The Three Fusions Bloodline (2)
A pillar of blood surged from the ground.
Each droplet of blood clung to the floor like pieces of flesh, warping the ground.
They coalesced, shaping themselves into what looked like a string of Buddhist prayer beads.
It might have been his imagination, but a bizarre scream seemed to echo through the space.
"This is not a place where sentient beings like you can easily enter."
Filling the room with blood droplets so that Lee Jin-hyuk and Russell had no room to escape, the old monk tilted his head and laughed.
"Without offering blood, one can obtain neither nirvana nor reincarnation."
At these bizarre and incomprehensible words, Russell flew into a rage.
"What kind of nonsense are you babbling on about?!"
Thwack!
With a single punch from Russell, a significant portion of the blood droplets vanished.
"...!"
The old monk's expression instantly froze at the extraordinary power of the fist.
To think a plain punch—one that used no mana, let alone a skill—could possess such destructive force.
"You are quite a powerful sentient being. Judging by your build and fist technique... are you one of those arrogant Shaolin bastards?"
"Isn't he a bit too hairy to be a monk, grandma?"
Spreading his wings even wider, Lee Jin-hyuk approached the old monk.
"Ho... Now that you mention it, he hasn't shaved his head."
The old monk lightly blocked Lee Jin-hyuk's swinging sword with a wooden temple block made of a skull.
At that moment, several streams of blood shot out from the skull block.
They wrapped around Jin-hyuk's limbs like living tentacles.
"Tell us what you did to our animal friends here, you crazy old hag!"
While Jin-hyuk bought time, Russell had already closed the distance.
"Hyaaaaaah!"
Clasping his hands together, he brought them down hard on the old monk's head.
Boom!
It looked like a small animal getting hit by a truck.
The body bent and crushed instantly, to a degree that made one wonder if it was even okay to hit someone that hard.
"Gwah!"
The short scream was a bonus.
If you kill her like that, we won't be able to hear what she did to the animals.
Harboring that concern, Jin-hyuk also swung his sword.
Regardless, they had plenty of clues.
Letting one's guard down or taking it easy in an enemy's advantageous territory was out of the question.
Whoosh!
The bent body of the old monk was sliced apart by Jin-hyuk's sword.
The opponent was likely skilled in her own right, but dealing with Russell, an active Ranker, and Jin-hyuk, who possessed Ranker-level strength, at the same time was simply impossible.
"Hehehe... Impressive."
Beyond the completely crushed corpse.
An entity looking exactly like the old monk emerged.
"Even if they are mere 'failures,' to break a relic infused with the power of the imprisoned Bodhisattva so easily..."
"A relic?"
Kicking aside the useless corpse, Jin-hyuk pointed his sword.
"Does this 'Bodhisattva' refer to a Constellation?"
"That..."
The old monk slowly turned her head with a grotesque smile.
Reflected in her eyes were red lotuses and spirits of malice.
"Find out for yourself. If you can, that is."
Sizzle!
Droplets of blood began to rise once more.
"Where are you looking?"
"Those are all relics, you know?"
"No matter how many times you kill them, it will be useless. Fufu."
"Because they are nothing but failures."
Dolls identical to the old monk emerged from all directions, each beginning to manipulate the blood.
With each red bead moving like a cluster of stars, Jin-hyuk and Russell could feel it instinctively.
Jin-hyuk and Russell knew.
Every single one of the "failures" the old monk spoke of contained a bizarre power.
"I'm going first!"
As Jin-hyuk nodded, Russell threw his fist forward with absurd speed.
"Russeeeell!"
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!
"Mighty!!!"
Shouting his own name, Russell's fists began to explode.
The speed was one thing, but the sheer destructive power of each punch was immense.
Even though the old monk's dolls possessed naturally sturdy bodies and were shrouded in barriers of blood, they staggered under the assault.
However, perhaps because he was punching without any soul imprints or skills, the damage felt slightly lacking.
"Jin-hyuk!"
"I know, you don't have to tell me."
Truth-Seeking Eye
Having a terrifying amount of combat experience, Jin-hyuk naturally knew.
To control clone-like dolls like this, the "main body" had to be nearby.
And the place where the main body hides is usually somewhere they don't want others to look.
For instance, beneath the floorboards of this temple, or up in the invisible ceiling.
But certainty was always better than a guess.
Jin-hyuk had dozens of ways to make sure.
Glacial Qi
Sssssss—!
At the sudden spreading energy of the Glacial Qi, the failures instantly froze.
"..."
"..."
They malfunctioned like glitched machines.
It was a brief pause of only three seconds, but through Jin-hyuk's Truth-Seeking Eye, everything was laid bare.
An odorless scent connected the so-called failures like a spiderweb.
It's not below.
Shift.
It's above.
Flash!
Soaring upward at incredible speed, he swung his sword in a wide arc, slicing through the ceiling itself.
———!
The cognitive distortion and defensive magic circles on the ceiling vanished in a single strike.
"H-How...?"
Soon, an old woman revealed herself.
She stood in the center of a blood magic circle inscribed with a mandala, looking incredibly shabby compared to her failures.
"I thought the barrier was invincible..."
Crack!
Before Jin-hyuk could even finish his sentence, Russell, who had already beaten down the failures, delivered an uppercut straight to the old woman's jaw.
The old woman's teeth vanished in an instant.
I might have to buy her dentures.
Despite Russell's blow, miraculously, the old woman did not die.
"I-I'm thorry..."
Her pronunciation was just slurred because she had no teeth left.
"Hahaha! I held back on purpose. How was that?"
I think you just got lucky.
Seeing how his laugh started with a "ha" and ended awkwardly, Russell seemed quite embarrassed himself.
Since this wasn't the first time he had behaved this way, Jin-hyuk simply let it slide.
"Let me ask you something."
"Ugh... Uuuugh..."
"Why are you using the spells of the Blood Sect?"
The Blood Sect.
Literally, a cult that manipulated blood.
They used "blood," which triggered an instinctive revulsion in people.
Furthermore, because they gained immense power by offering "living sacrifices that could bleed," they had been consistently shunned in the Murim.
Was it just shunning?
In the past, the Orthodox Murim Alliance had declared them a public enemy even worse than the Demonic Cult.
A faction that should have vanished over a decade ago.
It was highly unexpected for the power of such a faction to emerge from the Potala Palace, which revered Buddhism.
"I'll thpeak... thpeak honestly..."
"What is she saying?"
Smack!
Russell's merciless fist clipped the old woman's head.
Instead of respecting the elderly, he was assaulting the elderly.
Blood teeth engraved with red patterns sprouted inside the old woman's mouth.
She had formed teeth out of her own blood just to speak.
"A-Ask me anything."
It seemed she had thoroughly learned that failing to speak clearly resulted in a beating.
"I asked why the Blood Sect and the Potala Palace are connected."
"That is..."
The old woman looked around, seemingly hesitant to speak.
"Is there a restriction?"
"Yes. If I speak, I will die..."
"And you think you'll live if you don't?"
Russell raised his fist again, looking genuinely puzzled by her logic.
"Gwah..."
The old woman panicked at the sight and grabbed Jin-hyuk's ankle.
She instinctively knew.
Jin-hyuk was the one calling the shots.
"Russell."
"...Tsk."
Sure enough, Russell clenched and unclenched his fist at Jin-hyuk's word.
"Now speak. What is going on?"
"Well..."
The old woman's explanation was shocking.
The Three Fusions Bloodline.
The Witches, the Potala Palace, and the Blood Sect.
The leaders of the three factions had allied to plot something.
"So what are they plotting?"
"A vessel."
Flinch.
"A vessel?"
Russell raised an eyebrow as if hearing it for the first time, but Jin-hyuk flinched involuntarily.
After all, wasn't Jin-hyuk himself currently a "vessel" designed to house a Constellation?
Could it be related?
It was true that those three factions possessed outstanding High Rankers.
Even so, the possibility of them housing a being as grand as a Constellation was slim.
Was it because of the weight of the word?
Although he thought it unlikely, Jin-hyuk asked with a trace of tension.
"A vessel for what?"
"...A witch."
So it's not a Constellation.
Jin-hyuk stared down at her.
"Are you saying it's to house Majuron?"
"...Something like that. Lady Majuron desires a vessel that can house not just herself, but all witches."
"All witches?"
"Yes. Those who possess the power of witches. More precisely, the goal is to gather the spiritual bodies of those who hold the power of the 'Banished Constellation' into one place."
"...!"
Jin-hyuk's eyes widened at those words.
As far as he knew, there was only one way to achieve that.
"Do they plan to kill all the witches and turn them into Wailing Ghosts?"
"...H-How did you know?"
There was no way he wouldn't.
A ghost that wept with deep resentment: a Wailing Ghost.
Jin-hyuk was once the Wailing King who ruled over them.
I see. Majuron changed her course.
Now he understood clearly how she had shifted her plans.
Instead of focusing on the first to fourth floors, she wants the power I possessed as the Wailing King before my regression.
The power of the Wailing King was formidable.
Beyond formidable, it was overwhelming.
He could control tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even tens of millions of Wailing Ghosts.
A single Wailing Ghost could wipe out an average player party, and she wanted millions of them?
It was literally a disaster.
Indeed, whenever Jin-hyuk led the Wailing Ghosts onto the battlefield, it was referred to as the disaster known as the "Wall of Wailing."
There was a reason why the "Wailing King," Lee Jin-hyuk, was counted among the four great disasters of the Tower.
"Is that all?"
"I-I don't know anything else..."
Perhaps intimidated by Jin-hyuk's cold gaze, the old woman trembled.
"Please, spare me..."
Slice.
Without hesitation, Jin-hyuk slit her throat.
"There is no need to keep the Blood Sect alive."
"So you just squeeze them for information and discard them?"
*Ahem.*
"I didn't expect you to kill someone so easily, even if I would."
In fact, Jin-hyuk had encountered numerous bandits on his way here, but he hadn't killed a single one.
"That's because you knocked them out or killed them before I could."
"Hahaha... Is that so?"
"Besides, the Blood Sect isn't worth sparing. Didn't you know?"
Flicking the blood off his sword in disgust, Jin-hyuk turned away.
"The blood the Blood Sect uses is basically from children under fifteen. The purer the blood, the greater the power it grants."
"...What?"
A silence as heavy as a cliff weighed down on them.
Soon, Russell began to tremble with rage.
"And the Witches and the Potala Palace are cooperating with them, knowing full well what they do."
"Why! Why on earth are they doing this?!"
Crash!
Unable to contain his fury, Russell threw a punch.
The blow blew away whatever remained of the temple.
"Like I said. To make a vessel."
"..."
"To control Wailing Ghosts, a special physical constitution is required."
Indeed.
Before his regression, Jin-hyuk also possessed a "special physical constitution," which allowed him to become the Wailing King.
Jin-hyuk himself had considered it a curse his entire life, but depending on how one looked at it, it was a talent.
The problem was that the probability of being born with this talent was one in hundreds of millions.
"Majuron is conducting countless experiments to handle the power of Wailing Ghosts. To obtain a body that can control not just Wailing Ghosts and wraiths, but even Ice-Sinking Ghosts and other spirits."
Jin-hyuk's eyes gleamed.
"To obtain the Ghostly Vessel."
Now, what they had to do was clear.
Majuron.
Before she could obtain a vessel with the Ghostly Vessel, they had to stop her at all costs.
If someone with Majuron's wicked talent acquired the Ghostly Vessel, it would trigger a disaster incomparable to anything before his regression.
In a way, it's my responsibility.
Step.
If I hadn't interfered, she would have kept her eyes on the first to fourth floors.
"Let's go."
"...Wait."
Sensing something was wrong, Russell rushed over.
Kuuu... Kuuu...
There, the Bulgasari lay collapsed, burning with a high fever.
As Russell knelt and scooped it up, the Bulgasari's body trembled as if sobbing.
"Jin-hyuk... Something's wrong with it."
Jin-hyuk quietly approached and placed a hand on it.
He felt the ominous remnants of demonic energy inside the small life.
...The spell is still active.
With this level of power, there was no telling how the Bulgasari might mutate.
The battle was over, but the real problem was just beginning.