FVN Chapter 367: Survival Strategy (2)
Chapter 367: Survival Strategy (2)
Chapter 367: Survival Strategy (2)
After finishing the night walk with his master, Kang-hoo washed up and lay down on the bed.
When he woke up, he would be departing for North Korea for the first time in a while.
The former North Korean land—an unknown world with far more that he didn’t know than he did—had always been an object of curiosity.
He felt excited.
He looked forward to what his master would teach under the name of training, and to adapting within a special environment.
A land full of curiosity, and traveling with the master who made him anticipate training more than anyone— of course he felt thrilled. With Ju Haemi also joining them, he had someone to observe as well.
He lay down to sleep.
But sleep didn’t come at all, so Kang-hoo kept staring at the paper.
‘Is it better to leave it as-is?’
The information Celestial Assassin had given him was so weighty it might as well have been classified.
To most people, even if it got out, the reaction would amount to “So what?”
But to Kang-hoo—who knew of the Thirteen Stars—it was something he could never overlook.
‘In the original, Elizabeth never betrayed them to the end. But that cannot be equated with “good.”’
Many scenarios came to mind.
One certainty was that, up to the ending, Elizabeth never revealed the power behind her.
She left not even the smallest clue, never once muttered a secret monologue. There was no mention at all.
‘It might have been because she had no reason to betray them.’
To betray, or to show one’s true colors, you needed a reason.
Without motive, there was no need to reveal anything—you could just let things flow.
In other words, the result might have turned out exactly the way Elizabeth wanted: the Demon King ending.
‘I have no reason to doubt my master’s information.’
Kang-hoo usually didn’t trust anything at a clean 100%, but this time he believed Celestial Assassin.
It was something he had written while facing the end of a terminal life—wanting the record to remain even if he disappeared.
A man at death’s door wouldn’t fill his “will” with lies.
He wasn’t the type to spout delusions, either.
Celestial Assassin managed himself meticulously and weighed every word—he would never have done that.
Because of this single sheet of paper, the colors and grain of the visible world felt completely different.
It was like leaving a well and stepping outside; with one word, an entirely different world appeared.
‘Elizabeth watched Jang Si-hwan, yet never mentioned the force behind her. That means the Demon King ending was the ending she wanted.’
The pieces began to fall into place.
‘Wanting the day of the Demon King’s descent implies the force behind her wanted the same. And that force was Red Eyes.’
More pieces aligned.
How would it look if he put together the remaining details as well?
‘The group Red Eyes belongs to wants the Demon King’s advent. I don’t know if Red Eyes, Purple Eyes, and the Yellow Eye symbolized by An Hui-yoon are all linked...’
He couldn’t rule out the possibility that the eye-symbol organizations formed a vast hidden hand. For now, it was conjecture.
And they shared only the eye motif. He couldn’t be sure that Red Eyes (as his master had said), the Purple Eyes tied to the Shinto Guild’s incident, and the Yellow Eye he had experienced from An Hui-yoon were the same.
Groups using eyes as symbols weren’t unique—Lee Ye-rin’s Cheong-an mercenary corps did the same.
‘This just got troublesome.’
Unlike Takashi and Emilia, he had not thought Elizabeth would be easy to recruit.
Still, compared to an extremist like Vincent Meyer or someone like Chae Gwanhyeong, she had seemed less collision-prone.
But if things were moving this way, then after Jang Si-hwan, Elizabeth might be the next most dangerous.
Especially if her “halo” was backed by something that could even nullify attempts to eliminate her.
Removing her physically—or excluding her—would be difficult. It might even backfire.
‘Since I even saw Ranbir Kumar on the return flight, it’s Jang Si-hwan’s turn for a while.’
He pressed his throbbing forehead.
He had seemingly succeeded in prying Takashi and Emilia somewhat away from the Thirteen Stars. Yu Cheonghwa would also be physically detached for the time being.
But if his understanding of Elizabeth’s essence had changed, and if Ranbir joined the Thirteen Stars early— he would need finer strategy, and to accelerate where acceleration was needed.
For example, dragging Vincent Meyer—whose clash was imminent—into a duel even earlier.
Easier said than done; that meant killing a member of the Thirteen Stars.
If he fought Vincent, he would have to risk his life and use every means available. There was no second plan for that one.
“The moonlight is obnoxiously bright.”
Glaring at the bright moonlight seeping through the window, Kang-hoo irritably pulled the blanket up over his face.
It was a night that multiplied things to worry about.
Before dawn, a torrential downpour made the heavy darkness even more desolate.
There had been a forecast of guerrilla downpours, but even considering that, the rainfall and strong winds were beyond imagination.
For that reason, the fighting around Dongducheon had been forced into a lull.
It wasn’t an agreement— but the warlord group The Abyss and the Jeonghwa Guild both pulled back their front lines in low-lying areas to prepare for contingencies.
Meanwhile, Lee Hyun-seok quietly convened a full executive meeting of The Abyss.
Present were his right-hand man Park Sang-oh, his cousin Min Su-hyun, and many executives who had shared life and death.
Every executive who could come had come. All were veterans who would be buried with The Abyss.
In recent days, Lee Hyun-seok had carried out special operations to suddenly remove several executives.
He hadn’t gone on a random rampage—he had eliminated those with clear signs of betrayal.
The moves had been lightning-quick; the traitors had no time to run.
Among them was one who, to bargain his paltry life, babbled about conversations he’d had with the Jeonghwa Guild.
He had expected such things—so he wasn’t particularly shocked.
Conversely, The Abyss also had a planted insider and turned traitors within the Jeonghwa Guild.
Deceiving each other and planting moles had become routine; it wasn’t even a novel strategy anymore.
So Lee Hyun-seok often leaked information in reverse—operating on the premise that his own would leak.
The Jeonghwa Guild had recently suffered a classic case of that.
By making them misread which force was the main attack and which the supporting one, they had caught the Public Safety Bureau off guard.
In that battle, Deputy Chief Bong Seong-pil’s youngest brother had died—a miserable end, begging for his life to the last.
The meeting was in its final stage.
They had already celebrated The Abyss’s improved morale after a string of victories, and Haeyeong Guild’s defection.
Now, as a closing topic, they were about to discuss the direction The Abyss should choose going forward.
Lee Hyun-seok spoke.
“Let’s pull out now. The Public Safety Bureau is drained, and Haeyeong Guild has withdrawn—we’ve fed them every counter we can.”
Silence fell.
In The Abyss, Lee Hyun-seok’s decisions served as absolute standards.
That was why the Jeonghwa Guild disparaged The Abyss as a dictator’s criminal organization.
But Lee Hyun-seok had always judged rationally and chosen cautiously, strategically.
Knowing better than anyone how the leader decided and deliberated, not one member objected.
After moistening his throat with chilled water, Lee Hyun-seok continued.
“The enemy’s overheated. They even called in the Fortuna Guild from across the sea; the board gets bigger like this. And there will be groups trying to curry favor with those two guilds, swelling their ranks.”
“...”
Everyone nodded.
Even while drunk on victory, they hadn’t forgotten to stare down cold reality.
The Abyss still had inferior numbers, and on open ground, a frontal engagement was overwhelmingly unfavorable.
As their line had been pushed back little by little, The Abyss had also been exposed to hostile terrain.
“We wait until their temperature drops and steam vents. Plus, we’ve got a chance to grow our allies. Myeongga Guild reached out.”
He then brought up the Myeongga Guild, which had recently moved its base to the Gangwon region.
He envisioned building ties with them—and, on a larger scale, creating allies in Daejeon as well.
If he could find the right points of contact, he calculated they might even join hands with Cheong-an Mercenary Corps, a key Daejeon power.
5:00 a.m.
Three hours before the scheduled departure time, Kang-hoo woke early, warmed up, and finished preparing to leave.
He hadn’t slept much, but perhaps because what sleep he got was deep, his condition was excellent.
He lacked no consumables—the prep was perfect. There was just one more thing he wanted to bring.
Specs.
He had reason to be greedy: he had three Hematite from monopolizing the Margarita raid.
Hematite had many uses.
But the number-one investment target was the cuirass.
Since his goal was to complete the Corruption set effect, upgrading the existing set item’s tier was a guaranteed win.
Set items produced additional synergy among themselves.
And whether the existing set item was Tier 2 or Tier 1 changed the scale and breadth of that synergy.
His current Corruption series cuirass, Stigma of Corruption, was Tier 2.
According to the cuirass’s “Craving” option, investing three Hematite would let him upgrade straight to Tier 1.
Recently, with Carapace Transformation linked to his suit, protecting his upper body had become easier.
So, if the cuirass’s options improved as well, the stability of his upper body would be beyond perfect.
‘My thirst for Hematite hasn’t changed a bit—then or now.’
It was extremely hard to obtain, yet there were so many meaningful ways to use it.
He did know one trick for acquiring it in bulk, but the conditions were tricky, so he had been cautious about it.
For one, the stage wouldn’t even be in Korea, but overseas—Britain—where his connections were limited.
So he hadn’t dared to start it yet.
If he were to begin, meeting Ganiere and Melissa of the Spitfire Guild would be the first step. The road was long.
Kang-hoo checked the cuirass’s item information and temporarily linked the three Hematite.
That way he could preview the post-upgrade options.
“My Anti-Magic and Toughness jump a lot.”
Since the cuirass was a defensive item, the stats rose heavily in that department
The total increase was enough to clearly feel the difference between Tier 2 and Tier 1.
But that was only “secondary.”
The “core” lay elsewhere.
One of the special options granted by the upgrade was a perk that completely defied his expectations.
“This... comes from here?”