Chapter 71: The Gates of Hell
Gurgle—gurgle—
Black lava-like substance surged up from his throat, and the exploded head began to regenerate.
“Crazy….”
“His head explodes and he still comes back to life?”
The hunters watched in shock as the prophet Lyle’s head regenerated in an instant.
Even Jin-young observed the scene with interest.
In GODS, anyone with regeneration abilities had relied entirely on the power of Creep.
But this place wasn’t a contaminated zone—it was the grand conference hall.
Although GODS spies had scattered Creep around, Jin-young’s psychokinesis had prevented it from spreading widely.
Yet despite that, Lyle’s body had regenerated in the blink of an eye.
It seemed his regeneration had nothing to do with Creep.
Even using holy power through the gray orb probably wouldn’t mean much.
The creature opened his mouth again.
“Useless…”
BOOM!
But once more, his head was crushed and burst apart by Jin-young’s psychokinesis.
“I told you. If you have something to say, come say it in person.”
Jin-young was fully prepared to respond in kind if Lyle could regenerate infinitely.
“Arrogant little…”
Crackle—crackle-crackle-crackle—
In an instant, Lyle’s head was reduced to powder.
Yet it regenerated again.
“A false prophet like you…”
SHWOOOOO—KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!
This time the demonic sword flew in, scattering black lightning that tore Lyle’s head—and his entire body—into shreds.
His flesh turned to chunks, engulfed in black flames and melted away.
Shuuu…
And then, an entirely new body emerged.
At this point, it was closer to ‘resurrection’ than mere regeneration.
The resurrected Lyle no longer bothered speaking. Instead, he began emitting black mana.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAAAA—
An overwhelming torrent of mana poured from his body.
The sheer pressure made the hunters flinch and shrink back.
Hunters below 1st grade could do nothing but endure.
The few Zero-grade hunters and select 1st-grades hurriedly raised mana barriers.
A wide, translucent blue shield spread across one corner of the conference hall.
“Looks like you’ve finally decided to stop spouting nonsense.”
Jin-young nodded as Lyle—who had been babbling incomprehensible words—finally prepared for battle.
Huuuuurgle—
Soon, black flames erupted from Lyle’s body.
The stench of sulfur spread instantly, and everything in the conference hall began to melt under the heat.
Then, like a tidal wave, the flames surged toward Jin-young and the coalition.
KUWAAAAAAGH!
The Zero-grade hunters’ eyes widened in shock.
The ultra-high-temperature heat easily pierced through the barriers they had raised.
Hwaaaaaaaa—
“Lyle… became this strong…?”
Marc Diaby, France’s Zero-grade hunter, muttered in disbelief.
Even though the flames hadn’t reached him yet, his trained skin already prickled painfully.
This was not the Lyle he once knew.
Though they came from different countries, they had once interacted as fellow members of the same race. Of everyone here, Marc probably understood Lyle the best.
When Lyle began to fall mentally and stray from the path, Marc had even tried to pull him back.
Of course, he failed. After Lyle fully joined GODS, he never looked back.
“If this keeps up, the barrier will break.”
Liu Qinglong said while pouring even more mana into the shield.
If the barrier had been raised only to protect himself, it might have held—but spreading mana over a wide area inevitably weakened its strength.
Moreover, the Zero-grades Prasad and Yutaro were already out of commission due to injuries.
“Hold it together!”
Hannah Adams shouted as she raised her mana even higher.
At that moment—
TSHAAAAAK! Tssss… tss…
The raging tidal wave of black flames was suddenly stopped right in front of the barrier.
Occasional fragments of flame struck the blue shield, only to vanish instantly.
“What the hell…?”
“Did time just… stop…?”
The hunters blinked in disbelief at the sight of the flame wave frozen mere inches away.
The scene was so surreal it felt like a dream.
Even Hannah and the others maintaining the barrier looked stunned.
Then.
Thud. Thud.
Jin-young walked forward alone, passing straight through the translucent blue barrier.
Wherever he stepped, the black flames parted on their own.
It was like watching Moses part the Red Sea.
Only then did the hunters realize who had stopped the attack.
“That guy… is he also Zero-grade? No—wait, even a Zero-grade couldn’t do that, right?”
“Just getting close would melt your skin…”
They stared in astonishment as Jin-young walked calmly through the sea of black flames.
Even Lyle, the one unleashing hellfire, looked visibly shaken.
Soon, black flames began to rage fiercely around Jin-young as the center.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAAAA—
The vortex of black flames quickly compressed in midair into a spherical form.
Tssss—
It was sucked straight into the black portal that appeared in empty space.
Jin-young had simply stored it in his subspace.
At the same time, he took out the gray orb and tossed it toward Yoon Soo-ho.
“Soo-ho, heal the injured and get ready to fight.”
Fwaaa—
The moment the gray orb reached Yoon Soo-ho, it unleashed its power, radiating pure white light.
All the hunters’ gazes turned toward him at once.
Holding the orb, Yoon Soo-ho began healing them one by one: America’s Kyle Anderson, India’s Prasad Bachchan, and Japan’s Tachibana Yutaro.
Saaaa…
Borrowing the orb’s power, the ‘Purification power’ flowed from Yoon Soo-ho’s hands.
Kyle, whose injuries were relatively light, recovered almost instantly.
Prasad, already blessed with an exceptionally tough physique, had little to heal physically—only the mental shock lingered.
Yutaro, however, took longer; his bones had been shattered and fragmented, requiring more time.
“Soo-ho, what the hell is that? Your third ability?”
Marc Diaby, watching with keen interest, asked.
Yoon Soo-ho nodded.
Every hunter present was unfamiliar with white mana, and none could tear their eyes away.
No healer-type hunter they knew had ever possessed mana like this.
“…Thank you, Yoon.”
Yutaro, now healed, finally managed to speak in a heavy voice.
Expressing gratitude to someone he had ignored and kept at arm’s length until now wasn’t easy.
But he had clearly realized that, in the face of true evil, they had to unite.
Whether that evil was GODS or Jin-young… he wasn’t entirely sure anymore.
“Don’t thank me. Thank that person over there.”
Yoon Soo-ho pointed toward Jin-young’s back.
Watching him stand against Lyle, Yutaro felt both reassured and, at the same time, a quiet fear.
He wasn’t alone—almost everyone in the hall shared the same mixed emotions.
KUWAAAAAK—
At that moment, black hellfire erupted from the bodies of the GODS spies who had begun undergoing demonic transformation.
Jin-young turned with a smirk and glanced back at the coalition hunters.
“Alright… shall we see what you guys can do?”
***
“……”
Lyle Umkaba stared silently at the hunter before him.
The man in the black suit must be the so-called “new prophet of Korea” that had been mentioned during the GODS meeting.
The False Prophet.
Whether he was truly a prophet or hiding something else entirely remained unclear.
One thing was certain: the face he wore right now was fake.
‘Impeccable disguise. There shouldn’t even exist fake faces of this caliber in the world…’
Even the most advanced fake faces could usually be spotted by sharp-eyed 1st- or 2nd-grade hunters.
And someone like Lyle could peer straight through to the real face beneath.
Yet some unknown power blocked his sight completely—he couldn’t see anything.
‘Even Father is wary of this hunter… Interesting.’
Thanks to the False Prophet, GODS’s plans had failed one after another. Satoru and Talida were dead.
Up to that point, Lyle had accepted it.
But now—even his own strike had been casually blocked.
‘So that’s why Father specifically sent me.’
Among the prophets, Lyle was called the strongest.
Even before joining GODS, he had already been a complete, perfected hunter.
His title of strongest didn’t come merely from superior combat power.
His true strength lay in ‘immortality.’
Tssss—
Lyle watched as the small, compressed orb of hellfire vanished into the black portal.
KWA-TSSSSSS—
He released black mana, channeling power to the subordinates he had hidden throughout the assembly hall.
Huuuuurgle—
Black flames ignited across their bodies, dramatically boosting all of their abilities.
They looked like demons straight out of hell.
The moment his subordinates began to move—
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAAA—
At a single word from the False Prophet, the coalition hunters sprang into action.
BOOM! KWA-BOOOOM!
The subordinates couldn’t keep up with the Zero-grades like Hannah Adams and Liu Qinglong.
Gurgle—gurgle—
Still, the subordinates revived—slower than Lyle, but steadily.
An immortal legion.
All the while, Lyle continued clashing with the False Prophet.
BOOM!
Not a single attack landed properly—his head simply kept exploding.
Yet he kept resurrecting.
“No matter how many times… you kill me… I will keep… coming back…”
“If you keep coming back, I’ll just keep killing you.”
The False Prophet replied.
Lyle didn’t speak Korean, but he understood the words perfectly.
He sneered at the False Prophet’s arrogant demeanor.
No matter how many thousands or tens of thousands of times he was killed, as long as the hidden Furnace of Life remained intact, Lyle would resurrect infinitely.
In contrast, the False Prophet surely had limits to his power.
This had been a fight Lyle was destined to win from the very beginning.
“You have limits… but I do not…”
“What are you even babbling about now?”
KRRRRRUMBLE—
Black lightning erupted from the False Prophet and pierced straight through Lyle’s body.
He could have dodged if he wanted, but he deliberately took every blow with his flesh.
‘This… is a slight variation of the Devil’s Flower ability. Is he absorbing others’ powers?’
He was deliberately letting himself be hit in order to properly analyze his opponent’s strength and abilities.
Until now, information about Korea’s prophet within GODS had been extremely scarce.
Everyone who had tangled with him had never returned alive—naturally so.
That was precisely why Lyle, who could resurrect infinitely even without Creep and kept his true soul hidden elsewhere, had been the perfect candidate for this mission.
‘But I still can’t figure out what that power is that keeps exploding my head.’
It wasn’t mana, nor demonic energy—just some inscrutable, mysterious force.
He couldn’t even sense the flow of the power, making any countermeasure impossible.
Now he understood why the prophet Talida, with her exceptional sensory perception, had been unable to escape and died.
At that moment, the False Prophet spoke.
“As expected, that body is just a shell. Your soul is hidden somewhere else, isn’t it?”
“……”
Lyle fell silent, his true nature exposed.
He hadn’t expected the other man to see through it with a single strike.
“But displaying this level of power with just a shell should be impossible. It seems your soul is still connected to it. Shall we take a look at where that thread leads?”
Whether it was bluff or truth, Lyle couldn’t tell—but an ominous premonition crept over him.
The False Prophet suddenly closed both eyes and began concentrating on something.
At once, Lyle withdrew the power he had bestowed upon his subordinates.
Shwaaaa—
The hellfire blazing across their bodies vanished, and all the black mana was stripped away.
The authority of resurrection disappeared as well.
BOOM! CRACK!
Under the relentless assault of the coalition hunters, the subordinates’ bodies collapsed one after another.
Regardless, Lyle emitted dark crimson mana and began to morph into a different form.
SHWAAAAAAA—
His entire body was enveloped in black flames, and soon a single massive bird took shape.
Lyle, now resembling a gigantic black phoenix, unleashed mana in all directions.
SHWAAAAK—
A grotesque voice flowed from the black mana.
『Because of these primitive humans, the old and diseased world shall shatter. A new world for the Awakened shall be rebuilt.』
EEEEEEEE—
“Ugh!”
The hunters who heard the voice clutched their ears as ringing filled their heads and blood trickled out.
Of course, the Zero-grades could endure it without much difficulty.
『Foolish ones who still lack faith—even now, if you follow the Godfather, the new world shall welcome you.』
“Urghhh…”
“I… I believe…”
Lyle’s voice carried a power that disturbed the mind; hunters with weak resistance groaned in mental agony or fell easily to the temptation.
『Those who follow the False Prophet shall find no rest even in death—they will wander hell for eternity.』
That was when it happened.
FLASH—
The False Prophet opened his closed eyes.
“Hell, huh? How about you experience it first?”
KRRRRRSSSS—
A massive red portal tore open right in front of Lyle.
KUWAAAAAAGH!
Beyond the portal lay something that looked exactly like hell—barren, scorching heat blasted outward.
『This is… what the…』
Even Lyle, master of hellfire, sounded shaken.
CHWAAAAAK—
Black tentacles shot out from the red portal,
Wrapped around Lyle in an instant,
And dragged him straight into hell.
“Now then… shall we go find your soul?”
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