The place they arrived at after passing through the golden Gate created by Goeseung was a village engulfed in a mountain fire.
‘Where is this?’
Lee Tae-sung was startled by the scene in the village.
In the distance, there was a Gate from which monsters were pouring out, and Hunters who had just arrived were panicking in front of it.
[Attention all Rankers! The Gate location has been confirmed! The precise address is in Imgye-myeon, Jeongseon-gun, Gangwon-do… (omitted)…We have urgently dispatched Rankers and Hunters currently in Gangwon-do. For Rankers, we will mobilize civilian helicopters as quickly as possible and send them to you…]
Just then, a text arrived from Song Sang-yeop.
It seemed to be a group text sent to all Rankers, and it appeared they had just now figured out the Gate’s location.
‘So this is Gangwon-do?’
Tae-sung, finding it absurd, looked at Goeseung.
He had detected the appearance of monsters from a distance of over a hundred kilometers and crossed space in a single leap to get here.
Tae-sung had seen how many mages had to work frantically to perform a single spatial movement within the Dream World.
Considering that, this power was nonsensical.
Goeseung himself, however, seemed completely unfazed by what he had done.
He was looking down at the monsters on the ground, grinning happily.
“Hehehe. The Flame Emperor Patron was right to boast to this humble monk. They are indeed monsters slightly different from those seen in the lower realm, and the flora is unfamiliar. A new world is a joy just to behold.”
His eyes sparkling like a child’s, Goeseung’s expression hardened slightly when he saw the monsters on the ground trying to attack the Hunters.
“Tsk tsk. One must not recklessly commit slaughter against others. It seems a lesson is in order.”
Thump!
As Goeseung brought his palms together once, the heads of dozens of monsters that had emerged from the Gate instantly exploded.
The monsters that received Goeseung’s ‘lesson’ were annihilated.
“……”
Tae-sung was astonished.
Most of the monsters weren’t that strong, and Tae-sung could have easily dealt with them too, but not like that.
Their heads just shattered suddenly, without any apparent cause and effect?
“Grrrr…”
At that moment, the one monster that looked the strongest turned its gaze skyward and glared at Goeseung.
Fwoosh!
The tattoos engraved on its body suddenly glowed, and with a burst of light, they began to form a single spell.
*
The space between dimensions.
The vanguard of the Outer Gods was watching the situation through the eyes of one monster they were controlling.
“Ascendant from Cheonoecheon… a terrifying display of power.”
“If it weren’t for that guy’s whims, this one would have died without doing anything either.”
A monster specially sent with a return magic engraved upon it.
They had chosen this one because it was strong and sturdy, unlikely to die easily, and cast the spell on it.
They watched the situation, and as soon as the Ascendant appeared and sent a single glance, all the monsters died.
“…”
“But why did they spare this one?”
“Probably because it wasn’t emitting killing intent towards humans. That seems to be the only difference.”
Due to the mission given by the vanguard, it had deliberately not radiated any killing intent, and that turned out to be fortunate.
The vanguard members chuckled.
“Lucky. Then let’s activate the return magic now.”
“Hehehe. Damned Ascendant bastard. Don’t interfere with our conquest plan and get lost.”
As the vanguard members muttered, spitting out words one by one, the tattoos on the body of the monster they were controlling began to glow brightly.
Activation of the return magic!
Immediately after, a dazzling light enveloped the surroundings, and when the light faded, Goeseung, who had been next to Tae-sung, was gone.
The vanguard members cheered.
“Wahahaha! It worked! Success!”
“Get lost, you bastard! Don’t ever come back!”
“This land is ours!”
*
Ding!
『Due to an unknown force, the ‘Summon Ascendant’ skill has been canceled.』
『Due to the special circumstances, no skill cooldown will occur.』
‘…What is this?’
Tae-sung tilted his head.
The suddenly canceled skill and the vanished Goeseung.
It was clear that with the skill canceled, he had returned to his original world.
‘Can stronger monsters even do something like this?’
Although Tae-sung had become a Ranker-level powerhouse, his career wasn’t long yet, so the number of missions he had completed wasn’t that high.
Upper-tier Rankers who had been active for a long time had completed hundreds of missions, so compared to them, the variety and number of monsters he had encountered on missions was certainly fewer.
The monsters appearing in the Gate Incident were usually ones seen in missions, so he figured monsters that could use skill-canceling magic were something only upper-tier Rankers and above experienced.
“Summon Ascendant.”
Ding!
『Skill: Summon Ascendant is activated.』
Originally, summoning an Ascendant required a massive amount of mana and a cooldown.
However, perhaps because the skill was forcibly canceled, the mana used was returned, and there was no cooldown.
Having reached the Peak Realm, Tae-sung’s body could withstand the burden quite well, so he immediately used the skill again.
Fzzzt!
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
Sparks flew in the empty air, space shattered, and a being walked out from within.
No.
Beings.
‘Plural.’
This time, two people walked out.
A man with hair, eyebrows, beard, and pupils all red like flame, and a monk with a completely shaved, bald head.
“Puhahaha! Disciple. Long time no see. You saw something funny this time, I hear?”
“…Shut up, Patron.”
The Flame Emperor was chuckling as if amused, while Goeseung was embarrassed.
“Master!”
“Yes, Disciple. You tried to summon me this time, but that wicked bald monk cut in line and went out instead, right? To think what he learned from Buddha was cutting in line. What a shameless monk. And he hadn’t even been out for long before getting reverse-summoned. It’s truly absurd. Absurd.”
“Did I not tell you to shut up! Do you wish to taste my Buddha’s Palm again after so long, Patron?”
“Great! Let’s have a go, you bald monk!”
As Goeseung summoned a golden Buddha’s Palm, the Flame Emperor also drew his sword.
“Hold on a moment. Please both calm down. If you do this here, I won’t be able to handle it.”
However, the two Ascendants immediately suppressed their fighting spirit when Tae-sung intervened.
They knew it too.
Every time they used their power, a burden was placed on Tae-sung.
If they fought here, Tae-sung would immediately cough up blood and collapse, and they would be reverse-summoned.
“Let’s have a match when we get back, you bald monk. You’re dead.”
“This time, I shall sincerely deliver Buddha’s lesson to you, Patron!”
After a brief growl, the two Ascendants sharply turned their heads away.
Tae-sung let out a slight sigh.
‘They’re not children, what are they…!’
Perhaps one must delve deeply into a single field to reach the Ascendant level, which makes them pure.
In a way, it was also nice to see.
“Anyway, bald monk. This was your mistake this time. Showing such ambiguous mercy leads to this kind of result…”
“…I know. I didn’t expect to get hit like this. I don’t know who it was, but they’re quite capable.”
A slight bitterness was embedded in Goeseung’s eyes as he nodded.
To get hit like this…
It was a humiliating event for him, an Ascendant.
“Puhuhu. You’re always going on about Buddha this and that, but look at you now.”
“……”
The Flame Emperor continued to tease him from the side for a while longer.
It seemed there was a lot of accumulated resentment.
Goeseung, having admitted his mistake, tolerated it to some extent, but after a while, his hands began to tremble, unable to bear it any longer.
Around the time thick veins bulged, the Flame Emperor also stopped teasing him.
“That guy?”
With a look of satisfaction, the Flame Emperor turned his head and looked at the muscular monster standing dazedly on the ground, staring blankly this way.
The four pupils on its two heads were vacant.
The tattoos engraved on its body were faint and no longer seemed to possess any special abilities.
In an instant, the Flame Emperor was behind the monster.
“Baldie. What you did was kind of funny, but seeing that head reminds me of the earlier annoyance. You too, die.”
That was the end.
It was a monster that had made Ranker-level Hunters tense, but with his single word, both of its heads simultaneously shattered.
*
“……”
“……”
“……”
Silence hung over the place where the vanguard members were in the dimensional space.
The last scene they saw…
They had confirmed one Ascendant disappeared and cheered, but only for a moment. Immediately after, he reappeared.
As two people, no less!
“How… how can an Ascendant from Cheonoecheon cross dimensions at will and arrive here?”
One of the vanguard members muttered.
Once, they could accept it as possible.
If the Ascendant had gathered power for a long time and conducted research related to that, it might be feasible.
But to come back immediately after being sent away?
How is it possible to pierce that vast distance and return again?
“…This is a big problem. The losses from this incident are enormous.”
If Ascendants are on Earth, conquest itself becomes extremely difficult.
Moreover, this time, there was a backlash from pushing in the monster engraved with the return magic.
By forcibly controlling the monster and shattering the dimensional barrier, their power fragmented and was scattered across Earth.
That power would be used to strengthen Earth’s planetary energy.
“Conquering Earth will become more difficult from now on, and it seems changes will occur for those called Hunters too…”
Whether that change is good or bad will depend on how we, the invaders, handle it.
The expressions of the tentacle monster vanguard members grew heavy.
The Gate Incident was quickly wrapped up.
Once the initial wave of monsters was slaughtered, no more followed.
This was thanks to the Rankers guarding the Ranking Mission Site regaining their composure and perfectly blocking it.
In that gap, other Rankers participating in the mission repaired the dimensional barrier, and the Gate vanished.
The primary contributor to resolving this incident was, of course, Lee Tae-sung, who blocked the Gate with almost no damage.
The Association was currently assessing the contributions before and after the incident and planned to formally express gratitude to Tae-sung later.
In the meantime, Tae-sung had returned home for now.
It was burdensome to keep wandering outside with the Flame Emperor and Goeseung, and he also wanted to show his new house to the Flame Emperor.
“You moved? Huh, really. It’s a completely different world compared to where you lived before.”
The Flame Emperor let out an exclamation as he looked around the interior of the house.
Indeed. Exelsia Cheongdam, a full-floor duplex with a Han River view, was a house impressive enough to make even the Flame Emperor marvel.
“Having lived in a house roughly made of woven wood, seeing a house like this would naturally make anyone’s eyes pop, wouldn’t it?”
“…Be quiet. Bald monk.”
Cheonoecheon was a world where only Ascendants lived, and because of that, civilization hadn’t developed much.
Would enlightened sages desire to live in nice houses?
They used nature as their bed, lying on the ground to sleep, and the night sky as their blanket.
Only the Flame Emperor, who missed life in the lower realm, had roughly built a house, but lacking technology, it was just a crumbling thatched hut.
Having lived in such a house, of course he couldn’t help but be amazed by Tae-sung’s new home!
“Um… Master, Monk Goeseung.”
At that moment, Tae-sung spoke, his complexion slightly pale.
He had been summoning two Ascendants since earlier, and although they said it was light, they had also used their power.
An enormous burden was being placed on Tae-sung.
Just summoning them quietly like now for conversation was manageable, but the problem was using power earlier to deal with the monsters.
“Aigoo. To have such a frail disciple is all my fault, my sin. How do you plan to survive in this harsh world being so weak? You need to get stronger.”
“Haha…”
Even though he had reached the Peak Realm, in the Flame Emperor’s eyes, he still seemed like a baby left by the riverside.
As Tae-sung scratched his head, the Flame Emperor continued.
“Did you go to all the places I told you to check out before?”
“No. There have been various things happening, so I haven’t been able to go yet.”
“Then let me tell you the priority. First, go to Cheongpung Plateau. What’s there seems like what you’ll need most urgently right now.”
22/24
Cheongpung Plateau?
Where was that again?
Tae-sung was in the middle of trying to recall where that location was within the Dream World.
Ding-dong!
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
Wondering who could be visiting, Tae-sung thought Manager Song Sang-yeop might have come and checked the intercom.
There was a foreigner with an unfamiliar face.
“Who is it?”
-Nice to meet you. Alex Caesar.
“!!?”
Tae-sung was shocked.
Alex Caesar.
One of the world’s top Hunters, and the very Hunter who created the Dream World!