# Chapter 143
Slightly twisting space wasn’t difficult even with his ability nearly blocked.
The man who was charging with an axe stumbled visibly, and Lee Hwan’s arm with the broken restraint flew at him like lightning.
Crack!
The sensation of a skull breaking was vividly transmitted to his wrist. Lee Hwan’s mind cleared from the feeling of death transferred through his skin.
Blood pooled at his feet. Despite breaking the supposedly hard human skull, the restraint still showed no sign of coming off.
“Huu… huu…”
He checked his ability just in case, but as before, it only leaked out like a thin thread.
‘I can’t fight with this.’
He’d need all his strength and more to defeat those trackers who were skilled and well-equipped.
Lee Hwan slammed his wrist with the restraint against a nearby tree several times, but failing, he groaned and returned to his spot. Then, suddenly, his eyes flashed as he kicked away the man’s corpse.
As expected. He wondered where it had gone—a blood-covered axe was underneath the body. Lee Hwan picked it up, not minding the sticky sensation.
‘Damn, with my thumb in this state, it’s hard to grip properly…!’
He was an Awakened person too. Even with his broken thumb, he could still smash rocks if he struck with all his might. But if he aimed wrong, it would be over. His wrist might fly off completely.
Lee Hwan struggled to gather his remaining ability. He somehow surrounded the outside of the trajectory with a shabby shield to avoid cutting flesh. And then.
Kwak! Kwak!
Wajik!
After striking two or three times, the restraint that had been like a shackle finally broke off. He had struck so hard that he almost cut his wrist, but he decided to be grateful that his remaining thumb was still intact.
‘I should have broken the left one.’
It was a painful mistake for a right-handed person. Lee Hwan roughly pulled out the fragments embedded in his wrist using his index and middle fingers, then jumped to his feet.
Whoosh! Finally, his ability spread out, enveloping his body. Lee Hwan wiped his sweat-drenched forehead awkwardly with just his index finger, then ran toward the sound with tears in his eyes.
This battle was created by the trackers who had deliberately released Jade. It was only advantageous to them, never disadvantageous.
He needed to intervene and destroy everything as soon as possible. This was the final stage of his arduous journey to collect fragments of causality. He had no intention whatsoever of losing them now.
The sounds of battle grew closer. When Lee Hwan spotted flames rising in the distance, instead of joining Taesung, he slipped into the dense surrounding forest.
From now on, he would hide in the darkness and uncover their plan. His eyes, which had been wavering with anger and pain, flashed brilliantly.
* * *
“Keok!”
A man whose throat had been pierced collapsed, making a sound like escaping wind. Even his scream was drawn inward, so no one noticed his death amid the chaotic battle.
Lee Hwan silently wiped the blood that had splattered on his face and took the radio from the limp corpse’s hand.
‘Five. One more to go.’
His eyes took on a cold gleam as he looked far ahead.
The trackers wouldn’t know about his escape for a while. He needed to make full use of this rare advantage. Lee Hwan had been curious about what they planned to do by keeping him tied up here while luring Taesung.
Lee Hwan wiped his sweat with a hand that throbbed with pain at every movement and prowled around, examining his surroundings. Was there anything unusual or dangerous?
That’s when he discovered people positioned around the battlefield. Humans monitoring the battle from a certain distance. They all had something like machine guns in front of them but weren’t firing, instead holding radios and waiting for the right timing.
Suspecting they were up to something, Lee Hwan suddenly pounced on one of them. He first covered the man’s mouth and tried to break his neck, but feeling the bones completely shatter, he stepped back in shock.
‘…!’
Weak resistance, soft bones. They weren’t Awakened persons. Despite being armed, they were no match for Lee Hwan. What were non-Awakened doing here?
While searching the dead man’s possessions with these questions in mind, Lee Hwan suddenly realized that their bodies weren’t trained at all.
‘They don’t seem to have received even basic training.’
Lee Hwan hesitated as he sensed something strange, but at that moment, a loud noise came from ahead.
Taesung and Jade were fighting for their lives. Lee Hwan’s mind snapped to attention as he grabbed the radio and jumped up.
There was no time to waste. Someone else might get hurt while he hesitated. To gain the upper hand in battle, surprise was essential, and for that, he needed to eliminate all those positioned around first.
‘Let’s take them out first.’
So he decided to deal with all the suspicious people before anything else.
For the next one, he just used a knife he’d picked up near the corpse. The feeling of soft bones breaking was more chilling than he’d expected.
However, the sensation of flesh being cut like tofu, unlike tough monsters or Awakened persons, was equally unpleasant. Despite having seen countless bloodshed, Lee Hwan felt like he might vomit for the first time.
He had guessed there would be non-Awakened among the trackers since unregistered Awakened couldn’t be recruited indefinitely. However, he hadn’t expected them to be so close to civilians.
‘This isn’t how Naru usually handles things.’
Whatever they were planning, the thought that these people might be part of a trap kept crossing his mind.
Finally, when dealing with the fifth one, Lee Hwan hesitated quite a bit. The man had spotted him first.
‘Damn it.’
Having missed the timing to use his knife, he grabbed the man’s throat to prevent him from screaming, but whether fortunately or unfortunately, the man who had dropped his radio uttered unexpected words.
“This wasn’t part of the deal… kek, kuk!”
“…What?”
When Lee Hwan, still strangling him, flashed his eyes fiercely, the man’s face was colored with terror.
“What are you talking about?”
Despite asking as gently as possible, tears welled up in the man’s eyes.
By now, anyone who wasn’t an idiot would find this suspicious. Lee Hwan shook the man who was just struggling without answering a few times, and as soon as he fainted from lack of air, he put him down on the ground and began searching his surroundings.
A radio, the machine gun in front, one or two knives. Nothing different from what the others had been carrying. But he had a feeling. A definite feeling that he couldn’t just ignore.
‘There must be something.’
After searching around for a while, Lee Hwan discovered something hanging between the dark trees nearby.
Hidden among withered leaves was an egg-sized camera.
‘…What is this? Is it recording?’
It was painted black, making it nearly invisible in the darkening mountain, and Lee Hwan would have missed it if he hadn’t searched thoroughly.
‘Why would they put this here… what would they gain from filming these people?’
Why were they filming those who weren’t important figures or key military personnel? In such a battle, untrained non-Awakened would only get hit, broken, and die.
‘…?’
Having thought that far, Lee Hwan suddenly opened his eyes wide. It felt like his own words had hit him in the head.
Come to think of it, what had happened to those people so far?
Remembering the non-Awakened who had died without putting up any resistance, Lee Hwan hurriedly rushed back to where he had been. After searching extensively, he found a camera at each place where they had been stationed.
Thinking about what might be recorded on them made his head throb with pain. Non-Awakened personnel being killed by Awakened persons without understanding why…
‘Perfect content to edit and use as they please.’
No wonder something felt strange. Even without his ability, they had given in too easily. Were they Naru people? Or disposable mercenaries who were tricked by money? Either way, they would have attacked him if he had let them live…
Lee Hwan looked down at his blood-soaked hands with an uncomfortable expression. This was the first time he’d been in such a dirty fight. Even in near-apocalyptic situations, he had always faced monsters, never harming people weaker than himself.
Moreover, if it hadn’t been Lee Hwan, it would have been Jade or Taesung who discovered these people. The machine guns set up at each position would have opened fire on them as they approached, and Taesung, under attack, would have either set fire to where he stood or broken their necks to deal with them.
Only after killing them would he have realized they were non-Awakened. In the midst of an urgent battle, they wouldn’t have even noticed the cameras.
With murder footage featuring Taesung’s face, what was Naru planning to use it for?
‘…How many days have we been on the run now?’
Like in Busan, today’s battle had been quite noisy. It was beyond the point where things could be covered up. The suspicious groups and traces of battle visible here and there might make citizens anxious.
If more and more people became suspicious, it would only be a matter of time before this matter was picked up on the radar of the Hunter Association or the Management Bureau.
‘In the end, Naru might open up the situation to some members of the Health Promotion Council and try to borrow the power of public authorities…’
Considering the old men of the Health Promotion Council’s political skills, they would likely withdraw quickly before the situation worsened, but someone among them might still help Naru.
Taesung was an S-class Hunter. No matter how powerful someone was, they would need a plausible reason to quietly cover up matters related to him.
‘If footage of Kang Taesung killing non-Awakened persons circulates at that time…’
An Awakened person with tremendous ability was committing crimes and fleeing from his company, and Naru, trying to hide this fact, ended up killing him after numerous battles. If he had been just a bit weaker, they would have captured him alive and followed the law, but being an S-class, they had no room for such measures.
What would happen if they made such claims and submitted this kind of footage along with fabricated evidence?
“Damn it…”
People both praised and elevated Awakened persons while also fearing them. Naru would receive some punishment for concealing the incident and negligence in managing their Hunter, but it would be a better outcome than having their research exposed.
‘They’re really something. I can’t let this happen.’
Lee Hwan gritted his teeth. If that happened, his life would truly hit rock bottom. After saving the world for what—wealth and glory? Only to be unable to save his own life and watch the rest of it roll into the gutter?
Especially when Taesung’s memories were about to return soon. He absolutely didn’t want to show him a situation where his circumstances had turned into a complete mess upon awakening.
Lee Hwan circled the places where the machine guns had been set up and finally found and collected all the cameras hidden here and there. He destroyed all but one, crushed them with his foot to ensure they couldn’t be recovered, then dug a hole and buried them.
For the remaining one, he tore out all the internal circuit boards, leaving only the intact outer shell. If they were trying to lure him in, he should at least have some bait of his own.
His swollen hand gripped the camera tightly.
“Haa…”
Lee Hwan rubbed his face with his remaining hand. If they were planning to frame Kang Taesung, it meant they also intended to silence him.
They say the dead don’t speak. It seemed these people planned to kill him for certain here.
