Chapter 188
Chapter 188
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 188
Chapter Title: Arena of Betrayal
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Suritae scanned the massive arena surrounding him.
Thirty-six warriors encircled him.
He gritted his teeth as he checked each of their faces one by one.
'Foals who can't even recognize their own master.'
More than half of them were familiar faces.
A good number were even his own personal guards who had always stood by his side.
Creatures meant to protect him had instead been plotting to take his life all this time.
A hollow laugh escaped him involuntarily as he drew in a deep breath.
Huu—
This was the arena.
A place to watch ferocious beasts battle, yet here he was, forced to fight right in the midst of it.
He glanced up.
Suma Geon was looking down from above.
"...Feels like shit."
Suritae felt he now understood a fraction of the humiliation his black tiger had endured in the Fierce Beast Workshop.
But the outcome would be different this time.
Leaning his back at a slant, Suritae unleashed a fierce glint in his eyes.
"I'll make you lot realize that no matter what tricks you pull, they're all for nothing."
"As expected of the Palace Lord. You look good brimming with confidence."
Suma Geon flashed a sinister smile before nodding.
At his signal, the thirty-six warriors slowly began circling.
One by one, they peeled away from the ring, precisely positioning themselves to form a siege around Suritae.
The Lake Thirty-Six Ferocious Formation.
The one and only formation in the world designed to hunt tigers.
It had been devised solely to kill Namman Beast Palace's Palace Lord, Suritae.
As they circled closer around him to complete the formation, they leaped into the air.
When the warriors blotted out the sky and closed in on Suritae, one of them opened his mouth.
"Attack—"
But before he could finish.
Kuwoong!
Suritae kicked off the ground, propelling himself straight ahead with the recoil.
It evoked the image of a great tiger charging—a technique known as his signature ultimate art, Tiger Form Martial Craftsmanship.
In an instant, he closed the distance to the nearest warrior and thrust out his arm.
'One.'
He seized the man's nape, twisted it, and hurled him backward.
Then he dashed toward the warriors on his flank, slashing indiscriminately at their torsos.
Two, three, four.
Tiger aura reminiscent of a tiger's claws flashed from Suritae's fingertips.
Black Tiger Slash Mark Hand.
As if each of his fingers bore massive blades instead of nails, a single gesture tore human flesh like paper.
Several lives were snuffed out in brutal fashion in one fell swoop.
Kugugung!
Suritae's onslaught continued relentlessly.
Like a tiger instinctively pouncing on prey, he struck at his foes without hesitation.
Five, six, seven.
Unleashing Hundred Tiger Palms, he dug into the napes of the warriors ahead, ripping skin and bursting muscles.
His fist technique, Fierce Tiger Array-Breaking Fist, then erupted explosively.
In truth, its movements were too bizarre to call a proper fist art.
Leaping up, slamming down, lunging forward—every motion mimicked a tiger's.
Eight, nine.
Fresh blood splattered across Suritae's bare, rippling upper body.
Yet none of it was his.
As Suritae's ferocious assault raged on.
'...?'
At some point, he sensed something off.
What had been a one-sided slaughter until now—they weren't panicking as if they'd anticipated it all.
Moreover, as the fight dragged on, they avoided direct confrontation, utilizing the arena's vast space, leaving Suritae frustrated as he chased them down.
As the rampaging Suritae tried to press forward with his savage steps.
Jjuuuk—
His movement halted abruptly.
Looking around his body, Suritae quickly realized why.
Transparent threads had somehow wound tightly around his entire form.
He was trapped like prey in a spider's web, unable to twitch a finger.
The warriors closed in on him as he stood bound head to toe.
And the very moment one reached out to touch him.
Kuoooo!
Explosive internal energy burst from Suritae's entire body.
The threads suppressing him snapped powerlessly.
Regaining freedom, Suritae looked at them with a scornful expression.
"Is that all you've got?"
"As if. Shall we begin what we've truly prepared?"
"Hmph, bluffing without batting an eye..."
Kwang!
In that instant, a warrior unleashed a punch loaded with his full-body strength.
Suritae blocked it handily, but something felt wrong.
The weight behind the fist wasn't human.
He'd clearly put his full body weight into the attack, yet its heaviness was inhuman.
"What is this?"
As Suritae pondered somewhere between doubt and suspicion, the assaults kept coming.
A warrior soaring through the air dove at him with a claw technique. Simultaneously, another approached at blinding speed, raking both hands at his vitals in a grazing strike.
Pababak!
Suritae blocked the barrage using arms and legs with animalistic instinct.
Having weathered it, he slowly opened his mouth.
"Don't tell me you lot..."
The first had mimicked a bear.
The second, an eagle.
The third, a wolf.
Each employed martial arts modeled after different beasts.
And all of them were the most efficient predators against tigers.
"Damn it!"
In the ensuing attacks, they seemed to pierce through Suritae's paths, seizing optimal positions for perfect strikes.
Gradually pushed back, Suritae resorted to picking them off one by one as before.
But even that didn't go as planned.
He lunged at one, only for three to appear.
He charged a lone target anew, and suddenly four surrounded him.
The way to hunt a tiger.
—Move not alone, but as a pack.
Isolated and thrashing, Suritae's stamina drained rapidly, wounds multiplying across his body.
Time passed, and before long, he was utterly at their mercy, hunted down.
"Huu... huu... huu..."
Suritae heaved ragged breaths.
One on one, he could devour them instantly, but their preparations were far more thorough than imagined.
No matter what art he unleashed, they countered flawlessly.
As if they'd dissected and studied his techniques for years.
And now, they were wearing him down, waiting for exhaustion.
'Damn it all.'
This wasn't a fair fight.
Suritae glared up at Suma Geon.
With fury in his voice, he spat.
"You coward, hiding behind your underlings. Afraid to face me one-on-one because you know you'd lose?"
Suma Geon chuckled lightly at the blatant provocation.
"I stay out because your life and mine aren't equally valuable, Palace Lord."
"What?"
"Even if we eliminate you, in the process..."
Huu.
Suma Geon extended his pinky and blew gently.
"If even one of my fingers gets hurt, that's the greater loss. You're no different from a sick, wounded tiger now."
Suritae's blood boiled at being valued less than a finger.
Veins bulging on his forehead.
Kuwoong!
He was struck by someone charging like the wind and sent flying into the wall.
The wall cracked like a spiderweb. Suffering internal injuries, he spat blood and identified his attacker.
"You bastard...!"
Recognizing him, Suritae's eyes nearly burst with rage.
The one who'd just struck him.
It was none other than his guard captain, Choi Kang.
But that wasn't the only reason for his fury.
The beast he'd mimicked was none other than.
"You dare imitate my black tiger?!"
It was the exact image of his cherished Number One.
Yet despite Suritae's outburst of indignation, Choi Kang merely stared back with cold eyes, saying nothing.
At that sight, Suritae clenched his fist until blood trickled from his palm.
"Infuriating! Utterly infuriating!"
Never in his life had Suritae imagined falling to the warriors of the Southern Frontier.
Yet they'd devised a joint formation solely to dismantle his arts—a most unfair battle leading to his end. It was simply maddening.
Live long enough, and you'll see all sorts.
'To think I'd end up hunted in an arena like this.'
His peak resentment turned to hollow despair.
With a resigned expression, as if letting everything go, Suritae closed his eyes.
Once, he'd imagined his own end.
If not returning quietly to nature.
Whether clashing to the death with the Heavenly Demon or pitting skills against that famed ancient martial sovereign, he'd pictured himself perishing in all-out battle with the strong—as a fitting end for a warrior.
Not like this, surrounded by rabble, dying pathetically.
"The heavens are cruel."
But he had no one to blame.
In the end, it was his own overconfidence, underestimating the Young Palace Lord.
Teobuk. Teobuk.
The footsteps of the approaching warriors reached Suritae's ears.
He still had strength to twitch a finger, but he had no desire to stand.
Even if he squeezed out his last dregs and rampaged unsightly, the result wouldn't change.
So he'd just meet his death like this...
"Palace Lord Su."
Suddenly, a familiar voice rang in his ear.
Suritae slowly opened his eyes at the sound, as did everyone else there, turning toward the source.
Though all eyes focused on him, Hyeok Mulin asked in a flat tone, as if nothing were amiss.
"Do you want to live?"
Suritae stared blankly at him.
Then he replied.
"I do."
Hyeok Mulin immediately followed up.
"Then, will you follow me?"
The sentence skipped much context.
But its intent reached Suritae clearly.
Locking eyes with Hyeok Mulin.
After an exchange of gazes, he finally resolved and nodded.
"I will follow you, Cult Leader."
"Understood."
Hyeok Mulin leaped lightly from the stands, landing before the wall-stuck Suritae.
As the dust settled, Hyeok Mulin planted his foot.
Kuwoong—
And in that moment.
"...It stopped."
The warriors' movements.
The roars of all beasts in the Southern Frontier.
The Namman, chaotic as if crammed with the world's turmoil moments ago, sank into dead silence in an instant.
And it didn't end there.
"You've been talking too much from the start."
Hyeok Mulin crooked a finger at Suma Geon's group watching from the stands. Downward, as if pressing.
Extreme demonic energy erupted from him, crushing their bodies.
They tumbled over the iron bars without resistance, rolling down the slope into the arena. Even Suma Geon, clinging desperately at last, plummeted in.
Teolkeok.
Slumped on the ground, Suma Geon couldn't rise under the crushing pressure.
Trembling, he barely lifted his head to look up at Hyeok Mulin.
The half-lidded gaze looking down felt like standing amid freezing winds, chilling to the bone.
"Do you get it now?"
Hyeok Mulin's lips parted indifferently.
"Your place."