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Without a doubt, South Korea was the country that managed to halt monster invasions with minimal casualties.

This was thanks to multiple factors working together – high population density, strong military power relative to land area, and an obsession with firepower to the point of being nicknamed “Fort Artillery.”

However paradoxically, Korea wasn’t considered a particularly safe country.

The reason was North Korea.

Outdated weapons proved ineffective against monsters, and the dictator made the critical mistake of concentrating all defensive capabilities including Contractors in Pyongyang for his own safety. Despite taking the extreme measure of using nuclear weapons on their own soil, North Korea couldn’t survive past the initial stages and fell.

With North Korea occupied by monsters, there was no way the country directly below could be seen as safe.

Then which country was considered the safest in the world?

It was Japan.

“Welcome to Japan, Mr. Carlos.”

“Thank you for the welcome.”

Carlos received his passport from the immigration officer with a smile.

As Carlos walked through the airport, what he felt were hostile gazes directed at him.

Though they smiled on the surface, everyone from civilians to staff watched him with a strange wariness and animosity.

“Carl! Over here!”

“Donovan.”

Greeting Carlos as he emerged from the immigration gate was a middle-aged man holding a sign with his name.

The friendly atmosphere between the two men chatting like old acquaintances completely changed the moment they got into the car waiting outside the airport.

In place of the warm mood, a heavy silence fell until Donovan spoke first.

“Was your journey comfortable, Boss?”

“The trip was fine, but seeing the people soured my mood. Everyone staring made me feel like a monkey in a zoo.”

“This country was already somewhat hostile to foreigners, and security has become unstable due to a large influx of foreigners since monsters appeared.”

Japan was considered the safest country in the world due to its geographical nature as an isolated island nation.

There was no concern about monsters infiltrating from outside through land routes.

The only threats were monsters appearing within Japan itself and marine monsters – the former could be handled by Japan’s hero, Weapon Master Ryuhei, while the maritime self-defense force was sufficient for the latter.

As a result, people increasingly viewed Japan as humanity’s final bastion in a worst-case scenario, leading to an influx of people seeking refuge there.

“The investigation?”

“Here it is.”

Carlos quickly flipped through the thick stack of documents that could be mistaken for a book.

He didn’t need to read the half about Ryuhei.

No matter how much civilians investigated, they couldn’t know even a tenth of what he knew as a fellow user.

What he needed to look at wasn’t information about Ryuhei but about Japan.

‘It would be so much easier to just destroy it.’

The titles Three Strong, Three Intermediates, and Three Weak were merely classifications users made for convenience based on the single aspect of strength. Even Three Weak, considered the weakest, were beings beyond comprehension to ordinary people.

Kang Changseok could temporarily manifest transcendent power through divine possession.

Given enough time and resources, Sophia could create weapons capable of destroying humanity – not metaphorically, but literally.

The same applied to himself, though weakened from excessive item usage depleting his karma and incurring numerous penalties.

Destroying a country would be trivial – just blow up some nuclear power plants, spread nuclear waste around, and launch terrorist attacks on leadership and infrastructure to collapse administrative functions.

But his client’s request wasn’t to destroy Japan, but to create incidents that would draw global attention.

‘It really would be much easier to just destroy Japan.’

Though it was a troublesome request and an act of betrayal against humanity, he had no intention of giving up.

Yvonne.

His other half.

For her sake, he could do anything.

Carlos’s hand stopped as he was flipping through documents.

“A-rank hunters? The Ten Swords?”

“Ten people who received weapons from Weapon Master Ryuhei. Though not comparable to heroes, they’re far superior to Contractors.”

“Of course they are.”

The weapons the Ten Swords wielded in the photos were among the highest ranked ones in Ryuhei’s possession.

Additionally, their armor appeared to be cutting-edge equipment made by Sophia herself.

Naturally, they couldn’t be weak.

“Hmm.”

Carlos carefully examined the photos of the Ten Swords.

Though he felt they could be useful somehow, that alone wasn’t enough.

No matter how strong, they were just Contractors.

Even all ten together couldn’t defeat a single user.

‘They might be somewhat useful if I trigger their latent potential with mystic pills. But that would only draw attention briefly – it wouldn’t last long. I need a bigger incident.’

After stroking his mustache for a while, Carlos took out a green seed the size of a child’s head from his subspace.

The World Tree seed he had received as a quest reward long ago.

The only issue was that it wasn’t an ordinary seed but a corrupted one.

“I can roughly guess what will emerge, and I had no use for it anyway, so might as well use it here. And…”

Japan would suffer severe damage from this incident.

With Europe destroyed and Japan being one of the few countries capable of producing advanced materials and components, damage to Japan would pose a major threat to humanity – but that wasn’t his concern.

A world without her held no meaning anyway.

* * *

Deep in the mountains where no one ventured.

Altars were set up everywhere space allowed – mountaintops, clearings, boulders.

The number reached a hundred.

And atop the highest peak overlooking all of them, Yuseong and Alice were alternately observing the subtly different altars while constantly writing something on a tablet.

The recording that seemed endless finally concluded after the sun disappeared beyond the horizon and darkness fell over the world.

“Urghh!”

“Mr. Yuseong, aren’t you pushing yourself too hard?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

Alice worriedly watched Yuseong as he waved off her concerns.

Unlike herself who no longer needed sleep thanks to obtaining a mechanical body, Yuseong was still human made of flesh and blood, no matter what superhuman powers he had gained.

For nearly a month, Yuseong had barely eaten or slept, obsessively recording information about the altars as if possessed.

When Yuseong suddenly collapsed, her heart nearly stopped, and she was shocked again when he immediately resumed observing the altars after regaining consciousness.

“…Is this really that important?”

Alice reviewed the energy flow and distribution patterns she had recorded so far.

The conclusion was always the same.

The energy movements around the altars were interesting but nothing special.

‘Irregular flows that can’t cause even the tiniest change in reality.’

In Alice’s opinion, everything they had done so far was completely meaningless.

Yet she hadn’t stopped Yuseong for two reasons.

One was how incredibly serious Yuseong was about it.

The other was the difference in their records.

Despite using the exact same Eye of Truth to observe, Yuseong’s records were completely different from her own.

Of course, Yuseong’s records also showed meaningless irregular flows, but that was where the similarity ended.

Meanwhile, Yuseong was too focused on the screen to notice Alice’s gaze.

‘This is the result of nearly a month’s work.’

The tablet contained observation records of various Sun-Moon Rituals.

When he played the image files as video, geometric patterns like viewing the transformation realm unfolded.

The karma flows he had observed.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still missing.

“Alice, can I see your records for a moment?”

“Here you go.”

What Alice had recorded were pure energy flows.

After observing only karma flows for the first few days and realizing he couldn’t find any patterns, he had asked Alice to record energy flows.

Karma and energy.

No matter how carefully he examined both flows, they appeared irregular and chaotic.

But shortly after, Alice’s eyes widened slightly.

“Mr. Yuseong, this…”

“Do you see something – a pattern, maybe?”

“…Yes.”

When the two videos were overlaid, order emerged from chaos.

They could find consistent harmony within the irregularity.

This wasn’t understanding karma.

That would fall into the category of enlightenment.

Though it was just intuition, he felt that fully understanding karma’s essence would lead to transcendental awakening.

What Yuseong had discovered were patterns.

Patterns like how karma reacted to surrounding energy, how it flowed based on concentration levels.

‘This is enough.’

You don’t need to understand a car’s structure to drive it.

You don’t need to know a medicine’s ingredients to receive its effects.

The same applied to karma.

Complete understanding wasn’t necessary.

Knowing its characteristics and the laws governing its movement was sufficient.

‘While I can only observe karma, I can’t manipulate it directly. Then…’

Woong.

The Infinite Origin Force gathering at Yuseong’s fingertips extended toward the altar and began wrapping around the karma.

No, “wrapping” was too simplistic a description.

Right now, Yuseong was recreating the complex energy flows occurring in the Sun-Moon Ritual.

‘Increase the distance by 0.02mm, accelerate circulation by 3.2%, no, 3.21%, create a tiny difference in rotation periods between top and bottom…’

Though the internal energy Yuseong was currently manipulating wouldn’t even reach 10 points if converted, his entire body was drenched in cold sweat.

While the amount of internal energy wasn’t much, the mental energy required to focus on such precision was on a completely different level.

It was like trying to write on dust with a needle.

Not grains of rice, but dust.

In other words, it meant doing something realistically impossible.

And Yuseong was achieving that impossible feat right now.

“Oh my…”

Alice, watching from behind, couldn’t help but gasp.

Though Alice also possessed Eye of Truth, she couldn’t even dream of attempting the level of control Yuseong was demonstrating.

If she was handling energy by the handful, Yuseong was manipulating it at almost the atomic level.

And through the subtle energy interactions, some of the sun, moon and star essence gathered at the altar collected above Yuseong’s palm.

Though he felt nothing, there was a strange sense of fullness.

“…”

Though it felt nonsensical even to himself, no other expression came to mind.

After being lost in thought briefly, Yuseong mixed the karma with Infinite Origin Force and released it.

Thud!

A clear fist mark appeared on the tree before him.

The power matched exactly the internal energy input, but there was one difference.

With the impact point as a boundary, half the tree trunk was visibly recovering vitality at an accelerated rate, while the other half was dying instantly.

[You have acquired Karma Operation(EX)]

[User Han Yuseong has met the conditions to reach divini… #@%&^Σ%.]

[User Han Yuseong has not met the conditions.]

[^Yu*** has %#! *& reached div1… #@%&^Σ%.]

[Critical error detected in Deus Ex Machina program.]

[Please wait a moment.]

“…What is this?”