the whites began bulging and pulsing, flitted this way and that to chase after Narusius’s movements .

“Hey, you’re making me dizzy here . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Stop buzzing around like a house fly . (Yi Ji-Hyuk’s inner monologue)

Yi Ji-Hyuk extended his right hand forward and pitch-black tentacles shot out to pounce on Narusius .

“Keuk?!” (Narusius)

The demon king saw the tentacles flying in and grandly flinched .

Should it dodge?

But, dodging them now would signify that Narusius had been forced back in the clashes of the auras, or at least that’s what the demon thought . It soon made up its mind and flew towards the black tentacles while emitting demonic energy from both of its hands .

The demon king roared at the top of its lungs and punched the tentacles with its right fist . However, the tentacles acted like some kind of a mollusc and avoided the demon king’s punch, then like a rearing venomous snake, their tips lunged towards Narusius’s torso .

Crunch! Crunch!

Several strands of black tentacles stabbed into the demon king’s body, but they failed to break through the armour .

However, that must’ve not been their ultimate objective, because they smoothly slid across the armour to wrap around Narusius’s torso instead . The demon king smacked away the tentacles trying to crush it and roared out loudly .

“D*mn it! Are you going to keep doing this?!” (Narusius)

From some time ago, Yi Ji-Hyuk was fighting in such a manner to irritate his opponent . He didn’t come attacking outright and continued to change directions while keeping the demon king in check .

“Ku-aaaahk!” (Narusius)

Narusius roared out again and dashed towards Yi Ji-Hyuk while completely ignoring the tentacles .

However, it got to witness a strange sight just then .

‘What’s this?’ (Narusius)

It had been expecting Yi Ji-Hyuk to back away or use ‘Blink’ to create some distance between them, but he was actually meeting the demon king head-on .

‘You insignificant little…!’ (Narusius)

A measly human wishes to confront a demon king head-on?

The demon kings would not run away from Yi Ji-Hyuk . They all knew they couldn’t deal with him and shivered in fear of him, yet none acknowledged him as a high-ranked demon king .

Because, there was this thing called ‘opportunity’ .

They all believed that as long as they could get close enough to Yi Ji-Hyuk, as long as they could land that one solid blow to his body, then he’d be destroyed forever .

Regeneration?

Of course, the ‘Yi Ji-Hyuk of the past’ possessed the immortality that allowed him to revert back to full health no matter what the damage was .

But so what if that was the case?

Even if it’s a hundred years, even a thousand, all they had to do was destroy him again and again as soon as he regenerated . That was all!

The truly amazing thing about Yi Ji-Hyuk, though, was that he never allowed such a scenario to become reality . He filled his surroundings with countless summoned creatures, demonic monsters, demons that worked as his underlings and even Erukana to buy himself enough time .

The demon kings just couldn’t overcome that hurdle and ended up kneeling in defeat one after the other in front of him .

But the current Yi Ji-Hyuk was not surrounded by the army of demonic monsters large enough to seemingly blanket the entire demon world, nor was Erukana here with him .

So with what confidence was he pouncing on Narusius by himself?

The demon king was overcome with pure rage and it roared out, before firing a barrage of magic bullets towards Yi Ji-Hyuk .

“Yi, Ji, Hyuuuuuk!” (Narusius)

He saw all of those incoming magic bullets but didn’t stop his sprint forward .

“Kuwaaaaah!” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

The claws of magic attached to his hands lengthened instantly and began slicing apart all the magic bullets .

KWA-BOOOOOOM!!!!

Massive explosions went off in the air . The city below already had experienced a bombardment, but these new impacts easily exceeded the previous ones .

‘Where?!’ (Narusius)

Narusius lost the sight of Yi Ji-Hyuk due to the smoke from the explosions and opened its eyes wider in alarm .

“Who are you looking for?” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

However, there was no need to search for him . His voice came from right behind the demon king, after all .

“Kkeuk!” (Narusius)

Narusius immediately swung its hand behind .

STAB!

Unfortunately, Yi Ji-Hyuk’s stiletto-like claws were already digging deep into the demon king’s back before it could even react properly .

“Kkeu-euh-euh-euhk…” (Narusius)

Narusius shivered as it looked down at the five lengthy claws piercing right through its abdomen . It wasn’t merely those blades destroying its body, either .

Yi Ji-Hyuk’s own magical powers were digging deeper into the demon king’s body through those claws . The horrifying pain transmitted to Narusius was akin to iron spikes being shoved deep in its body and electricity travelling through them . The demon’s entire body trembled from this intense pain .

“So, is your blood blue in colour?” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Slice!

Accompanied by a bone-chilling noise, Yi Ji-Hyuk’s claws cut through Narusius’s body and exited from the side . Five bloody lines ripped across the demon king’s torso and blue-coloured blood spewed out like a fountain .

“It’s so nice that I get to ask you demons what the colour of your blood is . You guys aren’t standardised like humans, you see . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

“You, you b*sssstard!!!” (Narusius)

“So noisy . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Crunch!

Yi Ji-Hyuk’s claws slammed into the face of Narusius busy roaring out . The demon king’s vocal organ was crushed and it couldn’t produce sounds anymore .

The demonic being’s resilient lifeforce meant Narusius wouldn’t lose its life even in this condition, but it still lost its consciousness for a moment there . Which meant it also lost its ability of flight and fell headlong towards the ground .

Yi Ji-Hyuk went along, his claws still stabbed deep into the demon king’s face .

“Kekeke . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

BOOM!

Narusius’s figure and Yi Ji-Hyuk crashed into the ground, sending out clouds of dust in all directions . The latter yanked his claws out from the former’s face, then began licking the blood on his blade .

Not enough .

This was not even nearly enough .

“Keuh-euh-euh…” (Narusius)

Narusius’s crushed face reverted back soon enough and the demon king regained its consciousness at the same time . It glared at Yi Ji-Hyuk in anger .

Just how much magical energy was concentrated in those claws that he could tear apart a demon king like a piece of paper?

“…Didn’t you say you wanted to know more about humans?” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Slice .

Yi Ji-Hyuk lightly swung with his claws, and Narusius’s leg was chopped off, followed by yet another fountain of blood exploding out .

He then cut and sliced and diced again .

All four of Narusius’s limbs were cut off, and the demon king could only stare at Yi Ji-Hyuk with a deeply pale complexion .

“I can help you with understanding how vicious a human can be, so how about it? Kekekeke . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

By now, Yi Ji-Hyuk’s eyes were dyed completely black .

Narusius saw this scene and shivered even more .

The great one did say this .

That the current Yi Ji-Hyuk possessed not even half of the powers he used to enjoy at his peak . That he’d not pose any threat to them since he also lost his immortality, as well .

But now that the lid had come off, this was already beyond the level of being unfair .

No one knew what exactly he had been doing until now, but somehow Yi Ji-Hyuk’s close quarter combat skills had increased by several folds, while the level of his magical energy management was incomparably higher than his past self, as well .

‘B-but, how can such a thing even be possible?’ (Narusius)

Even if Narusius were to fight the past version of Yi Ji-Hyuk, the demon king wouldn’t have been so one-sidedly beaten up like this .

“Looks like you’re dying of curiosity . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Yi Ji-Hyuk smirked and slowly stabbed his claws into Narusius’s abdomen .

“It’s all thanks to you lot, actually . Without the valuable experience of fighting against the demon kings using only a restricted amount of Mana, I wouldn’t have been able to come this far . Back when I had everything, I really had no idea how important precision would turn out to be . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

“…”

Before Narusius could say something, Yi Ji-Hyuk cut the creature’s words off .

“I guess you’re the only one who hasn’t figured it out yet . Kairan probably knew about this already . That guy sent you here, didn’t he?” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

“…”

That was enough to shut Narusius up .

How did he know that?

“Why do you think Kairan sent you here? To kill me? Would he not have known that you’d never be my match?” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

“I, I…” (Narusius)

“Kekeke . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Yi Ji-Hyuk let out a crazed cackle and slowly began drawing a line on Narusius’s throat with his claw .

“And that’s why you’re going to die . Whether it’s the demon world or Earth, idiots like you only get used as pawns then get discarded like dead weight, you know . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

“Kkeuh-ruruk . ” (Narusisu)

Blood gushed out from Narusius’s mouth . The demon king tried desperately to avoid Yi Ji-Hyuk’s blade-like claws digging into its throat . However, he pinned the demon’s body hard on the ground and continued to leisurely draw a bloody line on the exposed neck .

It was as if he was savouring the sensation .

“Don’t you worry, though . I shall send that guy to where you’re going now soon enough . Kekekeke . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

With its eyes wide open in disbelief, Narusius slowly lost its consciousness . Its body slowly hardened, then transformed into pure Mana and crumbled away .

“Hah-aaaah…” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Yi Ji-Hyuk stabbed his hand into Narusius’s crumbling body and began greedily sucking in the abundant Mana . It was no longer difficult for him to draw in extra Mana now, but getting his hands on something of this purity through the atmosphere was still a tall order .

After sucking in all that Mana, Yi Ji-Hyuk shuddered grandly and raised his head . He might have finished one demon king off, but the demonic beasts were still freely roaming around .

He slowly extended both of his hands out .

“Get…” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Wuuu-oooong!

Pitch-black Mana gathered in his hands .

“…Over here . ” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

His Mana rose up into the sky . And then, a massive magic circle began engraving itself into the centre of Seoul’s sky .

*

“D-did he win?” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

Choi Jeong-Hoon saw the black Mana strands rapidly rising into the sky and cried out in elation . Anyone could tell that the magic circle was aimed at the monsters down below . If it was to fight against a demon king, there wouldn’t be a need to draw something that massive way over there .

And as if to answer his expectation, the magic circle grew even larger than before and started emitting pitch-black light . A black void was generated in the centre of this magic circle and gradually grew larger and larger .

A Gate seemingly directed to the ground below had appeared over the skies of Seoul .

Choi Jeong-Hoon couldn’t help but tilt his head at that sight .

‘What is he trying to do?’ (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

He could tell that a massive-scale magic was about to be used here, but he got this strange feeling that this one would be slightly different from all the others Yi Ji-Hyuk had shown before .

Well, whenever the latter wanted to go with a kill-everything type magic, rather than open a Gate like that, he preferred to condense Mana and fire that instead .

Choi Jeong-Hoon’s puzzlement didn’t last for long, however .

“…W-what the heck is going on?” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

The world suddenly began flipping on its head .

At first, small particles of dust, then small pebbles after that .

It all started with objects with low weight first – and soon the entire city began floating up gradually .

So, so very slowly – as if gravity itself had reversed, the items starting from low weight floated up slowly first and got sucked in towards the gigantic Gate in the sky .

“I-it can’t be?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

There was no way?!

A man with a sane mind wouldn’t try something like that .

Of course, Choi Jeong-Hoon knew better than anyone that Yi Ji-Hyuk was not what you’d consider as normal .

“Miss Jeong Hae-Min!!!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

“Y-yes?” (Jeong Hae-Min)

“Teleport everyone in this place out of here, now! Hurry!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

“Got it!” (Jeong Hae-Min)

She didn’t need a reason . Even she was aware of the severity of the current situation . If Choi Jeong-Hoon said so, then there was no doubt about it .

The black Gate she could see in the heavens above was like the wide-open mouth of a devil, wanting to suck everything in this world .

< 409 . Not like I wished for it -4 > Fin .