Assassination is a comprehensive art.

You have to consider everything.

That’s why, the moment he is summoned, Cossack always checks the surrounding environment and situation first.

Even while greeting Summoner Bong, it happens out of habit.

It took Cossack only three seconds to grasp the event hall. With one quick sweep, he understood how the situation was unfolding.

First: Summoner Bong’s safety.

Because that matters most of all.

For now, he is safe.

The Energy Barrier is active.

Meaning a few bullets would be blocked without issue.

But he was shielding someone with his body.

The one who should be prioritizing his own safety above all else, of all people.

Ahhh.

Summoner Bong is too kind. That’s his problem.

And he’s considerate, too.

This bastard looks like Deputy Commissioner Jeon Gwangil.

Stupid fuck. Shameless fuck.

He should be the one protecting Summoner Bong, and instead he’s being protected?

And he let Summoner Bong get dragged into a situation this dangerous?

People don’t say that life outside the Tower is more dangerous than climbing it for no reason.

Anyway, there were two trouble spots.

A woman being held hostage on the stage.

A face he’d seen plenty on the news.

Player Nam Gaeun.

And she was, when you got down to it, someone Summoner Bong knew.

If she died or got hurt, Summoner Bong would feel extremely bad.

And on the exact opposite side—

Five armed thugs aiming their muzzles and threatening the crowd.

They were wearing helmets and bulletproof vests.

What to do?

Even for Cossack, dealing with both trouble spots at the same time would be too much.

If he took out the gunmen first, Nam Gaeun would be in danger.

If he rescued Nam Gaeun first, and shots were fired, civilians would be in danger.

To be honest, he didn’t care if other people died.

So what.

That was their fate.

What he feared was hurting Summoner Bong’s soft heart.

So he told him to call Meatshield.

Meatshield would be summoned any moment.

Then where should he go?

The conclusion was clear.

Leave the armed thugs to Meatshield, clean up the stage, then join up.

SPOT!

Cossack’s body vanished in an instant.

*****

Arson on Gwanak Mountain.

Hijacking a firefighting helicopter from the aerial firefighting unit.

Threaten the pilot and land on the HG Hotel helipad.

Blow out the venue’s exterior glass wall with bomb drones.

Leave one person on the helicopter to keep watch on the pilot.

A five-person team including himself enters the site.

To make that possible, they had already sent one Player into the venue in advance.

After the drone strike, they needed hostages to control the venue and ensure a safe entry.

They bribed a hotel employee who’d worked there a long time.

By offering money the employee couldn’t refuse.

That employee was probably on a plane to China by now.

The top-priority hostage target was CEO Goyeonha.

But right before the operation, the target changed.

Nam Gaeun.

The best Player in the Republic of Korea as a showcase model?

Forget CEO Goyeonha.

If they took the best Player hostage, no one would be able to move.

The plan didn’t deviate.

It was so perfect it was scary.

One more thing.

Since the main targets of this terrorism were Players, there was a point they absolutely had to confirm.

Whether the elite Players had entered the Tower today.

Once a day—had they already entered, or not yet?

That had been checked already.

Kidnapping Players was the main work of China’s Special Intelligence Department.

They’d run countless operations. There was no way they’d miss that.

The Republic of Korea’s elite Players belong to the state.

They are obligated to clear the Tower.

Once a day,

Whether it’s high-floor clearing, or repeat clearing.

They have to film their clear process with a bodycam and transmit it to the Tower Player Awakening Administration.

Tower clears are almost always done in the morning.

Because you have to play in the afternoon after you finish your duty.

Nam Gaeun was the same.

Her Tower entry waiting area was the Tower Player Awakening Administration.

Her climbing routine was to work out at the Administration gym in the morning and then enter the Tower.

Of course, not everyone would be exactly like that.

Even now—

POP! POP! POP!

He could see about three Players fleeing into the Tower.

Well, let the riffraff go.

In any case, Player Nam Gaeun secured successfully.

And now, greed starts to creep in.

Do they really need to kill Nam Gaeun?

As a hostage, her value is even greater than the Republic of Korea’s President.

If they keep her with them, they’ll be safe.

‘If we can keep her as a hostage and take her with us...’

Of course, not to China, but to a third country—for example, North Korea?

If they could just make it safely into North Korean territory, the game would be all but over.

No one would be able to chase them.

‘Hah. Idiots.’

The Republic of Korea’s police and National Intelligence Service agents, frozen in place, rolling only their eyes.

Pathetic.

Those guys beat Deng Guanlin’s team?

That has to be a joke.

Xiao Jun signaled to the team member holding Nam Gaeun hostage.

Keep the hostage alive. Only threaten her.

Until we kill every last one of these bastards here.

The team member nodded.

‘Alright. Time to start...’

Right then!

SPOT!

Someone suddenly appeared on the stage.

‘...Huh?’

Behind the team member holding a knife to Nam Gaeun’s throat—

So stealthy you couldn’t even tell when they’d appeared.

And then—

SLICE!

THUD!

A hand dropped to the floor.

“...”

Xiao Jun’s eyes went wide. What?

Meanwhile—

The team member holding the knife didn’t even realize their hand had been cut off.

They heard something fall and looked down.

‘...A hand. Is that a person’s?’

It looked very familiar.

The knife clutched in the severed hand was familiar too.

And since there was no blood, it looked like a fake mannequin hand.

An uneasy feeling rose, and they looked at their own hand.

“Huh?!”

A cleanly severed wrist.

‘W-why... why is my hand...?’

They looked once at the hand on the floor, once at their own severed wrist.

“Wh—”

At the same time—SLICE!

A hot sensation at the neck.

THUMP!

A head separated and dropped onto the stage, bouncing up.

THUMP! THUMP-THUMP!

Like a ball—

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP! THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD...

And then the body, still upright, tipped backward.

THUD!

The onlookers fell silent.

Even Nam Gaeun, who had been held hostage, stood there blankly, stunned.

Xiao Jun was the same.

It felt like watching a stage play.

He was seeing it with his own eyes and still couldn’t believe it.

“...K-kill him.”

“Huh?”

“K-kill—! K-kill them all!”

Only then did the team members come to their senses.

They aimed their automatic rifles at the crowd and put their fingers on the triggers—

SHHHHK!

Something massive grew up right in front of them.

They lifted their heads.

“Ah!”

“W-what, what, what?”

“Uuuuh...”

A person—no, a giant.

A body so enormous its head nearly touched the ceiling.

Was this a movie set?

Or the venue for a fashion show?

In the next instant—

“KUUUOOOAAAHHH!!!”

A roar that felt like it would rip their eardrums apart.

Xiao Jun and the Special Intelligence Department team members went rigid.

A howl that clawed at primal human terror—knees buckled on their own.

Hands holding guns trembled violently.

A trigger pulled unconsciously.

RATATAT! RATATATATATATAT!

No one even knew who fired first.

It wasn’t because they meant to kill.

It was just instinct—because they were terrified.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD-THUD-THUD!

Meatshield took the bullets head-on.

If he activated Diamond Skin, the bullets would bounce off—but he couldn’t risk even one ricochet flying toward Summoner Bong.

Besides, the bullets couldn’t pierce his skin anyway.

It was just a little sting.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Three steps was all Meatshield needed to close the distance.

First, he grabbed one thug’s helmet with his hand and applied a little force—

CRUNCH! GRIND!

The helmet shattered, and the skull crumpled with it.

Helmet fragments embedded in the head made it even more horrific.

One more.

CRUNCH! GRIND!

These were the bastards daring to threaten the Summoner.

The Summoner who gave him a name, and even bought him delicious beef.

He wanted to break every bone in their bodies and make them die slowly in agony, but he finished as fast as possible—just in case the Summoner might be endangered.

He seized the leg of one thug struggling to swap magazines—

“GAAAH!”

And slammed him straight down onto another thug.

WHIRR! CRACK!

Like swinging a weapon—

WHIRR! CRACK! WHIRR! CRACK! WHIRR! CRACK!

After swinging three times, both the “weapon” and the target were a friendly pair of meat pulp.

Xiao Jun stared at the scene, frozen in terror.

“...Heh.”

A hollow laugh spilled out.

Was he fighting monsters inside the Tower?

But he wasn’t even a Player.

There was no way this could be the Tower.

Xiao Jun pulled a grenade hanging on his chest.

There was nothing else he could do.

In the next instant—SLICE!

The hand holding the grenade was cut off.

“SSR cuts like this. Clean. Blood splatters are gross.”

SSR?

“Don’t worry. Before, I didn’t know anything and I slaughtered them all, and I regretted it. I should’ve left one alive. I’ll leave you alive. The public servants in this country need work to do too, don’t they?”

Only then did Xiao Jun understand.

It was that bastard.

The existence that wiped out Deng Guanlin’s team.

‘If I’d known from the start, I would never have made a plan like this—’

WHAM!

A fist smashed into his face.

Teeth clattered to the floor.

Xiao Jun lost consciousness.

This side was cleaned up.

Cossack stared quietly at the rope hanging outside the shattered window.

‘Hm.’

Looks like they came down from the rooftop.

Fast, even in the cleanup.

HYAAH!

Cossack launched himself, grabbed the rope, and climbed up—

And saw a helicopter.

And a bastard holding a gun to the pilot’s head.

‘Good thing I came.’

*****

Crown Prince Abdul bin Sala was still in a daze.

Nam Gaeun, the Republic of Korea’s best Player, had been taken hostage.

Then came the drone strike.

The venue’s glass shattered, and thugs in helmets and bulletproof vests stormed in.

Bin Sala remembered.

The incident in the United Arab Emirates where state-affiliated Players were wiped out in a terror attack.

A trauma he still hadn’t overcome.

And now terrorism in the Republic of Korea, where he thought it was safe.

His bodyguards surrounded him like a fortress, but with just pistols, how could they possibly—

Right then!

A man who suddenly appeared on the stage and rescued Player Nam Gaeun.

The moment Bin Sala saw him, he knew who it was.

‘...Meatshield?’

No doubt about it.

The Player who saved the United Arab Emirates.

‘Why is that man here...?’

How he appeared wasn’t important.

Because he knew what kind of power the man possessed, relief finally washed over him.

With a moved expression, Bin Sala stared at Meatshield on the stage.

Naturally, their eyes met.

But when Meatshield recognized him, he deeply furrowed his brow.

A chill ran down Bin Sala’s spine.

‘What did I do wrong... ah!’

Was it because he’d mentioned the name Meatshield during that interview?

That had to be it.

They had agreed to keep it secret.

‘D-do I...?’

Did he come to the ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) Republic of Korea for nothing?

In the next instant—

“KUUUOOOAAAH!”

A roar filled the entire event hall.

Everyone’s gaze snapped in the same direction.

“Uh...”

“Th-that is...?”

“A giant?”

“N-no, what the hell...”

“My god...”

There was no other way to describe it except huge.

It was so big it blocked even the armed thugs from view.

Gunfire began, but the thugs were brought down in an instant.

Deputy Commissioner Jeon Gwangil also heard and watched every moment clearly.

Bong Juhyeok was still beside him.

The word Bong had said when he saved him and learned Nam Gaeun had been taken hostage.

‘...Summon.’

That’s right.

It hadn’t been clear, but he definitely said Summon.

And then a man appeared in a swirl of light.

After exchanging a few words with Player Bong, he showed himself on the stage in the blink of an eye.

And then once more—

‘Summon.’

This time, the man who appeared was a giant of overwhelming size.

The first man rescued Nam Gaeun from danger.

The second giant, unfazed by the hail of bullets, crushed the enemies.

‘So that’s what it was.’

Summoning.

It felt like every mystery was unraveling.

Jeon Gwangil turned his head toward Bong Juhyeok.

“Uh... um... by any chance...”

“Umm, y-yes. You’re probably right about what you’re thinking.”

Yeah.

No need to ask in detail.

What was there to say?

He’d watched it with his own eyes.

‘Wait! This isn’t the time.’

He checked the camera installed for the YouTube livestream first.

It was still pointed toward the stage.

Even if the moment Nam Gaeun was rescued had been broadcast, it probably hadn’t captured the rest.

Then he approached No Younggeun, the National Intelligence Service First Deputy Director, who still hadn’t come to his senses.

“First Deputy Director.”

“...Uh, y-yes.”

“Confiscate everyone’s smartphones right now. We don’t know if photos or videos were taken.”

“Ah! Understood.”

“And that bastard doesn’t look dead yet, so arrest him.”

Only then did the National Intelligence Service agents begin moving.

He had a lot to say.

When Yoo Cheolmin naturalized, when there was the attempted kidnapping of elite Players—and now, again—

He didn’t know if he could keep trusting them going forward.

It might be a good idea to build an independent team of his own.

‘Whew. We at least have to stop the footage from spreading.’

But no chance.

What does confiscating phones do?

It’ll all be backed up to the cloud.

Jeon Gwangil turned his eyes back to the stage.

Nam Gaeun was slumped there, sitting down with a vacant expression.

But thankfully, medics and Administration staff rushed in to tend to her.

Of course he should be over there too, but—

“Player Bong, thank you for saving my life.”

“Ah, come on. It’s not like I did anything...”

Juhyeok waved his hands in flustered denial.

Please don’t look at me like that.

It’s a lot of pressure.

I just called two guys I know.

It’s just a problem that the guys I know are a bit unusual.

“Who do you think these people are... China, maybe?”

“We’ll have to investigate, but it certainly looks like China.”

Knew it.

Ignorant bastards.

But still—should he just let it go?

Back then, he was a pathetic weak man, so even if something unfair happened to him, he’d just swallow it.

But now things were different.

If he said, “Go teach them a lesson,” there were dependable older brothers and sisters who would rush out immediately.

That’s just how it works—when a loser has athlete older brothers and sisters, even bullies can’t touch them.

‘I’ll go tell them when I get home.’

That China did it.

Looks like everything’s settled.

Sorry, but he should send Meatshield back first.

Juhyeok gave Meatshield a subtle wave.

Meatshield nodded.

‘Dismiss Summon.’

SPOT!

That huge body vanished without a trace.

Even that disappearance made people gasp and murmur in shock.

‘Man, I really made a spectacle of things.’

The worry piling up was a mountain.

How the hell was he going to clean this up?

Could it even be cleaned up?

But he didn’t regret it.

If he’d done nothing just to hide what he was—

What could be a greater bad karma than that?

He’d deserve to get struck by lightning and die.

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