Chapter 168: Arianna and Akbar
Taipei’s beautiful Hua Hua Park.
With a huge shopping center and beautiful views of Taipei’s cityscape, this place was packed with customers for the Chinese New Year.
“Mom, I want that!”
Normally, the pricey items in department stores are a burden, but on this day, parents open their wallets to the expensive toys their children want.
Shopping malls held special events for such parents and offered gift certificates as lures to attract more people to their malls.
It’s the finale of a holiday season where spending is more intense than usual. While happily sipping tea after purchasing her child’s toys and luxury handbags, Ms. Shuery noticed some suspicious cosplayers in the crowd.
At first, she thought they were parading through the streets in cosplay to celebrate the Twelfth Festival, but as one of them gradually approached her teahouse, she was able to recognize their unusual coloring.
Neat white robes—only the abdomen is bulging.
It reminded him of someone from Central Asia.
No, no, no.
Her uneasy hunch was becoming more and more realized as the man stepped into the center of the teahouse.
“God.”
The muttered word was all she needed to hear.
‘Why? Why? Why are they in Taiwan?’
Why, over and over again. But when her eyes locked with the man’s, what came out of her lips was a pitiful plea.
“Please——.”
Please don’t do this. What have we done wrong? Children deserve better than——.
It was a “please” with a lot of desperation in it. But Mr. Shuery lost all hope with the one word the man with the bomb switch said with a smirk.
“Because the gods want it.”
No hesitation, no guilt, just a calm voice. The eyes of a fanatic convinced he was on a pilgrimage.
“Mommy?”
The daughter, playing with a new toy, looked up, sensing her mother’s strangeness.
“Meiling, Mommy loves you!”
All Shuery could do was hug her child and hope it would hurt a little less.
-Beep!
Kaaaaaaaaaah!
There were explosions everywhere.
-Bang! Boom! Quack!
And the sound echoed throughout Taiwan. Cheers turned to screams as explosions erupted from every direction in the crowded, festive city.
The whole of Taiwan was covered in a “white mist.”
“Hmph—!”
Ms. Shuery opened her tightly closed eyes while holding her daughter Meiling but the pain she was expecting didn’t come.
What she saw was a dense white mist.
“Poison gas?”
Bombs aren’t the only method of terrorism. Biological terrorism through poison gas was also rare, but it did happen.
“Mommy, you look beautiful!”
“Meiling, don’t breathe!”
Ms. Shuery hastily covered his daughter’s and his own mouths, but then she saw that they were unable to react to the sudden gas attack around them and could only inhale.
‘I’m going to die!’
In the midst of the chaos, Mr. Shuery pushed aside his frustration and searched for a gas mask. She had heard that gas masks were available in large facilities like shopping malls.
However, it was difficult for an ordinary person who was not familiar with emergency exits or the location of gas masks to find one, and eventually the child who couldn’t find his breath inhaled.
“Kolok—!”
“Meiling! No!”
That’s it! She inhaled!
And it was the same for Mr. Shuery, who shouted to stop his daughter.
“Huh?”
It’s weird.
It doesn’t hurt.
Mr. Shuery belonged to a generation that was taught basic evacuation procedures from childhood in case of air raids and chemical warfare by mainlanders.
In the case of chemical warfare, they were taught that the moment the gas is swallowed through the airway, there is an immediate reaction. But——
‘Didn’t anyone in the mall get hurt?’
“Krrrrrrrr!”
That was it. Ms. Shuery spotted a man lying on the ground in the middle of the mall and rushed over to him.
“Hey, are you okay?”
His condition was exactly like the poison gas victim in the video. She didn’t know why he was injured like this, but she had to hurry and take him to the hospital──
“Hic—!”
Suddenly, confronted with a person in distress, Shuery stepped back in horror, for he was—not in human form, no matter how she looked at it.
His face was melting into a hideous, almost ‘demonic’ face that was too hideous to be caused by a skin rash from the poisonous gas.
“Kyaaaaak—!”
“Kyaaah!”
The devilish, haggard monster was about to pounce on Ms. Shuery but something slammed into him.
“Step back.”
“Go, thanks—?”
Ms. Shuery realized that he was the terrorist she had made eye contact with before.
Undaunted in this white haze, armed with armor and cold weapons, he shouted at the ‘demon’.
“God help us.”
And he wasn’t the only one armed. As if waiting in the wings, white-armored terrorists swarmed in from all directions.
“Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
The instantly surrounded demon had a look on his face that said, “How the hell?”
“You must be quite a high-ranked demon to still be alive after being directly hit by the holy gas.”
“However, there is no need to fear brothers and sisters. They will be extinguished in the name of God.”
“Defeat evil with death! The gods will lead our martyred comrades to paradise!”
“As the gods will it!”
“”May the gods will it—!””
Fanatics from all sides pounded the weakened demon.
Shuery had never seen anything like it.
* * * *
Terrorists attacked the banquet hall where the dignitaries were gathered.
The S-class Hunter Lan Fang was instantly subdued, and even the remaining guild members stopped moving in front of the terrorists with bomb vests.
“Eek—cowards!”
The Hunters hired as guards could only hesitate. Not only were the terrorists militant, but they were also dangerous to the dignitaries if they detonated the bomb.
There were too many heads of state gathered here to risk a hostage or two.
“What do you want?”
“What do you want——?”
The terrorist leader said, his voice still calm.
“We’ll have to tie you all up first.”
The terrorists quickly tied up the hostages, many of whom were cardinals from the Vatican, vice prime ministers and ministers from European Union countries, and hunters from famous guilds.
“Ah, those Hunters, you’ll have to wear these shackles.”
“That, that’s——.”
It was the magic seals for criminal Hunters developed by the Tower. What kind of terrorist would prepare such expensive equipment in large quantities?
“Ugh—! It’s heavy!”
“Chit— is it new?”
What they didn’t know was that it was actually a god-blessed stellar iron shackle, a worse-than-real fake that merely recreated the magic seal.
They approached Leon and Beatrice at the Temple of the Ten Thousand Gods and tried to put the shackles on them.
“Well, well— I’ll put them on.”
“I’ll, I’ll put them on.”
The terrorist half-speaks and is immediately corrected by a stern stare. For a moment, people expect Leon to do something.
After all, he didn’t tolerate disrespect for royalty, and he possessed the raw power of an S-class Hunter.
“Hmph, cowardly of them to take hostages, I guess we have no choice but to comply.”
“That’s right, everyone, don’t be cowardly and do as you’re told.”
That was it. Even TTG Temple was unable to resist because of the hostages.
Having subdued all the dignitaries, the terrorists ordered the hostages.
“Lock everyone in their rooms! Move quickly!”
“His Majesty Lionheart and Queen Spero, please cooperate.”
In what seemed like a different temperature of hostage treatment, the hostages were grouped into hotel rooms in the ballroom.
“Please enter.”
In the room where the group is sequestered, the terrorist leader removes his helmet to reveal his bare face.
“Thank you for your service, Your Majesties, and the members of the TTG Temple.”
The leader of the terrorists was Park Yong-shin, who knelt down on one knee in front of Leon and bowed his head.
“You may have ordered it, but I cannot forgive my disrespect for your Jade Body.”
“It is done. Rise.”
The four knights, including Ha-ri, were dumbfounded as they watched.
“Uhm— Your Majesty, what’s going on here?”
“I noticed it halfway through, but——.”
The four couldn’t keep up with the situation so Park Yong-shin cheerfully began to explain.
Since arriving in Taiwan, he and Yappy have been organizing nationwide terrorism with the members of the Taiwan branch of the Hanbit Palace and giving them bomb vests.
The terrorism here is nothing compared to what’s going on outside, he said.
“Po, bomb vests?”
“Well, there’s nothing to be afraid of, Sister Ha-ri. It’s a gas bomb, to be precise.”
“It’s worse than that!”
Of course, it’s not really poison gas. More accurately, it’s holy gas.
“It’s a dilution of holy water, forged by Lord Yappy and bestowed by His Majesty, though the concentration has been thinned to ensure a large quantity.”
After testing it on the captured demons, not only were the lower-ranked demons greatly weakened, but even some of the higher-ranked demons had no choice but to reveal their faces.
“Ah—, so this was to deal with the demons in Taiwan!”
“Exactly.”
By now, the whole of Taiwan must be in an uproar. There are demons here and there whose identities have been discovered.
“But it’s just a way for them to show their true colors. There’s more to them.”
“Yes, because High Demons can withstand the Holy Gas.”
Beatrice smirked and checked her pad. Hidden camera footage of each room, sent by Yappy.
“Let’s get started, then.”
Leon stood up.
It was demon hunting time, albeit a bit radical.
* * * *
Doldorad, a high-level demon of pleasure and depravity, was locked in a cabin with a group of Taiwanese dignitaries who had been taken hostage.
“Chief Huang Yanfei, do something!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Chief, don’t you have a riot police hotline, you can call them and let them know what’s going on over here—!”
Doldorad wanted to kill this fool right then and there, but for now, he had to play the part of the chief of Taiwan’s police department. It would be a shame to reveal his identity here.
“I’ve been calling them since earlier but I think there’s jamming in the area.”
The same was true for smartphones and other non-network dependent radios.
There must be equipment around here that neutralizes military frequencies.
“Damn it, where is the Fallen Archduke?
Wiping out those terrorists wouldn’t be difficult, but then came the problem. If he acted now and took them out, he’d have to kill everyone in this place.
It was too much to ask that the work of the Fallen Archduke should be judged by him, not even by the Archdemons.
‘We have to get in touch with the outside world somehow!’
As Doldorad searched high and low for a way out, a door burst open and a familiar face appeared.
“Your Majesty?”
It was Leon, who looked around the room and then stepped right into the middle of it.
‘He didn’t realize who I am?’
Doldorad swallowed hard in fear as the most prolific demon slayer stood before him but then he grasped the bracelet on his wrist like a lifeline.
‘It can’t be! I’m wearing a magic-hiding artifact crafted by the Archdemons of Wisdom and Exploration, and not even he can see through it!’
This was why there were so many demons in Leon’s presence.
Developed and distributed by the Wisdom Goblin Archdemon, these artifacts that suppress and conceal magical energy were supplied in large quantities by the American Demon Master Reynald Sherman.
They would be consumed in real time in front of Leon, a powerful divinity, but that meant they could escape Leon’s intuition until the artifacts were destroyed!
“Let’s start with this room.”
Leon summoned a grail from subspace and focused his power into it──
-Pow!
A wave of light spread through the room and struck Doldorad.
“Kuchek!”
The holy water from the Holy Grail, the raw material for the holy gas, the undiluted and intact wave literally killed Doldorad, a high-level demon.
“Chief Huang Yanfei?!”
“No way, the chief is a demon!”
The ministers were stunned that the high-ranking official sitting next to them was a demon while Leon pointed his holy sword at the trembling Doldorad.
“Time to go, you filthy thing.”
“————.”
As the holy sword struck, Doldorad thought to himself.
‘He’s such a fucking bastard.’
