Chapter 53

Across a battlefield gone silent, Jinwoo squares off with the Ice Elf leader. Baruka regards him with unreadable amusement and not a trace of fear, then turns aside Jinwoo's lightning throat thrust with ease. Pulling a curved dagger, he observes that Jinwoo seems different, not wholly human, and that, unlike the natural calling steering the other elves, he cannot sense Jinwoo's presence at all. To Baruka, Jinwoo reads as a hollow void. The leader offers a bargain: surrender the humans behind him and no fighting need occur.

Rather than reply, Jinwoo turns the questions back, asking who the elves are and why humans are their prey. As the words land, Baruka's body glitches, his voice warping and looping, until the system wrenches his speech back to the original demand for the humans. Convinced the system is hiding something, Jinwoo rejects the deal. Baruka laughs at the uneven odds, but Jinwoo calls hundreds of shadow soldiers up from the earth, eyes blazing blue. Yoon Ki-Joong stumbles into Igris's path before scrambling away. Branding it a cheap trick, Baruka triggers the full battle. With his mana draining, Jinwoo duels the leader himself, trading the recalled dagger and a kick, and his mages drop a fireball that still fails to finish Baruka. Meanwhile Kim Chul stirs awake, grips his sword, and lunges to cut Jinwoo down from behind, only for Igris to appear and pin him with its burning blue stare.

The duel between Jinwoo and Baruka begins, with Baruka noting Jinwoo's unnatural, void-like presence. Jinwoo's question about where the elves come from triggers a system glitch that resets Baruka's words, hinting at a buried truth. Jinwoo refuses the trade and raises hundreds of shadow soldiers, igniting a full battle. Kim Chul tries to murder Jinwoo from behind but is frozen in place by Igris.

Set within the Red Gate Arc, this entry corresponds to anime Episode 14. Baruka names himself leader of the Ice Elves, and the system's tampering with his answer stands as a major clue to the wider mystery behind the gate. Igris stepping in against Kim Chul underlines how Jinwoo stays shielded even mid-fight.