Chương 143: Chapter 142: Astra and the Strawberry Ice Cream Disaster

Sejong Boulevard in central Seoul was buried under a sea of blazing red magma light. Black smoke billowed up, swallowing the skyline. At the center of the intersection, an Ancient Lava Beast, over eighty meters tall, its whole body sheathed in bubbling magma rock, swung its burning claws again and again, smashing through rows of armored barricades. BOOM! Every footstep the creature took melted the asphalt beneath it into puddles of thousand-degree mud.

Fifty meters away, Korea's number-one World Class Hunter squad, led by Guild Divine Envoy's president Kang Min-Woo, poured everything they had into a shimmering blue-gold barrier. Kang Min-Woo's hands shook violently, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, screaming into his radio.

"All units fall back now! That thing is beyond our current classification. The barrier's about to break!" Across the street, under the still-intact pink awning of a Baskin-Robbins. Lucian, in his black overcoat, iced coffee in hand, leaned against a streetlamp beside Eleanor. He glanced toward the shop's glass door and spoke, offhand.

"Watch it doesn't catch a stray ember and crack the glass. She's inside picking out flavor thirty-one right now." Click. The ice cream shop door opened. Astra, in her warm pastel-pink puffer jacket, carefully cradled a two-scoop cone drenched in fragrant strawberry syrup, stepping lightly out onto the sidewalk. At that exact moment, the Lava Beast behind her turned its head.

Spotting one building still standing intact, it let out an earth-shattering roar and slammed a hundred-ton magma foot down onto the ice cream shop's awning. Sizzle. A single fingertip-sized drop of lava flung off its claw, landing dead center in the strawberry ice cream in Astra's hand. The ice-cold scoop instantly melted into a puddle of pink sugar water, running down through her fingers and dripping onto the asphalt. Astra froze.

She looked down at the cone — half a melted, misshapen scoop left — then at the strawberry residue on the back of her hand. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. The air around her dropped into a dead, heavy silence. Her ash-gray eyes narrowed slowly into two sharp, flat lines, cold as eternal ice. Astra calmly gave a light swing of her right arm, the Sun-Cleaving Dragon Blade in hand. She didn't take a stance. She didn't chant an incantation.

She just casually flicked the tip of the blade through the air, like someone brushing a speck of dust off a sleeve. CLANG. A thin, ringing sword-note rang out for a fraction of a second. A single blade of platinum sword-energy, thin as a hair, radiating pure holy light, cut across the Seoul night. SLASH. No earth-shattering explosion. No shockwave to level buildings.

A perfectly smooth line sliced across Sejong Boulevard, straight through the eighty-meter Lava Beast from head to toe, then sheared a harmless path through the storm cloud above. The entire thing took... 0. 01 seconds. Whoosh... The eighty-meter Rank S monster's body slid gently apart along a mirror-flat cut line, then dissolved automatically into millions of drifting particles of black ash, every trace of magma flame going out at once.

The night sky over Seoul opened up clear, stars glittering through the perfectly straight cut in the clouds. Astra turned around, holding the empty cone, eyes glistening, and looked at Lucian.

"Lucian... my strawberry ice cream melted..." [UNIFIED SYSTEM V2. 0: LOCAL BATTLEFIELD NOTE] [LOCAL SENSORS: SATURATED - EVENT NOT CLASSIFIED] The strike was controlled; the monster was eliminated without a broad shockwave. Experienced Hunters on scene assess the feat as far beyond their available framework. No numerical comparison is available from the local instruments. [ACTUAL DAMAGE REPORT:] Civilian casualties: 0. Property destroyed: 1 strawberry ice cream cone, valued at 4, 500 won.

In the middle of Sejong Boulevard. Kang Min-Woo and his squad let their weapons lower to the cracked asphalt. Several stared at the clean cut through the fading storm, too stunned to speak. No one moved for a moment. Then Kang Min-Woo ordered the barrier teams to stand down and the evacuation crews to verify the street was safe. Nearby municipal and Hunter Association sensors filled with error flags, unable to classify the brief spike without inventing a number for it.

News sites and local social media feeds erupted within minutes:'WORLD-SHOCKING NEWS: Mysterious Pink-Jacket Swordswoman Ends Rank-S Catastrophe Monster in One Stroke - After an Ice Cream Disaster!' Lucian reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a crisp fifty-thousand-won bill, and handed it to Astra.

"Go buy another double scoop. Eat it inside this time, don't bring it out onto the street." Astra took the bill, immediately lighting up with a bright smile, and darted back into the shop.

"Thank you, Lucian!" Evelyn, in her oversized hoodie, tablet in hand, walked up to Lucian, pointing toward the dozens of news vans and international reporters racing toward the intersection, sirens blaring. Lucian took a sip of his iced coffee and straightened his black overcoat.

"Evelyn, ask Korean counsel to continue Vance Earth Holdings' registration tonight." He looked out toward Seoul's glittering financial towers.

"Time to start looking at the local extraction market."