novelraw Chapter 99 : What the...? (2)
Chapter 99 : What the...? (2)
What the...? (2)
At the Korean branch of the Azure Eye, there are as many as four people who have received sorcery directly bestowed by Valky of Pride.
All of them act as executives within the branch, possessing several times superior skills compared to ordinary members.
The sorcery that Valky of Pride grants to the members is invariably the kind that requires cruel and insidious rituals; however, its power and lethality are utterly unmatched by any ordinary type of sorcery.
But in the end, they are only executive-level within Azure Eye.
The heads of each branch—those who oversee all operations—receive spiritual power from Valky of Pride.
Valky's spiritual power, said to possess an extremely unique nature even among maglignant spirits, is something so profound that simply receiving it allows mortals to defy their fleeting mortality.
And not only that—any sorcery requiring a special ritual could be performed using Valky's spiritual power without need of ritual, and even the original effects of any sorcery are amplified severalfold.
Only ten members have ever received such spiritual power within Azure Eye, and these individuals are known by the title 'Master'.
Among those Masters, there is one who has held her seat in the Korean branch for seventy years—from before the generation changed, she gained infamy as the 'Dark Ghost,' notorious for slaughtering hundreds of sorcerers.
"..."
She looked at the woman standing brazenly in the middle of Azure Eye's hideout, letting out a hollow laugh as if finding this all absurd.
"Oh dear, whoops—"
CRASH! CRACK!
With just a motion of her hand, a car came crashing down on the body of the executive who had kept preparing for assassination, refusing to move even as most sorcerers were dying.
"That was a mistake, too."
Dozens of containers were drawn down through a hole in the ceiling, slamming onto the heads of sorcerers who were about to perform their sorcery.
"Oh my— I dropped those by accident."
And yet again, a pile of concrete came tumbling down, crashing onto a sorcerer's head as he twisted his body, trying desperately to escape.
Screams could be heard.
But Han Soyeon simply smiled, killing every sorcerer within Azure Eye's hideout.
Watching her, the Dark Ghost quietly formed a hand seal—
Snap!
—and flicked her fingers.
The very instant she saw Han Soyeon freeze, startled for a split second, the Dark Ghost dashed forward—
BAM!
"—!?"
—and kicked Han Soyeon in the stomach.
Seeing her stumble, her focus broken, the Dark Ghost immediately took out a black key from her pocket.
It was her own divine relic, refined and refined over years of honing her personal sorcery.
"Blind Man Finds the Mirror."
With the activation phrase spilling from the Dark Ghost's lips, darkness poured from the key and wrapped around Han Soyeon.
Then—
"You've raised quite the hell, brat."
For the first time, the Dark Ghost spoke, her confidence radiating as if the fight was already won.
Han Soyeon frowned at her, but—
The Dark Ghost looked back at her and spoke.
"It's no use. The moment you fell victim to my sorcery, your senses started moving solely at my command. For example—"
At that moment, Han Soyeon turned in the direction of the voice, lashing out with her tentacles.
CRUNCH—!
"—just like that."
But the attack, which had been aimed squarely at the Dark Ghost, abruptly changed course midway and struck Han Soyeon herself in the stomach.
"Urgh—?!"
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Seeing Han Soyeon coughing blood from a hole torn in her belly by her own tentacle, the Dark Ghost tisked and said,
"You shouldn't attack carelessly. Your perception is already under my control—your sight, hearing, touch, taste, and even proprioception. The only reason you can even hear my voice right now is because I allow it."
At her words, Han Soyeon, blinded, turned her gaze in the direction the voice came from.
Yet even as Han Soyeon faced her, the Dark Ghost stepped right up to her and—
SMACK—!
—slapped her across the face.
Almost as if waiting for it, the entity behind Han Soyeon, ither, lashed out with tentacles.
Boom! CRASH-CRASH-CRASH—!
Yet the attack missed the Dark Ghost entirely and only gouged the floor.
Watching this, the Dark Ghost chuckled and spoke.
"I told you, it's useless. Your perception is in my grasp. Now that you've fallen for my sorcery, you can no longer attack me—unless, of course, that monster behind you can move autonomously."
He grinned.
"It seems that thing only acts according to your will—like a puppet."
"... Who are you?"
For the first time, barely managing to speak, Han Soyeon asked a question, her stomach pierced through.
The Dark Ghost replied with a snicker.
"You'll die here anyway, so I'll at least give you my name. I am the Dark Ghost."
"... Dark Ghost."
"Really, had I known this would happen, I should've intervened sooner. I waited, in case you had one more trick up your sleeve..."
I'll have to spend some time replenishing personnel, she grumbled to herself, clicking her tongue as she looked around. Slowly, she drew a dagger from her cloak.
"Well, let's end this. Cleaning up after this mess will take some time."
She drew closer to Han Soyeon.
"The executives sent to kill you... they were top-tier resources."
She said so.
Han Soyeon, clutching her torn abdomen while her senses were consumed, stared blankly into space.
"Thank you."
Suddenly, she murmured those words.
The Dark Ghost immediately looked around in confusion at the sight of dozens of tentacles spreading outward from Han Soyeon—not toward herself, but in every direction.
Then—
SPLAT—!
"... Ah?"
The Dark Ghost saw it.
Dozens of tentacles branched out—splitting into hundreds, even thousands, that shot out in all directions.
At the same time, she realized—
She, too, was pierced by those thousands of faceted tentacles.
"Kraaagh—!?"
A scream burst from the Dark Ghost as the black divine relic tumbled from her grip.
Han Soyeon's distant gaze returned to normal, and as she finally regained her vision, she looked at the Dark Ghost screaming in agony.
"Ah, I can see now."
Even as her own body was impaled by countless tentacles and smeared with blood just like the Dark Ghost, Han Soyeon calmly looked on and spoke.
"You, you...!"
The Dark Ghost stared at her in disbelief—or perhaps utter denial.
Yet Han Soyeon remained ever composed.
"I'll say it again. Thank you, dark Ghost. Thanks to you, I learned one of my own weaknesses."
As if nothing had happened.
"I'll be more careful with this kind of sorcery next time."
She said it.
"... Wh, what are you...!?"
The Dark Ghost shuddered in horror at Han Soyeon, who spoke so serenely despite bleeding from a gaping hole in her belly.
Han Soyeon, looking at her, said:
"Since you showed me my weakness, let me tell you one of mine."
With a calm smile.
"If I have a corpse to offer as a sacrifice, I can recover."
She said.
At that moment—
ZZZZZK! CHOMP! CRUNCH! SNAP!
Ither, the entity behind Han Soyeon, began to gorge itself on corpses lying around.
With that came horrifying noises.
But despite those sounds, Han Soyeon's body—which only moments ago looked on the verge of death—
"!!"
—began to recover, bit by bit.
The gaping hole in her belly was restored, her organs healed, and her flesh filled in.
Where the small tentacles had pierced through, wounds closed as if time itself rewound.
At last, Han Soyeon stood pristine, without a single scratch.
Seeing this,
"Mi—Maniac...!"
The Dark Ghost muttered as if she had witnessed an abomination not meant for this world.
"Oh, there's another thing I should thank you for,"
Han Soyeon approached the Dark Ghost, calmly gazing into her terror-filled eyes.
"Thank you for sending the executives."
"All the ones you sent before were a hassle—even if I tried to interrogate them, their corpses would instantly vanish at the mention of certain words or upon death... but the executives weren't like that. So thanks to you—"
She said.
"—I was able to kill them all."
"Y-You monster!"
The Dark Ghost muttered in terror at Han Soyeon, but she didn't even care.
"Yeah—"
SPLAT—!
"You shouldn't have messed with Dojun."
Han Soyeon crushed the Dark Ghost's skull.
"... If only you hadn't touched Dojun, you'd have never met me."
She mumbled, her bright smile spinning with satisfaction.
"If you'd only left Dojun alone."
With that, she left the scene.
At last, the place was deserted; no one remained.
####
That night.
Kim Dojun, who had been vaguely calculating when Azure Eye would make their move, suddenly had a thought.
'It's all stuff that'll happen anyway, so rather than waiting, wouldn't it be better to go and smash them myself?'
If he thought about it, this sub-story, even in the game, was just for gaining experience anyway. Even if the order or content of events went weird, it wouldn't really matter. So he decided.
That as soon as morning came, he would go wipe out Azure Eye himself.
He didn't know the exact location of Azure Eye, but he had a general idea.
'... Wasn't it somewhere under the harbor?'
He remembered Azure Eye operating beneath a harbor on the West Sea, so he decided to turn over every harbor around there, starting at dawn, until he found and dealt with them.
With that, the night passed and morning arrived.
Preparing to head for the West Sea, Kim Dojun opened his smartphone to browse Sorcery Institute for intel about current events.
He came across a post.
----
Title: ddddd Did you guys see the news today?
Author: gaechuMonster.
Massacre of a criminal organization secretly operating in the West Sea—ddddd—Is this for real?
----
4 comments
deadbeatTired: I saw it too. At first, the article just called it a large-scale massacre of unidentified people, but I guess the Association investigated and found a ton of sacrificial rituals at the scene, so they classified it as a criminal group.
ㄴlikemylife: Creepy as hell—weren't all bastards like that supposed to be locked up in the Great Temple or something? But honestly, can a few sacrificial rituals alone get a group branded as criminals? I heard a lot of guilds secretly perform sacrifices too, just to develop new sorcery...maybe that was it?
ㄴdeadbeatTired: Yeah, if it had ended there, maybe. But according to the news, all the massacre victims had a curse of corpse annihilation cast on them. There was only a single corpse left with bloodstains everywhere else; all the other bodies vanished. No matter how much a guild wants to hide its name, they'd never do something that messed up.
ㄴlikemylife: Makes sense...so creepy that stuff like this happens in our country.
ㄴgaechuMonster: Legendary...absolutely legendary...
----
"?"
Kim Dojun paused in the middle of brushing his teeth, staring blankly before entering a news site, confused.
Soon—
[Shocking!! Who Were the Criminal Organization Secretly Operating Beneath Gungpyeong Harbor?]
[Countless Bloodstains Found, but Only One Corpse Discovered: 'Shocking']
[Sacrificial Rituals Held Below Harbor: The Truth?!]
[Horrifying! Large-Scale Criminal Group Was at the West Sea Harbor!]
[Residents 'Chilled to the Bone.']
Looking at the slew of headlines on his screen, Kim Dojun murmured—
"... What the...??"
There was no way to keep himself from muttering in disbelief.