I Became the Successor of the Martial God Chapter 175

I Became the Successor of the Martial God

Chapter 175.  

“We shall now begin the Summoning ritual.”  

With a declaration-like statement, Vincent struck the ground with the staff he was holding.  

Kwoong!

A heavy reverberation spread.  

The vibration reached deep underground, all the way to the magic circle.  

Kiiiiing!  

The magic circle activated.  

A massive magic circle encompassing all of Busan emitted an ominous violet-black light.  

Responding to Vincent’s call, it began to operate.  

“Wh-what… What is this?”  

“I-is it an earthquake?!”  

The attendees at the celebration panicked.  

The building they were in shook violently, as if it were about to collapse at any moment.  

People scrambled to evacuate, but the doors were already tightly sealed.  

“Ugh! The door…!”  

“You are all blessed.”  

“Wh-what?”  

From behind them, Vincent let out a low laugh.  

“Because you get to witness the descent of Thanatos’s world into this one—from the very center of it all.”  

“What are you talking about…?!”  

Kwoong!  

Vincent struck the ground with his staff once more.  

And then—  

“…!”  

Beyond the windows, the scenery outside—  

The world began to change.  

***

Summer had arrived abruptly, and the number of tourists visiting Busan’s beaches had increased.  

While the Busan Hunter Association was busy dealing with the Gates that frequently appeared along the coast during summer—  

“What’s up with the weather today?”  

“Right? The forecast said it’d be clear.”  

The first anomaly appeared in the sky.  

The clear, cloudless sky darkened into pitch black.  

It wasn’t just covered in dark clouds—it literally turned black.  

Like the night sky.  

“Clear my ass. When has the weather forecast ever been right? Looks like rain.”  

“No, this doesn’t seem like rain…”  

An undeniably ominous sign.  

But the anomaly didn’t end there.  

Kwaaaaang!  

“Gasp! Wh-what was that? What’s happening?!”  

“L-look at that!”  

An earth-shaking explosion.  

From deep underground, pillars of black light erupted high into the sky.  

Not just in one or two places—they rose all over Busan, as if to engulf the entire sky.  

“What… is that?”  

People were bewildered.  

As if responding to their confusion, another change occurred in the sky.  

The black pillars covering the sky began connecting with each other, forming something.  

“A magic circle!”  

A watching Hunter gasped in horror.  

An ominous violet-black magic circle was being etched into the sky.  

And when the magic circle was complete—  

RIIP, RAACK!  

“Aaaaaah!”  

“S-save me!”  

The ‘terrain’ changed.  

The asphalt-covered roads turned into pitch-black dead soil, splitting apart as if from an earthquake.  

People who fell into the cracks screamed as they plummeted, but no one could save them.  

And from those cracks, pale white ghosts emerged, letting out bone-chilling cries as they flew upward.  

Kwoong!  

At the same time, ominous structures rose.  

Multi-layered buildings made of piled bones and skulls, structures resembling mass graves stitched together from flesh and skin, and— Countless corpses.  

“Eeeek!”  

“Wh-what is this…all these Corpses… Skeletons…!”  

The terrain continued to change.  

Grotesquely twisted plants coiled around Earth’s buildings, and rivers of ominous-colored water flowed through the blackened dead land.  

Ghosts in the sky, corpses on the ground.  

This was no longer Earth.  

—The world of Thanatos.  

In other words, the underworld.  

A world that had once served as Halpeon’s underworld was now overlaying Busan.  

—Guuuuuu…  

—Grrrr…  

And the residents of that underworld began to rise, one by one.  

The dead of the underworld.  

Undead who could not rest even in death stirred.  

—Humans… living flesh…  

—Hehehe… hate them, hate them…  

“Kyaaaaah!”  

The undead, driven by resentment toward the living, attacked the people.  

Screams echoed from all directions.  

Busan had, in an instant, had become a hellscape beyond human comprehension.  

***

“I-is what I’m seeing… real? This… this isn’t a dream, but reality?”  

“Outside…!”  

The attendees at the celebration were horrified.  

The world had suddenly turned upside down. 

The Earth they knew was gone, replaced by a realm resembling the underworld.  

People screamed and fled, while the undead chased and attacked them.  

—Everyone this way—Aaaah!  

—There’s too many of them!  

The Hunters tried to fight back, but the undead were overwhelming in number.  

A one-sided massacre unfolded.  

And the one who had set the stage for this slaughter was—  

“Vincent! What have you done?!”  

That man.  

Vincent smiled as he raised his staff, its gem emitting an ominous glow.  

Whoosh!  

The lights in the hall went out.  

Thick darkness descended.  

Then, pitch black energy rose from the floor, coiling around the attendees’ bodies.  

“Ugh, kkhhuk!”  

People began collapsing.  

Clutching their throats as if suffocating, their bodies turning pitch black in a horrifying manner.  

From their fallen bodies, white soul-like substances flowed out, drifting toward an unknown destination.  

“Did you wish to see your dead family? If you die, you can meet them again.”  

“Eeeek!”  

Vincent watched the souls float away, almost as if in mourning.

Then he turned his gaze across the hall.

“You wished for immortality, didn’t you? Then from this moment on, you shall be immortal.”

Vincent struck the ground with his staff.  

Then, the dead bodies began to rise again—as undead.  

He turned his gaze to those still alive.  

“Did you crave power beyond humanity?”  

“S-stop! I-I never wanted this…!”  

An unknown force lifted the corpses.  

Then, the corpses merged together, transforming into a massive, patchwork monstrosity.  

“That, too, shall be granted.”  

“Uwaaaaah!”  

“Kyaaaaaa!”  

The undead patrons, now revived, attacked the still-living patrons.  

The hall instantly descended into chaos.  

A hellscape where the dead tore into the living, and the living, once dead, joined the ranks of the undead.  

“How fortunate that your wishes have been granted.”  

Vincent smiled as he watched the spectacle.  

He scanned the hall, searching for the one among the attendees he needed to be most wary of.  

Yoo Baek-jun.  

“…….”  

But he was nowhere to be seen.  

Vincent felt an instinctive unease and tried to call for his subordinates waiting outside.  

But before he could—  

“You fucking bastard!”  

“…!”  

Someone leaped out of thin air.  

A muscular warrior wielding a massive greatsword—a face all too familiar to Vincent.  

“Vivianne…!”  

It was Vivianne.  

She closed the distance to Vincent in an instant and swung her greatsword, wreathed in dark energy.  

Swaaak! 

A blade of energy erupted.  

“So you’re still alive.”  

“Did you really think I’d just die?!”  

Vincent blocked the blade with a black barrier and spread his left hand wide.  

From his fingertips, dozens of chains of Pitch black energy shot out, binding Vivianne’s body.  

Then, dozens of dark orbs fired toward her restrained form.  

“You son of a bitch!”  

She roared.  

“I’ve been regretting not being able to deal with the traitor within the organization. This works out perfectly.”  

Vincent’s body floated slightly.  

Pitch black energy flowed into the dead patrons, turning them into undead.  

The undead then moved and surrounded Vivianne.  

“I’ll finish you off here and now.”  

“You’ll die before that happens!”  

Vivianne swung her greatsword with all her might. Gritting her teeth, she spun her body and unleashed a sweeping slash.  

Swaaaaak!  

—Kyaaaaah!  

A circular wave of dark energy cut down the undead around her.  

She glared fiercely at Vincent.  

“You will die here.”  

“A petty traitor like you dares to threaten me…!”  

Their battle began.  

And amidst the fierce clash, among the corpses strewn across the floor—someone rose.  

Yoo Baek-jun.  

“Hah…”  

He had been observing the situation. 

Or rather—  

“Everything’s going according to plan…”  

Min Yi-jae.  

When he removed the human-face mask, it wasn’t Yoo Baek-jun’s face—but Min Yi-jae’s.  

“…Then, as he said, I’ll buy some time.”  

Min Yi-jae glanced at Vivianne fighting Vincent before melting into the shadows.  

To sabotage Vincent—from within.

***

While chaos unfolded at the celebration, the situation outside grew even more dire.  

The Busan Hunter Association frantically tried to figure out what was happening, but to no avail.  

“Are you sure you investigated properly? The sky turning black like this isn’t normal! Even when that large-scale Gate appeared in Seoul, did the sky look like this?!”    

“Y-yes, but the Gate’s signs…”  

“Don’t blindly trust the machines! How many times has Gates appeared without warning?!”  

The man serving as the Head of the Busan Hunter Association branch berated his subordinates.  

Im Woo-do had withheld information from the Association to make his own faction look competent.  

The problem was…  

“Wh-what is happening?!”  

The current situation was completely different from what Im Woo-do and the Busan branch had anticipated.  

Im Woo-do roared in frustration.  

“This isn’t what Yoo Baek-jun said would happen! He clearly said it’d be like Seoul—monsters attacking from the sky!”  

“W-we don’t know either…”  

He vented his anger at his subordinates, but they had only acted on Yoo Baek-jun’s information.  

Without questioning it in the slightest.  

“I-if this continues, Young Master Yoo Tae-rang will…”  

“Send reinforcements now! Use magical communication!”  

“I-it’s not working! The comms are…!”  

“What?!”  

The consequences were disastrous.  

Yoo Tae-rang was waiting with his subordinates at a prearranged location.  

—Kyaaaaah!  

—Eat, we’ll eat…!  

The place was swarming with undead.  

“Y-young Master! We’re surrounded by undead!”  

“Grrk! Where did they all come from…?! Be careful, Young Master! There are too many!”  

Undead everywhere.  

They weren’t particularly strong, but their numbers made movement impossible.  

The swordsmen formed a defensive formation around Yoo Tae-rang, fighting back against the encroaching undead.  

“…….”  

Yoo Tae-rang surveyed his surroundings.  

This situation was nothing like the information he’d received.  

He’d been told it would be similar to the incident in Seoul—monsters descending from the sky.  

So, they’d prepared defensive facilities and positioned their forces accordingly.  

But the current situation… was nothing like what they’d expected.  

In fact, it was completely different.  

“Im Kyung-hak, contact the Busan branch.”  

“I-I’ve been trying, but the Magical comms aren’t connecting. They’re completely dead.”  

“Then the Intelligence Division… Contact Lee Ja-yae.”  

“Y-yes, right away…”  

The man called Im Kyung-hak hurriedly tried to reach the Intelligence Division via magical comms.  

“N-no good. This isn’t working either…”  

But there was no response.  

As if someone was blocking it.  

“…Tch.”  

He could sense someone’s scheme at work.  

Completely false information, plans based on that, and now cut-off communications.  

Something had gone terribly wrong.  

“We’ve been played.”  

Yoo Tae-rang gripped his sword, picturing the face of the one who had orchestrated this.  

First, they had to escape this chaos.  

They could revise their plans afterward.  

And while he was immobilized—  

“Guess it’s time to move.”  

Yoo Baek-jun began to act.