Chapter 93
Chapter: 93
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 93
>Chapter Title: Otherworldly Apocalypse (8)
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>The sixth night on the hellish front lines of Paju City.
On the front that had temporarily reached a lull, Sungjin and his comrades were taking turns crouching in the trenches, catching short naps. No matter how much their stamina was bolstered by the magic beasts' energy, six straight days and nights of combat were more than enough to dull even the senses of hunters who had surpassed human limits.
And that was when it appeared.
Amid the steady patter of rain came the staccato clatter of thorns scraping together.
No sooner had four pairs of glowing red eyes—each pair shining in a different hue—materialized in the darkness than a massive, thorn-studded leg lashed out at the trench without warning.
An entire row of hunters was reduced to pulp in an instant.
Leaping effortlessly over the makeshift stockade and embankment, the creature claimed the lives of countless hunters at the vanguard that day—easily, futilely. Had it not been for a handful of hunters' near-suicidal strikes, humanity's counteroffensive would have ended right then and there.
Phago Nephila.
The accursed spider magic beast that Sungjin would painstakingly eradicate the spawn of first and foremost afterward.
* * *
Sungjin staggered to his feet amid the rubble of a collapsed building.
Something on his scalp had torn open, and warm blood streamed from his forehead, obstructing half his vision.
He had instinctively cloaked himself in aura upon impact from the spider's leg, so mercifully nothing seemed to be badly broken. Still, the sheer force of the blow meant that even the slightest movement sent agony ripping through him.
“…….”
The elderly knight who had been flung alongside him was already gone. His left side was caved in so deeply that his torso was nearly bisected in a gruesome display.
Sungjin gazed at the sight for a moment before turning his head forward.
Through his blurred vision, he could make out the spider far off, rampaging as it spat venomous needles. The occasional glint of golden aura blades suggested Masain was holding out alone. What were the holy knights who had come with the old man doing?
He marshaled his creaking body and forced it to move.
With every step forward, the bone-shattering pain gradually became something he could bear.
Limping toward the spider, he soon spotted holy knights of Saint Marsias sprawled here and there, ensnared in sticky webs. Some had large portions of their bodies corroded by venom, while others lay flattened as if crushed beneath some immense weight, long since dead.
-Your world is an imaginary realm crafted from the framework of someone's real world. In other words, it's nothing more than a dream.
That was what the Demon King had said.
But look. Be it on Sigurt 34 Earth or in Delcross, death at the hands of that spider spawn is equally pathetic.
-Even after being hurled into the real world, it's still alive and kicking. What greater proof of your existence could there be?
No. That's not it.
Breathing alone proves nothing. All that matters is the spider there that needs killing.
To Sungjin, that's what it was. As long as his body could move even a little, he had to charge straight at it until he snuffed out its life.
And only when he leveled his sword at the creature did Sungjin truly feel it.
He was undeniably alive in this place.
One knight, thrashing feebly in his web bindings, glanced up at the prince passing by and flinched violently. Blood streamed down his cheeks from his battered form, yet the prince bared his teeth in a grin.
He tightened his grip on the Nutcracker.
Tap tap. His steps quickened.
Tatatak. Before he knew it, he was charging straight at the spider.
Masain and the spider, locked in fierce deadlock, both sensed Sungjin's presence at once.
“Your Highness!”
By the time Masain cried out, Sungjin was already upon the beast.
Whoosh. One of its legs came crashing down toward his head. Sungjin didn't slacken his pace, diving under the claw while unconsciously channeling his entire aura into his legs.
Bang. His body rocketed forward, dodging the massive limb by a hair's breadth. He felt the wind of its huge talon grazing his hair as he slid right under its belly.
The sword mark from his first slash had already mostly regenerated, save for the scar on its carapace. That was the hallmark of magic beasts: unless their core was destroyed in a single blow, they healed almost instantly.
Kagagagak. He dragged the Nutcracker along the trace in a long gash. The aura-clad blade sliced cleanly through the thick exoskeleton.
Tiddadak. The thorns covering its body quivered in unison, as if voicing the creature's irritation.
The instant his sword pulled free, Sungjin twisted his sliding momentum and loaded aura into his leg once more, kicking off the ground hard in the opposite direction. Bang.
The rough surge of aura made something in his leg snap.
He slashed long and deep below the prior wound, and this time the blade sank nearly to the guard. It snagged briefly on the carapace, but the aura-infused Nutcracker tore through with ease, emerging from the other side of its torso.
Thick, dark purple ichor belatedly gushed from the deeply carved gash.
Puhak! A torrent of spider silk erupted from its spinnerets all at once. The threads sprayed wide, aimed squarely at Sungjin right beneath its body.
No dodging this. In that instant, he seized the sword in both hands and swung with all his might at one of its legs.
Crack! A segment at the tip of its foot fractured even as Sungjin's body launched like a cannonball between the spider's legs. Some silk grazed him, but his velocity kept it from adhering.
He slammed into a building wall before he could even recover his footing.
Boom! Aura or no, the brutal impact stole his breath for a moment.
“Cough! Cough!”
He stabbed the Nutcracker into the ground like a staff and barely hauled himself upright.
“Your Highneeeeess! Are you all right?!”
Masain's desperate shout echoed from afar.
The spider had turned its back on Sungjin now, blindly spewing venomous needles in every direction. Masain was unleashing a barrage to keep it from closing in on the fallen prince.
Boom! A brilliant golden blaze erupted, unleashing a ferocious gale.
Masain's aura blast had cleaved the spider's head in two, detonating on impact.
Kieeeeeee! Reeling from the blow, the spider convulsed, its joints twisting at grotesque angles.
Yet even with its head and thorax split wide open, it refused to fall. Its core was still intact.
Seizing its momentary stagger, Masain swiftly fell back to widen the gap. His heaving breaths betrayed how his own stamina was all but spent.
The spider was an unfamiliar foe for Masain to begin with—telling him to burrow under its belly now would be asking the impossible in his state.
Sungjin gripped his sword to charge again, only to halt as excruciating pain lanced through his right leg. His calf muscle must have torn from channeling aura so roughly twice in succession.
Dragging the stiff, unresponsive limb, Sungjin resumed his advance on the spider.
‘...This won't cut it.’
Even striking true, the Nutcracker's length couldn't reach the core.
If he couldn't pulverize its body with a single punch like before, his only option was multi-angled strikes to deepen the wounds incrementally.
At least until he carved open its belly enough for the blade to reach the core...
In that moment, Sungjin froze as if clubbed in the nape.
‘Why am I limiting myself to channeling aura just the length of the sword?’
He stared down at the Nutcracker in his grasp.
Until now, he had trained channeling aura into his body and sword exactly as Masain had taught.
But a sword was just an extension beyond the body. Couldn't the same hold true for a magic beast's flesh?
He had wielded magic beasts' claws like weapons by flowing qi through them—so what reason was there he couldn't do the same to a living one?
Limping onward, Sungjin pressed the thought.
Sir Masain had put it well once: channeling unfamiliar external energy into another's body was tantamount to stabbing it with a razor-honed blade.
Random channeling had shattered the practice sword and wrecked Sungjin's leg just as his words forewarned. Then surely channeling aura wildly beyond the blade would be enough to wreck something inside.
A faint breeze now swirled unnoticed around the Nutcracker's edge in his hand.
“Your Highness, please...!”
Masain's face drained white as he spotted Sungjin charging the spider once more on his shredded body, murmuring under his breath.
But there was no time to waste.
Sungjin dashed beneath the spider, which had paused to regenerate its skull. He channeled aura into both arms and drove the sword into the dead center of its belly with every ounce of strength.
Unlike before, the savage extension of aura tore at his arms with pain.
Puk. The blade sank to the guard again, but the feedback felt different this time.
Pajijijik. Something deep inside its gut twisted and tore.
Kieeeeeeeee! The spider abruptly thrashed in frenzy. With Sungjin still impaled on its underside, it flailed wildly, smashing itself mercilessly against building walls. Kuwoong! Thud!
“……!”
Sungjin clamped down on the hilt with all his might. He swung aura through both arms to hold fast, then channeled a brutal surge beyond the blade to churn its entrails.
Kieeeek! Rumble, thud! In its seizure, the spider demolished a section of the building's facade.
Tiddadak! Tatatak! Its thorns shuddered in spasms.
Splash! A wild spray of silk inadvertently ensnared its own right legs, sending it staggering in mad clockwise spins.
‘...This is working!’
Certain now, Sungjin clenched his jaw.
Once more!
Not powerful, but precisely rending the heart of its belly.
Once more!
He felt the aura pooled in his dantian nearly exhausted.
One more time, even so!
Pajijijik. The final savage churn of aura.
As his consciousness dimmed, a faint cracking reached Sungjin's ears at last.
Crack......
Kiiiiiiii. The spider's body went rigid, its legs quivering in final spasms.
The trembling thorns stiffened as one and went still.
Its colossal frame slowly tilted, then—
Kuwoong! It crashed to the ground in a billowing cloud of dust.
“…Your Highness!”
Masain, ashen-faced, rushed over as Sungjin's limp form tumbled free through the choking haze.
Fortune had the spider topple sideways, one leg tangled; else it would have crushed him flat.
“Your Highness! Are you all right? Your Highness!”
Masain cradled Sungjin's body, checking him frantically, then exhaled in relief. He was out cold, but still drawing breath.
His condition, though, was utter ruin.
Torn flesh everywhere left him drenched in blood, his right leg and both arms twisted at unnatural angles—from reckless kicks off the ground and desperate clinging to the sword hilt.
Worst of all, his muscles had locked rigid beyond reason. Repeated shocks had ruptured every major vessel within his fascia.
Small mercy he was unconscious and numb to the pain. Left like this, his muscles would necrotize within hours.
Masain's face crumpled in anguish, at a loss—when the Holy Emperor arrived with his knights in tow. They had just sealed the gate and rallied the Saint Marsias order from below ground.
“…….”
Spotting Sungjin's piteous state, the Holy Emperor halted mid-stride and fell silent.
-Someone had told him: So worried it'd fly off somewhere, you penned it in and sheltered it—yet it drew forth that power on its own and made it its own. Should've let it spread its wings sooner...
But.
“…How do you turn loose a boy who rampages to this extent the instant you look away?”
The Holy Emperor closed his eyes and sighed from the depths of his heart.