“I don’t know if it is a good idea to send them away without seeing them.”

The Cho King was having a vague communication with the red phoenix, the guardian god of the land. The innate nature of the red phoenix, which existed for the people of the Cho Kingdom, responded to the blood of the Cho royal family. There was even a connection called Grid who acted as a bridge between the two of them.

The Cho King had been helping Grid, so he received the favor of the red phoenix. This brought about a strong vigilance and made him aware that some of the returning soldiers were demons, not human beings. Even so, he simply sent them away. He turned a blind eye to those who suffered from the divinity of the red phoenix flowing through the ground and ran away.

It was due to advice from the Chivalrous Robbers.

“Your Majesty, don’t worry. By now, the leader must’ve beaten them all. He has been digging a trap for a while.”

The Chivalrous Robbers was a group of people. They robbed the assets of some of the people profiting from the power of the yangbans and scattered it to the private sector, and preached the real myths of the East Continent, telling people that the Four Auspicious Beasts were the guardian gods.

There were no great achievements, but more than one or two people had been rescued by them. The Twelve Zodiacs also received their comfort. The achievements of the leader, Hwang Gildong, were particularly great. He made several plans and killed several yangbans returning to the Hwan Kingdom. He also contributed greatly to the recent resurgence of the black tortoise.

The Cho King trusted the Chivalrous Robbers.

“Um... I can rest assured if it is Hwang Gildong himself.”

It was too dangerous for the Cho King to directly subdue the demons. Demons had different individual abilities and this made it difficult to predict what variables would occur. Above all, the warriors of the Cho Kingdom weren’t strong enough to overpower a large number of demons.

On the other hand, Hwang Gildong was a strong person who moved all over the world. The plan to divide the group of demons between two places, the Kaya Kingdom and Pa Kingdom, to isolate them and destroy them one by one, didn’t sound like a lie. Maybe he had destroyed the demons already?

It happened the moment the Cho Kingdom had this thought...

“......?”

The expressions of the Chivalrous Robbers stiffened as they received urgent news from a carrier pigeon.

“What is it?”

The Cho King couldn’t bear to ask what had gone wrong. He was worried that the words would become seeds. He was ashamed of such a heart.

“...It says that something went wrong,” the members of the Chivalrous Robbers gave the worst answer, “There is a possibility that the demons will fall into the hands of the yangbans...”

***

Agnus was still confident in his skills. His level might’ve dropped significantly, but Lantier grew intensively. Lantier’s fighting power could overwhelm several high rankers alone. Furthermore, Agnus had inherited some of Marbas’ power. This nearly doubled the number of minions he could control at once.

Nevertheless, the reason for his constant failure and defeat was simply because the opponents were bad.

Strength was relative.

Faker was too strong. The skill of using the shadow techniques was great enough to pierce the sky and he freely crossed the barrier of blades set by the undead army like he was moving in and out of his own house. Additionally, his net was always spread out because he used the Overgeared Shadows, whose number couldn’t be estimated. In many ways, their compatibility was bad.

To add a bit of exaggeration, Faker was as frightening as Grid. However, this didn’t mean that the other Overgeared members were weak. It was hard to see any chance of winning In places with the influence of the Overgeared Guild...

Agnus quickly came to such a conclusion. This was why he decided to base his future activities in the East Continent. Agnus needed time to grow. He was determined to stay alive until the moment when Baal hunted down Marbas and exploded his potential. Once he judged that he had grown enough, the first goal he would achieve was:

‘I will pull out Chepardea’s tongue.’

It was to repay the grudge. Agnus had no intention of just sitting back and watching the humiliation he had suffered from Chepardea over the past few months. The resentment he felt toward Chepardea was much greater than the resentment he felt toward Faker.

It was natural. Faker and the Overgeared Guild were originally Agnus’ enemies. In particular, Agnus had antagonized them first. In other words, the humiliation he experienced from Faker and the Overgeared Guild was self-inflicted.

Then what about Chepardea? He was a colleague. It was very rare, but Chepardea once showed a liking toward Agnus. Therefore, Agnus tried. He struggled even more anxiously when he saw Chepardea disappointed in him. He tried his best to prove his qualifications. He might’ve longed for affection without even realizing it.

In the end, he repeatedly tasted failure. Chepardea’s response to him was the worst. Chepardea despised Agnus. The more Agnus failed and the more he struggled, the more Chepardea hated and insulted him. It was an attitude that stimulated Agnus’ trauma. It was greatly similar to the group that harassed him in the past and aroused anger.

That’s right. Agnus was obsessed with Chepardea. As his years of clinging to the resurrection of his old lover had proved, he could be very obsessive. He could put everything else behind him until he paid back the humiliation to Chepardea. This was why he came to the East Continent and moved carefully in the East Continent.

However, this monster grabbed him by the ankle.

“......!”

Lantier’s body suddenly floated in the air. He couldn’t bear the weight of Old Sword Demon’s sword. He immediately used shadow movements to change his position and appear behind Old Sword Demon, but even that was read. Old Sword Demon’s sword smashed Lantier’s ribs.

“Do you think I don’t know the habits of assassins?”

Old Sword Demon emitted a sharp light from his eyes. It reminded people that at first glance, his essence was an assassin. It was very difficult to deal with the heavy sword suddenly hiding its appearance as it was falling heavily. The sword moving fast in a brilliant manner could also suddenly become a dull sword, causing confusion.

‘He picked a strange skill tree.’

At this moment, Agnus realized the biggest advantage of a normal class. A skill tree that was divided according to the ‘transfer’ selected at every 100 levels. If players made good use of the system, which didn’t apply to hidden classe, they could become as special as the monster in front of him.

‘Did he strengthen his swordsmanship by picking the trap installation skill tree and getting a correction on his use of tools, rather than the stealth or assassination skill trees?’

Agnus was very interested in the specificity of the swordsmanship used by Old Sword Demon. He thought he should use a variety of skill trees when changing the classes of the skeleton soldiers. It felt like his eyes were opened. He received a clue that would greatly help him grow in the future.

However, now wasn’t the time to be happy about it. Agnus’ robe was torn apart by Old Sword Demon’s wicked touch. It was fortunate. If the robe wasn’t torn, his collar would’ve been caught and he would’ve been thrown to the ground.

‘There are times when being cheap helps.’

One of the weaknesses of Baal’s Contractor was their isolation from civilization. There were so many misdeeds that normal social activities were impossible. Agnus was rejected by society over time. Naturally, his authority to use the store disappeared. This meant that Agnus had to use a looting system or rely on transactions with players to purchase certain items.

However, most people loathed Agnus. They didn’t easily trade with him. Even if they traded, they demanded an excessive fee. It was a considerable burden for Agnus, who had his commercial activities restricted and had difficulty securing currency. He could use the item trading sites to buy items using cash, but even this was becoming increasingly difficult. He couldn’t improve his income through broadcasting like other rankers and had to be self-sufficient through hunting. Yet in recent years, he hadn’t been able to hunt properly.

Therefore, Agnus was currently covered in rags. He was equipped with normal and rare items because he couldn’t afford to buy new items for his dropped level.

Old Sword Demon didn’t like this point about Agnus. “You have hurt so many people, yet you are like this? You are mocking the lives of those who died by making them worthless until the end?!”

“......”

The part he was angry about was subtle. At this point, he felt like making an unreasonable demand. Even so, Agnus didn’t dare refute it. The source of this anger came from the loss of loved ones. He knew this mood, so he had no desire to argue.

‘Stupid jerk.’

He had reached an irreversible point, but he felt the condemnation of his conscience. Agnus was disgusted with himself and laughed. He was laughing at himself, but Old Sword Demon didn’t know this.

Agnus’ evil deeds came from his past resentment and hatred. Other people didn’t know that even this faded after losing his madness.

“You trash jerk!”

“It is the correct answer.”

Agnus accepted the accusation and used Bentao’s Mockery. It was a deliberate means to overcome the situation, but it was useless. Many of Agnus’ techniques had already been disclosed to the public. The defeats that he had suffered had exposed and weakened him.

Old Sword Demon accurately read the foreshadowing of the skill and counterattacked using a skill invalidation artifact. He crushed the high bridge of Agnus’ nose with his knee before grabbing Agnus’ neck with his rotating leg and slamming Agnus into the ground.

Agnus couldn’t even scream. He could only confirm Old Sword Demon’s sword inserted in his chest using his blurred vision.

'...It is karma.’

He had maintained some of his conscience while suffering from madness, such as rejecting Baal’s quests to kill an unspecified number of people, but it was completely meaningless. The number of casualties that should be in the millions was suppressed to thousands or tens of thousands, but in the end, he was still a murderer.

He couldn’t deny that he had harmed others according to his needs and mood. Every place he went, he had no choice but to face someone who held a grudge against him. If he was going to protect himself from them, he should’ve first abandoned his clumsy conscience.

‘What the hell am I doing?’

What type of person was Agnus? He asked himself this, but he couldn’t give an answer. He used his terrible past to bury deep in his memory that he was a man with a broken but kind heart.

Agnus denied and loathed himself, but he didn’t know how to affirm himself. Just in time, his five seconds of immortality came.

Old Sword Demon maintained a sense of tension. He kept an eye on Agnus while allowing Lantier’s attacks. He held onto the sword inserted in Agnus’ heart like it was a stake. At this moment—

"Stop."

In an untimely appearance, several people appeared and surrounded Old Sword Demon. It was the intervention of the yangbans. Old Sword Demon had woven ropes around the demons fleeing while fighting Agnus.

“We will look at that guy.”

Old Sword Demon’s expression crumpled like a piece of paper. Now there was only one second left. Agnus’ immortality was about to end, so Old Sword Demon inserted strength into the hand holding the sword. However, he couldn’t hold on. He was attacked by the yangbans and separated from Agnus.

At the end of the immortality, the yangbans reached out to Agnus.

“Your strength is very interesting. You will have to cooperate with us before we figure out how to take advantage of it...”

The eyes of the yangban who was talking opened wide. The blood that Agnus spewed burst like a firecracker and soaked his face. The shaky gazes of the yangbans caught Old Sword Demon’s figure.

“You tend to look at humans too dismissively since a long time ago.”

A disaster caused by carelessness. It happened the moment the anger of the yangbans soared into the sky...

“Uwaaak!” Agnus, who was attempting to become an undead to postpone death, failed and threw something up. It was a cold, black bead. At the same time, warning windows emerged in front of Agnus’ blurry vision.

[Baal has sensed your death and has withdrawn even the touch of interest he left behind with you.]

[The contract with Baal is forcibly terminated.]

[The class ‘Baal’s Contractor’ is lost.]

[You have lost all the titles, skills, and stats inherited from Baal.]

“......!”

“......!”

The yangbans reached out as if they were competing. It completely drew the interest of not only Old Sword Demon, but also the captured demons. It was understandable. It was because the black bead in Old Sword Demon’s view was ‘Baal’s Power Fragment.’

‘There is such a blunder.’

Old Sword Demon didn’t know exactly what was going on, but he instinctively felt it. The fact that this bead shouldn’t fall into the hands of the yangbans. Nevertheless, there was nothing he could do.

[You have died.]

It was because he was already dead.

Agnus, Old Sword Demon who died in vain, and the yangbans who were fighting like anglers...

A dark shadow covered the comedy-like spectacle. It was due to a pair of wings huge enough to cover the sky. It was the ultimate transcendent species, a dragon.