Chapter 190: Ragia
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 190: Ragia
I could see Ragia, tattered and in a wretched state. Her tail and one of her arms had been severed, and one of her eyes was completely destroyed. Her abdomen, her chest—her entire body was a ravaged mess.
My vision began to turn red. I had been watching Ragia from a distance, but it seemed she was no longer breathing.
“You look angry. Am I right? Was she your girlfriend, perhaps?”
As I watched Park Hyeri grin at me, it felt as if something snapped inside my head.
“Levatain.”
The ancient flame that burns the world. In an instant, the entire area was engulfed in fire. To be precise, I had completely trapped Park Hyeri in a prison of flames. Faced with a colossal wall of fire, Park Hyeri’s expression twisted slightly.
I reached out into the empty air. A giant hand of fire shot out and lunged for Park Hyeri, but she quickly dodged out of its range. However, that attack wasn’t meant to capture her. It was to bring Ragia to me.
The hand of fire gently carried Ragia over. It wouldn’t be hot, and it wouldn’t burn her. I was in perfect control of the flame’s heat.
Ragia’s form came into full view. Her eyes and mouth were unquestionably smiling. It was the same Ragia who had always greeted me with a smile. Though her body was in tatters, she had undoubtedly been smiling in her final moments. I pushed my magic into her, just in case, but there was no response.
Strangely, no tears came. Instead, an indescribable rage began to erupt from within me.
I felt my body slowly begin to change. It wasn’t a major transformation. A voice whispered in my ear, but my emotions were in such turmoil that I couldn’t make out the words.
One thing was certain: the magic in my body had increased explosively. And I felt my head grow slightly heavier.
Cradling Ragia in one arm, I continued to control the blazing inferno. In an instant, giant hands of fire shot out and enveloped Park Hyeri.
I wouldn’t burn her to death. And I certainly wouldn’t kill her quickly.
It took only a moment to catch Park Hyeri as she tried to flee. No matter how agile she was, she couldn’t possibly evade the overwhelmingly massive arms reaching for her from every direction.
It felt like dealing with an annoying, flitting mosquito.
Park Hyeri didn’t scream or beg for her life. Instead, with her limbs bound, she just stared at me.
“Phwahahaha!”
An exaggerated laugh burst from her, as if mocking me. She couldn’t empathize with others. She would surely never feel the same pain I did. But first, I had to vent the rage building inside me.
I immediately thrust my sword toward Park Hyeri.
In a flash, the blade embedded itself in her arm.
Sizzzzzle—
“Hk…”
It seemed she could feel physical pain. But the pained expression was fleeting, replaced by one of genuine amusement.
“So you’re here, too.”
Nonsense.
I reached out and gouged out Park Hyeri’s eye. The unpleasant, squishing sensation in my hand was fleeting, but it felt damn good. With a wet, tearing sound, I ripped the eyeball clean from its socket. As blood gushed out, I immediately cauterized the wound with Levatain.
She shook her head in pain, but a smile remained plastered on her face.
Annoyed, I reached out and completely crushed the fingers on her hand.
“Aaaaaargh!”
A scream erupted, but I paid it no mind. My gaze fell upon Ragia, and I immediately decided to lift Park Hyeri’s arm and tear it off.
I wasn’t ignoring the possibility that she might die from shock, but a body and mind trained to the extreme are surprisingly resilient. Convinced she wouldn’t die from something like this, I pinned her to the ground, stomped on her, and pulled on her arm.
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
She struggled, but there was no escape. As I applied more force, her arm finally began to tear away. First came the sound of her shoulder bone shattering completely, then her skin ripped, and her muscles tore loose.
A fountain of blood sprayed out, but worried she might die from blood loss, I immediately seared the wound with the flames from Levatain.
As for the fingers on her remaining arm, I took a dagger and severed each one, joint by joint.
Remembering Ragia’s severed tail, I kept my foot pressed on Park Hyeri’s body and stomped down hard on her leg.
“Puhwaaaak!”
A sickening crunch echoed, mixed with a scream and a choked laugh. She seemed utterly satisfied with the simple fact that she had made me angry.
Time to pull it off.
I stomped on her groin, then lifted her now-limp leg. Just like before, the leg was ripped clean off.
Another fountain of blood erupted, and as if performing a routine task, I calmly cauterized Park Hyeri’s wound with fire.
Ptooey!
Something wet hit my face.
Park Hyeri had spit at me.
A laugh escaped me.
“You crazy bitch.”
“Hee… You’re only just realizing that now?”
I slammed my fist into her face. With a sickening crack, her head smashed into the ground. The impact shattered the earth beneath her, and all of Park Hyeri’s teeth flew out as she let out another scream.
I will return everything that was done.
An unbearable killing intent surged within me, but it was too soon to kill her. I had to make her death as painful as possible. I began to repeatedly stab her in the abdomen.
Sizzzzzle—
Smoke rose endlessly from her stomach and chest.
With a wet gurgle, Park Hyeri spat out blood, and I smiled.
When I lifted her by the neck, all that came with it was a mangled body. But it still wasn’t enough. I drew Dainsleif and used the blood she’d spilled to create thorns, embedding them densely all over her body.
With a series of wet squelches, blood spurted out, and she let out a scream of agony.
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
I was in the middle of impaling her with thorns when it happened.
Magic began to erupt from somewhere. It was an unfamiliar presence.
Where the magic flared, space distorted, and an unknown figure appeared.
It was a tall woman with long hair. She was undeniably beautiful, but she gave off a cold, detached impression. I wasn’t the only one who saw her. Park Hyeri was also looking at the woman with eyes full of joy.
“Guh… Ugh… Sis… Sister. No… Ma… Master.”
Thanks to Park Hyeri, who was continuously vomiting blood, I was able to identify the newcomer. She hadn’t run here. She had clearly emerged from a distortion in space.
Teleportation.
The Master of the Spider Clan, someone I’d never even heard of in my past life. The number of humans who had seen her face and lived to tell the tale could probably be counted on one hand. It seemed she had come to check what was happening after her clan members failed to return. I slowly began to circulate the magic within my body.
At the very least, I didn’t think I would lose. No, before that, she didn’t seem to have any intention of fighting. She was just sighing, observing the situation.
“You… you… you’re dead, you son of a bitch.”
Staring at the newcomer, Park Hyeri turned to me, her eyes filled with a kind of faith. She was looking at the tall woman with the same gaze Baek Ahyeon used to look at me.
“Sis… Sister… no, Master… I’m… I’m sorry. I was a little… late… It’s all because of this bastard…”
The newcomer said nothing. She simply stared down at Park Hyeri with eyes that even I could see were ice-cold. I felt no need to prepare for battle. For some reason, I felt like I already knew what she was about to say.
“Useless bitch.”
“Huh?”
“You are a useless bitch. I told you how important today was, yet you couldn’t hold back and…”
Despair settled in Park Hyeri’s expression. That’s the expression I wanted to see.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Sister… I’ll… I’ll do better from now on, okay? From… from now on…”
“There is no next time. Die here.”
After speaking, she vanished back into the distorted space. I didn’t know if she had no intention of fighting me or if she had judged it too risky, but in any case, seeing the Spider Clan’s Master with my own eyes was a gain, if you could call it that. I expanded my senses as far as I could, wondering if she had gone after Gark or Hark, but as expected, I felt nothing nearby. She had completely left the area.
But what pleased me most of all was the devastated look that remained on Park Hyeri’s face. I looked down at her and spoke.
“You had one, too, didn’t you?”
There was no way she didn’t understand me. Park Hyeri was afraid. The object of her faith, the one who elicited a behavioral pattern similar to Baek Ahyeon’s, was the Master of the Spider Clan. I didn’t know what their relationship was or how they met, but Park Hyeri’s expression was mercilessly crumbling. She probably hadn’t even realized it herself, but the woman who had just disappeared was clearly someone precious to her.
Whether she was a lover, an object of admiration, a figure of worship, or a sister—the nature of their relationship didn’t matter.
“You… you fucking son of a bitch!!! You! You… bastard!”
Even though she must have been drained of energy, the sight of her desperately screaming at me was quite pathetic. I grabbed her by the neck, yanked her toward me, and grinned.
“You’ve been abandoned.”
“No… no, she… Sister wouldn’t… me…”
It was disgusting to watch her muttering with those vacant eyes, so I took my sword and sliced off her remaining arm.
“Aaaaaaaaargh! Sister! Sister!”
Her reaction was completely different from before. This was very interesting. A strange thought was forming in my mind. I had no intention of killing her easily anyway, but a way to make her suffer even more kept coming to me.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
The hurdle was a bit high, but I couldn’t help but think that if I caught that woman who left and made her grovel like a dog, the expression on this one’s face would be quite a sight to behold.
Seeing Ragia’s lifeless form, I irritably threw Park Hyeri to the ground.
With a sickening crunch, she slammed into the floor, but she seemed to be denying an impossible reality rather than feeling the pain in her body.
“Sister… There’s no way Sister would abandon me… Guh… Ugh… It’s… it’s because of that bastard…”
Tired of hearing her voice, I completely smashed her mouth. An animalistic sound came out, but I didn’t care.
Gark and Hark were arriving. I lifted Ragia again, who lay silently within the hand of fire. When they arrived, Gark and Hark quietly placed their hands over their chests in a salute to the silent Ragia.