[Translator - Helga ]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
Chapter 130: Invisible Cracks (4)
The day after Simon Blaga visited Kwon Hanul—
A massive spider was crawling across the Blaga estate.
Its torso, not to mention its eight legs, was grotesquely enormous. With each movement, it covered more than a hundred meters.
Despite such a monstrous being roaming around, not a single person spared it a glance.
Because it was a familiar sight to everyone there.
A middle-aged woman voiced her irritation from atop the spider’s back.
She was Kosmina Blaga, one of the elders of the Blaga family.
“Kwon Hanul, Kwon Hanul—why is Catalina so obsessed with that damn man?”
Kosmina’s blood bound silently endured her rant.
Experience had taught them well—it was far safer to listen quietly when Kosmina Blaga was in a foul mood than to agree or disagree.
“Even if he’s a Trueblood, does that mean all the elders need to mobilize for one damn man?”
Kosmina's pride couldn’t tolerate such a thing.
“If she wants him that badly, then carve him up until he listens! What, we’re not allowed to hurt him?”
Temptation from the Blaga family was never sweet alone. Violence and cruelty were more than plentiful in their arsenal.
And Kosmina Blaga? She was practically a specialist in that department. Her expertise lay in subjugating monsters so feral they didn’t even understand rationality.
“Catalina’s ridiculous too. Acting all innocent now after all her years of experience. Don’t you think so?”
Kosmina turned to her blood bound, who only responded with a strained smile.
A mere servant had no right to comment on an elder—especially not about Catalina Blaga.
Just then, the spider came to a stop in front of an old-fashioned mansion.
Kosmina looked up at the house. To give away a mansion this nice, just like that? She pouted.
“There’s no need to drag this out.”
She opened a pocket dimension and drew out a long whip—an especially vicious one lined with sharp barbs.
At the sight of it, the spider’s body hair stood on end.
The blood bound paled.
“Lady Catalina explicitly ordered no harm—!”
“Once he’s under control, shutting him up will be easy.”
The blood bound’s mouth fell open. It was a brute-force approach—but, admittedly, it made sense.
They didn’t have time to dither like Catalina. Preventing war was the priority.
At Kosmina’s command, the spider moved again, leaping over the wall and into the garden.
Then, someone caught Kosmina’s eye.
A man stood alone in the garden.
“You’re Kosmina Blaga, I presume?”
The man spoke first. Kosmina ordered the spider to halt.
“And you must be Kwon Hanul?”
At her signal, the spider crouched flat against the ground, and Kosmina dismounted.
“I heard Simon gave you quite the beating. You look better than I expected. Or are you just pretending?”
Simon Blaga, despite his gentlemanly appearance, was a nasty old man who loved messing with people.
He especially enjoyed provoking skilled hunters. It was baffling, but even Kosmina had to admit his skills were top-tier.
Someone like him wouldn’t have done a half-hearted job.
“Perhaps,” Hanul replied vaguely.
“Whatever. That’s not what matters right now.”
She uncoiled the whip. It dragged across the ground like a serpent.
“Unlike Catalina, I don’t do half-measures.”
She cracked the whip into the air, prompting the spider behind her to let out a threatening screech.
“There are only two answers I want to hear: ‘Please spare me’ and ‘I’ll do whatever you say.’ Understood?”
Her eyes turned a glowing crimson. The spider’s eyes gleamed red in unison.
“You’re free to fight back. But it’s pointless in front of my baby—”
“Of course it is. It is an S-class monster, after all.”
Hanul suddenly cut her off.
“S-class monster ‘Tarkleant.’ One of the strongest monsters under Blaga family control, right?”
He pointed directly at Kosmina.
“And I know who you are, too. Kosmina Blaga—along with Catalina, one of only two elders in the family capable of controlling S-class monsters. That’s correct, isn’t it?”
Kosmina didn’t take his words seriously.
Any Blaga family insider would know that much. He must’ve picked it up from someone.
But what came next made her blood run cold.
“That whip—it’s a relic that heightens pain sensitivity, isn’t it? A bit much to use on a person, don’t you think?”
Kosmina’s expression twisted.
Very few knew that. How did he—?
“You manage the Blaga estate’s security. You control a massive number of monsters, so to reduce the burden, you rely on relics for support.”
Then he dropped the bomb.
“That Tarkleant—you maintain control by driving a spike into its central nervous system, don’t you? Pull it out, and the control breaks. That would be a problem, wouldn’t it?”
Kosmina broke into goosebumps. That information was absolutely forbidden.
“…Who told you that?”
The voice came from behind. Kosmina whipped around in shock.
Hanul—who had just been in the garden—was now standing atop Tarkleant’s neck.
“This must be the spike, right?”
He gripped a long rod embedded deep in the spider’s neck.
Kosmina’s face turned deathly pale.
“You idiot! Do you realize what you’re doing?!”
Even for the Blaga family, controlling an S-class monster was no easy feat.
It required the mobilization of the entire household.
If Hanul messed with that spike and the control failed—it could be catastrophic.
“Take your hands off that, right now!”
Kosmina called her blood bound’s name. Ark lunged at Hanul without hesitation.
He grabbed Hanul’s arm and shoved him off the monster.
Kosmina shouted a command. The spider opened its jaws wide.
From its throat, a torrent of webbing exploded.
It shot straight toward Ark—who was hit mid-air and slammed into a wall, stuck fast.
“Tarkleant! What the hell are you doing?! Not him, the other one—!”
Kosmina didn’t finish her sentence.
Tarkleant’s throat was now aimed at her.
Kosmina threw herself sideways in a panic. Webbing blanketed the ground where she’d just been standing.
Her eyes flared red again as she issued another command—but it didn’t work.
Hanul got to his feet and walked toward the spider.
“I’ve taken control now.”
Kosmina was about to scream nonsense!—but then she saw something she couldn’t believe.
Hanul’s eyes were glowing red.
She couldn’t believe the words even as she spoke them. How could someone from Hyukcheon possess Vassal Bloodline?
“How does a descendant of Hyukcheon… no, how in the world…?”
“Is that really the issue right now?”
Hanul pointed a finger at her.
Kosmina’s face went ghostly white.
“S-Stop! Please, spare me!”
She dropped to the ground, begging for her life.
The hows and whys didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that she’d die if she didn’t act.
“Do you want to live?”
Hanul looked down at her. Kosmina nodded frantically.
With that, Hanul slipped on a red ring.
A Blaga blood bound muttered as he stared at the sea bathed in twilight.
He spoke with a somber face. But it was a futile wish. He was stationed at a border outpost far from the Blaga family’s main island.
“If I’d been born with better blood, I wouldn’t be stuck out here.”
Those with the lowest lineage—inferior blood—were often assigned to border duty.
The family needed people to keep watch over its monsters.
“What are you staring at?”
His colleague, also inferior-blood, had appeared beside him.
“Just hang in there. In two more days, we’ll be rotated out.”
The colleague handed him a beer can. The blood bound accepted it with a bitter smile.
“Still, it’s a bit worrying. Didn’t Hyukcheon declare war?”
“What’s there to worry about? No one knows where the Blaga estate is. And even if they did, we’ve got these guys.”
He gestured to the massive sea serpent right next to the outpost.
A diamond-ranked monster—deadly as any S-class when in the sea.
“With this guy here, no one’s invading the Blaga family.”
And the sea serpent wasn’t alone.
Dozens of monsters kept watch across the waters—and even in the skies.
“No matter how strong Hyukcheon are, they can’t—”
That’s when it happened.
A strange sound reached their ears. The two looked around, trying to locate the source.
The sound grew louder—and in the next instant, the sea serpent and the ocean exploded.
The two screamed and ducked. Slowly, they raised their heads.
The monster was gone—reduced to chunks of flesh and blood splattered everywhere.
And in the center of it all—
A man in a black suit slowly rose to his feet.
He stuck out his tongue in disgust.
“I was excited about this mission—figured it’d be something big. But cleaning up his mess? Seriously?”
He grumbled on and on. Then he looked at the two Blaga blood bounds.
One of them managed to ask.
“Name’s Kwon Jiseok.”
The blood bounds froze.
They didn’t know Jiseok—but they definitely knew the surname Kwon.
“Hyukcheon has arrived.”
At that moment, black-suited hunters began to rain down from the sky.
[Translator - Helga ]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]