Chapter 232 - Alpha

The man is trembling. In his hand, he held a mana regeneration suppressor. Swallowing saliva under the demanding gazes inside, the man advanced.

His feet landed on the faintly glowing engraving. It was meant to absorb mana, but it had no effect on those who were awake.

An unconscious young man lay slumped in the center of the engraving.

Alpha of Akates. SS-rank guard.

He was stronger than anyone in this city, but now, his breathing was weak. He showed no signs of being awake, and perhaps due to the mana he had been deprived of, even the pressure he emitted had become blurry.

However, the Awakened man couldn’t hide his fear. He had heard countless times about the strength of high-ranking guards. On rare occasions, he had even witnessed it with his own eyes. Moreover, just a few days ago, Commercial District 2 had been completely engulfed in flames.

“Not a single building was left standing.”

Those who had seen it said so. As unfortunate as Alpha’s explosion was, it was lucky that it had happened in the dead of night. It was a commercial area where evacuation had been fully completed, so there were no civilian casualties. However, literally everything had been reduced to ashes, not a single speck remaining.

Even for the special buildings constructed to withstand attacks from medium-rank monsters, all that was left were a few traces. When a thick block of stone or iron held out like that, how many seconds could ordinary humans hold out in the presence of those flames?

You’d probably be a handful of ashes before you truly felt yourself burning. Although the man belonged to the Akates City Defense Agency, he hadn’t awakened, so he hadn’t encountered many high-ranking guards. It was the first time in his life that he had seen Alpha in person.

Lamenting his misfortune, he cautiously knelt beside Alpha.

“Ready!”

Alpha’s manager shouted. It was impossible to use a mana regeneration suppression item with active mana absorption. The item itself worked with mana, so not only would it not be effective, but there was a possibility it would break.

“Place the item at the bottom of Alpha’s engraving and activate it on my signal.”

“…Y-Yes.”

The trembling hand of the unawakened man fumbled over Alpha’s neck. His eyes landed on the inscription, dripping with mana with a faint red glow. As an SS-rank Guard, a strong protective inscription had been engraved, but the absorption power linked to the Mana Hole couldn’t be blocked, so the owner’s mana was continuously siphoned.

With a small sound, the item was placed under the engraving. He wanted to activate it immediately and run away, but if things went wrong, they would shoot him dead right after. His family wouldn’t be safe either.

“5, 4, 3.”

The countdown began, and shortly after the signal, the glow of the absorption engraving went out. The awakened man activated the item and fled backward, half-crawling. Almost simultaneously, the S-rank guards rushed toward Alpha.

“Shackle him first! Don’t let him use his inventory.”

Someone shouted, and the S-rank guards untied the ropes binding Alpha’s arms to his back. The ropes now binding Alpha were made of SS-rank monster byproducts, but they weren’t enough against the power of an SS-rank guard.

Another S-rank guard quickly wrapped Alpha in bindings operated by the man. They were shaped to cover not only the arms but also the hands, so he couldn’t use the inventory. When the arm bindings were almost completely tied, and his ankles were about to be chained.

“It’s done…”

Two narrowed eyes fixed on the S-rank guard who was tightening the last knot of the arm bindings. Beneath the tousled black hair, scarlet eyes moved. And at the same time.

“Ugh!”

The S-rank guard holding Alpha’s ankle received a strong kick. The S-rank guard pulling the arm bindings immediately drew his weapon and raised it. But Alpha moved faster.

His body, which had been lying helpless on the ground, rose in an instant, and his long legs coiled around the neck of the S-rank in front of him.

Crunch

With the sound of a bone breaking, the S-rank guard’s body collapsed. Thanks to his SS-rank equipment and SS-rank body, they barely clung to life. But they had completely lost the ability to fight.

“Shit, don’t let his arms loose!”

“What about the mana absorption engraving?”

“It’s out of his reach already! He can’t use his abilities, so grab him somehow!”

The Mana Hall wasn’t far away. Even if the mana regeneration suppression item had been placed, he would quickly regain his mana once he approached the Mana Hall.

The S-rank guard who was kicked against the wall drew his weapon. Using various aiming support and enhancement abilities to track the movements of the SS-rank Guard along the distance, they aimed and fired their mana rifles not at Alpha but at the exit. Since it was a mana weapon and not a regular weapon, the bullets fired silently and at great speed.

Boom!

Sharp fragments flew with a heavy sound. Alpha, who was about to head for the exit, quickly changed direction. Another S-rank guard, who was waiting for Alpha as he ran backward, lunged at him. They held a long knife in one hand and a gun in the other.

First, they threw the knife at Alpha. Perhaps they had applied a skill, because it shot toward him at terrifying speeds, trailing a faint light. Instead of blocking or hitting the knife, Alpha, with his arms bound, threw himself to the ground. Alpha’s fingers brushed against the ankle of the S-rank guard in an instant, and they hastily jumped into the air, firing their gun at Alpha below them.

The bodies of the two crossed, above and below. The shot left a hole in the ground. They had thought it would be difficult to dodge, but Alpha had already disappeared. At the same time, a bent knee slammed into the side of the airborne S-rank.

“Kuhk!”

They didn’t even have time to use their defensive abilities. Alpha’s knee kick struck the S-rank guard, followed by a foot strike to ensure the opponent was incapacitated. Against an attack like that, no matter how much protective equipment they wore, even the spine of an S-rank would be completely shattered.

Woooong-

Just before Alpha’s heel could fall on the S-rank lying on the ground, mana bullets shot out one after another through the air. As smoothly as water flows, Alpha kicked back and moved sideways to avoid the mana bullets. His fingers kicked the ground forcefully, and he jumped as if chasing after the S-rank guard trying to crawl backward. At the same time, another mana bullet flew to protect the S-rank guard.

But it was a trick. Alpha, who had jumped, kicked the wall with one foot and flew backward.

He had aimed toward the exit. The mana bullets and the S-rank guards rushed after Alpha, who had turned and ran along the wall toward the exit as if he had escaped gravity’s pull, but it seemed difficult to catch him.

Just as Alpha reached the exit.

Boom!

The door exploded with a blast. The thick door shattered into flying pieces, and a blast of hot air and strong pressure struck Alpha.

In the instant Alpha was pushed back, the S-rank guard pursuing him brandished their

Seeing the skill-bearing blade, Alpha spun. When Alpha grabbed the base of the sword with the restraints on his arm and pushed, the S-rank guard was startled, the knife twisted. The S-rank sniper was also surprised and shouted at them to be careful.

As the S-rank guard retreated, Alpha took a few steps back and looked toward the door. Two new S-rank guards entered through the broken door.

They were a red-haired man with a bulky build and a tall woman with silver hair.

"This has become troublesome. We're inside, so we can't push him back with firepower."

"Firepower? Against Alpha, things went out like a lit campfire."

They were guards protecting the Mana Hall and had been urgently called. As a result, all nearby S-rank guards gathered.

There were four besides the one unable to fight. Although there was a significant difference in ranks, even S-ranks could handle SS-rank monsters if enough S-ranks worked together.

Moreover, their opponent was unable to properly use their abilities due to the lack of mana, and their arms were tied.

“Considering Alpha’s rank, it’s shameful just to see him like this.”

Standing before the broken door, the redhead used his ability. Something like a white wave surged beneath his feet. Then, a transparent membrane formed around him, completely blocking the path outward.

“He can’t leave through the entrance, so relax and grab him!”

No matter how strong an SS-rank was, it was impossible to penetrate an SS-rank defense ability with bare hands when inside a field that reduced the target’s stats.

The two combined abilities could even stop attacks from SS-rank monsters, so the redhead’s shout was confident.

At the same time, he used a polishing ability on the silver-haired woman and another S-rank guard.

A sniper and a melee fighter. The silver-haired woman and the melee S-rank cornered Alpha, who found himself cornered trying to keep a reasonable distance from them.

His calm and cold crimson eyes stared them down.

“He doesn’t seem to have lost control. Hey, Alpha. If he’s maybe calmed down…”

Even before the silver-haired woman finished her sentence, Alpha raised a leg. Balancing himself on the other leg as if it were nailed to the ground, he forcefully swung the raised leg.

Kwang!

As his leg impacted fully, a kick with maximum force hit the wall. The silver-haired woman and the S-rank jumped, horrified, seeing spider-web-like cracks around the point of impact.

“Crazy, do you know what kind of wall that is?”.

“If he could break through it, it would be the passage leading to the Mana Hall!”

The two S-rank guards wielded their skill weapons to protect themselves from Alpha. Mana bullets were also skillfully fired to keep Alpha at bay.

Although Alpha was limited, with depleted mana and disabled inventory and arms, the two melee guards couldn’t attack freely because Alpha only moved near the cracked wall. If they did anything, he could help bring down the wall.

Furthermore, Alpha, who seemed to have reconciled with the loss of at least one of his arms, continued to push his bindings into the path of the weapons. If he kept this up, Alpha would have the advantage. Even with a mana regeneration suppression item, it was only a suppressor and couldn’t completely prevent his regeneration.

“Don’t you have more mana-absorbing items?!”

The alpha officers hiding in the corner shook their heads at the detection shout.

To begin with, mana-absorbing items that could work with SS-rank guards were rare, and all had been consumed last time it went out of control. That’s why they had asked Sigma of Sollemnis to suppress Alpha just in case.

What’s worse, guards with high-rank mana-absorption abilities couldn’t engage in combat. At this rate, they might lose Alpha. At that moment, when a strong sense of crisis hung in the air…

“Alpha! We have your hyung!”

One of Alpha’s supervisors, hiding in a corner, shouted. When they remembered what had been recorded in Alpha’s runaway status report and hastily threw out those words.

“…!”

Alpha’s eyes trembled. His cold red eyes momentarily clouded, as if dazed, and his movements dulled. It was only for a brief instant.

But experienced S-ranks wouldn’t miss that opportunity.

Kwadeuk!

A metal arrow shot out from the tip of the silver-haired woman’s finger and pierced Alpha’s leg.

The arrow, wrapped in an ability to ensure seizing the opportunity, transformed. The section protruding through his flesh stretched and split into two branches that coiled around Alpha’s legs as if grabbing them. The silver-haired woman pulled on the chain extending from the end of the arrow.

At the same time, the other S-rank also aimed without hesitation at Alpha’s remaining leg.

Alpha’s body collapsed forward. No matter how incredible an SS-rank Awakened was, he couldn’t stand with his legs immobilized.

“Ankle immobilization! Now.”

The redhead grabbed the thrown bindings and landed a stat-decreasing ability on the crumpled Alpha. The target was limited to Alpha alone, and the stat drop was maximized.

“Don’t touch me!”

The suppressed Alpha roared fiercely. His voice, like the cry of a wild beast, was filled with agitation and alarm.

“Prepare for the imprinting procedure!”

“Calm down, Alpha. We don’t want to hurt you.”

Alpha’s head was pushed down and gagged just in case. Two S-rank guards held him as his strength waned. The sound of scissors cutting part of his upper garment was heard.

An ability that reduced defense centered on a very small area was used on his exposed shoulders, and a special needle pierced his skin.

It was all so horrific it sent shivers down your spine.

Muffled gasps escaped his gagged mouth. For Alpha and for Han Yoohyun, it was the first time he had been humiliated like this.

Although he was young, having Awakened to S-rank, he had never been trampled so miserably. Moreover, Han Yoohyun hated being touched, to the point of having a phobia. After separating from his brother, that nature only grew more pronounced, so Seok Simyeong struggled to persuade him to style himself, and when Yoon Kyeongsoo recklessly tried to harass the S-rank youth, it backfired.

After reconciling with Han Yoojin, he softened to the point of allowing Park Yerim into his circle, but the touch of unknown hands remained horrifying.

‘…Hyung.’

Amidst his complex and furious emotions, a memory that wasn’t Han Yoohyun’s came to mind. It was the memory of Alpha, the owner of the body he had entered.

There was a corpse in front of Alpha. The corpse of the one who had cared for him, his Caretaker.

He wasn’t his hyung. He was of another gender. His Awakening abilities and his Caretaker title were also slightly different. Although Alpha had awakened to SS-rank, he had the title of ‘Passable Caretaker,’ awarded to those who raised A-rank Awakeneds.

However, it had thrown him into chaos. Just after landing here for the first time, he couldn’t bear the instability and lost control.

“It’s Alpha we’re using this on, so I don’t know how long the anesthesia will last.”

People’s hands moved busily. It was a procedure that slightly modified the protective imprint to give it the limited effect of a mana inscription. This would make it easier to extract Alpha’s mana and neutralize it in case of an emergency.

Over time, the effectiveness of the protective imprint would diminish, with an increasing probability of putting Alpha in danger, but at this moment, they had no other method.

Even though he had been given anesthesia, agony shot through his spine. But Han Yoohyun didn’t really feel it. His distorted, further shattered mind was only filled with thoughts about his hyung’s safety.

He had to go find him.

By hook or by crook, even if he had to crawl on the ground. He struggled to move his bound and restrained body, but he couldn’t move an inch.

He blinked helplessly, with damp lashes.

“It’s done!”

“Get rid of his mana right now!”

Han Yoohyun’s mana, which had slightly regenerated amidst the clamor of the people, was sucked back through the imprint. Alpha’s staff sighed over him as he lost consciousness.

“He’s recovering too fast.”

“Mana absorption was cut, and he returned to normal almost immediately… I think Alpha’s body may have adapted to absorption.”

“It’s only been a few days… Should we modify and carve the imprints again?”

Even so, as their imprints had been modified, it would be easier to master him than before. Just then, an employee from the City Defense Agency entered through the broken entrance.

“We’ve received a call from Sigma of Sollemnis. He has accepted our request to suppress Alpha.”

“…Is he coming now?”

They were puzzled, but still, if Sigma came, it would be easier to find out Alpha’s status. Alpha’s supervisors ordered for a response to be given to Sigma before he could change his mind.