The fiends’ faces stiffened as they blankly looked at the slow-moving frozen world.

"Was Seo Jun-Ho an ice elemental skill user?"

"That’s nonsense. I've never heard of such a report.”

"Then how can you explain the phenomenon in front of you?"

"Damn, how the hell is Darkmoon Pavilion doing their investigations?”

Shock, anger, resentment, and various emotions swept through them. But it was impatience that came after those feelings.

‘It's fine either way. First, we need to avoid it.’

'But... to where?'

‘Is this even the kind of attack that can be avoided?’

The fiends stood in a daze to the point where it seemed appropriate to say that their brains had stopped. Among them, the one who received the biggest shock was definitely Dread. It was the first time in his life that the skill he boasted as the strongest had become a sword aimed at his throat.

"Let's get under the building and piers first!"

"Damn, if we had defensive skills at a time like this...”

"There’s no time to delay!"

The fiends scrambled to hide under the buildings or just about anything. The problem was that Seo Jun-Ho didn’t just have one or two pieces of ice.

Pabababa! Babababa!

The noises sounded a little sharper than hail and much duller than raindrops as they continuously rang in their ears. At the same time, buildings began to collapse from the ceiling.

"Damn it, buildings won’t work!"

"With that number, it's also impossible to deflect every single attack...”

"Hostage! Let's take a hostage instead!"

The fiends opened their eyes wide at Dread's cry. As he said, if they took hostages, Seo Jun-Ho wouldn't be able to attack them so easily. Although Trevor was protecting the residents, with his ability, Trevor couldn’t stop them.

"Do you really think I'm blind?"

Seo Jun-Ho wouldn’t allow that to happen even as he leisurely watched the situation.

Urururu!

The land was full of water due to the rain. The floors with thin ice on the surface began to rise, forming walls. The fiends who were running over to Trevor and the residents spat out curses.

"Damned ice!"

"What is this? A maze?”

"No, this isn’t a maze," Dread said, looking at the wall of high ice that occupied the surrounding. If it were a maze, there would have to be a path, but the walls surrounding them had no openings except for up above. "He just locked us up.”

It was obvious why Seo Jun-Ho had locked them up like this. The reason was falling on them now.

"Damn it! Damn it!"

"Deflect them! Break them, even if it’s just one!"

"There are four people here. We might be able to block it if we try!"

"We just have to hang in there until the reinforcements arrive."

The fiends’ eyes turned bloodshot. In a last-ditch effort, each of them used their own skills to deflect the falling ice. For the first time in their lives, they understood the meaning of the idiom—pull out all the stops.

Wave.

But the last-ditch effort didn't have much meaning. With Seo Jun-Ho's light gesture, a new round of ice poured on them once again. As time passed, the fiends’ movements began to slow down, and wounds began to appear on their bodies.

"Ha… Haaa….”

"When… are the reinforcements?"

The exhausted fiends’ eyes began to get murky. They also instinctively realized it. Unless Seo Jun-Ho let them live, there was no chance of survival.

"This is too...” Dread looked as if he had been wronged.

No matter how hard they knocked them away, no matter how hard they smashed them apart, the number of icicles floating in the sky didn’t decrease at all. He couldn't even use his skill. Every time he used his skill, he only increased his opponent's weapons.

‘I've never felt this kind of helplessness in my life.’

Was this how ants felt in front of people? It was the feeling of facing an opponent whom you couldn’t defeat no matter how hard you tried.

"This is so unfair…”

Was it okay for there to be such a difference in ability? Wasn't this something unfair which completely denied the efforts he had made so far? After hearing Dread's complaint, Seo Jun-Ho raised an eyebrow.

"Unfair? That's the way the world is."

Crackle!

When Seo Jun-Ho reached out, a spear of ice appeared in his hand.

"You know that. The innocent people you've killed so far must have thought so, too."

The tragedy of others usually seemed small, while one's tragedy seemed big enough to cover the world. In particular, the fiends’ idea of it’s fine if I do it, wrong if others do it was particularly strong.

"That's disgusting. Very."

Seo Jun-Ho took a throwing position and threw the ice spear. The spear shot out like a ray of light, pierced Dread’s abdomen, then inserted itself into the wall of ice.

"Ugh!"

Blood spurted out of Dread's mouth like a fountain. However, a Player with demonic energy had a strong body. He was too strong to die just because his stomach was pierced.

Staring at Dread who was now stuck on the ice wall with the spear, Seo Jun-Ho said, "Just like how you killed them, you can die."

"Why didn't you aim for the heart?"

Seo Jun-Ho didn’t answer Dread’s question. Fortunately, Dread's question was quickly answered. Pieces of ice falling from the sky created tens of thousands of holes in his body.

"I-I don't want this kind of death.”

"If you're a Player, kill cleanly!"

How could Seo Jun-Ho show such mercy? The fiends saw Seo Jun-Ho's indifferent eyes and bit their lips tightly.

"I-I don't want to die like that.”

One of the fiends couldn't overcome the oppressive atmosphere and took his own life. He didn’t have the confidence to bear the pain of being turned into a rag like Dread.

"Fu*k...”

"Why me? Why are you doing this to us?"

They decided to just bite the bullet. The two fiends looked up at the slowly approaching ice and took their weapons out. Of course, they didn’t mean to do another last-ditch effort to escape, they simply cursed Seo Jun-Ho with devilish faces.

"I will curse you! I will curse you even in hell!"

"On the day you come to hell, I'll personally…”

"You talk too much."

When Seo Jun-Ho waved his hands, pieces of ice fell like petals and wrapped around their bodies.

“…!”

“…!”

The pain made them forget to scream as they fell into a daze. In the torment, the fiends’ consciousnesses turned white.

"You are especially fierce today," commented the Frost Queen.

"They were even more hateful today. What right do they have to even feel that it’s unfair?"

Seo Jun-Ho snorted and lightly moved his foot.

Urururu!

When the walls of ice collapsed, the first scene he saw was Trevor protecting the residents. He had an indescribable expression.

"Hmm, what should I say? You look as if you've met an alien."

“…”

Trevor’s face showed appreciation, astonishment, admiration… and fear. It had been quite a while since Seo Jun-Ho had seen such a face. Of course, he didn't feel hurt because he had seen such a face multiple times already.

"Go to the shelter. My allies there will lead you."

"You..."

Trevor tried to find the words to follow up with, but he ended up shutting his mouth. He barely managed to hold it back in case he said anything rude. Instead of talking, he lowered his head.

"Thank you. I'll just say this for now."

"Don't mention it."

Trevor looked up. The view was clear since the buildings had collapsed. He looked at the sea and expressed his concern.

"Just what is going on in this city?”

"Who knows?" Seo Jun-Ho calmly continued. "There's only one thing I can tell you. Go to the shelter. It's the safest place."

It was the best advice Seo Jun-Ho could give right now because he had also never seen anything like that before.

- …!

He heard a small cry that didn’t belong to a human. The place where he heard it was located at the end of the sea, where the dark clouds were concentrated. It was a monster so huge that it could be visually identified from a great distance.

'… No, to be exact.' 

Seo Jun-Ho frowned and vaguely found something.

‘It's not just monsters. They’re fighting with the fiends.’

At that moment, Seo Jun-Ho discovered the fiends’ goal.

"So it’s the demon jade."

"Demon jade?"

Unless the fiends had suddenly become mentally ill as a group, they would never fight for world peace. In that case, there was only one answer.

"Contractor, don't tell me that the fiends are going to... implant a demon jade into that huge monster and tame it?" The Frost Queen sounded a little afraid.

"It's already a little overwhelming, but if it absorbs the demon jade...”

"Then it will be a disaster."

Seo Jun-Ho had no choice but to stop it before then.

"It’d be nice to go to the sea...” said Seo Jun-Ho.

"You don't seem to have any thoughts about letting him go." The Frost Queen instantly saw through what he was thinking.

It was all because a great deal of energy began radiating from the fiends’ camp above the Dragon Rock. The energy was looking at none other than Seo Jun-Ho.

‘Pride, the leader of Pride Squadron.’

Seo Jun-Ho turned his head and his gaze met Pride’s from 3,000m away.

Grin.

There was an expression of delight as if Pride had found an interesting toy. Seo Jun-Ho confirmed his opponent who disappeared like a ghost and told Trevor, "Go ahead to the shelter."

He wouldn’t be able to afford to protect other people when dealing with such a fiend.

***

"S-sir."

Sssk.

Pride raised his hand and interrupted his subordinate. The members of the Despair Squadron were now out at sea hunting for the demon—Leviathan. Conversely, all the members of the Pride Squadron were infiltrating the town and hunting all the witnesses. In a word, it was only him and his subordinate in the camp.

Pride looked at the city with his arms crossed. No, to be exact, he was looking at the sky on one side of the town. "Isn't it beautiful?"

“Pardon?"

"I asked, isn't it beautiful?"

The subordinate was taken aback. He was not sure what answer to give here. Normally, he would have been scolded for taking too long to answer, but fortunately, Pride was in a good mood right now.

"One of the two skills the Association has been looking for is darkness, and the other is ice.” Pride asked, "As far as I know, there are currently five people in the world who can use an ice elemental skill. Is that right?"

"Yes, but they are all below D-grade. Even if they died, they wouldn’t be able to show such power."

"That means he's a completely different Player… I think that's at least A-grade."

Pride's words startled his subordinate.

"It is an ice elemental skill, but you’re saying it’s A-grade? At that level, the heat on the 3rd floor...”

"We'll have to try it if we want to know, but it should be possible, even if it's a little hard." Pride slowly nodded. "If I offer it to the colonel, he’ll be very happy.”

"Are you going to act yourself? Perhaps rather I...”

"Arthur, he's the one who killed Dread on the spot. But you're going to catch him? That’s nonsense."

Crack.

Pride grinned and stretched by lightly turning his neck and shoulders.

"Oh, would you look at this. He must have felt me, too. Our eyes met."

"At this distance? Unless he’s someone of at least Leader-nim’s level...”

"No, I'm sure of it." Pride was certain that he had met his opponent’s gaze. "It has been a long time since I felt this way. My body is itching to fight.”

Booooom!

Pride stomped the ground and shot toward the sky.