Chapter 323
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 323
Chapter Title: Clearing the Smoke
Mad Dog, Garzion.
He was a man from an utterly ordinary family.
A simple soul who grew up smiling as he raised the puppy that had been with him since childhood, without any grand ambitions.
But one day, misfortune struck him.
In Garzion's world, his kind were slaves.
The village where Garzion lived was a slave village, forced to offer up people periodically to the Great Beings.
Garzion was innocent.
In some ways, a bit slow on the uptake.
Perhaps because of that, even after coming of age, he remained unmarried and eventually lost his value in the slave village.
A slave unable to bear children was just useless labor.
In the end, Garzion was captured by the villagers and offered to the Great Beings.
What followed was a nightmare.
The Great Beings tore open Garzion's skull and kneaded his brain, fiddling with every nerve.
Then, after reading his memories, they brought the puppy he had raised and fused it with Garzion.
Thus was born the combat chimera.
Mad Dog.
Mad Dog stood there blankly, unaware of what he was doing.
Why was he suddenly recalling old memories?
"Like a cockroach."
The voice of one of the Great Beings echoed as they looked down at him after his defeat in the arena.
Mad Dog, unable to bring himself to kill his fellow chimera, had to take the fatal blows instead.
"Guess we need to knead that brain some more. Yes, let's forcibly implant illusion magic directly into it. That'll strip away any fear of battle. Chimeras only need murderous intent."
Mad Dog clutched his forehead as a headache hit.
Drip...
Blood trickled down from his forehead.
Where had this blood come from?
Mad Dog had no idea.
The next day, in a revenge match against his chimera comrade.
Mad Dog tore him apart mercilessly.
"Woof!"
In that moment, a dog's bark rang out.
Had he barked himself, perhaps?
Mad Dog touched his mouth.
But strangely, the familiar dog's muzzle was gone.
The one being in the world who had made him vow he could live on if just one loved him.
Mad Dog's sole companion, Iru's muzzle.
"Woof!"
Another dog's bark.
Mad Dog turned his head.
There sat a dog, primly.
The moment it saw Mad Dog, its eyes lit up, and it bounded toward him on four legs.
"Ah."
Tears welled in Mad Dog's eyes.
This was definitely Iru.
"Iru!"
"Woof!"
Iru charged at Mad Dog.
Mad Dog embraced Iru tightly, laughing with joy.
The murderous urges that had always tormented his mind were gone before he knew it.
Mad Dog simply held Iru close, beaming innocently.
Tears overflowed, dripping down his face.
And soon, Mad Dog realized one truth.
This was his life flashing before his eyes.
The vision seen right before death.
'I lost.'
It was an axe swing with all his power.
Yet that axe had fallen short of Krash's sword.
But Mad Dog felt calm.
In fact, it was too late.
He hadn't been able to overcome his murderous impulses or stop slaughtering endlessly, yet couldn't die.
All because he couldn't bring himself to die, even for the sake of Iru implanted within him.
"Iru, sorry. I got greedy."
Because you'd died because of me.
I clung to this world, telling myself I had to live a bit longer.
"Woof!"
Iru licked Mad Dog's face, smiling.
That was enough for Mad Dog.
It had been a long road.
Now, time to rest.
The space swirled with white flames.
Inside, Mad Dog's bisected body tumbled.
"Hah, ha."
And before the halved Mad Dog stood Krash, gasping for breath.
He had infused the space with White Dragon Aura to the brim and even unleashed the Eight Forms.
The strain was hitting Krash's body hard.
The joint technique of Mad Dog and Yeonma was formidable.
Powerful enough to shatter even his Sixth Sense.
Sixth Sense
Disrupted by overwhelming power
'If I'd slipped up, I'd be the one down.'
A World Eroder, indeed.
Couldn't let his guard down around them.
But the fight wasn't over.
Krash dodged the smoke giant's fist hurtling toward him by tilting his head back.
Then, a smoke giant's hand erupted from the ground, striking his leg.
Krash's balance shattered, launching him into the air.
Through the smoke, Yeonma appeared.
Smoke condensed on his staff like molten iron.
Krash gripped Thunderclap tightly.
Soon, Yeonma fired his smoke mass.
Smoke Qi Manipulation
Smoke Fire Pursuit
Hundreds of smoke projectiles split from the tip of his staff, chasing Krash relentlessly.
Krash spun in midair, his sword batting away the Smoke Fire Pursuit entirely.
But he failed to deflect some, taking hits and tumbling across the ground.
Drip...
The skin touched by Smoke Fire Pursuit turned ghostly white, oozing pale blood.
Seemed like some curse variant.
'Can't purge external curses with White Flame right away.'
Krash rolled across the floor, evading the charging smoke giant without a moment to catch his breath.
Yeonma was a powerhouse.
A different breed from Mad Dog.
Yeonma's form vanished into the smoke once more.
Even Krash's Sixth Sense couldn't detect his presence.
He hadn't flinched at Mad Dog's death, relentlessly pressuring Krash.
Likely saw Krash's fatigue as his golden opportunity.
'No, maybe he's just stalling for time.'
Krash thought of the Last Ark pounding the distant walls.
The golden barrier the World Eroders had rampaged into was squeezing Lagren in real time.
They had plenty of time over there.
Krash did not.
Krash breathed deeply and quietly infused power into Thunderclap.
Just once.
Seize one chance and strike Yeonma down.
'Output.'
Having poured power into dropping Mad Dog in one blow, he wasn't in a position for many more.
The White Dragon Aura swirling around Krash began scattering White Flame once more.
White Flame endlessly spread into the smoke.
At the same time, it slowly compressed into his Thunderclap.
Yeonma must have noticed.
That Krash planned to lure him in the same way as before.
Even Yeonma, hiding in the smoke, couldn't handle White Flame.
White Flame's aura countered World Eroders perfectly.
'If you're not panicking.'
Then I'll make you panic.
As Krash focused his mind with that resolve.
Crack!
The ground beneath Krash cracked.
Boom!
It shattered explosively.
In the unexpected crisis, Krash's eyes widened.
What he saw was an underground space filled with smoke.
The smoke rose toward him like a massive palm.
Crunch!
Simultaneously, the ceiling above collapsed, revealing another smoke palm.
Two enormous smoke palms stretched toward Krash in an instant.
Had he sent Mad Dog just to prepare this from the start?
Krash realized he'd been played and bit his lip.
He compressed White Flame around himself and tried to slip between the palms.
Then he spotted Yeonma swinging his staff.
The moment Yeonma slammed it into the ground.
Krash felt his cursed white skin tearing off, gravity yanking him downward.
At the same time, the upper smoke palm accelerated toward him.
Krash realized what the white mark Yeonma had left on him was.
This mark forcibly dragged him to Yeonma's designated spot.
Including with his own smoke.
"Time for you to go."
Yeonma smiled as Krash was sucked between the smoke palms.
Got him.
So he was certain.
Squelch!
Until his chest was pierced by a hand with long purple nails.
"Guhk?!"
Yeonma's eyes bulged, his new bowler hat flying into the sky.
Black blood gushed from his mouth.
The poison surging through his body had wrecked him in an instant.
Yeonma looked back with trembling eyes.
There stood a middle-aged man with black hair streaked in pale purple, like Haring's.
He exuded dark purple poison aura and savage killing intent from his entire body.
"Finally found you rotten bastards."
The one trapped in illusions by Mad Dog and Yeonma's combo.
Poison King, Hawran Lagren.
After Mad Dog died and the illusion shattered.
Hawran had left the Fourth Princess under Sera Betela's protection and rushed to the noisiest spot.
The moment he saw Yeonma clashing with Krash, he struck from behind.
Yeonma realized why he hadn't sensed him immediately.
The White Flame aura permeating the smoke.
It had disrupted Yeonma's senses, letting him hyperfocus on Krash and miss the threat.
Precisely because Krash was such a formidable foe.
Yeonma locked eyes with Krash again.
Through the crumbling smoke from his injury, Krash wore a faint smile.
'No way, from the start.'
The White Flame wasn't just to draw him in—it hid the approaching Poison King too.
He'd thought he'd trapped Krash, only to fall into a counter-trap.
"B-Black, ma..."
As Yeonma desperately tried to muster his last strength.
Squelch, squelch, squelch!
Poison King Hawran pierced Yeonma's body dozens of times without hesitation.
Neck, shoulders twice, chest six times, legs—all run through.
Hawran stomped the collapsing Yeonma.
His body, riddled with gruesome holes from Hawran's hands, only twitched sporadically, unable to move further.
"Not letting you die yet."
Despite all those holes, Yeonma clung to life.
The poison infiltrating his body had forcibly delayed his death.
"You've got plenty to answer for, attacking Lagren."
Hawran declared it with the fierce gaze befitting Lagren's patriarch.
With that, Hawran looked up.
In the distance, Krash staggered out from the underground space Yeonma had created.
The man protected by the Fourth Princess, whom even his daughter adored.
Hawran glanced at Mad Dog's bisected corpse far off.
Likely the one who'd trapped him in illusions.
An illusion even Hawran had fallen for.
Not only had he soloed that foe, he'd cornered a powerhouse like Yeonma too, in Hawran's eyes.
'Not just stronger. On another level.'
Hawran was certain.
The Ten Heavenly Strongest would be overhauled soon.
The only thing weighing on him like a mountain was his daughter's safety, drawing a sigh.
But no time to rest yet.
He still had to deal with the World Eroder infiltrators and the rampaging golden barrier.
Plus fulfill his deal with Fourth Princess Sizly Epania.
"The Empire's about to change."
Because of one girl and one boy.
Hawran lifted Yeonma, pondering the Empire's altered future.