Chapter 239: The End Of The Dark Viper Guild [2.]

The moment Kael landed among them, chaos erupted.

His fist crashed into one man’s chest with enough force to cave it inward, sending the elite flying backward before he hit the ground, already dead.

Another lunged at him from the side, only for Kael’s fist to smash across his jaw and shatter it with a sickening crack. Before the man could even fall, Kael stepped forward and drove his knee into another man’s abdomen, folding him over the impact, then followed with an elbow that slammed directly into his temple.

The attacks came without pause, and one after another, the remaining elites fell beneath Kael’s relentless assault, their carefully formed line breaking apart within seconds.

Panic spread through their ranks.

Only moments ago, they had been confident. They had surrounded a single opponent with overwhelming numbers, believing that even if they couldn’t defeat Kael individually, they could bring him down through coordination and sheer force.

Now that confidence had completely disappeared, none of them had any left to face Kael. A few outright turned and ran.

But Kael didn’t allow that to happen. He moved to intercept them, his movements almost impossible to follow as his body blurred from one target to the next, leaving broken weapons, shattered armor, and fallen bodies in his wake.

Simon could only watch.

His guild was collapsing around him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

His weapon was gone. His strongest subordinate, Morgan, lay somewhere in the distance, his condition unknown.

The remaining elites were being slaughtered right in front of him, while the weaker members who had retreated to provide ranged support were nowhere to be seen. They had scattered the moment several strange creatures made entirely of shadow descended upon their ranks.

Simon gritted his teeth.

His throat was dry, his breathing ragged, and the reality of what was happening finally settled over him.

He looked at Kael, who stood among the bodies of his fallen guild members as though none of this had required any real effort.

His voice came out raspy.

"You really are a monster."

Kael turned his head toward him.

For a moment, the battlefield seemed to quiet.

Kael looked at Simon with an almost thoughtful expression before answering.

"I’m more than a monster. I’m Kael."

The moment the words left his mouth, a strange silence descended over the battlefield.

Even the dying seemed to pause.

Somewhere nearby, one of the badly wounded guild members opened his mouth as though he wanted to scream, but no sound came out. His eyes rolled backward, and he collapsed from what could only be described as an overwhelming attack of cringe.

Another wounded man witnessed it and immediately lost the will to live.

Simon himself felt the impact.

His face twitched.

For a brief moment, the sheer secondhand embarrassment nearly broke through the fear gripping his mind.

But he quickly forced himself to regain his composure.

There was no time for this.

With a furious roar, Simon charged forward.

He had nothing left to rely on, so he poured everything he had into one final attack. His remaining mana surged through his body, strengthening every muscle as he threw a punch carrying everything he had left.

Kael didn’t even bother dodging.

He simply reached out and caught Simon’s fist in his palm.

Simon froze.

Kael’s fingers slowly tightened around his hand.

Crack!

Simon screamed.

The bones in his hand shattered beneath Kael’s grip, the sound sharp enough to cut through the surrounding chaos. The pain was immediate and brutal, but before Simon could even recover, Kael stepped forward and drove his knee into his stomach.

The captain’s body folded around the impact.

Air exploded from his lungs as he doubled over, only for Kael’s rising elbow to slam into his chin and snap his head backward. Simon staggered, barely conscious, and Kael followed with a palm strike directly into his sternum.

BOOM!

Simon was launched backward like a cannonball.

His body tore through the wall of the warehouse, disappearing into the building as the enormous structure groaned under the force. A moment later, the damaged wall collapsed inward, followed by a thunderous roar as a large portion of the warehouse gave way beneath the impact.

Dust and debris erupted into the air.

Kael stood in the center of the ruined lot.

Around him, the members of the Dark Viper Guild lay scattered across the battlefield. Most were already dead. The ones who remained were in such terrible condition that Kael no longer needed to waste any effort on them.

The shadow constructs would take care of the rest.

Kael turned his attention toward the collapsed warehouse.

From beneath the rubble, something moved.

Simon stirred weakly.

He tried to push himself upright, but his arms gave out almost immediately. He slumped against a broken beam, barely managing to remain conscious. His silver armor had been reduced to little more than shattered pieces clinging to his body, and even those remaining fragments were beginning to rot away under Kael’s Aura of Destruction.

But the armor wasn’t the only thing deteriorating.

The corrosion had begun creeping across his body as well.

The injuries he had sustained during the battle had created weak points, allowing the destructive aura to seep through the cuts and openings in his body and into his flesh. His skin slowly darkened and decayed around the wounds, causing Simon to grit his teeth against the pain.

He looked toward Kael.

The pride and defiance that had filled his eyes earlier were gone.

What remained was fear.

Pure, helpless fear.

"Wait."

His voice trembled.

"Name your price. Wealth, women, territory, anything. You can have it all. Just spare my life."

Kael began walking toward him.

His footsteps were calm as they carried him across the ruined battlefield.

"Your men attacked someone close to me."

Simon swallowed.

Kael stopped in front of him.

"Do you really think whatever wealth or compensation you offer can remedy what they’ve done?"

Simon clenched his teeth.

Inside, he cursed Morgan for dragging him into this situation, but there was no point dwelling on it now. His only concern was surviving.

"The Dark Viper Guild possesses powerful healers," Simon said desperately. "They can patch up any damage. Whatever happened to your friend can be repaired."

Kael stared at him for a moment.

Then he shook his head.

"Well, I don’t think so."

He looked over his shoulder.

By now, the shadow constructs had finished

The last remaining members of the Dark Viper Guild had fallen beneath the shadow constructs, leaving the battlefield completely silent.

Simon slowly followed Kael’s gaze.

He couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of loss as he looked at the scene before him.

The Dark Viper Guild was everything he had built. It started small.

In the much earlier days of the apocalypse, not long after the Hunter Association had first taken control, the world had been chaotic. The sudden appearance of superhumans had thrown society into complete disorder, and the Hunter Association in those days was still far too underdeveloped to properly control them all.

People had suddenly gained powers far beyond what ordinary humans could possess, but gaining power hadn’t made humanity any better.

It had only given people more tools to do evil.

Gangs and criminal organizations quickly began to rise. Some grew powerful enough to control entire cities, becoming forces that even the newly established Hunter Association struggled to suppress. The Viper Gang had been one of those organizations, though compared to the truly massive criminal syndicates, it had been relatively small.

And it had belonged to Simon’s father.

Simon had grown up around the gang and understood its structure better than most. Eventually, however, he decided that his father wasn’t capable of taking it any further.

So Simon overthrew him.

He took control of the Viper Gang and began rebuilding it according to his own vision. One of the first things he did was give it a new name.

The Dark Viper Gang.

The reason was embarrassingly simple.

Black was his favorite color.

At the time, he hadn’t thought much of it. It was just a name. Something that sounded intimidating enough for a criminal organization.

But years passed, and Simon poured everything he had into that organization.

He expanded its influence, recruited stronger Awakeners, established connections, and slowly transformed the small gang his father had once led into something far greater.

At the same time, the Hunter Association was growing at an incredible rate. Its authority expanded alongside its strength, and eventually, it began its campaign to bring the remaining gangs and criminal syndicates under control.

The larger organizations suffered first.

The ones with their heads sticking too far above the surface were targeted relentlessly, their territories seized and their leaders either arrested or killed. Many of the infamous gangs and syndicates that had once controlled entire regions disappeared during that period.

The Dark Viper Gang survived.

Not because it was stronger than the Association.

Because Simon knew how to keep it hidden.

But he also understood that hiding forever wouldn’t be enough. Eventually, the Association would find them, and when that happened, everything he had built would come crashing down.

So Simon made another decision.

He abandoned the name Dark Viper Gang and transformed the organization into a legitimate Hunter Guild.

That was how the Dark Viper Guild was born.

From that point onward, Simon had spent years pushing it forward. He wanted the Dark Viper Guild to become one of the strongest guilds in the world, something powerful enough that nobody would dare look down on them.

He had worked for years to achieve that.

And now, all of it was lying in ruins.

Simon stared at the bodies scattered across the battlefield, his chest tightening.

All those years.

All that effort.

Everything he had built from the ground up was being destroyed because one man he had placed second only to himself had gone and offended someone they should never have provoked.

Simon felt his teeth grind together.

He wanted to curse the man.

He wanted to ask what the hell Morgan had been thinking when he decided to drag an S-rank Hunter into their affairs. He wanted to blame him for everything that had happened.

But even that wouldn’t change the reality before him.

The Dark Viper Guild was finished.

Simon slowly raised his eyes toward Kael.

The young man stood in the middle of the devastation with an expression that showed no mercy.

Simon understood then that he would be joining the others soon.

There was no way someone like Kael would simply walk away and leave him alive after everything that had happened.

For the first time in years, Simon felt completely powerless.

His gaze drifted across the ruins once more.

Why?

Why was heaven so cruel to him?

He knew he wasn’t a good person. He had killed people. He had ordered others to kill. He had built his organization through blood and fear, and never pretended otherwise.

But couldn’t he just catch a break?