CHAPTER 200: WELL-FED HYPOCRISY AND HUNGRY GOODNESS (4)

Damian frowned and glared at the man who had stepped in front of Isabella.

“You’re...”

It was the same guy standing next to the woman who got pickpocketed yesterday.

I recognize him from somewhere.

At the time, Damian hadn’t given it much thought. Now that he saw him again, that face looked familiar. It didn’t take long for Damian to figure it out. The man standing in his way was just as well-known as the Seven Stars.

“Thunder Wolf, right?”

He recalled hearing that Kwon Oh-Jin was the only apostle of Vega, the Celestial of the North Star.

“Yeah, that’s what they call me.” Kwon Oh-Jin nodded as he gripped the jet-black spear embedded in the ground.

Blue lightning coiled fiercely around the shaft of his spear.

Crackle!

Damian stared coldly at him. “I remember seeing an article once calling you a hero who saved people from the Black Star Society. Why are you protecting her?”

“You just said it yourself. I’m a hero, right? Then shouldn’t I pick the path that saves the most people?”

“She’s a witch who deceived people and stole their blood.”

“But she’s also a saintess who saved thousands of people,” Kwon Oh-Jin said in a relaxed manner and casually spun his spear.

“That was just hypocrisy. A fake act of kindness to get what she wanted.”

“Hypocrisy that feeds people is better than good that starves people, don’t you think?”

Damian’s expression twisted. “So are you saying that as long as the outcome is good, the means don’t matter?"

“I don’t have a reason to listen to this crap from a bastard who can’t even produce good outcomes.”

Damian clenched his jaw and glared fiercely at Kwon Oh-Jin.

Even under Damian’s intense murderous aura, Kwon Oh-Jin calmly raised his head. Sunlight poured in through the collapsed mansion ceiling.

“Have you ever been poor?” Kwon Oh-Jin asked.

“What?”

“Have you ever had to wash yourself with cold water in a moldy house, shivering through the winter, not knowing what you’ll eat tomorrow?”

Damian said nothing and shook his head. He wasn’t born with a silver spoon like Isabella, but having a well-respected pastor for a father meant he had lived a decently comfortable life.

“Do you know what’s the most painful thing for people who have nothing?”

Monsters that ripped people apart? Awakeners who had supernatural power? No, those things were terrifying, but they weren’t painful.

“Having no place to sleep, no clothes to wear, and no food to eat.”

That was more painful than anything else. That was the definition of despair to them.

“So you’re saying her act of deceiving people and stealing their blood is justified?”

“It’s not about it being justified or not.”

He wasn’t a philosopher, and his education only went as far as elementary school. He had never bothered with complicated ideas like justice or good, but he was sure of one thing.

“For those people, the hypocrisy you call filthy might’ve been their only salvation.”

“Saving many doesn’t erase your sins,” Damian said.

He was right. Just like how donating ten billion dollars didn’t make murder okay, saving lives didn’t make one exempt from their crimes.

“The sin you’re talking about... is her taking some blood packs?” Kwon Oh-Jin dryly laughed. “It’s not like she kidnapped people and forced blood from them. She just skimmed a bit off the top with donated blood. What’s that? Theft? Embezzlement? I don’t really know Italian law, but is that really a reason to flip out and swing your sword around like this?”

“Her Stigma... is dangerous.”

“So is mine. If I wanted to, I could kill thousands of people in one go.”

Blue lightning sparked again from Kwon Oh-Jin’s hand.

Crackle!

Damian silently raised his sword once more.

“She’s a member of an international terrorist organization, and her Stigma carries an extremely dangerous side effect of an uncontrollable thirst for blood. If we don’t eliminate her now, who knows what disaster she might cause later?”

“So basically—” Kwon Oh-Jin chuckled. “She hasn’t committed a big sin yet, but she might someday. You're gonna kill her just in case. Is that it?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Then what exactly did you mean, you asshole?”

Damian couldn’t respond.

“You called Isabella a filthy hypocrite earlier, right?” Kwon Oh-Jin said.

Well then—

“Guess that makes you a squeaky clean self-righteous clown.”

“It appears there’s no point talking anymore, is there?” Damian tightly gripped his sword, which burned with a brilliant white light.

Isabella, still on the ground, looked up at Kwon Oh-Jin with trembling eyes.

“Mr. Oh-Jin.”

A swirl of emotions overtook her. Joy that he had come to protect her, fear that he had discovered her true identity, and helplessness from the curse that left her powerless. So many thoughts and feelings tangled inside her. She didn’t know what to say.

“I’m... sorry.”

After a long silence, those words finally escaped her lips. She hung her head low, and her shoulders faintly trembled.

“I’ve been... deceiving you this whole time.”

She wasn’t the Saintess of Rome, but the Leech Queen with the Stigma of Leech and the third-ranked executor of the Black Star Society.

Kwon Oh-Jin shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s okay. I already knew.”

“W-What? Y-You—”

“I knew you were the Leech Queen, Isabella.”

Isabella’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s as her jaw dropped.

“W-What? Wait—when?! Since when did you know?!”

“Hmm. It’s hard to say. When was it again?” Kwon Oh-Jin grinned mischievously as he continued. “Does my blood really taste that good?”

“Kyaaaah!”

Isabella screamed and fell back. Her snow-white skin flushed a deep red as if she would literally start steaming.

“T-That’s since the beginning!”

She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t felt even a hint of him being awake at the time!

“B-But you said you didn’t remember anything, Mr. Oh-Jin!”

“Oh, that?” Kwon Oh-Jin laughed and turned toward Damian. “It was a lie.”

With a powerful kick, he launched forward.

Boom!

He thrust the black spear and aimed straight at Damian’s neck.

Clang!

Damian deflected the spear with a fluid, almost effortless motion. The backlash vibrated down the spear’s shaft with stunning force.

“So you knew all along and still chose to do nothing.” Damian’s face twisted into a snarl as he raised his sword high.

Blinding lights appeared in the sky and fell down, turning into hundreds of glowing blades.

“Then you’re no different from her.” His eyes brimmed with disdain as he looked at Kwon Oh-Jin.

Kwon Oh-Jin dodged the raining light swords and flipped his middle finger at Damian.

Thudududu!

The barrage of light swords brutally tore through the mansion floor, and the shockwaves struck Kwon Oh-Jin.

“Ghhh...”

The overwhelming light swords left no room for him to escape. His internal mana swam out of control.

Is this the true power of a Seven Stars?

The difference felt like night and day compared to his spar against Song Ha-Eun, but that didn’t mean he would be defeated so easily.

Bang!

Six strands of wire snapped out and formed a web as Kwon Oh-Jin shot into the air. He took a deep breath and focused.

I can’t use Lightning Form.

It took too long to prepare, and the side effects were too substantial.

In that case...

Kwon Oh-Jin’s eyes sharpened.

The Stigma of Lyra flared, and mana rippled through him like waves. He aimed his spear at Damian and formed Lightning Flames. Blue flames brilliantly blazed at the tip of his spear.

Crackle!

He condensed the flames into a single point. The blue flames writhed violently while resisting the compression.

Crackle!

Normally, Lightning Flames in its base form was already a finished technique. Trying to compress it even further was nearly impossible.

“Sit still, damn it.”

For Kwon Oh-Jin, this level of impossible didn’t even qualify as a problem anymore. He forcibly suppressed the rebelling flames.

Crackle!

The sensation felt similar to when he condensed Lightning Charge.

“Hup!”

With all his strength, he hurled the black spear covered in condensed blue flames.

Rumble!

The mansion shook violently as the blue flames engulfed Damian.

Even Damian struggled to completely withstand the condensed Lightning Flames as he frowned and faintly groaned.

“Agh...”

Crackle. Crackle.

Blue sparks scorched his skin black.

“You're even stronger than what the rumors say,” Damian exclaimed.

It was his first time facing an Awakener of the North Star. Now he understood why the Celestials praised them as the North Star.

“Still...”

Kwon Oh-Jin only went slightly beyond his expectations. Having already surpassed nine stars and reaching ten stars, a variable like this wasn’t much of a threat.

“There’s a reason I’m one of the Seven Stars too.”

The scale on his sword swayed and chimed.

Clink.

A radiant light enveloped Damian as he charged at Kwon Oh-Jin, who had just landed.

Clang! Clang! Claaaang!

They exchanged blows faster than the speed of sound. As the two superhumans clashed, the ground split and the mansion walls crumbled.

The heads of the branch families, eagerly awaiting Isabella’s execution, screamed and turned to flee from the falling debris.

“Kyaaa!”

“Agh! Save me!”

Before they could even scurry away like rats, the collapsing walls sealed off their escape route.

Crash!

“M-Mr. Damian!”

“P-Please, kill that bastard quickly!”

“Unbelievable! Acting all high and mighty as the apostle of Vega, only to side with that witch!”

In a panic, the family heads shouted their desperate support for Damian. It wasn’t because of their cheering, but Damian slowly overpowered Kwon Oh-Jin just as they hoped.

His sharp blade sliced deep across Kwon Oh-Jin’s side.

Slash!

“Argh!”

Blood spilled from his torn flesh.

Stigma of Seahorse.

Even quickly generating water and healing the wound through Water Affinity didn’t help much.

The light is damaging my mana circuits directly.

To be precise, it was crystallizing the mana flowing through his circuits like a powerful blood coagulant.

Is this the ability of the Stigma of Libra?

He had heard rumors about this ability to crystallize mana, but was seeing it in action for the first time.

“If you back down now, I won’t hold your sins against you.”

“Come on, it'd be lame to run now after showing up so dramatically. Don’t you think?”

“That’s what you’re concerned about right now?”

“Style is a serious matter, you know.”

“Haaa.” With a deep sigh, Damian raised his sword at Kwon Oh-Jin again. “Then let’s end this now.”

“Why are you deciding that?” Kwon Oh-Jin said.

“Do you think you can defeat me in that condition?”

“Well, it’ll be tough for sure.”

Unless he used Open Heaven, Kwon Oh-Jin couldn’t match Damian in terms of sheer power. However, that was only if he fought Damian alone.

“The preparations should be done by now,” Kwon Oh-Jin said.

“What?”

Obviously, he hadn’t come to fight Damian without a plan.

Kwon Oh-Jin raised his right arm and shot up blue lightning like fireworks.

“Now, let’s see... It went like this, right?” He retraced his memory and muttered a spell. “Oh, fire. Burn like hell.”

Fwoosh!

Searing flames rained down like a storm from the collapsed ceiling.