D.I.O

Chapter 207

Rumble.

The sound of distant people’s footsteps could be heard. The oncoming crowd encircled Yongno’s house along the outside fence while others remained stationed at his front gate. Overall, the atmosphere was a little tense, and there were a considerable number of people gathered.

Ring~!

Then, the doorbell rang. Yongno’s home was surrounded and seemingly under siege, and there, at the front door, stood a young, handsome man in a business suit.

“Who are you?”

“I’m from the Korean NIS (National Intelligence Service). Are you Yoon Yongno?”

“What’s this about?”

Yongno’s voice had a hint of annoyance. He had expected that the Korean government would try to coax him to join their side. Without a doubt, any offer they could muster would inevitably fall short of the one presented by the United States. In terms of financial and political power, Korea and the United States weren’t comparable.

However, a NIS employee came to his house along with a large number of armed troops. This showed that the Korean government’s ‘upper decision-making branch’ had an entirely different thought process than Yongno.

‘Are they planning on containing me? They’re banking on the fact that I can’t manifest 24/7, huh?’

Regardless of Yongno’s wariness, the NIS employee tried to reassure Yongno and alleviate his concerns.

“We didn’t come because you did something wrong, so you don’t have to worry. I came to extend a Blue House invitation to all Masters within Korea and to escort you to the Blue House myself.”

Despite the agent’s words, based on the troops he brought with him, he and the government, by extension, were somewhat afraid of Masters. Since Korea had more than 60 million DIO users, there was no way government officials were unaware of DIO and a Master’s power level. Even players between Levels 5 and 9 could wield considerable power, so Masters, the pinnacle of power amongst the users, would undoubtedly evoke fear from the government.

‘They’re idiots. If the government was planning on playing nice, they shouldn’t have brought their troops in the first place, but if they were going to bring them, they should have brought their entire army. Do they really think they can subdue a Master with these pitiful numbers?’josei

In Korea, two-thirds of the entire population played DIO, but even so, ordinary people would almost never meet Master level users and understand their true powers.

For example, there were only 12 Masters in Korea. To put this into perspective, this was 12 out of 60 million, so, in essence, there was one Master for every five million people. In terms of percentage, Master level users made up only 0.00002 percent of the entire Korean population. People were used to seeing Masters because they appeared on TV programs and commercials, but, in truth, Master level users were extremely rare, and people did not fully understand their skills and abilities.

‘Well, I guess Masters have become rarer after Scorpion’s death.’

In other words, even though a Master was formidable, general users only understood that Masters ‘must be strong’ and nothing more. If someone knew the true extent of a Master’s power, they wouldn’t have taken the foolhardy approach of bringing troops equipped with firearms to confront a Master. Moreover, Yongno was part of the Heaven above the Heavens; shouldn’t they know that he was overwhelmingly stronger than traditional Masters?

“Would you please wait a minute?”

“Of course.”

The NIS employee’s tone seemed to convey that he wanted Yongno to know he was relaxed. After listening to the NIS employee’s cheerful response, Yongno went to his basement. Once there, he crossed a wall and teleported into his laboratory.

He had recently installed a new instrument in his laboratory. It was an object similar in shape and size to a refrigerator and was divided into two compartments, an upper and a lower compartment. The lower compartment’s outer façade was filled with grain-sized letters, and there was a small one-carat jewel in the upper compartment.

“Argh! Human! Human bastard! Let me out from here! I’m sick of this place! Why are you torturing me… Ah!”

From the new instrument, a hellishly hot furnace that Yongno called Pathway to Hell, a frenzied voice was constantly yelling out. The Pathway to Hell was a power plant made using the foreign evil spirit that Yongno had previously captured; the instrument exerted spiritual pressure on the high-ranking evil spirit, turning its evil karma into energy.

Yongno had accidentally stumbled upon the idea of creating Pathway to Hell. Since Earth didn’t possess spiritual pathways, Yongno had been struggling to figure out a way to develop his spiritual abilities, but at that difficult moment, like a prayer being answered by the heavens, an evil spirit from another world showed up in front of him.

All of Yongno’s previous methods and attempts to gather energy had failed. He tried everything to reproduce the Seal of Heaven that Mary had carved on his forehead, but he found it impossible to recreate. The Seal of Heaven required such a high level of expertise that it was incomprehensible for Yongno. It may have been feasible if Yongno transcended and became a great mage, but otherwise, he could not imitate it.

At that time, Yongno fell into thought. Could mana truly not be controlled in a world with no spiritual pathways? Although spiritual pathways didn’t exist, humans on Earth certainly possessed souls. With the Seal of Heaven, Yongno could use his superpowers. Earth was a place where people should not have been able to use their supernatural powers, but it was not a world where mana didn’t exist. If spiritual energy could be produced and thus converted to mana or internal energy, people could harness this energy to actuate supernatural powers. Magic or martial arts could then be sufficiently utilized in the real world.

“Argh! Ugh! Human! You worm-like human! I’ll kill you!”

Within Pathway to Hell, a continuous scream erupted. It was a blood-curdling voice that would have made any average person lose sleep at night, but Yongno remained calm.

“Good. Make sure you keep up with that attitude. The more stubborn and malicious you are, the more helpful it will be for me.”

At present, the evil spirit was being tormented constantly in Pathway to Hell. The level of pain was more intense than burning one’s whole body with fire; how agonizing must that feeling be if it continued 24 hours a day without a break?

However, Yongno didn’t feel sorry for the evil spirit. This was because, while operating Pathway to Hell, Yongno realized that the evil spirit possessed an abundance of evil karma beyond imagination. How many vicious things did the evil spirit do to others during its lifetime? How was the evil spirit able to accumulate so much evil karma? The evil karma possessed was so bountiful that Yongno suspected the evil spirit must have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.

“Well, whatever. I’m glad it’s working. It seems to be running smoothly. If I had more time, I would have been able to gather enough energy to- huh?”

Yongno was examining the one-carat jewel in the upper compartment of the Pathway to Hell when he made a surprised expression. Unexpectedly, the jewel was full of energy, or more specifically, mana.

“Wow, this is much more effective than I anticipated. The efficiency rate of Pathway to Hell is excellent.”

Yongno didn’t know the whole story.

He had stumbled upon one of the Nether World’s top secrets, Hell’s Mechanism.

If a transcendent being somewhere in the universe had seen this sight, they would have fainted. The person running DIO, Tan, was no exception. If he’d seen this sight, he would have used any means possible to coerce and force Yongno into properly completing the Pathway to Hell. Tan wouldn’t have cared whether or not Yongno became transcended.

Of course, due to technical problems, Yongno couldn’t recreate hell, but even so, the small-scale hell he made could be considered a higher level of technology than the magic stone production that Leighann, the ruler of the Magic Tower of Babel, admired and even obtained a patent for.

“Hmm, since this is the case….”

Clink! Clink! Clink!

After taking the mana-filled jewel out of the upper compartment, Yongno retrieved a bunch of jewels he’d purchased in advance and arranged them in the upper compartment. These jewels had cost an exorbitant amount, but he could afford them because of the money he was making lately.

“Keep that spitefulness up.”

Yongno spoke encouragingly to the evil spirit, but the latter couldn’t hear anything. The evil spirit struggled in the blazing fire, so it could not access any information from the outside. The pain, loneliness, and anxiety the evil spirit suffered allowed Pathway to Hell to extract and output energy.

“Argh!”

As he disregarded the screams, Yongno moved upstairs. Eunhye was waiting for him in the living room with a serious expression on her face.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go with them. It should be fine.”

“Then I’ll also go….”

When Eunhye stepped forward, Yongno shook his head.

“No. No one knows that you’re a Master-level user in Korea, so you should continue hiding and accumulating more gem points. As for Youngmin… tell him to get to Level 10 as soon as possible. It probably won’t take him long.”

It was a reasonable, rational decision, but Eunhye seemed dissatisfied.

“It’ll be dangerous for you, though.”

“Have you forgotten who I am? I am Merlin Emrys.”

Yongno laughed confidently, but Yongno also knew he couldn’t ensure he’d be completely safe. If someone got lucky and somehow managed to land a critical blow on him, no matter how powerful Yongno was, he’d still perish. Although Yongno could use martial arts and magic, he wasn’t completely free from the threat of firearms because he had too little energy to work with.

“Then promise me that if anything goes wrong, you’ll wreak havoc and destroy everything. Honestly… I don’t trust them.”

Eunhye strongly distrusted state agencies. After all, she joined a top-secret US organization to seek revenge for Yongno after he was experimented on by a mysterious shadow organization when he was young. In her eyes, national governments and their organizations were shameless, evil, and unconscionable.

“Okay. You should be careful, too. Understand? Collect gem points whenever you have time.”

“… Alright.”

Yongno left the uneasy Eunhye and left his house. At the least, the armed men did not immediately rush to arrest Yongno as soon as he walked out. It seemed that the armed forces were put on standby as a precaution, as the NIS employee and the Korean government hoped to gather the Masters peacefully.

‘Along with the troops around my property’s boundary, snipers have been deployed. Their presence is so obvious that it’s hard to pretend I don’t see them.’

Yongno muttered these comments as he strode out of his house. And at the same time, he circulated his internal energy.

Woong.

He was utilizing the No Thoughts Gold Strong Technique. It was something he learned while tinkering with the martial art principles he was teaching Eunhye, and now, Yongno was using it to strengthen his body.