Chapter 41
Chapter 41
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: Strange Phenomenon
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‘What... what kind of gaze is that!'
Baekgol Mangsa stared into the deeply sunken eyes of the Little Heavenly Demon, and his words caught in his throat.
The terror from long ago began to creep back up stealthily.
It felt like his soul was being squeezed tight by fear.
This was exactly why he had wanted to run.
That gaze.
Staring into those pupils that seemed human yet utterly inhuman made it feel like his soul was being bewitched.
Once pulled into their depths, there would be no escape—he would simply drown in them forever.
Only now did Baekgol Mangsa recall another moniker the shamans of the alcohol houses used for the Little Heavenly Demon.
Ghost King.
He finally understood why this king of all the dead, despite being among the living, always inspired such dread—now that he himself was dead.
It was because the Little Heavenly Demon was a walking contradiction in his very existence.
Think about it.
The throne of the king of the dead was a seat reserved solely for the dead.
Just as the lord of humans must be human, the king of the dead must be among the dead—that was the natural order.
But the Little Heavenly Demon defied it.
No one knew why.
He simply became that way.
And now.
In the form of 'Dang Un-hwi' rather than 'Yeon Un-hwi', it was clear he had died once during the Shaocheon Peak bloodbath and come back to life.
He had returned from death.
Reincarnation.
Or past life.
Or resurrection.
He had achieved the miracle that all shamans across the ages coveted.
Baekgol Mangsa himself had once aimed for resurrection too, but only as a desperate last resort when cornered.
He had never truly believed it would succeed.
Yet the Little Heavenly Demon had done it.
How on earth could this be explained?
It was natural for the living to become the dead.
But for the dead to become living again defied the natural order.
Even with reincarnation, the gift of oblivion meant it wasn't true resurrection.
In other words, another contradiction.
Did a being piled with contradictions end up with eyes like these?
Baekgol Mangsa no longer had the courage to stare straight into the Little Heavenly Demon's deepened gaze.
He truly felt like he would be devoured.
He lowered his head.
With all his will broken, he had only one desperate wish.
Please, anything but oblivion.
* * *
I lowered my eyes and quietly waited for Baekgol Mangsa's response.
The wretch, already begging for my mercy, trembled as he slowly opened his mouth.
"Venerable Leader—"
It was right then.
Drip!
Baekgol Mangsa froze mid-sentence, as if time itself had stopped.
Crack—
Fissures spread across his spirit body.
"Wh-what is thisss!"
Baekgol Mangsa thrashed about.
"Young Leader!"
"It's dangerous! Get away!"
Red flames flickered through the cracks.
"!!!"
I instinctively leaped back from my spot.
The fissures instantly covered Baekgol Mangsa's entire spirit body.
Heat leaked outward.
"Nooo! I don't want to die! Please! Pleeease! I'll answer everything—"
Boom!
Baekgol Mangsa exploded. The blast was so immense it shoved the entire hill where I stood.
And then.
Whoosh!
A pitch-black abyss yawned open where the explosion had occurred, and a black beast emerged.
"What the hell is that—"
"What is it!?"
It was an amorphous entity made entirely of writhing shadows.
The kind of shape you might get if you crammed darkness together as tightly as possible.
Beast-like, yokai-like, or demonic creature—it split the difference, then gaped what seemed to be its maw and devoured every last remnant of Baekgol Mangsa's soul in one gulp.
Without so much as glancing our way, it vanished back into the abyss.
The abyss sealed shut.
"……."
"……."
"……."
It had all happened in the blink of an eye.
The lingering spirits shuddered.
Their shock seemed far greater than mine.
It was no wonder.
Not only had Baekgol Mangsa, in his lingering spirit state, been devoured by some bizarre monster, but the pressure from that monster was far more intense for the dead.
At its core, the thing resembled a reaper that dragged souls to the afterlife.
No—reapers at least sent souls to reincarnation; this one just ate them.
For the dead, it was a predator, plain and simple.
"...Gluttony."
Clack!
The Fifteenth muttered as his teeth chattered.
"Gluttony?"
"What is that thing—"
The Fifteenth glanced my way, as if asking permission to speak.
Only when I gave no response did he finally continue.
"Gluttony is a type of strange phenomenon. Not quite a yokai or a demon, but an inexplicable occurrence akin to a supernatural anomaly. It grants immense power to the shaman who contracts it, but if they fail to wield it properly, it devours their soul whole."
The Fifteenth still stared fearfully at the spot where Baekgol Mangsa had vanished.
Even the abyss from which Gluttony had emerged was gone now.
"It seems the newcomer—Baekgol, or rather the Sixteenth—must have contracted with Gluttony to face you, Young Leader. That's how he was able to deploy the Soul-Seizing Net without a ritual array."
Baekgol Mangsa had offered himself as a sacrificial tribute.
Naturally, there had to be a divine entity to receive that tribute.
That was Gluttony.
Gluttony had granted Baekgol Mangsa the ability to cast the Soul-Seizing Net without a ritual array.
But he had failed, and paid the price by being devoured.
Nothing more, nothing less.
"...The problem is, no matter how grand the offering, Gluttony isn't something you can contract so easily."
Gluttony was an irrational anomaly, an inexplicability.
A coercive force enforcing the world's laws, or the embodiment of causality itself.
It moved solely by fixed rules, devoid of reason or will.
To even make contact required an extraordinarily high realm.
Even the pinnacle shamans of the alcohol houses, the Spirit Masters, could barely touch it... Baekgol Mangsa's level was nowhere near.
"That means—"
"Yes. There must have been an intermediary shaman who brokered the contract with Gluttony. And that was likely—"
The Fifteenth clamped his lips shut, saying no more.
But that alone was enough for the lingering spirits to guess who it was.
The Association.
"Damn it all."
For me, the souls of the dead automatically became subservient.
That was an immutable absolute law, past or present.
It was the authority of the Ghost King.
That's how I had ignored all seals and brainwashing thus far.
But this was the first time it had been broken.
Of course, my authority hadn't been nullified.
Baekgol Mangsa had indeed become subservient to me.
But it couldn't void contracts made in life.
That was the issue.
It meant the Association's skill and level were that formidable.
I'd heard from the lingering spirits how exceptional the Association was, but this surpassed even my expectations.
At minimum, on par with a Spirit Master—or beyond.
A Spirit Master was comparable to one of the Ten Supremes of the martial world.
On the verge of divine ascension.
If such experts were entrenched there, then as I'd suspected, the Association was the shed-skins'...
A hollow feeling settled in.
I'd finally pieced together the situation at Heavenly Mountain, even Master and the Angma Divine Flower Sect's whereabouts, only for it to crumble in an instant.
There were still three Black Fiends left besides Baekgol Mangsa, but who knew if they too had contracted with Gluttony?
No different from seals.
Flick!
I returned to the spot where only the golden lock chain remained and narrowed my eyes.
Faint residual thoughts lingered in the scorch marks.
I placed my hand there and read them.
I had to check even the slightest clues.
.
A thick shadow, face and gender indistinguishable, loomed over Baekgol Mangsa.
It resembled Gluttony in form, but the aura was entirely different.
Gluttony was mere anomaly; this was a 'person.'
Yet not quite human.
—Shed-skin.
A superhuman who had transcended human limits, on the verge of shedding the shell, the husk, the prison of flesh.
Tremble!
My body shook.
Even just reading the residual thoughts, its presence was this overwhelming.
It completely dominated me.
The shadow 'opened its eyes.'
Its black pupils bore an inverted taiji pattern, yin and yang reversed.
Reverse Taiji.
Where normal taiji symbolized creation and harmony of all things, reverse taiji meant annihilation and conflict.
Baring its demonic eye fully, the shadow placed a hand on Baekgol Mangsa's head as he prepared to depart for the netherworld, murmuring an unintelligible incantation.
Clank—
At the same time, the shadow cast on the ground by Baekgol Mangsa linked with the encroaching external shadow.
The contract with Gluttony.
.
Baekgol Mangsa had set up base in Nine Dragons Plains.
He made contact with the shadow sent by the South Palace Clan and was introduced to Namgung San-yeong.
.
He encountered me.
.
Baekgol Mangsa lost to me in our confrontation.
In that instant, the shadow swelled into an abyss.
Per the contract, Gluttony emerged and greedily devoured Baekgol Mangsa's soul.
.
Fragmentary scenes, but enough to piece together the broad strokes.
The shadow.
The one with the reverse taiji demonic eye—that was the Association's operative.
And... undoubtedly the ringleader who tried to kill me and harmed Master.
Grind!
My teeth clenched tight.
Even having glimpsed the culprit in fragments, I had no idea of their identity. Infuriating.
What had become of Master? Was he in their hands?
But too many unresolved questions for that.
"……."
I took a quiet breath.
I'd taken a step back, but I'd come this far.
Now that I'd found traces of the bastard, tracking them down would be swift.
First, scour the remnants of Baekgol Mangsa's shrine. Something more might turn up.
Capture the other Black Fiends too, and the guest from Heavenly Mountain.
Then all mysteries would unravel naturally.
With that thought, I tried to pull my hand away—but it wouldn't budge.
It was like my hand was glued to the ground with adhesive.
The residual thought vision hadn't ended.
.
Gluttony, having devoured Baekgol Mangsa entirely, traversed a dark passage to somewhere.
The underside of the world.
Freely roaming the underside of laws, it arrived at a place.
Gluttony snapped its head up.
There.
The shadow with the reverse taiji demonic eye awaited.
It turned its gaze toward me.
"!!"
Instinct screamed that eye contact would pierce my true identity.
Just before its gaze reached me, I bit hard on the back of my tongue.
Sharp pain.
The metallic tang of blood.
Flash!
The vision ended.
Hah—
Hah—
Harsh, bitter breath escaped my lips.
Sweat streamed down my cheek.
"Young Leader...?"
"Are you alright? You're soaked in cold sweat from head to toe."
"...What did you see?"
The lingering spirits watched my ragged breathing with concern, but the Fifteenth—having sensed something—asked with a stiff face.
I nodded heavily.
"Looks like... we can't take this Shadow Lord's assassination plot lightly."
I turned my gaze northwest, toward Heavenly Mountain.
The bastards were trying to venture out from there.
Reincarnation Demon God Chronicles