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Translator/Editor: Dionysus

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◈ Xianxia Cultivation with a Dragon Heart ◈

Chapter 34: Rapid Interrogation

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Spellbreaking Thunder Wall Art had lower physical defense than Violet-Gold Radiance Art, but stronger defense against spells.

Furthermore, due to the nature of lightning, it defended and counterattacked at the same time. If another lightning-based spell was cast, it would naturally merge with it and increase its power.

Thus, the lightning energy Han Yujin fired through the Five Elements Sword became nearly twice as powerful as before. Since he had reached the Dharma Soul Stage and could now wield dharma power, its baseline power was already at least seven or eight times greater than before.

In other words.

This attack was easily more than fifteen times stronger than when he had previously wielded the Five Elements Sword.

By the time anyone registered the thunderclap, a terrifying flash had already turned the entire alley black and white. The lightning that struck its targets with that flash erased the two ghosts, capable of easily dispatching an A-Rank Hunter, as though vaporizing them.

The Spirit Vision Art he cast at the same time combined with Divine Sense, granting him sight on an entirely new level.

Awakening Divine Sense did not make Spirit Vision Art useless. On the contrary, it allowed him to use the art at an even higher level. Finding traces that he would previously have been unable to see was no longer difficult.

Following a lingering trace of energy that had been connected to the two ghosts he had destroyed moments ago, he took a step.

Krrrrooom!

He vanished from the spot in a flash of light and thunder. It was Lightning Escape Art, the greatest of the Five Elements Escape Arts when it came to short-distance speed.

To anyone without comparable cognitive abilities, it could only seem like teleportation.

About two hundred meters from the site of the attack, on the roof of a building, a shabby-looking man had just sensed the disappearance of the ghosts under his control and been startled.

Then a streak of roaring noise came with a blue-white flash, and Han Yujin, the man's target, appeared right before him. Before he could offer any resistance, a hand shot out and seized him by the collar.

"Church of the Goddess of Eternity, right?"

Though horrified, the man immediately reacted according to his training. He swiftly drew a military combat knife from his waist and thrust it directly at his opponent's neck.

The original mission was not assassination, but incapacitating Han Yujin with ghosts and possessing him. If that proved impossible, the goal was to have the ghosts devour his soul and recover at least fragments of his memories.

But in this situation, he had no choice but to kill him.

It was a swift and vicious response born from instinctive judgment, but...

Han Yujin caught the tip of the flying knife with his fingers. A faint Violet-Gold Radiance shimmered around them.

From what he could tell, the man was certainly some kind of well-trained assassin. However, unlike the ghosts he had controlled, his own strength was not even on par with a D-Rank Hunter.

It would have made no sense for Han Yujin's Dharma Soul Stage cognition to fail to react to something this fast. The man was stronger than an ordinary person, but not enough to surpass the body of a Dharma Soul Stage cultivator.

Smack!

"Ghk...!"

A hand he had not even seen coming struck him across the face. For a mere slap, the sound was deeply alarming, as if his skull had nearly cracked. The man was briefly unable to collect his senses.

"At this point, you should understand the situation. Stay still if you don't want to die."

Having taken the knife, Han Yujin demonstrated his power once more.

Red flames seemed to bloom from his hand, and the knife turned into a fistful of glowing molten metal that dripped down. The nonmetal parts, such as the handle, could not even produce smoke before crumbling into a little ash.

"M-Monster..."

Still half-dazed from the powerful slap, the man saw the sight and groaned in horror.

"This... This wasn't in the intel..."

"Looks like you were told I was just an A-Rank Hunter. Who told you that? Is there still someone from the Church of the Goddess of Eternity in Korea? Or did you come from China? But your Korean is too good for a Chinese guy. Are you Joseonjok? How did you learn to control ghosts? Knowledge from a Rift?"

A cold light lingered in Han Yujin's eyes as he fired off questions in quick succession, as though he did not even expect answers.

A chill naturally ran down the man's spine at the sight.

Something.

An overwhelming sensation washed over him, as though he had provoked an unknown being of an entirely different order.

"So you're not Joseonjok."

And as though he could read the man's mind, the overwhelming opponent stated it with certainty.

"You don't seem Chinese either. What are you?"

"I-I'm Koryo-saram..."

"Don't Koryo-saram usually speak Korean poorly? Well, whatever. I'll spare you, so surrender. You're not devoted enough to that cult to die for it, are you? You know those bastards aren't normal either."

It was a storm of questions that barely resembled an interrogation. Yet the man felt as though his opponent was roughly figuring out the answers through the questions alone.

That was not merely an illusion.

Han Yujin's Divine Sense could catch even the man's tiniest reactions, while his enhanced intellect could rapidly and accurately analyze them.

"Your mission has already failed. But it isn't entirely your fault. The idiots who gave you a mission to deal with someone like me are to blame. Besides, even if I let you go right now, can you guarantee those bastards won't throw you away?"

"Th-That..."

"What did they promise you when they taught you to control ghosts? Wealth and glory? But as far as I know, controlling ghosts is extremely dangerous. It's practically like handling poison with your bare hands. Did you volunteer knowing that?"

"I-I did hear something about that..."

"Did you hear it properly? If they fail to properly inform you of the risks when making a contract, that's fraud. Do you know what backlash is?"

Broadly speaking, backlash referred to the side effects of a spell. More narrowly, it usually referred to being harmed in return by a being one had controlled.

"Have those ghosts ever looked at you like they wanted to eat you?"

They had.

The man trembled as several chilling memories surfaced against his will. Han Yujin could not possibly miss such a reaction.

"Don't overthink it. Surrender. It's the only choice that lets you live. You don't need to stay loyal to those people who conned you with your own life on the line, do you? Just tell us everything you know and become naturalized. You don't know how well Hunters live here, do you? If you did, this would be an easier conversation."

"Th-That..."

"I'll overlook the attempted assassination if you quickly decide to surrender."

"Y-You really mean that?"

"I need the information you have. In short, I'm proposing a deal."

Han Yujin fell silent briefly, as if to give him time to think, before speaking again.

"If those cult bastards scare you too much to decide right away, think again about whose fist is closer. While fighting in self-defense, I might lose control a little and blow off one or two of your limbs, or maybe one or two eyes."

The man shuddered. Perhaps he could tell from Han Yujin's casual tone that it was not a bluff.

However, the trembling did not stop after a moment. It only seemed to grow worse. Watching him with Divine Sense, Han Yujin pressed a hand to his forehead.

"Fuck... I just told you this was dangerous. Did you think you could control two ghosts stronger than you and come out fine?"

"Hrk... Ghhk...!"

The whites of the man's bulging eyes filled with blood vessels until they burst in several places. His pupils expanded enormously, then black energy poured out as though ink had exploded, staining them with complete darkness.

Not even a proper scream could escape his open mouth. The trembling turned into rigidity, making it difficult for him to struggle.

Through Divine Sense, Han Yujin sensed the man's soul being violently torn apart by two masses of black ghostly energy. It did not merely feel as though it were being shredded. It felt as though it were being eaten away.

The ghostly energy seemed to have fused with the man's soul as a means of controlling the ghosts. Unfortunately, though the Healing Art he had learned might help with physical injuries, it was not very effective against this kind of spiritual injury. Especially not one progressing this quickly and violently.

"You can't be saved. Not by me, not by anyone else who comes."

Han Yujin spoke calmly. Despair flowed from the man, who was shaking in agony.

"So get revenge on the people who made you die like this. Who are they? Who told you to do this, and where are they?"

"Ghhk...!"

The man trembled violently for a little longer, then moved his lips. He seemed to be trying to say something, yet unable to decide what he should say.

'Was he a disposable pawn from the start...? It seems like he doesn't know much.'

Han Yujin, coolly analyzing the situation with the help of Clear Mind Art, met the man's eyes.

Eyes that had become as frightening as a ghost's stared directly at him through terrible pain and despair.

"Bei...jing!!"

It came out like a scream.

The instant he finished speaking, blood burst from the man's mouth. Blood sprayed not only from his mouth, but from every opening in his body as he convulsed one final time.

With his soul torn to pieces, he sank into eternal silence alongside the remnants of the ghosts he had controlled.

"..."

Han Yujin watched the miserable death in silence for several minutes before fishing out his smartphone.

Naturally, he called not the police, but the case officer assigned by the Special Ability Management Bureau.

* * *

There was no way to know exactly what the word Beijing meant.

Did it simply refer to a particular faction or individual located in that region? Did it mean various influential people who mainly lived there? Or did it mean that there were additional clues there because it was where the man had lived?

'Surely the Chinese government isn't behind this.'

As Han Yujin considered the matter, Kang Mina, the case officer assigned to him, arrived at the scene much sooner than expected, accompanied by police personnel.

While the quiet neighborhood grew noisy, she began speaking with Han Yujin, with a man from the Ability Crime Investigation Bureau beside her. It seemed an investigator could not be left out of a murder case like this.

Following her questions, Han Yujin explained the course of events from the beginning in detail. As he did, he gauged the position of the investigator, whose rigid expression made him seem entirely inflexible.

'He doesn't seem lower-ranking than the case officer.'

Using even his Divine Sense to judge, Han Yujin determined that he was at least a Grade 6 civil servant, roughly a police inspector. He did not seem to be Grade 5, since he had personally come to the scene as the primary responder.

"One moment."

The investigator spoke when Han Yujin finished explaining.

"Mr. Han Yujin, you're a provisional A-Rank Hunter, correct? Then does that mean the two summons the deceased controlled were around C-Rank?"

In other words, even if Han Yujin was A-Rank, he was only provisional. If he had disposed of them as quickly as he claimed, then were they not C-Rank rather than B-Rank?

It did not seem like an interrogation. He merely appeared to be checking the objectivity of Han Yujin's statement. Thus, Han Yujin could answer without any displeasure.

"No. I was originally going to announce it in a few days, once the Hunter preliminary classes ended, but I've become S-Rank."

"Pardon?"

The case officer beside him asked as if she had misheard. The investigator who had been speaking with him also wore a slightly strange expression.

A-Rank and S-Rank were not levels that could be viewed as only one rank apart.

There were fewer than a hundred S-Rank Hunters worldwide. One needed to understand how important and dangerous a human resource they were to a nation.

There were currently only two in Korea. Considering that one of them was an elderly person in their seventies who could retire at any time, this was nothing less than a bombshell declaration.

'If I reveal at least this much now, they won't waste their effort for no reason.'

Even if there were aspects of this case that made self-defense slightly ambiguous, they would now decide it was self-defense on their own. Considering Han Yujin's own special circumstances, it was not an unreasonable thought.

"Since I've revealed it, I'd like to be verified as well. And I hope you'll take what I say as seriously as possible."

As he spoke, he looked down at the corpse of the man who had died from backlash.

"I wasn't attacked for no reason."

He did not know whether it would work, but he wanted to teach those who had dared retaliate what it meant to go looking for trouble.

Footnotes:

Koryo-saram refers to ethnic Koreans from former Soviet regions, contrasted here with Joseonjok, ethnic Koreans in China.

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