Descent of the Demon Master-Chapter 1377. Arriving (2)

Paaaaaaahng!

The descending bodies instantly split apart into many chunks.

The current location was near an unnamed city covered in a veil of darkness.

To Lee Hyeon-Su, the sight of all the blood spewing from the chopped-up bodies resembled rainfall in a black-and-white movie.

A dozen-plus humans lost their lives in the blink of an eye, yet they didn’t even let out a single scream. The remaining attackers continued to charge in at Kang Jin-Ho like emotionless machines.

Just how unforgiving their training must’ve been for them to not display any hints of agitation at the sight of their comrades’ deaths?

Lee Hyeon-Su felt a chill run down his spine just then. His gut instinctively told him that these attackers were different from all the other enemies he had witnessed until now.

It was as if they were inorganic substances. Even though warm blood coursed through their veins, they didn’t feel like living, breathing human beings.

The attackers in Mao suits descended within the darkness of the night while wielding sharp military-issue daggers. The sight of their steel mask-like emotionless faces, combined with the moonlight gleaming off the blades’ surfaces, sent yet another chill down Lee Hyeon-Su’s spine.

Whoosh!

Kang Jin-Ho swung his Crimson Destiny once more.

The incoming attackers got bisected around their abdomens and tumbled to the ground. However, despite losing their lower halves, they still crawled toward Kang Jin-Ho at a frightening speed and swiped their daggers at his legs.

Kang Jin-Ho kicked the nearest crawling attacker away before throwing himself to the side.

The rest of the attackers landed on the ground with a cacophony of loud thuds, then began their pursuit of Kang Jin-Ho.

Lee Hyeon-Su shouted, “Assembly Master!”

“I know!”

Fighting these people was pointless. No, it was worse than that; their job was to stall for time, after all. Fighting them would only lead to the tightening of the encirclement. Not even Kang Jin-Ho would be able to deal with seemingly endless waves of enemies.

...Especially more so if powerless civilians were mixed in among the attackers, too!

Kang Jin-Ho might possess a mentality tougher than reinforced steel, but that didn’t mean he’d wantonly slaughter the innocents just because they had shown up before him. That meant he’d have to exhaust more of his mental energy while trying his hardest to not kill them.

If this was a deliberate ploy, the bastard who came up with this plan is a f*cking son of a b*tch!

Lee Hyeon-Su would dearly love to find the bastard responsible and rip him apart if he could.

Kang Jin-Ho shouted, “How much further!”

“About twenty more kilometers, sir!”

“Contact Wiggins now!”

“Yes, sir!”

Lee Hyeon-Su pulled out the satellite phone from his inner pocket. Although it felt like his shoulder might rip out any second now, he still endured this horrifying pain. Now wasn’t the time to worry about such a thing.

Wait a minute, will the phone even connect at this speed?

Lee Hyeon-Su reflexively looked up at the night sky.

The signals... Eh?

That was when Lee Hyeon-Su’s eyes grew wide in surprise.

He could see the moon. And then, he spotted a black spot in the middle of that moon.

That spot rapidly grew in size. Could that be?

“...! Sir! Look up!”

Kang Jin-Ho urgently looked up at that yell, and his expression stiffened immediately.

He unhesitantly kicked the ground, causing a loud ‘boom!’ to go off. The ground exploded from that vicious kick, causing dirt and dust clouds to scatter in every direction as Kang Jin-Ho flew forward even faster.

By then, the falling black spot grew large enough for Lee Hyeon-Su to figure out what it was. And this object descended rapidly toward Kang Jin-Ho and Co.!

Of course, there were more than one, too!

KA-BOOOOOM!

KAAA-BOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The entire hillside just outside the city blew apart over and over again.

Ensuing dust clouds resembled a nuke going off; uprooted trees flew away in the air like weightless toys. Shockwaves from these massive explosions spread rapidly to the surroundings to create various craters.

That wasn’t the end, however!

KA-BOOOOOM!

KAAA-BOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Earth-shattering explosions kept going off again and again. Shells rained down as if they wanted to wipe this hill off the face of the map!

“Uwaaaaaaaah?!”

Lee Hyeon-Su screamed while shielding his head. The intense pain akin to his body getting crushed made it hard to stay sane. His eardrums finally ruptured, and blood poured out from his nose as the shockwaves slammed into him.

Those insane sons of b*tches?!

Chang Piljae seemed to have passed out, judging from how silent and unmoving he was. If they got hit by these bombardments without Kang Jin-Ho around...! They probably would have been vaporized with no corpses left to recover!

This is insane! What the hell are they trying to do here?!

Who would be crazy enough to deploy the artillery just to kill three people?! Only in North Korea would such a thing even be plausible!

This bombardment had to be TOT in action; Lee Hyeon-Su wagered that at least a battalion-or-greater level of artillery had been deployed here.[1]

As if to quash any skepticism about the poor state of their artillery, the North Korean military used Kang Jin-Ho and his companions to prove that they were still perfectly operational.

“Get down!”

Lee Hyeon-Su heard Kang Jin-Ho’s yell and reflexively lowered his head. Almost at the same time, he was greeted by even more eardrum-tearing noises.

“Cough!”

Blood welling up through his throat poured out of Lee Hyeon-Su’s mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut.

The intense ringing in his ears and his closed eyes meant his sense of direction was gone. All he could feel was his body shaking around precariously.

He forced his eyes open and witnessed the destruction behind them.

The hillside was completely gone. All the withered trees dotting the landscape were on fire; deep craters, with smoke plumes still billowing out, served as reminders of where the artillery munitions had landed.

If Hell was real, it must’ve looked something like this place!

Kang Jin-Ho shouted again. “Directions!”

Lee Hyeon-Su hurriedly took out the GPS, but...

No! Goddamn it!

The device wasn’t functioning anymore after repeatedly getting hit by intense shockwaves.

Feeling desperate, Lee Hyeon-Su hit the GPS on the side several times, but the device showed no sign of coming back to life.

Damn it! How should I... That’s right!

Lee Hyeon-Su hurriedly looked up. He could see stars engraved in the velvety night sky. Such a sight should have been pretty rare in South Korea, but not in this country.

He used the positions of the north star and various other stars to determine their current location and yelled at Kang Jin-Ho. “Keep going forward, sir!”

That was when he felt something warm splash on his face.

What is this?

This warm object, some kind of liquid, reached his lips. Lee Hyeon-Su immediately picked up the familiar acrid taste of blood.

He freaked out and hurriedly looked up at Kang Jin-Ho. And that was when he saw blood scattering from Kang Jin-Ho’s torso as he dashed forward at an incredible speed.

“S-sir?! You’re injured!”

“Shut up and keep your head down!”

“...!”

Kang Jin-Ho sounded urgent just then.

Lee Hyeon-Su bit his lip, hard. This experience must be a first, even for Kang Jin-Ho.

No matter how ancient those howitzers were, their range still exceeded ten kilometers. When bombarded from such a distance away, no human, martial artists or otherwise, would be able to survive, let alone fight back!

No matter how strong Kang Jin-Ho was, how could he attack enemies as far as ten kilometers away? Worse still, the enemy could keep firing as long as they had munitions, too!

Right now, Kang Jin-Ho was getting a crash course on how horrifying the power of weapons created solely for warfare actually was!

“Here they come again!”

Lee Hyeon-Su reflexively squeezed his eyes shut at Kang Jin-Ho’s yell and held Chang Piljae tightly.

KA-BOOOOOOM!!!

The world turned black in an instant. Lee Hyeon-Su’s consciousness faded away for a moment.

A short while later, he opened his eyes to find himself still being dragged forward by Kang Jin-Ho. However, he couldn’t figure out how long he had blacked out for. His head was numb, while the intense pain made him wonder if his body had been crushed flat.

Lee Hyeon-Su reflexively touched his face and felt something wet and sticky.

This... Isn’t this...?

This blood didn’t belong to him, but to Kang Jin-Ho!

The bleeding from earlier should have either dried up or got blown away by the shockwaves. But Lee Hyeon-Su still could feel the warm blood on his face. Which meant Kang Jin-Ho was bleeding right now.

“Urgh...!” Something Lee Hyeon-Su couldn’t contain welled up in his chest, and he just had to scream out at the top of his lungs. “You sons of b*tches!”

“Directions!”

However, Kang Jin-Ho simply shouted back with a voice that was neither icy nor boiling. That stillness even made Lee Hyeon-Su flinch.

“S-sir, do you know how long I’ve blacked out for...?”

“No, I don’t.”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s expression crumpled.

They needed to meet two requirements to reach their destination. The first of those requirements was, of course, the exact coordinates of their destination. And the second one was their current location.

Losing consciousness meant Lee Hyeon-Su didn’t know what their current coordinates were. With that, heading to their destination had become more or less impossible.

The gears in Lee Hyeon-Su’s head spun rapidly. He couldn’t afford even a moment of hesitation here.

“...! Sir! I don’t know where we must go. As things stand, reaching our intended destination is impossible!”

“Then, what’s next?”

“We go south! Rather than the destination, we’ll break through the DMZ and reach South Korea!”

“Got it!”

Lee Hyeon-Su did his job by offering his opinion. And Kang Jin-Ho unhesitantly accepted it. They might bicker and banter like old friends most of the time, but in times of crises like this? They trusted each other’s opinions without question.

The relationship of faith they had built over the years was shining brightly at this very moment.

“However, please remember that it’s the DMZ! Both countries’ firepower is heavily concentrated in that area!”

“It doesn’t matter!”

“Sir! Please change your heading a little! Our enemies also don’t know our exact location! Even if we have to take a bit of a detour, avoiding their shelling will become easier if they can’t find us!”

Before Lee Hyeon-Su could finish, Kang Jin-Ho urgently changed his heading. He then sprinted as fast as his legs could take him toward a distant dense-looking forest.

“Huff, huff!”

An uncharacteristically heavy panting left Kang Jin-Ho’s lips.

Lee Hyeon-Su’s expression crumpled hideously. He could see that Kang Jin-Ho was reaching his limits.

Avoiding the bombardment without injuries was next to impossible. The military usually shelled a large area, after all. A regular 155mm howitzer could fire shells with an explosion radius of over thirty meters. Dodging one shell might be easy enough for Kang Jin-Ho, but what about dozens of them raining down at once? Even he would have a tough time evading them all.

No, hang on a minute!

Lee Hyeon-Su grimaced. He realized that Kang Jin-Ho might be able to do it if he was alone. But protecting Lee Hyeon-Su and Chang Piljae made this task nearly insurmountable. Since that was the case...!

Lee Hyeon-Su’s trembling eyes shifted to the unconscious Chang Piljae still gripped in his arm.

That was when Kang Jin-Ho coldly shouted at Lee Hyeon-Su. “Don’t even think about it!”

“...!”

It seemed he had already read Lee Hyeon-Su’s intentions.

“If we’re going to survive this, let’s do so with a clean conscience.”

“Sir...?! How can you say that in this situation?”

“This is nothing new to me.”

Kang Jin-Ho had experienced plenty of dangerous situations before. Of course, this one happened to be a bit more outrageous than all the others, but still!

“How far until we reach the DMZ?”

“It should still be over one hundred kilometers away, sir.”

Kang Jin-Ho grimaced. “I can’t be sure, then.”

He had never run that distance at full tilt before. Since that was the case, he couldn’t tell how long he’d take and how exhausted he’d get. But he still kept running anyway while maintaining a stiff expression.

If it was something he could do, he’d do it. If he had only one option available, he’d gladly go for it. In his mind, doing something was better than giving up and doing nothing.

Just as his thoughts reached that far...!

KA-BOOOOOM!!!

Yet another loud explosion went off.

Lee Hyeon-Su reflexively looked in that direction because that explosion sounded different from all the others so far. Also, it didn’t go off nearby, but some distance away!

“...! Uwaaaaaah?! Finally! He’s here!”

Lee Hyeon-Su screamed loudly to the point of almost rupturing his vocal chords.

“Sir! Go that way! That way!”

Kang Jin-Ho turned his head to look and saw it clearly.

Only about a handful of kilometers away, he could see flames dancing brightly to light up the night sky. Even he could tell that howitzer shells didn’t create those flames.

“Dammit, master! Why couldn’t you let your fireworks go off sooner?!”

Lee Hyeon-Su cried out.

Those flames were signal flares created through magic! Wiggins was trying to tell them where their destination was.

“Sir! We need to go there as fast as you can! The enemy will bombard that area soon!”

“I know!”

Kang Jin-Ho powerfully kicked the ground.

BOOM! KA-BOOM!

The bombardment resumed as if to say the enemy had figured out where Kang Jin-Ho was.

As the land burned and the black smokes blotted out the heavens, a wild beast sprinted madly past unending shockwaves and explosions.

1. TOT is an acronym for “time on target”. TOT is a military coordination of artillery fire by many weapons so that all the munitions arrive at the target at roughly the same time. ☜