From Paju, he drove straight to Seoul and went into his training facility to practice his single-point explosion Spatial Slash.

He thought that he would train whenever he could, and so, he would use the Spatial Slash. There was no opponent, but he would know if he had succeeded or failed by looking at the shockwave.

Junhyuk started gathering the energy for the single-point explosion, and the living spirit ran back and forth, dropping the energy until it was ready. At that point, he extended his sword.

He wished for the single-point explosion to happen at the same time as the Spatial Slash, but the shockwave from the Spatial Slash came out as a ring.

“s.h.i.t.”

He had done it successfully once, but hadn’t been able to repeat it yet, so he inhaled deeply and waited for the Spatial Slash’s cooldown to end. As he gathered his breath, he practiced his swordsmanship.

There was no such thing as an end when training one’s swordsmanship. By improving his swordsmanship, he improved the success rate of his attacks. Junhyuk thought he had to go beyond the bounds of regular swordsmanship.

He wanted to practice his swordsmanship while accelerating, and he did so as he slowly extended his sword.

On Earth, he could change the speed of his sword from slow to fast as he wanted, but at the Dimensional Battlefield, that wasn’t possible. So, he had to train on how to read his opponents’ movements and on how to adapt his swordsmanship to them.

Unexpected enemy movements always exerted strain on his muscles, which were refined now, so even as they strained, Junhyuk was able to thwart his enemies’ movements. However, for that, the opponents couldn’t read his movements.

So, he had to wield his sword in unexpected ways, even so far as to doing it wildly to adjust to his enemies. For that reason, he also had to adjust his acceleration, but he also needed another way to attack.

Junhyuk needed more muscle ma.s.s than what he had now. He needed stronger muscles, like steel, but they also needed to be flexible like a jaguar’s.

Thinking of new ways to train his muscles, he exited the facility. Junhyuk washed himself and walked out into the living room, where Sarang and Eunseo were waiting for him. Eunseo had a few cameras with her.

“We are using these for the video conference.”

Looking at the cameras, he said, “Install them in my room.”

Eunseo stared at him for a moment and asked, “Did you meet with my elder brother?”

Junhyuk became curious by how she had known, and he nodded.

“How did you find out?”

“My brother doesn’t miss a chance to seize the moment.”

He nodded.

“I made a deal with him.”

“A deal?”

“He wanted to know the first monster area we’d attack, but we ended up deciding on the first three.”

“That’s not too bad. My brother will pay you handsomely.”

Eunseo knew Doyeol well. Doyeol had changed some time ago, but he still knew how to treat people well. He often paid more than necessary, and because of Guardians, Doyeol had become much more powerful.

Right now, Doyeol had enough money to ruin Junhyuk if he wanted to.

Eunseo looked Junhyuk over carefully and shook her head. She knew all about Junhyuk, and money alone wasn’t enough to ruin him.

Junhyuk had enough mana stones to change the course of the financial world. If he got paid properly by Doyeol, he wouldn’t be swayed by others.

He smiled.

“Once we finish hunting A-ranked monsters, we’ll come back.”

He and Sarang entered the training facility and pulled out their weapons.

“Today, for the first time, I was able to use the single-point explosion with the Spatial Slash.”

Shocked, Sarang stared at him.

“You got stronger.”

“I don’t know about that since I used it on B-ranked monsters, but the Spatial Slash did change.”

“What’s your success rate?”

“Now, about 50 percent.” Junhyuk smiled as the Wolf Warlord showed up in front of him and said, “I’ll show you.”

He ran toward the Wolf Warlord and used the Spatial Slash with the single-point explosion. The Wolf Warlord escaped the strike, but the spheric shockwave swept through it. The Spatial Slash hit the empty air, so he wasn’t sure, but it looked like the damage had increase. When the shockwave hit the Wolf Warlord, its arm was shredded like a used rag.

“Wait a minute.”

Junhyuk wanted to combine his swordsmanship with acceleration, and the Wolf Warlord was the perfect enemy for that. Even when using acceleration, the Wolf Warlord was fast enough to escape him.

He had to fight more erratically to deal with Wolf Warlords. When he started dealing with two at the same time, Sarang kept watch over the fight, prepared to enter the fray if he should find himself in danger. She was holding tightly to her orb.

—

The cameras had been installed in his room, and he could also see himself on a monitor. There was a second monitor so that he could see the video transmitted from the other side. That day’s conference involved representatives of every country and Guardians, so he paid a close attention to detail.

Junhyuk looked at the time. The conference would begin at eleven in the morning, and he turned on the monitor.

He had his back to the main camera, so that’s what the screen was showing, and he stood up and waited. The other screen came on, and he heard an announcement.

“The video conference is beginning now.”

When he heard that, he summoned his armor. He did that deliberately to show it to them, so that they wouldn’t doubt it was him.

After summoning the Dark Knight armor, he turned to face the screen slowly. He could see every one of the faces on the screen. There were about twenty of them, but there were others who couldn’t be seen on the screen. There should be about a hundred people present for the conference.

As he looked at the screen, he said, “Nice to meet you.”

Junhyuk had shown his powers as the Dark Knight, and there was video to prove it, so they all recognized him immediately.

“Nice to meet you. I’m from the U.S. Department of Defense. My name is Steve.”

Steve was from the US, a powerful nation, so he spoke first. Junhyuk simply stared at him, without replying, so Steve continued, “We were trying to get things done on our own, but we haven’t had any results. So, we decided to seek your opinion, which is why we called for this conference. You are the only one who’s destroyed a dimensional tear so far.”

He stared at Steve and said, “I must do one thing before deciding on which country’s monster area I’ll attack first.”

“Anything.”

“I must make a few teams,” Junhyuk said calmly.

“How many will be in a team?”

“They’ll be composed of ten at most. We’ll keep another five in reserve, but only ten will go inside a tear.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

He showed Steve the machine he had gotten from Vera.

“I’ll use this. They can transport anybody within a five-meter radius of it from within the tear out, so I need a number that will fit within that five-meter radius.”

Steve looked at the machine carefully and asked, “How do you operate it?”

Junhyuk pulled out a mana stone.

“Do you know what this is?” Only a few representatives recognized it, so Junhyuk explained, “This is called a mana stone. You can get it from monsters. To operate this machine, you’ll need mana stones, and the cost of use comes out to about $30 million.”

The representatives’ faces hardened, but Junhyuk continued, “You can’t find this machine anywhere on Earth, so I’ll charge fees for using them.”

“How much do you want?”

Junhyuk crossed his arms and said, “I’ll destroy all of the monster areas, so you should decide on the amount to pay me.”

Steve looked at the others, and the j.a.panese delegate spoke up, “Aren’t you ashamed to charge us money?”

Junhyuk stared at the j.a.panese delegate and asked, “Who would you be?”

“I am a brigadier general from j.a.pan. My name is Kaito.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how many of you know how dangerous it is to go inside a tear. I will risk my life, but I won’t do it for free.”

To protect life on Earth, the dimensional tears had to be destroyed, but he wouldn’t be a chump and just do it freely. The tears weren’t just his problem, and he also had to pay the members of the teams.

Kaito became silent, and Junhyuk spoke calmly, “I, myself, will decide on who will be on the teams. After making the teams, I’ll have them engage in actual combat before sending them into dimensional tears.”

Kaito scowled.

“You’ll be in charge of all of this?”

He did not express his distaste for the idea, but Junhyuk said, “You can make teams of your own and do what you like. We’ll talk later.”

After saying that, Junhyuk cut the feed. He had nothing to lose.

He got up and exited the room. They weren’t going to find out about his house. He had already told Ganesha and Elise to keep an eye out for any tracking mechanism. They wouldn’t be able to trace him.

However, he still wanted to move out. He had gotten a new place because it was close to Sarang’s school, and he was moving out that week.

After walking out, he looked at the files he had. Junhyuk wanted to make teams of ten people, and those people had to have some utility in dealing with monsters.

Some had to contain monsters, while others had to attack. The team combinations had to be excellent, and he would go over every member’s powers during the fight with the monsters.

Some might even have high-ranking attack powers and be able to deal with monsters, but they wouldn’t have any equipment yet.

He had to maximize their powers and create combos, and for that, he had to train them first.

The important thing was to keep them from panicking, but he also had to keep their cooldowns in mind.

“Problems.”

There were more than two hundred powered people, but he would pick them. If possible, he only wanted to make five teams out of the bunch, along with five extra reserve teams. After coming up with three teams, he touched his chin. He would go to the Champions’ Battlefield and upgrade his equipment even more before attacking the tears.

He was looking at the list when his phone rang. It was Eunseo’s number, and when he picked up, she said, “They’ve made a decision. They want another conference call.”