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Chapter 360. The Player Slaughterer (2)
As Jun-Ho watched the endless fireworks display, he felt a strange sense of deja vu.
“Something’s off.”
At first, he thought the Butcher was merely distracting them. But according to the records, he wasn’t the type of person to use these kinds of tricks.
‘He’s extremely arrogant, violent, and confident in his skills.’
If this wasn’t just a trick, it could only mean one thing.
‘A skill.’
Seo Jun-Ho wondered if it were some kind of cloning ability. Otherwise, to move around different places at the same time would be an impossible feat.
‘Though, it would be a different story if he has a skill similar to Nazad Hallow’s army of corpses…’
However, Seo Jun-Ho would have definitely noticed if someone that strong had used magic. Thus, at the very least, Nazad Hallow wasn’t in this city.
“Contractor!” The Frost Queen called with wide eyes. She sensed something.
Seo Jun-Ho nodded slowly.
‘As I thought, it’s a skill that lets him clone—no, divide… Wait, they’re multiplying?’
Demonic energy spilled out from all over the city. There had been nothing earlier, but the place was suddenly teeming with demonic energy.
‘This is… dangerous.’
Seo Jun-Ho was one of the strongest Players, but he wasn’t a god. He couldn’t stop ten different people in ten different places. He made haste, and his feet started moving faster on their own.
‘Found him.’
Seo Jun-Ho unsheathed his sword as soon as he discovered the man whom he thought was the Player Slaughterer.
“What?”
Eerily, the fiend slit his own throat the moment he sensed him.
As Seo Jun-Ho watched the fiend scatter into dust, he became sure of it.
‘They can function physically, but they have no substance.’
He scanned the area. The concentrated demonic energy had stained the spot where the clone disappeared. However, the Player Slaughterer had never used this kind of skill in the past.
He immediately came to a conclusion.
‘This is an innate power from a demon race.’
When chosen fiends drank the blood of a demon, they could use the inherent skills of that demon’s race.
Seo Jun-Ho’s face darkened. “This isn’t good.”
The powers of demons were stronger than the skills of Players on average.
As he pondered, another ‘Player Slaughterer’ approached him from behind.
“Geez, you’re more impatient than what I’ve heard,” he said.
“...”
The fiend left openings all over as if he wasn’t afraid to die.
“Yes. I am the Butcher, slaughterer of Players.” A vicious smile spread on his face. “You probably don’t know, but I have waited a long time for this. I heard that you were the one who killed all my subordinates.”
“Oh, did you come here to avenge them?” Seo Jun-Ho snorted. “If you cared about them so much, then you should have come out back then. But you just ran away like a coward.”
The Butcher’s eyes darkened. “...You can talk as much as you’d like while you still have the energy.”
“If you came here for revenge, stop hiding and just come at me. I’ll kill you as quickly as possible.”
“There’s no use in provoking me. I only came here to carry out orders.” The Butcher looked around the city and mused, “I heard that Baghdad’s current population is around 8 million.”
“...” Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes narrowed. Based on what he had experienced, it was always bad news when a fiend mentioned the population of a specific city or country.
“Aren’t you curious? How do you think the world would look at the savior of humanity if all these people happened to die in just one day?”
“You really think you can do that?”
“Who knows? I’ll have to check for myself.” The Butcher let out a small laugh and drew a red line across his neck. “Yes. I will check.”
Seo Jun-Ho closed his eyes as the Butcher’s head fell to the ground. At some point, the number of entities he could sense had reached… around a hundred.
‘Just how many clones can he make?’
He pushed aside his apprehension and started sprinting to the closest presence.
***
Several Players witnessed the same sight while Seo Jun-Ho was watching the beautiful fireworks display. Han Seok-Ho, a member of the Korean Player Association, was one of them.
“What happened? All units come in!” He yelled into his Vita, trying to figure out what was going on. And when he did, a barrage of signals from all over flooded the main channel.
[Bzzt There’s more than one…!]
[The higher-ups were wro—Bzzt.]
[Bzzt, The Player Slaughterer spotted! En route to the road in the south!]
[What are you saying? He has been appearing and disappearing around the fortress in the north!]
[What? What are you guys—Bzzt! West, he’s west!]
The agents were sharing conflicting information. From there, it was up to each individual to choose what to do. Confused, Han Seok-Ho’s eyebrows knitted
‘There are two possibilities.’ Either the Butcher had hacked into their radio channel to sow confusion, or he had some kind of cloning ability. The latter was more likely.
“This is H. Rendezvous in the south,” he said. He hurried and cut across the alleyway.
“...”
Bzzt. Bzzzt.
The old streetlamp tried its best to light up, but it could only flicker. Its light was only enough to let him see the outlines of the figures in the darkness of the alleyway.
He gulped and slowly gathered his magic.
Bzzt. Bzzt.
He could see something humanoid past the flickering lights.
‘Is it the Butcher?’
Han Seok-Ho thought for a moment and shook his head.
‘This isn’t the south, north, or west.’
He was somewhere east. In other words, it was not one of the areas where the Butcher had been spotted.
He slowly pressed his hands together. “I am a Korean Player, Han Seok-Ho. Show yourself.”
“...”
There was no answer.
Actually, whatever it was ceased their swaying and stretched their shoulders. The movements seemed like they belonged to a beast rather than a human.
“I’ll ask once more. Show yourself. If you don’t answer or if you move, I will attack,” he said, reciting from the manual. He squinted at his target.
There was no answer this time either.
“I warned you.” They had ignored his warnings twice. According to the policies of the Korean Player Association, the target would then be classified as an enemy.
Han Seok-Ho separated his hands a little, and he clapped them forcefully.
‘Shock Wave.’
The condensed waves rode the air as they shot out. It was impossible to dodge this attack in such a small alleyway.
Kwaaaaa!
A fierce tempest enveloped the street. Han Seok-Ho squinted against the flying dust and slowly opened his eyes.
Bzzt. Bzzzt.
The alley under the flickering streetlamp had been ruined, but there was no one else.
“...!”
Then where were they?
Cold, damp sweat started to soak his back.
“Heh.”
He heard someone laugh, dripping with bloodlust.
It came from right behind him.
‘I-I’m going to die.’
His life started to flash before his eyes. However, the temperature around him suddenly dropped.
“Oh?”
And behind him, he heard a vaguely annoyed voice.
When Han Seok-Ho slowly turned his head, he saw that his enemy was standing stiffly, and a giant icicle was lodged in his enemy’s chest.
“It’s the Player Slaughterer.”
It was a familiar baritone voice. It was a voice he had heard from the TV a few times now—a voice he couldn’t help but trust.
‘I-it’s Specter!’
He looked delighted as Seo Jun-Ho slowly stepped into the alleyway. However, he didn’t even glance at Han Seok-Ho as he cautiously stared at the Butcher.
“You—” The fiend tried to say something, but Seo Jun-Ho cut him off.
Crackle!
The icicle shattered, and it burst inside of him. When he died, he vanished into dust.
“Wait, what happened to the body?” Han Seok-Ho said with wide eyes.
Seo Jun-Ho turned to him. “Are you affiliated with the Korean Association?”
“Y-yes. My name is Han Seok-Ho, and I’m part of the field team.’
“Are you connected to the shared channel?”
“Yes!”
“Good. Then, tell this to everyone right now.” Seo Jun-Ho looked up at the dark night sky before whispering, “Take as many citizens as possible and leave the city.”
***
“...”
The Butcher was sitting comfortably somewhere in Baghdad. His eyes were closed, and the smile on his lips kept getting wider.
“Heh.”
His clones massacred people with no end and with no concern over whether they were Players or civilians. The corpses were cruelly hung on hooks and displayed all over.
“Ah.”
He could feel it. Everyone’s fear of him was growing stronger and stronger, which made his strength grow limitlessly.
‘The more you fear me, the sooner your destruction will be.’
Up until now, the Butcher had mainly used guerrilla tactics for assassination, but actually, he liked to fight in a place like this the most.
‘On a large field...’
Trapping his targets in a large area like an entire city would make him even stronger as time went on. It was all because the people would be more afraid of him when they realized that they were trapped.
“I should get started...”
He activated the equipment he had bought. They were drone cameras, and they flew all over Baghdad. Kill cams. The Butcher spread those violent videos all over the world.
“Hehe.” It was the best way to increase everyone’s fear of him as soon as possible.
‘The Heavenly Demon told me not to underestimate Specter.’
Deep down, he wanted to fight Specter right now, but he couldn’t afford to fail this mission. Now that there were only the executives left in the Fiend Association, it was important that they did everything right in order to rebuild the Fiend Association.
‘I should stop killing civilians soon.’
After all, fear didn’t require direct experience. Just because he killed more civilians didn’t mean that he would sow more fear.
‘I’ll let them run around until the sun rises. And then, I’ll absorb them all and kill him.’
He patiently waited for the time to come.
***
“Stick to your lane! Don’t cut in line!”
“If there’s more space, take some of the people who are on foot!”
“What kind of bastard is looting the convenience store at a time like this?!”
Seo Jun-Ho had told them to leave as well, but the Korean Association agents rescued civilians until the sun rose. Thankfully, the Butcher hadn’t attacked in the past few hours.
“...”
While the agents were panicking, Seo Jun-Ho killed the 409th clone and watched it disappear into dust.
‘When will this end?’
He ran around Baghdad, killing clone after clone, but they were multiplying much faster than the rate he was killing them.
‘There are already over three thousand of them.’
However, he wondered about one thing: why were they not attacking civilians anymore? Instead of attacking, they started to gather in one place.
“Contractor, I believe the Butcher has truly started to gather his clones,” said the Frost Queen.
“...” He nodded without saying anything.
‘It’s Al-Kadhimiya Mosque.’
It was one of Baghdad’s biggest and most beautiful mosques. Right now, three thousand of the Butcher’s clones were starting to gather there.
“...It’s morning.” Seo Jun-Ho looked at the horizon. As the sun started rising to greet the new day, the blessing of Hunter’s Night (A) faded.
And at that very moment, the three thousand clones vanished like ghosts.