Chapter 10

Chapter 10
## Chapter 10: The Core’s Guardian

—

Honestly, if my lungs would allow it, I’d be howling with laughter right now.

At this point, just stepping into the vicinity is enough to ignite the local monsters, turning them into living fuel for my Paradox Flame.

“Hieeek… Heeeek…”

The landscape has transformed into an unending ocean of Paradox Flame, a conflagration that drains the vitality of every foe in an heartbeat. It’s behaving like a localized firestorm, devouring everything in its path within mere moments.

The creatures whose endurance has been scorched away find themselves paralyzed; even the simplest movement leaves them gasping, their breath catching painfully in their throats.

“Don’t worry. Your turn to die comes later, so just take a nap for now.”

If I ended their lives this second, the stamina currently acting as timber for the Paradox Flame would dissipate instantly.

“And that would mean the mana saturation in the atmosphere would stop climbing.”

I remained motionless, a silent conduit absorbing the mana being exhaled by the tireless Paradox Flame. With every breath of energy, I felt the internal pathways of my body widening and tempering themselves.

“Look at you fools. You look like you’ve been blasted with a heavy dose of pest control.”

They were pathetic—limbs twitching sporadically as they lay broken on the ground, eventually giving up even that minor struggle to just writhe uselessly. They reminded me of common houseflies twitching on the floor after a spray.

“Where is the master of this place hiding, and why hasn’t it made a move?”

I scanned the area but couldn’t locate the nucleus of the Erosion Core. By all rights, it should possess power far beyond these underlings.

“You can’t hide forever. You’ll have to show your face eventually.”

I sat down, entering a state of deep meditation to further accelerate the intake of mana. A few hours slipped by. Eventually, the roaring Paradox Flames began to starve, flickering and dying out as they ran out of things to consume.

“That’s about 20% of the total mana Kim Min-je had stored within himself.”

Twenty percent of the energy Kim Min-je had spent a lifetime accumulating. That appeared to be the current ceiling for how much mana my newly reinforced channels—forged through intense pressure—could handle in a single, continuous intake.

“Gaining this much raw power in one go is a hell of a windfall.”

I doubt I’ll run into a shortcut this effective again anytime soon. This was a stroke of pure, unadulterated luck.

— I… will… destroy… you.

The raspy, guttural voice pulled me to my feet.

“Well, look at that. This one actually has a vocabulary.”

Towering over me was a Bat-Headed Giant. It was decked out in ornate jewelry hanging from its throat, ears, and thick fingers, and it wore a suit of heavy, formidable armor. It even gripped a massive, expertly crafted metal greatsword.

“You actually waited for the fire to go out before stepping up, didn’t you?”

This one definitely looked sharper and more intelligent than the mindless drones I’d just finished cooking.

A quick glance around confirmed it was the only entity left standing. This was undoubtedly the nucleus of the Erosion Core.

— Fire… gone… finished.

With a slow, deliberate motion, it pointed the tip of its massive blade directly at my chest.

— The end… is here.

“You’re right about one thing.”

A soft, phantom breeze began to swirl around me from every direction—a physical side effect of me vacuuming up the remaining ambient mana.

“It is the end. Yours.”

A sphere of Paradox Flame the size of a basketball suddenly erupted onto the tip of the spear in my hand, roaring with intensity. Even with a flame of that magnitude manifested, I still felt an abundance of mana surging through me, ready to bolster my physical form and my weapon.

I funneled that energy into my still-developing, unpolished muscles, reinforcing them for the clash.

With a violent hiss of displaced air, the spear began to whirl in my grip. My movements were now so fluid and explosive they made my initial performance at Gyo-dong Island look like a child’s play.

“Try me. If I felt like it, I could keep you dancing for a month straight.”

In all honesty, if I could just bypass the need for sleep and physical rest, I could toy with this thing for an eternity. Even when you use Paradox Flame to incinerate exhaustion, there’s always a bit of grit left behind.

“Let’s test something. If my output has truly returned to this level…”

I should be capable of executing the Fourfold Shadow Thrust. I tightened my grip, flooding my arm with power and mana, and launched myself toward the behemoth.

“Double Shadow Spear.”

The spear, saturated with Paradox Flame, tore through the sky, carving a shimmering blue wake as it slammed into the creature.

The beast proved its status as the Erosion Core’s nucleus by successfully parrying the initial thrust.

“That was just the opening act. Here’s the real show.”

As I transitioned into my second strike, the blue trail of energy hanging in the air—the ghost of my previous movement—suddenly solidified and perfectly mimicked my first attack.

— Gr… ahhh?!

The giant had blocked my physical spear, but in that same heartbeat, the phantom strike from the blue trail buried itself deep into its flesh.

“I nearly took my own head off trying to perfect the timing on this when I first came up with it.”

Without that blue trail echoing my actions, the technique would be nothing more than a predictable series of four rapid-fire stabs.

Just like that.

But the secret lies in the delay. What happens when the blue trail mimics the attack a fraction of a second late?

It turns the battle into a lethal duet with a shadow. The four strikes overlap with entirely different movements each time, creating a synchronized, multi-angled assault.

These combinations are designed like a sadistic guessing game—if you focus on blocking one, the other is almost guaranteed to ruin your day.

“For now, because my mana reserves are still a bit shallow, I can’t even touch a Triple, let alone a Quad Shadow Spear!”

In its true form, this spear art is a nightmare that traps an opponent in a four-way pincer of total destruction.

Like this. But to reach that stage, I have to maintain three simultaneous trails. If I tried that now, the impact of each blue trail would be diluted to a third of its strength.

At that point, a beast of this caliber would just shrug the hits off. An attack that doesn’t threaten isn’t an attack at all.

— Ka-hak! Kehuk!

Regardless, against this specific opponent, the Double Shadow Spear was more than enough to do the job.

The giant eventually gave up on offense entirely, curling into a desperate defensive posture to try and weather the storm of strikes.

And it actually worked to a degree—the spear was mostly glancing off its heavy frame, leaving nothing but shallow gashes.

— Gruuh… ugh…

Its eyes burned with a savage, desperate light as it focused every ounce of its will on defense.

It was likely waiting for the moment my mana ran dry and my blue trails vanished into thin air.

“This ride doesn’t stop until you’re a corpse, you thick-skulled freak.”

I’m drawing energy directly from the air around us. As long as the atmosphere is thick with mana—which it currently is—this cycle of violence continues until I decide it’s over.

Of course, if that was my only trick, I’d just be some crazy person trying to kill a giant with a million paper cuts.

But I’m not that crazy.

“You’ve got a little something on you. Specifically, fire.”

I have the Paradox Flame.

The flickering black embers clinging to various parts of its body were slowly, methodically incinerating its muscular strength.

“Even if my spear only grazes you, time is turning those scratches into death sentences.”

If this thing had seen me in the world I’ve already saved, it would have realized how pathetic its plan was. Of all the strategies to use against me, a war of attrition is the most suicidal.

With a heavy, metallic clang, the giant’s greatsword hit the ground. Its muscles simply didn’t have the strength left to hold the weight.

“Game over. You actually put up a decent fight, all things considered.”

I vaulted into the air, driving the spear down with everything I had. With a sickening crunch, the spearhead punched through the creature’s skull.

As the life left its body, the various corpses littering the battlefield began to dissolve into grey ash, swirling together in a localized vortex before solidifying into a small, unassuming box.

“What do we have here?”

Inside the container was a pair of gloves. I squinted at them, my suspicion rising.

I could feel mana radiating from the fabric. These weren’t just standard-issue winter wear. I wondered if I could parse their function.

After a few minutes of close study, I let out a low whistle of genuine surprise.

“No kidding.”

They were essentially portable mana capacitors. Their only job was to suck up and store ambient energy.

For a typical hunter, they’d be a nice little backup to help with mana consumption.

But for someone like me? Given the total capacity these glove-batteries could hold…

“Maybe five minutes?”

Five solid minutes where I could stand toe-to-toe with someone like Lee Se-eun. Once the stored energy was spent, I’d have to back off.

It looked like they needed a full twenty-four hours to hit a full charge once drained. A bit of a drag, but…

Still, having access to a massive power spike for five minutes every single day? That was enough to put a real smirk on my face.

“Five minutes is an eternity if you know what you’re doing.”

A decent chef can make a perfect omelet in that time. And me? I can cook most of these idiots alive in half that!

“Right then. This is where the real work starts.”

I felt a strange, familiar sensation begin to wrap around my physical form.

When my vision cleared, I was standing exactly where Han Sang-ah had indicated the Erosion Core was located.

“Not much time has passed on the outside.”

Based on the positioning of the sun, it felt like maybe three hours had ticked by.

“What is all this?”

My smartphone suddenly went haywire in my pocket, vibrating incessantly. When I pulled it out, I saw a flood of text notifications and a missed call.

I tapped the most recent one.

[Hunter Yoo Chan-seok, your current trajectory is leading you into the Alpha Erosion Core zone. Turn back immediately.]
[Hunter Yoo Chan-seok. Disengage and return to base now.]
[Turn around! Do you have a death wish?!] [Hey! Answer me!]
They were from one of the mission handlers. Must be his shift today. I guess the moment I entered the Erosion Core, I dropped off their grid.

“I bet things are a total mess out there right now.”

There were dozens more messages below those. Emergency evacuation routes? Meeting point coordinates? What kind of chaos broke out while I was busy roasting monsters in that pocket dimension?

I thought about it for a second, then tapped out a quick reply to the handler.

—

The government employee responsible for overseeing the Gyo-dong Island monster suppression and Erosion Core cleanup was currently clutching his head, looking like he’d aged a decade.

“That absolute lunatic of a rookie. He’s going to be the end of my career!”

Technically, he’d followed protocol. He’d issued the warnings. He’d told the guy not to go near the Gyo-dong Island Alpha Erosion Core. On paper, the state wasn’t responsible for the fate of Hunter Yoo Chan-seok, the man currently ruining this civil servant’s life.

But “not liable” and “not in trouble” are two very different things for a handler.

Part of his job was to track hunter locations via GPS and intervene if they wandered toward a suicide zone like an Alpha Erosion Core.

And the rookie in question had ignored every red flag, marched straight into the heart of the zone, and then vanished from the map entirely.

“I’m going to lose my mind.”

The signal was dead. Now, his phone was ringing off the hook with superiors demanding status updates.

— You moron, how did you let the situation get this out of hand!

‘What am I supposed to do? Run out there and put a leash on him?’

Despite his internal frustration, the civil servant kept his voice humble and apologetic.

“I am incredibly sorry, sir. I sent multiple high-priority warnings and attempted direct contact, but he didn’t respond…”

Even as his boss spent the next hour berating him, the handler kept his eyes glued to the tracking monitors. Suddenly, his blood ran cold.

“Wait, sir—sorry to interrupt, but I have a critical update.”

Thankfully, his boss was professional enough to stop shouting when he heard that tone of voice.

— What is it? Speak up.

“Multiple signals from the 5th Team hunters have just gone dark.”

— You’ve got to be kidding me! What does that even mean?!

The boss’s remaining composure evaporated instantly.

As the handler scrambled to provide more data, a new message popped up on his personal device.

He read it, his expression turning grim.

[This is Eun Sung-hyeok from the 5th Team. We are in full retreat. The creatures emerging from the Erosion Core are not following standard behavior patterns.]
The situation had to be dire; the message was full of desperate typos.

Eun Sung-hyeok wasn’t a flashy hunter, but he was a seasoned pro known for his reliability and calm under pressure.

More signals from the team began to blink out of existence. Then, a follow-up message arrived.

[Temporary escape achieved. These things are moving with tactical coordination. They’re organized.]
Having seen enough, the handler immediately spoke into his headset.

“You need to get down here immediately. This is a level-one emergency. We’re going to need a full response—I’m triggering the emergency broadcast to call in every hunter in the neighboring sectors.”

— I’m reading the logs now. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in 15 minutes.

This was no longer a search party for one missing rookie. The supervisor cut the call, the time for scolding officially over.