The heat of the sun rising inside his body scorched his entire frame.

A faint light poured from his body, and every muscle in him swelled to a grotesque degree.

[Esoterica of an Ancient Paladin]

Ordinarily, the greatest amount of power was required in the process of manifesting the sun’s light.

In Kaio’s current condition, it was power he should never have been able to manifest.

But.

[Hero-Class Chef’s Fragment of an Artificial Sun]

Now that light had been supplied by another source.

“KUOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

A monstrous roar burst from Kaio’s mouth.

A bellow closer to a monster’s than a human’s, and his body kicked off the ground with terrifying speed.

KWAAAAAAANG!!!

The hammer in his hand glowed red from the heat leaking out of his body.

A gigantic war hammer loaded with tremendous heat made the air itself blaze.

The ancient paladins had been ordinary humans, not even [Awakened].

To stand against powerful vampires, they had needed not ordinary techniques, but secret arts.

By burning their own lives, they transformed that power into a stake to drive through the hearts of vampires.

The greater the life force available for firewood, the stronger that power became.

Kaio, one of the mightiest among the awakened, had gained strength enough to tear apart even monsters of blue mana.

Strength more than sufficient to crush even General Jinlei, who had once been called a hero of humanity, in a single blow.

Whoooom!

...But.

‘It missed.’

The empty sensation at his fingertips.

When he quickly turned his gaze, he saw the enemy lightly evade his attack and retreat backward.

A result different from what he had expected.

The reason was painfully obvious.

‘My injuries...’

If he had truly been in normal condition, that strike just now might well have crushed his enemy.

But the injuries he was carrying now.

No, to be exact—

[Penalty - Vital Energy Exhaustion]

the aftereffects had made that impossible.

—Don’t run!!! Fight me head-on!!!

A little while ago.

When he first encountered that man now collapsed on the ground, Jinlei had been there too.

‘If I hadn’t overdone it back then.’

Ever since the day the capital called for him, his mind had usually been foggy, as though covered in mist.

The reason he had pushed himself recklessly the moment he found Jinlei, without proper judgment—

the reason he had ended up burning his own life force—

was because of that.

The power he had dragged up back then had gravely damaged his vital energy.

Vital energy was no different from the essence of life itself.

For it to be depleted meant, in practical terms, becoming something close to a corpse.

Unless one possessed some other special power, the natural healing ability of one who had lost vital energy became worse than that of a severely ill patient, and no matter how much healing power was poured into such a body, it was no different from pouring water into a bottomless vessel.

‘No.’

Even so, that power had undeniably been extraordinary.

Through power purchased at the cost of his life, he had been able to slaughter Jinlei’s thralls.

Which was why—

‘If only I had succeeded in the hunt back then!’

The first time he used that power.

He should have succeeded in the hunt then.

The regret crossed his mind that, if not for someone’s interference, he might have achieved that goal.

...But that was already past.

KWAANG!!!

Kaio kept kicking off the ground and swinging that hammer at Jinlei.

Even if he had failed to kill the bastard in a single strike, there was still life left for him to offer.

He had thought that if he kept pressing the attack, he could still accomplish his purpose.

But.

Flutter.

Something pierced through Jinlei’s back as he watched the hammer.

Wings made of a black membrane.

KWAAAAAAANG!!!

Kaio’s full-force attack was reduced to a futile sweep through empty air with a single flap of those wings.

“Don’t run!!!”

Fearing he might lose the target again, Kaio let go of the hammer embedded in the ground and violently kicked off the earth, hurling himself at Jinlei.

“General... you seem to be under some misunderstanding.”

The general’s fist, loaded with immense force, flew toward Jinlei.

But.

KANG!

“...?”

Unfortunately, that attack did not crush the enemy.

Kaio’s fist was knocked aside by something.

PWHAAAAAK!!!

A deep wound opened in his hand, and blood burst out at the same time.

Kaio looked at the thing that had cut his hand.

‘Long claws.’

Jinlei had originally been a master of close-quarters combat using daggers.

But it seemed the weapon he wielded now was somewhat different.

“The reason I avoided you the last time we met...”

And.

Watching Jinlei’s hand swing again, Kaio came to realize one fact.

“...was only because I had to protect the other person who was there. The count.”

That he should have succeeded in the hunt last time.

That he had only failed because someone got in the way.

All of it had been nothing more than his own arrogance.

“It wasn’t because I was afraid of you.”

PWHAAAAAAAK!!!

If Jinlei had kept pursuing him back then, the one who likely would have lost...

would have been General Kaio himself.

“Cough...”

He couldn’t even blame his injuries.

Even before he was injured, he would not have been able to avoid that attack.

‘He’s strong.’

Even [Esoterica of an Ancient Paladin], which he had obtained by burning away his entire life, couldn’t reach that man.

But.

The Jinlei of the past, the one Kaio had known, had not been this strong.

‘This is the strength of something not human, but monstrous...’

A monster possessing immense life force and potential.

The strength of a noble.

The moment he saw that power, Kaio’s mind cleared a little more, and he was able to remember something that had happened several months earlier.

—...What exactly did you just say, Chairman?

—I told you already, General.

The esoterica Kaio had learned took life force as its price.

And yet, even so, it could not reach that noble’s power.

That noble’s power was so overwhelming, and instead of taking life force, it granted tremendous life force in return.

A power alluring beyond measure.

Yes, and because of that—

—We... have decided to be reborn as a greater species.

there were bound to be those who would be seduced by that power.

***

KWAAAAANG!

“I don’t understand why you would say such a thing all of a sudden.”

The more he threw punches, the more he circulated the power inside his body, the more vividly those hazy memories came back, as if they had happened only moments ago.

“We’ve already succeeded in opening that barrier, and we’ve been joining up «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» with survivors from all over. The situation is steadily improving, so why would you say something like that?”

Kaio was one of only two awakened in the capital who were above level 30.

After the guild grew in size, he had even been granted the honorable title of general.

And then one day, the guild leadership summoned all the generals like him to the capital.

“As you say, our situation has been improving more and more. It may even be possible for us to unite every survivor on this continent.”

It had been a time when they were busy gathering the survivors of each region and dealing with monsters.

He had wondered what important matter required calling all of them together at once.

But what they heard at that assembly was rather bizarre.

“But the enemies outside that barrier are different.”

At the words of the guild leader—

the current Chairman, and formerly one of the vice chairmen of the Military Commission before the world fell—

Kaio and the other generals could only tilt their heads in confusion.

“Outside the barrier?”

“If you mean the barriers dividing the regions, those disappeared a while ago.”

At those words, the guild leadership, including the Chairman, looked down at them as if they knew nothing and said,

“There is a larger barrier.”

“A larger barrier...?”

“Not the barriers that divided the regions within the continent, but the barriers marking the borders with foreign nations.”

“What?”

Some of those present had joined them from the outer edges of the continent.

They too knew that those barriers of black heat still stood at the borders.

But.

“The frozen lands to the north. The western grasslands... no, there’s no need to go that far. That North Korea directly beneath us. Do you have any idea what is happening inside that tiny, miserable country?”

“How would we know that?”

“You generals may not know, but we do.”

These were people who had ruled as high-ranking members of the Party even before the world fell.

Even if Kaio did not fully trust the guild leadership’s command ability, he had always thought the confidence they carried was at least real.

“I’ll explain it simply.”

But.

Not that day.

“The enemies lurking beyond that barrier... no matter how much stronger we become, we can never defeat them.”

“...What?”

On faces that had always been arrogant and full of confidence, there was now nothing but absurdly deep despair.

“General Kaio. As you said, we too had been viewing the future rather optimistically.” 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

“But... if the scene that person recently showed us was real...”

“Ah... so there truly are beings in this world that human strength can never defeat...”

At the sight of them like that, not only Kaio but every general who had answered the summons had no choice but to be shaken.

From the start, there was not a single awakened capable of seeing beyond that barrier.

How they had learned what lay on the other side.

Who this “person” was who had shown them something.

What exactly that “person” had shown them to frighten them this badly.

There was no way for them to know.

But—

“...I don’t know what you saw, but aren’t you giving up too quickly?”

At that moment, for some reason, General Kaio felt he had to push back against them.

Perhaps he simply hated seeing those people, who always looked down on everyone with arrogance, trembling in fear for once.

“Until now, haven’t we repeatedly faced enemies we thought we could never defeat?”

Kaio, an awakened from Beijing, knew.

It was the city with the largest population in this nation.

And he knew how many monsters had lurked within it.

Among them had been plenty of enemies people believed could never be defeated by human power.

Even Kaio himself had nearly fallen into despair more than once.

But.

“And every time, right here—”

Even so, they had defeated every one of those enemies and, in the end, succeeded in taking the capital.

“Wasn’t it General Jinlei who solved it every time!”

A friend closer than any other to him.

A man the survivors of this land regarded as a hero.

Once Jinlei stepped forward and said he would solve a problem, no matter how powerful the enemy, no matter how grave the danger, it always ended up being solved.

“I don’t know what it is you people saw. Judging by how frightened even you are, it must have been something truly, terribly dangerous.”

“......”

“But our strength is not weak! I may not be on that level, but this friend here—if it’s the power Jinlei showed when resolving those crises, then I believe we can defeat any enemy.”

At those words, the other generals around him seemed to agree, nodding their heads.

What Jinlei had accomplished really had been that extraordinary.

No matter what the guild leadership might be, the hero people trusted and relied on was someone else.

‘If it’s General Jinlei.’

No matter what danger came crashing down, he would surely be able to overcome it.

Kaio opened his mouth with that thought in mind, but...

“...Kh.”

The reaction of the leadership to Kaio’s words was something he had never expected at all.

“Khh, pff...”

“Kh, khkh... General Jinlei, huh. Yes. He is quite an impressive fellow.”

They were laughing.

As though what Kaio had said was just too funny for them to bear.

“...Haha. General.”

And then.

Their leader, who had burst out laughing the loudest of all, seemed to force that laughter down as much as possible before speaking.

“It seems that this time, your thinking and mine happen to align.”

“Didn’t you just say it yourself, General? ‘If it’s the power Jinlei showed when resolving crises, then we can defeat any enemy.’”

“What... exactly is so funny about that?”

“Didn’t I say it? That it seems your thinking and mine align.”

For people supposedly encouraged by his words, it was a very strange response.

“The power we intend to rely on this time is precisely that.”

“......”

“The power General Jinlei used to resolve those crises.”

Looking down at him, the Chairman said with an expression that suggested he was still barely holding back his laughter,

“The reason we summoned you all here this time... is to tell you what that power really is.”