The atmosphere in front of the fortress wall of The Gun Shop was deathly silent. Only the low moan of the freezing wind whispered past the headless corpse of Dong-su. Thick red blood seeped into the cracks of the concrete floor.
Sergeant Choi, Tae-sik, and Hee-jin knelt on the icy concrete. Their trusted weapons lay discarded beside them. The arrogance of former special forces had been crushed to dust by a single man in a suit. Yet their terror was far from over…
Thud… thud… thud…
The crisp sound of Italian leather shoes echoed from behind the half-open steel gate. A tall young man stepped out of the shadows. He was the true king of this kingdom—Kang Shi-hun.
The moment Shi-hun emerged into the open, the blood-red neon glow from the rooftop sign bathed his face. Sergeant Choi and his team stared with eyes so wide they nearly bulged from their sockets. Their breath hitched. They looked back and forth between "Clone Number One," who stood with a cutting smile, and "Kang Shi-hun," who walked forward radiating overwhelming power and pressure.
"Two of them…? Same face, same clothes, exactly…" Hee-jin whispered, voice trembling. Her mind refused to accept what she was seeing. "What kind of monster are we fighting…?"
Shi-hun stopped beside Clone Number One. His pitch-black eyes—cold as the abyss—swept over the three kneeling former soldiers.
"Number One says you're soldiers…" Shi-hun spoke flatly, yet his voice pressed down on their shoulders like a mountain of stone. "Soldiers so hungry and desperate you came begging for scraps at someone else's door. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't put a gun to your heads and pull the trigger right now. It would save space on this earth."
Sergeant Choi swallowed thickly. Every survival instinct screamed that the man in front of him was not someone to threaten or argue with. He was a dictator ready to kill without blinking.
"We… have information…" Sergeant Choi forced the words out, eyes filled with despair. "Top-secret military intelligence… If you kill us, you'll never know what kind of madness is about to hit this city!"
Shi-hun raised an eyebrow slightly. He slipped both hands into his pockets. "Information? In a ruined world like this, what kind of information is valuable enough to trade for your lives?"
"The South Korean military… what's left of it and has consolidated power…" Sergeant Choi took a deep breath. "They're not trying to save the city or help survivors like they claim on the radio… They're executing 'Operation Clean Sweep.'"
Shi-hun's eyes narrowed. "Operation Clean Sweep?"
"Yes…" Hee-jin cut in, voice shaking. "The army calculated that sending infantry in to clear areas was too costly. They're using high-yield chemical weapons… a new nerve-agent gas powerful enough to dissolve a monster's lungs. They're carpet-bombing from the outskirts, tightening the noose inward… and the next target is the heart of Seoul!"
Sergeant Choi nodded. "And the worst part… the gas doesn't kill every monster. The ones that survive and absorb the chemicals mutate again and go berserk. Right now, hordes of Catastrophe-level bosses and hundreds of thousands of frenzied zombies fleeing the southern poison clouds are migrating straight toward Seoul… straight toward you!"
Silence blanketed the plaza. Only the wind whispered. Clone Number One raised an eyebrow and whistled softly. "Wow… sounds like the apocalypse just got a sequel, boss."
Shi-hun stood motionless. His INT 15 mind processed the flood of data at lightning speed. The military was using chemical weapons. Berserk boss monsters were migrating and gathering in Seoul. The reinforced concrete wall and DShK heavy machine guns he possessed might be enough against ordinary zombies in the thousands… but against dozens of frenzied Catastrophe-level bosses at once, or against a real army with heavy weaponry… ordinary lead bullets would no longer suffice.
"Valuable and reasonable information…" Shi-hun said quietly. He gave Number One a small nod.
Number One smiled and picked up the soldiers' discarded K2 rifles. "The boss is always generous… Your information buys you one more day of life."
Shi-hun looked down at Sergeant Choi. "You will not enter my walls. Your new duty is to become 'scavenger dogs on the front line.' Take your Jeep and patrol a five-kilometer radius. Monitor the military's movements and the monster hordes. Report back to me every six hours… in exchange for food and clean water to stay alive."
Sergeant Choi and his team had no choice. They nodded frantically, all pride gone. Being watchdogs for a demon was better than becoming headless corpses on the concrete.
"Send them away," Shi-hun ordered Number One, then turned and walked back into Mega Mall Seoul without another glance.
A national-level threat was creeping closer. He had no time to rest. He needed power beyond ordinary guns.
Deep in the quiet executive suite on the third floor…
Kang Shi-hun walked straight to the glass table. He opened the golden system window. The new Level 4 feature he had received was not limited to giving clones personalities or disassembling vehicles. It hid one more secret—the most dangerous and powerful feature of all.
[Level 4 Feature: Biological Integration & Enhancement]
This feature allowed Shi-hun to take "mutant creature parts" he had collected and craft, upgrade, or fuse them with weapons and armor from the God's Shop, turning them into bio-weapons that defied the laws of physics.
"Ji-ah, Su-jin, Min-ah, Yu-jin—come to my room immediately," Shi-hun spoke into the radio.
Less than three minutes later, the four women in their executive suits—still dusted from overseeing construction—hurried in and lined up respectfully.
"Take off your suit jackets," Shi-hun ordered calmly.
The four women hesitated for a split second, but they had learned that the boss's commands were absolute. They removed their outer jackets, leaving only their shirts. Shi-hun did not look at them with lust. He simply gathered all four jackets and laid them on the glass table.
Then he opened his dimensional inventory and pulled out the "Catastrophe-level boss bone plates" from the giant monster he had killed with the RPG the other night. Thick, white-gray bone plates—stronger than steel—were placed on top of the pile of jackets.
"System… begin biological integration process," Shi-hun commanded.
[Materials detected: Catastrophe Bone Plate]
[Target detected: Custom Executive Suits × 4]
[Integration and enhancement process initiated… Lifespan cost: 40.0 days]
[Remaining lifespan: 379.5 days]
WHOOOOOOSH!
Golden and blood-red light flared above the table. The boss's bone plates trembled, then shattered into biological particles that surged into the fabric fibers of the four suits. The sound of threads twisting and compressing echoed like steel being forged in a furnace.
When the light faded, the four suits appeared again… but they were no longer ordinary cloth.
They remained pitch-black and deep charcoal, yet their surface now shimmered with a faint "bio-carbon sheen." They felt as light as feathers yet radiated terrifying durability.
[Item created: Praetorian Bio-Armor Suit × 4]
[Properties: Resistant to armor-piercing rounds, immune to chemical acid and boss-level claw scratches, 100% form-fitting to wearer]
"Put them on," Shi-hun nodded.
The four women picked up the bio-armor suits. The moment the fabric touched their skin, their eyes widened in shock. It clung perfectly and felt weightless, yet when Su-jin tested it by slashing her own sleeve with her machete… the steel blade glanced off without leaving a single scratch.
"God… this is stronger than military Kevlar," Su-jin breathed in awe.
"This is your reward for loyalty, and your new uniform as my personal Praetorian Guard," Shi-hun said. His black eyes locked onto them. "Real war is coming. The military and mutated boss monsters are heading here… You are my final line of defense."
"We will protect the boss with our lives!" The four women knelt in unison, loyalty burning brighter than ever.
"Go do your duty… I still have weapons to craft."
When the four women left the room, Shi-hun turned back to the table. He still had over three hundred days of lifespan left, and he needed to upgrade his own weapons and those for Clone Number One.
He opened the God's Shop and searched the materials he had disassembled and stored since the early days of survival.
[Purchase: Giant Zombie Rat Incisor × 2 | Cost: 10.0 days] (from Chapter 6)
[Purchase: K9 Alpha Bone Spike × 2 | Cost: 15.0 days] (from Chapter 11)
The biological materials, brimming with mutant energy, materialized on the table. Shi-hun placed two Glock 19 pistols and two Karambit knives (one set for himself, one for Number One) beside them.
"System… begin integration," Shi-hun commanded, voice thick with ambition.
[Integration and enhancement process initiated… Lifespan cost: 50.0 days]
[Remaining lifespan: 304.5 days]
WHOOOOOOSH!
This time the light flared brighter and more violent. The giant rat incisors—known for their piercing power—and the K9 bone spikes—razor-sharp enough to slice steel—shattered and fused into the Glock 19s and Karambits.
The sound of metal and bone grinding together rang out before falling silent.
When the storm of light vanished, new weapons of slaughter the world had never seen were born.
Both Glock 19 pistols now had segments of "blackish bone" fused into the frame and barrel. The barrels were slightly longer, with aggressive rifling.
[Item created: Glock 19 Pandora Custom × 2]
[Properties: Bullets coated with bio-energy for armor penetration, increased destructive power against thick armor, and internal tissue destruction effect]
The two Karambit knives had their steel blades coated and fused with mutant fangs and claws, turning them a deep black with crimson edges. The curved blades were now serrated like the fangs of a hellish beast.
[Item created: Karambit Blood Fang × 2]
[Properties: Sharp enough to cut steel, wounds caused by these blades cannot heal and will bleed continuously (Bleed Effect)]
Shi-hun picked up one Pandora Custom pistol in his right hand and one Blood Fang knife in his left. They felt perfectly balanced with his body, no longer like holding cold metal but like gripping living organs pulsing with killing energy.
The balcony door slid open. Clone Number One entered with his usual sadistic smile.
"Looks like the boss prepared new toys for me too…" Number One took the second set of pistol and knife. He twirled the Blood Fang at blinding speed, leaving crimson trails in the air. "Such beautiful art of death."
Shi-hun holstered the pistol under his suit jacket and slipped the knife into a hidden sheath. He buttoned his jacket, his pitch-black eyes staring out the window toward the dark horizon beyond the fortress walls of The Gun Shop.
"The military is coming. Chemical weapons will turn this city into hell. Hordes of frenzied boss monsters are migrating here…" Shi-hun spoke coldly, eyes burning with limitless ambition. "Let them all come, Number One…"
"Because our Gun Shop has just opened a brand-new catalog."
Full-scale war was about to erupt, and Kang Shi-hun was ready to set the price of life for every fool who dared step into his domain.