Chapter 42: Stalker (2)
‘Stalker’ Dmitri had barely entered the Hongcheon Contaminated Zone when he picked up traces of a hunter.
His unique ability, ‘Wild Sense’, allowed him to detect even the faintest traces—not just visually, but with his sense of smell and hearing heightened to an extreme degree, leaving no clue unnoticed.
He could literally see footprints where someone had stepped across the Creep just a few hours earlier.
It wasn’t for nothing that even within GODS he was renowned as the greatest tracker.
Swoooosh—
Using his ‘Glide’ skill, Dmitri slid across the Creep at terrifying speed.
Soon after, he began to sense another person’s mana on his skin.
‘They’re close.’
Before confronting his targets, he activated his ability ‘Assimilation’.
Sssss…
His feet turned pitch black like Creep, and soon his entire body darkened.
It wasn’t that Creep had covered him.
This was perfect assimilation into the surrounding environment for concealment.
Similar to invisibility that hides appearance, but the key difference was that even if foreign substances touched him, there would be no telltale signs.
With normal invisibility, dirt or particles would reveal the outline immediately, but ‘Assimilation’ caused even those foreign substances to blend in seamlessly.
Moreover, thanks to the Godfather’s blessing elevating his proficiency to the extreme, ‘Assimilation’ could even perfectly conceal his mana.
‘I’ll deal with that dumb-looking guy first, then interrogate the woman.’
With his presence completely masked, he gripped a dagger hilt in each hand.
He planned to bypass the woman and stab the man straight away.
But at that moment—
‘……?’
While concentrating on maintaining the mana flow required for Assimilation, his mind suddenly went blank.
His focus shattered, and naturally, Assimilation was released.
‘What the hell was that just now?’
As confusion and alarm rose within him—
The woman who had now spotted him wore an equally bewildered expression.
‘Was that her doing?’
Thinking it might be the man instead, he raised his guard and prepared for anything, but the man only stared at him blankly.
In that brief instant, he swept both of them thoroughly with ‘Wild Sense’, yet he felt no danger.
Neither of their mana levels came anywhere close to 1st-grade.
The woman was barely 4th-grade at best, and the man wasn’t even worth measuring.
The only suspicious thing was that their power level was far too low to be wandering the contaminated zone alone.
‘They might be hiding something.’
Dmitri quickly erased his flustered expression and adopted a relaxed demeanor.
If they were concealing strength, he would provoke them into revealing it—while staying ready to counter at any moment.
“There’s no need for two people to interrogate… but if I had to choose, I’d rather have some fun with the enjoyable one.”
He openly leered at the woman as he spoke.
“…….”
But they showed no reaction, their faces utterly indifferent—as if they didn’t understand a word.
Since they apparently didn’t speak Russian, he switched to English.
“Before that, if either of you knows anything about the ‘secret agent’, speak up now. I might let you live.”
“…….”
Yet again, silence from both.
Dmitri couldn’t believe they didn’t even understand English and took it as outright disrespect.
An attitude impossible unless they had hidden power.
‘I’ll kill one first and start from there.’
Without hesitation, he activated the ability granted by the Godfather.
Sssss—
Black mana flowed from his heart and seeped into both hands.
It then poured into the two daggers he held.
Since they were still sheathed, the targets couldn’t see, but the blades were now dyed pitch black.
Without any wind-up, Dmitri instantly drew and hurled one dagger toward the man.
Sssht—
Almost soundless, the black blade flew at incredible speed.
Infused with his ‘Mana Decay’ ability, any mana the blade touched would rot and crumble away like corrupted flesh.
Even if protected by a mana shield, it would nullify and pierce through.
An inexplicable sense of foreboding made him throw the second dagger right after the first.
Yet before either blade could reach—
Sssss—
Both daggers halted mid-air, spitting black sparks.
Shuuut…
True to his reputation as an assassin with superhuman senses thanks to ‘Wild Sense’, Dmitri immediately reactivated Assimilation to conceal himself once more.
‘What the hell just happened?’
As he glided away using Glide to put distance between them, he thought furiously.
He had felt absolutely no mana at all.
With his exceptional senses, he should have detected even the tiniest flow of mana—yet it looked as though some incomprehensible force had simply stopped the daggers cold.
‘No way… one of those two is the secret agent? Or maybe both.’
The only silver lining was that thanks to ‘Wild Sense’, he had sensed something off in advance.
If his senses had been even slightly dulled, he would have been counterattacked without a chance to react.
He had planned to slip away without making a sound and wait for another opening.
Crackle!
An incomprehensible force slammed into his mind.
His concentration shattered again, and Assimilation released in an instant.
Grab!
His entire body was bound by an invisible power.
***
Jin-young felt a spark of curiosity at the sudden appearance of this madman.
This was the first time he’d encountered someone who could hide not just their appearance, but their mana and presence so perfectly.
Of course, they couldn’t evade the psionic energy Jin-young had spread throughout the area.
No human could conceal their mental world entirely.
But he wondered how his sister—who couldn’t yet release psionic energy on this scale—would fare.
Confirming that the intruder’s attention was fixed on him, Jin-young decided to test Chae So-young’s senses.
Right then, sensing something, Chae So-young released her psionic energy.
Sssss…
The intruder’s mental barrier was attacked, and his ability deactivated—revealing his form.
Chae So-young turned to Jin-young with a flustered expression and sent a telepathic message.
‘What is this guy?’
Her eyes seemed to demand an explanation.
Since Jin-young was seeing him for the first time too, he simply shrugged.
The madman muttered something in an incomprehensible language.
‘Do you know what he’s saying?’
‘Maybe he’s asking how we found him.’
Jin-young interpreted it based on gut feeling in response to Chae So-young’s question.
He couldn’t send telepathy himself, but he surfaced his thoughts just enough for her to read them on the surface of his consciousness.
‘So that’s why he was staring at me like that. But what do we do now?’
The foreign madman switched to English this time, but the only word Jin-young caught was “secret agent.”
‘Looks like he came looking for the secret agent. How did he know I was here?’
Jin-young pondered how best to interrogate this lunatic.
From what he could tell, the man didn’t understand Korean at all.
At that moment, the madman revealed killing intent.
Sssht—
Without any visible motion, a dagger flew in without warning.
Jin-young immediately caught it with the psionic energy he had already spread out.
Sssss—
Black sparks flew menacingly from the pitch-black blade.
‘Doesn’t seem like ordinary poison. The concentration of black mana is pretty high.’
『He’s far better than the half-baked fools we’ve dealt with so far who tried to handle black mana. On par with that Min Hae-joon guy.』
‘That good?’
Jin-young conversed with the tentacle deep in the recesses of his mind—where Chae So-young couldn’t overhear.
If the madman’s black mana was at that level, there was a high chance he belonged to GODS.
He’d suspected it already, but now it was nearly confirmed.
Shuuut…
As the man tried to conceal himself and flee again, Chae So-young struck his mind once more.
His form reappeared, and Jin-young bound him with psychokinesis.
The madman suddenly erupted with black mana in a frenzy.
Crackle crackle crackle!
Black smoke swirled violently around his body, as if ready to destroy everything in its path.
But no matter how much he struggled, it was futile.
Soon the madman withdrew his mana and looked at Jin-young with a calmer expression.
“You’re the secret agent, aren’t you? Now I understand why Layla and Min Hae-joon fell in this contaminated zone.”
Watching the man ramble in English, Jin-young suddenly thought of someone in his subspace.
Jacob, being British, should be able to communicate with him.
But pulling Jacob out here—without mana—would turn him into a Mine, so he needed to step outside first.
Before that, he planned to send his sister away. It wasn’t time to show her the tentacles yet.
The tentacles had grown dramatically stronger after absorbing Min Hae-joon and Layla; he didn’t know what side effects an ordinary human might suffer from seeing them.
At the very least, he intended to keep them hidden until she could handle psionic energy as naturally as breathing.
“So-young, training’s over for today. Head home and rest first.”
‘Huh? Really?’
Chae So-young stared at him in disbelief.
Sssht—
Jin-young even opened a portal leading straight home right in front of her.
But she hesitated at the entrance, still eyeing him suspiciously.
Jin-young gently pushed her through with psychokinesis.
Once the portal closed—
“Hey, I’ve got an offer you can’t refuse. Do you know a woman named Zhu Meiling? She hired someone to capture you alive. But if you want, I could kill her for you instead.”
Jin-young walked toward the babbling madman.
He had caught the name “Zhu Meiling” in the middle of it—apparently this villain was connected to her.
“I’ve been causing chaos to lure Zhu Meiling out, and then some lunatic shows up.”
“Yes, I can kill Zhu Meiling for you! So just let me go and…”
The madman kept talking desperately.
As Jin-young approached defenselessly right up to his face, the man stopped talking and unleashed black mana once more.
Whooooosh—
Infused with his ability ‘Mana Decay’, the black mana was so potent that mere contact would cause all held mana to rot and vanish.
The madman’s lips curled into a smirk as he watched the torrent of black mana rush toward Jin-young.
But then an ominous chill made his smirk twitch uncontrollably.
Sluuuurp—
The last thing he remembered was the sight of an unknown tentacle absorbing every last drop of his black mana before his consciousness cut off.
***
Shuuut—
When Jacob saw a blond man appear in the far distance, he approached quickly, half curious and half hopeful.
Conversations with that guy Lee Ju-hong had been impossible due to the language barrier, so he hoped this one would make for better company.
But the closer he got, the more uneasy Jacob became.
“Cough…”
The blond man lifted his head with a weak, dry cough.
The moment Jacob saw his face, he thought, ‘It finally happened.’
“Stalker. So even you got caught in the end.”
Dmitri Petrov, the GODS’s top assassin known as ‘Stalker’.
Freshly drained of mana by the tentacles and just dropped into subspace, he looked mentally unstable.
He stared at Jacob trembling for a long while before swallowing hard and speaking.
“…Jacob? Jacob Harrison, right?”
“Yeah.”
In the gloomy darkness where loneliness had begun to settle over Dmitri, seeing a familiar face caused his expression to brighten rapidly.
“Ah, Jacob! I was actually looking for you—how did you know to come find me? Wait, more importantly, where the hell is this place?”
Jacob clicked his tongue and kindly explained.
“This is the Abyss Prison, the Bottomless Pit of Atonement, the Chamber of Mind and Time.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“Names I came up with myself.”
“…….”
Dmitri wondered if Jacob had finally lost his mind.
While each thought the other strange, Jacob asked seriously,
“Did the Godfather send you to hunt down that monstrous Korean?”
“No, I took a personal request from Zhu Meiling. She wanted the secret agent captured alive.”
“That woman’s completely lost it too. Charging in without even knowing who she’s dealing with… No, actually, that’s pretty clever. Because you ended up getting caught instead.”
Jacob clicked his tongue in admiration at Zhu Meiling’s scheme.
He had only met her once in person and dismissed her as just a woman skilled at using her beauty.
But she was far more calculated and thorough than he’d thought.
“That damn bitch… she wasn’t planning to get rid of me, was she?”
“It’s not impossible. If Zhu Meiling is using GODS for her own greed just like Min Hae-joon did, then eliminating a purger of traitors like you ahead of time would be beneficial for her.”
“Min Hae-joon was a traitor too? Damn it, I should’ve killed him myself.”
Dmitri smacked his lips in regret, thinking back to the inscrutable Min Hae-joon.
Talking with Jacob after so long made him remember something else he’d forgotten.
“By the way, I can’t feel any mana from you at all. You still haven’t recovered?”
He himself felt empty without mana, but he didn’t mind too much.
It would return with time anyway.
Yet seeing Jacob with absolutely zero mana gave him a sudden bad feeling.
“It’s easier on the mind to just think you have none.”
“…What?”
“Instead of clinging to such things, spend your time in subspace repenting. Then the Great Being will watch over you.”
“What kind of nonsense are you—”
That was when—
Shuuut—
Both of their bodies were instantly swallowed by darkness and transported to a stark white space—the complete opposite of before.
Dmitri looked around in bewilderment, but Jacob was already familiar with the place.
The isolation room in the underground secret research lab.
And standing before them, as expected, was Chae Jin-young.
“Jacob, you know this guy?”
“Dmitri Petrov. Alias: Stalker. Considered GODS’s top assassin. He travels the world eliminating high-value targets and purging GODS traitors.”
Hearing their conversation, Dmitri’s suspicion toward Jacob grew.
“Hey, Jacob. What the hell were you talking about with him?”
But before Jacob could answer, Chae Jin-young spoke.
“He was quite the big shot, huh? Sending someone like this to get rid of me—looks like GODS is getting desperate.”
“From the short conversation we had inside, it was a personal request from Zhu Meiling. The goal was to capture you alive.”
“Oh, you learned a lot in such a short time. You’re surprisingly proactive, aren’t you?”
At Chae Jin-young’s words, Jacob suddenly felt something off.
Why was he being so obedient toward Chae Jin-young?
But that doubt quickly faded.
And in its place came certainty.
“It’s only natural for one who serves the Great Being.”
Jacob’s conviction settled firmly in his mind.
_____________________________________________
TL Note:
Thanks for reading!
Want 19 extra chapters ahead + 9 chapters/week? Join my Patreon for early access:
Link: https://www.patreon.com/cw/Vritratls?utm_source=search
For this novel specifically, check the collection under “Transcendent Psychic Regressor (TPR)”
Also available on Premium Tier:
Poseidon Doesn’t Like Greek and Roman Mythology
The Genius Shut-In Writer
Dream Breaker
Appreciate all the support! ❤️
_____________________________________________