#46 The Cult's Prodigal Sons (2)
#46 The Cult's Prodigal Sons (2)
"......!"
She managed to deflect the Armored Monstrous Figure's attack, barely, but still went tumbling several times over before slamming into a tree and collapsing. The thought that came to Eun Ja-rim a beat too late was that this wasn't a kind of strength permitted to humanity—to any living creature at all.
"Uoooooohhhhh—!"
As if drunk on the heat of battle, the Flesh-mass Armored Monstrous Figure wrenched its head back and roared. Eun Ja-rim forced herself upright and, realizing the flesh of her palm had been torn open, bit into her sleeve and bound spear to hand.
"......."
The shaft was bent so badly it looked ready to snap. If it weren't an alloy built for exceptional ductility, it would have broken clean in two. Eun Ja-rim glanced up toward the cliff as she worked the spear back into shape, and her brow furrowed.
'Alpha (Jirisan Warg)?'
Black flame—the very symbol of the Wolf. It looked like it was locked in combat with a mage up there. Did that mean these really were the Heretical Prodigal Sons? While she was watching, the Armored Monstrous Figure's howling stopped. It kicked off the earth with terrifying speed, each step making the ground quake.
"......!"
A shaft already bent once—no matter how ductile—was not going to deflect another blow cleanly. In the next instant, Eun Ja-rim's wrist twisted at an unnatural angle. She kept parrying the Armored Monstrous Figure's attacks, but her body was being battered to pieces. Brute force. But the thought that running would only send it after the rear unit kept her feet rooted.
In that brief moment of recoil, the Armored Monstrous Figure charged.
'It got faster...!'
BOOM—! Overwhelming violence and unstoppable force sent Eun Ja-rim flying. She felt her ribs ground to powder and her insides violently concussed.
"Keuhk...!"
Blood welled up and her vision blurred. Eun Ja-rim wrung what little breath remained in her lungs. Her body wouldn't move, so she moved the spear with mana and forced herself backward. The Armored Monstrous Figure's fist slammed into the ground a moment too late, and the shockwave sent her rolling several more times. She'd survived by a hair, but that was it. There wouldn't be a next one.
'......!'
The Armored Monstrous Figure strode closer. Even so, she refused to give up. As if to prove her resolve to the very end, she kept her eyes open. And so, what filled Eun Ja-rim's vision was not the Flesh-mass Armored Monstrous Figure's fist—
"Volley fire!"
—but a rain of arrows blanketing the jungle.
"Archers! Reload!"
At the command, the archers nocked fresh arrows to their strings. Dozens of shafts were already piercing the Armored Monstrous Figure. In the gap, one hunter dashed in and succeeded in securing Eun Ja-rim. Gu Jin-ha saw him nod as he retrieved her, and shifted his focus.
'Running low already...'
They didn't have many arrows left. They'd resupplied when they merged with the retreating rear unit, but they could fire maybe two or three more volleys at most.
"Are you all right?"
Eun Ja-rim gave a bitter smile at the question. Even speaking about what had gone wrong was a struggle. Having wrung out her strength to the very last, she murmured in a small voice.
"Immortality... Executioner."
The words reached the hunter's ears clearly. Immortality. Executioner. He understood immediately—the enemy had the same skill.
And more than anything, the way arrows simply rattled off with a casual flick of the hand, the way it regenerated in an instant...
'...They really were confident.'
They'd genuinely meant to wipe out the Neverland Raid Force. Gapju's swordsman. The Flesh-mass Armored Monstrous Figure. And, probably up on that cliff, the Silent Mouth and...
'...Alpha (Jirisan Warg).'
Black flame. Alpha was without a doubt up there. The moment Gu Jin-ha realized it was Alpha who had swept away the lowering dark clouds, he couldn't help but recall the thought he'd had back when they cleared the island.
'What you said about stopping the end.'
If Alpha really shared the same aim as us... Gu Jin-ha shook his head and cleared the thought away. There was something more urgent right now.
The Three Swordsman tightened his grip on his sword.
***
Amid the rising flames, their gazes crossed.
The black mist swirling on the gusts was different now. A combination of two skills—the Wolf was using the Gust to move the Black Mist. The barrier was swept aside. The Silent Mouth drew up his mana to its limit. The immense magical power of a mage—a force churning from within, given form through incantation and made manifest as magic.
[Fulger mare, îmi vei distruge dușmanii—!]
Lightning shot from his fingertips and collided with the mist. The black mist gnawed the spell away by sheer persistence, yet the spell pierced the mist by that same persistence. High-speed incantation and spell disruption—a mage's secret art, on par with Spell Retention. The power was diminished, but the 3rd-verse spell that had clawed its way through the mist flew toward the Wolf all the same.
'......!'
The Wolf saw the lightning. Spells have no physical substance—they close in without air resistance, far faster than the speed of sound. The kind of speed no eye can track. But having seen it coming changes the equation. He slipped off the path that Perception and Intuition had read, and the bolt tore through the Ghost Flame (C) shrouding the cliff and shot off into the distance.
No matter how fast it is, if the trajectory is obvious, it won't touch the Wolf. In the midst of combat, the mage was learning this fact in his bones.
[—inversare]
A spell of reversal. The lightning that had torn its way through the flames came hurtling back. The Wolf, charging toward the mage, sensed the returning bolt and kicked off with Elasticity. The lightning slammed into the ground a breath away, smoldering as it seared the grass, then seeped down into the earth and vanished.
'Hard to close the gap.'
He was missing an arm and his head was gone, and yet he fought like this. The Black Mist had bored into him, but it couldn't advance—as if blocked by a wall. No, it was literally blocked. He was pouring out mana as fast as the Black Mist could swallow it. The sheer brute-force thinking, so unlike a proper mage, and the fathomless magical reserves drew a hollow laugh from the Wolf.
'An old mage.'
Yellow Square, the school that commanded thunder and lightning. He who had once been the master of Yellow Square. More precisely, what had once been the 'former Yellow Square Master.' That was the man's identity. How much mana had he accumulated over all those long years? There was no comparing him to the Wolf.
—Even so, the Wolf had the upper hand now. The man's mana was not infinite. But there was one thing that worried him.
'...So he really is here.'
Far off, somewhere barely visible, something was erupting with every violent clash. He'd expected as much from the moment he knew they'd come to strike the Neverland Raid Force.
There was no way only Juggernaut and the Silent Mouth had come, just the two of them.
If Kang Hoon—former Seven Hero, former Sword Saint—was involved, there was no one else who could be brought to bear against the Neverland Raid Force.
'Looks like Kang Tae-ho is holding him off, but...'
That balance wouldn't last long. Kang Tae-ho as he'd seen him in the Forest Dungeon was certainly strong, but not on the level of the current Kang Hoon.
...At the end of his thoughts, he slipped into the shadows and approached his enemy. Several times while the mist and mana were locked in their standoff, he'd fired spines—none had penetrated, each clattering to the ground.
Even the black flame clinging to the spines was snuffed out far too easily.
'In the end, the Black Mist is all I've got.'
But the mana the man was emitting had layered itself into wall after wall, encasing him. A stalemate of mist and mana. It was only a matter of time before the Black Mist bored through his mana—but time was exactly the problem. Through the cocoon of mana, the Wolf heard the Silent Mouth murmuring.
[Dumnezeul tunetului și al fulgerelor, coboară]
A massive surge of mana. In this situation, the man was preparing yet another spell. Even as the Black Mist devoured his mana, he had enough breathing room to incant.
'...Damn it.'
The moment his incantation finished and the spell activated, the tide would turn again.
—Once more, the moment of choice had come.
[Whether to advance or stand still]
At the voice that came like an auditory hallucination, I gritted my teeth.
In that instant, a scene I 'could never have seen' flashed through my mind again. The Wolf let out a low breath, and his eyes flared red, scattering a baleful light.
'......I understand.'
—I understand who you are now. Because this isn't something I saw—it's something you saw. When this fight ends, I'll come find you, as you wish.
But right now, bringing that bastard down is more urgent.
Setting all truths aside, the Wolf made the same choice once more.
The moment his will solidified, the Black Mist that had been gnawing at the Silent Mouth's mana responded to that will and surged back.
The instant the mist withdrew, the incantation accelerated. The mage finished reciting the spell in a flash, his inner state twisted beyond measure.
'......!'
When the fog-obscured vision returned, the Silent Mouth swallowed what could not be swallowed.
Undulating shadows. Boiling mana. Blazing black flame. Savage wind and black mist. Cloaked in all of it, the Wolf was lowering his stance, ready to lunge.
—He must not be given time. But if he can't be pierced—
'I have to advance.'
—Then the only path is forward, with his life on the line.
And so the mage and the Wolf readied themselves for the end. Toward that final moment, the Wolf ran without stopping.
***
"Kkyuuuut...!"
The Young Dragon, which had long since retreated to a safe distance, let out an anxious cry. Amid the endless surge of ominous mana, the Young Dragon had been able to pinpoint its origin.
By nature, Fairy Dragons are creatures that feed on the impure. None are more sensitive to it. But this was not something it could do anything about. The dragon was still young and unseasoned.
—In the end, there was nothing to do but trust and wait. Nothing to do but pray that the Wolf would win and return.
The only thing the Young Dragon could do was make sure that when this battle was over, no arrow aimed at the Wolf would reach him.
The Young Dragon's expression went cold as it spotted an archer drawing his bowstring from hiding.
***
"......As you said, he is unquestionably dead."
It was an undeniable fact. 2055—no method of survival existed for Kang Hoon, left alone in that dungeon. The most malicious dungeon, still uncleared to this day. How much worse must it have been back then, when they had no information at all?
Left alone, Kang Hoon died. Everyone thought so. His two sons left behind, Kang Tae-jun and Kang Tae-ho, held a funeral without his body.
Even then, already exceptional hunters both, they'd had no choice but to flee the dungeon, leaving their father behind in the 'Neverland Frenzy.'
—There was no room for doubt. And so neither of them had believed what the Wolf told them.
"...But he returned."
Changseon spoke in a somber tone.
"I felt no trace of life from him. Whatever came back from that dungeon, it was a monster."
He was no longer human. Kang Hoon quietly asked Changseon for help—asked him to cooperate with a certain organization, so that he might become human again.
Kang Hoon was an old friend and a pillar of humanity. His return would be an incomparable light for humankind. There was no reason to refuse.
"...And that organization—was it the Heretical Prodigal Sons?"
"It was. Their goal was to create the blood of a god—the Elixir. If that were possible, if they could manifest the miracle of resurrection, the divine works of a god... I believed Kang Hoon could be restored."
And so Changseon and Gwanghwi aided them with all their resources. But what they soon realized brought nothing but regret that it should never have happened. Blinded by their determination to help Kang Hoon, they had assisted the Prodigal Sons without ever knowing 'how' they were making the Elixir.
"Who the leader of their organization is. Why they truly desire the Elixir. I do not know. But the fact that Kang Hoon stands with them—that was something I could not tell anyone."
"...The Seven Heroes."
The Seven Heroes, humanity's spiritual pillars. If it became known that Kang Hoon, one of their number, had taken the hand of apostates, it would sow chaos beyond measure in human society.
"Yes. That was why."
He couldn't tell even his own clan members, couldn't let anyone know. Still, there had been results. This was Changseon and his son, Gwanghwi—the world's greatest archer. They had succeeded in eliminating two of the Prodigal Sons' executives.
—But that was as far as it went.
"...In the end, not long ago, when they raided the Academy, he killed Muno."
Hearing those words, Kang Tae-jun clenched both fists as if to crush something. His trembling hands spoke for his heart.
The devastating truth: that his father, who had lived a hero and died a hero to the very end, had betrayed humanity—had killed a comrade.
"......And then he came for me. He was strong. No—he had grown stronger by becoming a monster. Had there been more time, I would likely have met the same fate as Muno."
—The moment suspicion became certainty, the moment he confirmed the truth that his friend had become a turncoat, the Sword Saint's silver appraisal monocle blazed with fierce light.
"...Why—why would my father—!"
At that moment, the door to Changseon's chamber flew open, cutting off their conversation.
"Emergency! Clan Leader! The Neverland Blockade Squad—they've been hit! It's possible—!"
The Gowon clan member's face shifted oddly as he registered Kang Tae-jun's presence.
"...Why is the Sword Saint here?"
—It was no longer the time or the atmosphere for further talk.
"Are you leaving?"
Kang Tae-jun, already on his feet, nodded.
"I will call on you another time. Changseon."
Watching Kang Tae-jun's back as he walked out the door, Changseon let out a short sigh and spoke.
"Please, be careful."