#34 Broken Finger
#34 Broken Finger
A grotesquely deformed finger pointed at Baek So-yul.
"—Give me that, and I'll let you go."
The words slipped out of Broken Finger's mouth, accompanied by an uncanny laugh. Of course it could speak. A thing without intelligence could never hold an executive seat in the organization. Baek So-yul sucked in a ragged breath, her trembling body betraying the fear gripping her.
Instead of answering, I shielded Baek So-yul from view and met the fairy dragon's eyes. A small nod, and the creature flapped its wings as if it understood perfectly.
"Wait...!"
Before Baek So-yul could get another word out, the fairy dragon vanished into the Illusion Realm with her in tow. That settled my only real worry. Even if I fell here, the Witch's Calamity wouldn't happen.
Broken Finger tilted its head, then stared at me. No words, but the question was obvious: where did she go? I answered with a Gust. The Ghost Flame (C) already blanketed the area, and the thing tilted its head again.
Don't give it an opening.
Having 574 AGI means exactly that. I couldn't afford to be confused about this. The one who fled from the Earth Serpent with 513 AGI hadn't been me — it had been Baekrok. If an attack is so fast you can't even react, predicting it means nothing. I focused every nerve, glaring at the thing alone.
It hooked a grotesque finger into the corner of its mouth and pulled it into a wide grin. Then its eyes flickered with green madness. A ghastly smile, followed by that same bone-white grin from before.
In the next instant, its form vanished. Even out of sight, I could track it through Detection and Intuition. It had already circled behind me, shoving its arm through the black flames, utterly unfazed even as the fire blazed around it. I retreated just ahead of those massive nails closing in. It was as fast as I'd imagined. Or faster.
No hesitation at all.
It watched its own arm burning in the Ghost Flame (C) and laughed as if it found it entertaining. Then, as if putting on a show, it flailed the arm through the air and coated it in mana. But the black flames refused to go out, and its composure finally cracked.
"......?!"
The fire spread relentlessly. What little leisure it had vanished. It ripped the black-burning arm right off at the shoulder joint, then chewed and swallowed the chunk of meat dangling at its waist — what had once been someone's head. Moments later, the arm regrew. It flexed the new arm, checking the sensation, and muttered irritably.
"Already full, but I had to eat again because of you...?"
...False Immortality.
A B-rank skill. That was its effect. A skill that encouraged Cadaver Consumption — turning the flesh and blood of others into your own. Nothing could be more fitting for a chimera modeled after a ghoul. I looked at the five heads hanging from its waist and let out a quiet breath of relief.
Good.
I'd said there was no chance of winning. That no one short of Gu Jin-ha could beat it. And I'd been right. Under normal circumstances, that was true. Which meant if civilians hadn't evacuated during the chaos, there would have been no path to victory. No matter how many times I beat it down, it would just keep devouring humans and regenerating endlessly.
Without the legs to chase it down, I was effectively fighting an immortal.
But right now, with the civilians evacuated — right now, the only stock for its False Immortality was those five heads at its waist.
"I said I'd let you live... Now you're ignoring me?"
It bared bloodstained teeth and glared. A chilling killing intent rolled off the thing — the clear intent to slaughter on the spot.
"I'll kill you...!"
A bone-cold chill to behold — swallowed up by the endlessly blazing Demon Energy.
You're not the only one running hot.
Flesh chunks had bloomed across this city. An unfinished product of imitation Elixir — I had no idea how many had already been sacrificed to it. When I saw the students' bodies strewn and tangled like garbage, I'd had to crush down the emotions threatening to detonate.
Yeah. I'd been holding it in. Struggling to keep my composure. Forcing down the churning in my gut. Because if I hadn't, I couldn't have stopped the Witch's Calamity. I couldn't have saved Baek So-yul. But now — the fairy dragon and Baek So-yul were no longer here.
—There was nothing left to protect.
Which meant there was no longer any reason to hold back.
At last, the Wolf began to rampage.
***
The Wolf moved first.
Broken Finger flinched. A wolf wreathed in black flame, with scarlet eyes burning afterimages into the air. But the surprise lasted only an instant — it simply hadn't expected the Wolf to charge first.
In the end, it was too slow. The moment Broken Finger thought it could dodge easily, shadows bloomed from somewhere and pierced straight through the soles of its feet.
"......?!"
Unlike the Wolf, Broken Finger lacked a sense of pain — it lacked tactile sensation entirely. That was why it couldn't comprehend when the shadows had struck.
This—!
By the time it tried to shake them off, the Wolf was already upon it. A violent wind howled in from somewhere as the black flames engulfed Broken Finger. Even inside the spreading inferno, Broken Finger didn't panic.
After all, it felt no pain. It could regenerate. Instead, it seized the Wolf and tore the foreleg apart — or so it thought. An instant later, all that remained in its hand was a handful of writhing tentacles.
What?
Too late. The Wolf's jaws clamped down on its shoulder.
The Wolf bit into the shoulder joint it had just regenerated, pulling and stretching, and the black flames rising between its teeth coiled around them both. Broken Finger ripped its own arm off once again, and gulped down another head.
Two heads remained. Cleverly, the thing had used the fire to burn through its stock at the same time.
"You...!"
Too careless, showing its abilities like that — Broken Finger was only now realizing. But... there were fur and flesh caught under its nails, and that settled its temper a little.
When the Wolf bit into its shoulder, Broken Finger had raked the Wolf's belly open with its other hand. That was why the Wolf had been forced back.
The match was already decided. Poison Claw. The deadly venom smeared on those nail tips would eat the beast alive from the inside. It wasn't human, but at the thought of devouring a monster it had never seen before, Broken Finger grinned white.
"You really thought you'd win?"
The massive deformed hand swung wide.
That should have been the end. And at that moment — it saw a black demon.
***
[Faint Poison Resistance (E) Lv.1 proficiency at maximum. Faint Poison Resistance (E) Lv.1 → Faint Poison Resistance (E) Lv.2]
The All Damage Reduction and Poison Resistance blocked the deadly venom. It wasn't zero damage, but the gash torn across my belly was the bigger problem. Even with Hardening, its overwhelming strength had carved right through me. If the claws had gone one more inch deeper, I might have died on the spot.
—Which means.
I raised the Ghost Flame (C) to its limit. Faster. Even faster. As if answering that wish, the Demon Energy surged. The spectral shape of a demon grinned black and poured out a ghostly wail.
[Ghost Flame (C) Lv.3 proficiency at maximum. Ghost Flame (C) Lv.3 → Ghost Flame (C) Lv.4]
The flickering shadows and the black demon overlapped, deepening into an even darker shade. A jet-black so stark it stood out against the darkness itself.
"......!"
Even with the Ghost Flame (C) blazing at its limit, the thing wouldn't stop. If anything, it chewed up its remaining stock in advance and opened its jaws wider. It crushed the tentacles and shadows under overwhelming mana and closed the distance in a single rush.
One left.
I kicked off with Elasticity and whipped up a Gust. The freshly mended wound tore open again from the shock.
The thing, shrouded in black demons, showed nothing but relentless fixation as it lunged. I slipped into the shadows in an instant and vanished from its sight.
"......?"
By now the entire area was saturated with Spiritual Field. It glanced around, searching for me — and I erupted from under its own shadow and sank my teeth into its ankle.
"You... were there!"
Our eyes met through the flames, and its gaze flashed. I knew. Its Alluring Evil Eye. An eye that muddled the mind and shattered focus.
—I was waiting for that.
I'd already tasted far worse illusions. I conjured up the memory of that mage's imitation of The World, and its Evil Eye shattered pathetically. An Evil Eye is mana-based. It acts on the mind, not the body. Just as I had felt Mental Exhaustion as a slime, it too clutched its eyes in the backlash of its own mana.
"————!"
No pain meant no familiarity with suffering. I aimed for the gap in its agony — countless tentacles were about to pierce it through — and then I was blown away by a storm of mana.
Damn it.
Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Mana exceeding 500. Detonating it held power on par with a proper spell. Every last tentacle was smashed to pieces, and I was hurled back as well. All that from just the aftershock — combined with the venom from earlier, my Regeneration couldn't keep up at all.
An overwhelming stat gap that couldn't be overcome by numbers or skills.
"Grrrr—"
The Wolf's low growl burrowed into Broken Finger's ears. Broken Finger closed in and slammed the Wolf down. They tumbled across the burning undergrowth, rolling over and over. In the chaos, Broken Finger opened its jaws and bit into the Wolf's shoulder. It had aimed for the scruff of the neck, but fierce resistance kept it from finding its mark.
When Broken Finger raised its arm again, the Wolf was just beginning to open its jaws — too late. The deformed hand that had moved first carried enough force to smash the Wolf's skull and then some.
"Die...!"
Mad green light blazed in its eyes. Overwhelming AGI showed the irrational gulf between them. At point-blank range, prediction was useless. No matter how far I pushed Perception, it would just tear the Wolf apart at speeds beyond insight. Which meant: the Wolf had no retreat.
So — the Wolf moved forward.
It met the brute force head-on without retreating. Jaws opened and bit down on the hand. Teeth crunching into the deformed hand, and the deformed hand tearing into the Wolf's jaw. The Wolf's head seemed on the verge of being half-destroyed — but shadows and tentacles seized the arm and wrenched it back. The certain-kill strike ripped the Wolf's mouth completely open, then halted just short of piercing through to the brain.
A low beast's cry and a ghostly wail infiltrated Broken Finger's ears, mocking it. Enraged, the thing's hand was chewed down past its gullet by the Wolf's teeth. And then — mana that had bottomed out surged anew.
"......!"
Massive mana against massive mana. The storm of it collided head-on. Astoundingly, the mana the Wolf released didn't buckle under Broken Finger's mana. The vast mana-storm clashed — both were hurled back — and the scattering black flames burned only Broken Finger, horribly.
Snatch Devour.
A C-rank skill that temporarily steals the stamina and mana of any target consumed. The mana that had just collided hadn't been mine — it had been the thing's own mana. That was why I hadn't been pushed back in that exchange. I exhaled sharply and gauged the distance between us. Even as it burned, the thing swallowed the head at its waist, and False Immortality reversed its wounds.
Now it starts.
It wasn't smiling anymore. It had used even its final stock, the one stashed at its hip. Now the thing had no retreat either.
I'd made it this far because I knew the thing. And the thing didn't know me.
Now we both knew each other.
—This is where it begins.
For real.
The thing would move in earnest now — but my mana had already run dry long ago. Every time I'd needed to match even its footspeed, I'd been forcibly dragging my mana up from nothing.
Its mana, on the other hand, wasn't anywhere near empty. It hadn't even used half.
251. Against 545. More than double by raw numbers alone. That overwhelming gap in mana was the biggest wall separating us.
—Which means.
[Great Magic Power (B) Lv.1 skill acquired.]
[Remaining Skill Points: 20 → 4]
—It was time to use what I'd saved all this time to vault over that wall.