De.li.cious.
"Kiiiiii!!!"
It dug into the earth. Countless branches packed tight as a spider's legs carried it closer, a sight that passed beyond horror and into sheer revulsion. As if that were not enough, its torso stretched long in the same motion, and it grinned with a tongue lolling out, plastered thick with scraps of red flesh.
Its gaze was fixed on Dan Miryu.
"......Revolting."
Dan Miryu's face hardened, and he sprang back. Hwang Seokgu filled the space he left.
"I could stomach it a moment ago. Not now."
"It does turn the stomach."
Hwang Seokgu's face twisted with disgust, and I felt no better. Seeing the thing in a comic and meeting it in the flesh were nothing alike. It was the sensation of standing before something slipped out of joint with the world, something you were never meant to share a space with. It stirred the instinct that said it had to be cast out.
"Ka! Ah! Ah!"
Irritated, perhaps, that obstacles stood in its way, it charged us.
"You bastard!"
Hwang Seokgu caught the hand it swung. The limb was sheathed in branches and bark, the sort of thing that looked as if a mere touch would open skin, yet it was not enough to pierce a tiger's hide.
"Hnnn!"
"Kii......?"
Hwang Seokgu flowed onto it like water. His grip traveled from hand to arm, from arm to body, and the thing could not answer him at all.
"Hnnnnn!!!"
It went blank for an instant, and before it could do anything Hwang Seokgu moved first. He seized its body and heaved it overhead.
"KEEEEEEEE!!!"
Roots driven into the ground tore free. Its already bent body bent further, and a shadow fell across the earth. The tiger put his strength into both arms. Ruthless muscle no fur could hide stood out, veins rising along it.
"AAAAAAAAA!!!"
As if it knew what came next, it tried to wrench free of the tiger's hands. Roots scrabbled to grip the ground, and long branches stabbed to run him through. The roots only raked dirt. The branches broke on tiger hide.
"KRAAAAAHHH!!!"
The tiger roared and brought it crashing down.
BOOM!!!
"KE!!!"
Dust burst outward. Bark and branches shattered into pieces. Under a shock without precedent, the thing convulsed, too wrecked even to manage a scream.
"KRAAAAAHHH!!!"
The tiger climbed onto it. A tiger the size of a mountain mounted its back, and its body sank under the weight.
WHAM! WHAM!
He beat it without mercy, killing intent packed into every fist. That violence was nothing it could stop. Whatever it raised to guard simply broke, and whatever it used to cover its face was torn away by claws.
"Kek! Kek!"
All it could do was scream.
WHAM! WHAM!
Bark cracked. Blood ran—fragmented, foul blood. How much other blood was steeped into a single drop of that? It was gouged, and gouged again. There was no blocking it. There was no blocking the tiger's rage, or his violence.
CRUNCH!!!
The tiger stopped throwing punches. As if instinct demanded he take his prey in his jaws, he bit down.
"KIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!"
A scream of pain shook the air. The thing thrashed. Flailing born of that size was a threat just to look at, but the tiger paid it no mind and bit again.
"Na!!! Wa!!!"
It would not take the blow twice. Roots and branches lengthened, reaching to seize the tiger on its back—a binding rope of its own making. Caught in that, even Hwang Seokgu would be in danger.
I sent a card flying. Set against those branches it looked like something that ought to crumple and tear, and yet it sheared the branches clean through.
"Kii?!"
The unexpected interference startled it, but the tiger had already torn apart every rope aimed at himself and came in again, and it had no attention to spare for me.
"A! Pa! A! Pa!"
As if it meant to stop taking hits, it erupted branches from its whole body. Head, torso, legs—it made no difference. More than a hundred of them surged up at once.
"Krrngh?!"
This, it seemed, could not be powered through. Hwang Seokgu kicked off and fell back. He must have been grazed in the dodge; blood was running down him.
"Are you all right?"
"Hup! I'm fine."
Hwang Seokgu clenched down hard and stopped the bleeding by force. Astonishing muscle.
"A monster's a monster. I hit it meaning to kill, and it's still in one piece."
"Yes. The recovery is incredible."
It healed from every blow the moment it landed. There was no answer to that. Without one overwhelming strike, killing it was impossible.
"No choice. We'll have to leave this to him."
"But I still need a little more time."
A tremendous power pressed in from behind us—a warm affection that might cradle a child, and a transcendence too bright to look at, existing side by side. Dan Miryu was condensing his strength.
"Kieeeee........"
Buried in branches, the thing hauled itself upright. It had been beaten half to death and had every right to rage, yet it only swayed, eyes stolen by Dan Miryu, drinking in the rapture.
Hwang Seokgu and I charged it again.
"KRAHHH!!!"
Hwang Seokgu broke through every branch with his bare body. I stuck close behind him. When he came right up to its face, its eyes went wide.
"KEUAAAA!!!"
As if it would not let itself be struck again, it sprouted fresh branches from the branches it already had. A swollen thicket closed around us like a wall.
"Damn!"
"Krrngh!"
Hwang Seokgu slung me onto his back and burst through the wall of branches. A step slower, and it would have been bad.
"......It's getting more troublesome."
"Krrngh. What a nuisance!"
An ability that had been monotonous was changing.
"It seems to be growing used to its power."
"The fact that thing can grow is infuriating."
Hwang Seokgu tightened his muscles again and sealed the blood.
"You holding up?"
"......I can endure."
Unlike the fight with Sword, there was nothing I could do here. No way to collapse its mind, and no weapon I could use to trick it the way I had cleaned out the Incheon branch. A shame. At the very least, I had to draw its eyes.
"Getting close isn't easy anymore."
"No. It's turned coward."
It did not rush us. Wrapped in branches like a ball, it watched. Through the gaps a faint red light showed.
"Below!"
"...!"
I sprang aside at Hwang Seokgu's warning, and in the same instant a branch shot up. It did not stop. Whipping like a tentacle, it chased us.
"In front, too!"
A branch right in front of my face—I ducked and slipped under it. More were coming off the creature itself, lengthening little by little from the ball.
"Above as well!"
The net that had devoured the Unjinhoe spread open. Like a ceiling blotting out the sky, it vomited branches once more.
"Hup!"
I called on a phantom thief's gift for escape and slipped through without a scratch. Branches from every direction passed me and crashed into one another.
"Krragh!"
Hwang Seokgu raked and snapped the branches driving in at him, holding on with acrobatics a body that large had no business performing.
Still not ready!
The assault grew fiercer as time passed. Keep going like this, and we would be in real danger.
Then, on instinct, my body locked. The branches attacking me locked with it and stopped. No—the whole of this space had stopped.
"Hoo."
Life drew a breath. Freshness settled over ground that had been ruin. The smell of blood vanished, and the clear cool of an open sky took its place.
Chirp. Chirp. Sparrows, somewhere—a beautiful sound announcing a morning sky.
"Thank you for waiting."
The clouds parted, and the sun showed its face. A transcendent descended, bearing not the color of nature but the color of the sun itself. He looked upon the creature that blasphemed against life. The creature, looking back, held no fear.
"Hee! Hee! Hee!"
It revealed its true form from within the ball of branches and spilled drool like a waterfall. With every drop that struck the earth, the grass that had grown there bowed its head.
"......Rest."
"Eat! It!"
The sun poured its light upon this place. There was no sound. There was not even destruction. It did life not the slightest harm. It only cut down what was harmful.
When the light went out, what remained was a magnificent tree, standing bolt upright toward the sky.
"Well done."
Dan Miryu came over to us.
"How did you do it?"
Looking around, I saw a green field grown up all around us.
"I compressed the power into a single point, and it simply turned out this way."
Dan Miryu wore the refreshed look of a man who had learned something.
"Have you grown even past the fight with Sword?"
"I'm not certain. The total sum of power was greater then, but..."
Against Sword he had spent a great deal of care on the aftermath, raising barriers and the like. Even so, the result here was the finer of the two.
"To do it without causing any harm at all. Remarkable."
"Ha ha ha."
Dan Miryu laughed, a little shy.
"I'm livelier now than I was before the fight."
Hwang Seokgu came over, rolling his shoulders.
"The light must have healed us."
"Ah. So that's why the pain in my lower back is gone."
"You hurt your back?"
"The chronic pain you get from growing old. It's gone."
Even with that body?
"You try getting old. It shows up before you know it."
You are nearly a hundred, though...
Hwang Seokgu stretched his back as if a weight had lifted.
"Aigoo, that feels good. I owe you for this."
"Not at all, Elder."
"You sure, though? Looks like you pushed yourself pretty hard."
"I'm all right."
Dan Miryu smiled as if he meant it, but he could not hide how pale he was.
"Wipe the blood off your mouth before you say that."
"Yes?"
Drip. Drip.
"Kaff! Kaff!"
Dan Miryu coughed blood.
"We should get you to a hospital first. Can you walk?"
"Yes. To some extent..."
I held out a handkerchief. He wiped the blood away with it.
"I'll support you."
"Th-thank you."
Dan Miryu entrusted me with his weight, and we were about to turn back.
Crrrack.
"......!!!"
An unpleasant sound. I turned my head.
The tree left behind after the thing had vanished—its center had split. From the split, an eye rose. An eye that tore even at the act of recognizing it. A white pupil, with a single red point set in it. That eye turned toward us.
Different. This was not the refuse from before. Something transcendent, and dangerous. Just looking at it felt as if the mind were coming apart.
Don't tell me that's...
The demon smiled.