Chapter 211
Chapter 211
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 211
Chapter Title: The Serpent's Head (4)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Gah!”
Just as Cheon Sang-gil sensed the danger and tried to hastily pull back.
*Crackle!*
Blue lightning erupted from Oh-jin's fingertips, coursing through the damp hanbok to strike him.
“Kughaaak!”
Cheon Sang-gil collapsed to the floor, exhaling a breath filled with agony.
*Crackle! Sizzle!*
Lingering blue sparks crackled around his body like an afterglow.
“Oh, Oh-jin, what are you doing to Grandpa?!”
Ha-eun rushed over, her face a mask of horror.
“That’s not him.”
“Huh? What do you mean, not him….”
“That isn’t Elder Cheon Sang-gil.”
This was merely something else wearing his guise.
Oh-jin looked down at the fallen Cheon Sang-gil with cold eyes and continued.
“If it were really the Elder, he wouldn't have been taken down by an attack of this level.”
“That’s…”
“Mr. Oh-jin is right, sis.”
Isabella, who had followed behind, nodded.
“Guh… h-how?”
Lying on the floor, Cheon Sang-gil looked back at Oh-jin, his expression one of disbelief.
Perhaps he wanted to ask how he’d figured it out.
“I thought something was off from the start.”
Oh-jin clicked his tongue lightly.
The sense of incongruity that had struck him when he first received the call from Cheon Sang-gil.
At the time, it was just a simple question, but with the situation developing like this, the question had turned into suspicion.
“Why was I the first person you contacted?”
Not the Cheonhye Guild, where he was the guild master. Not Isabella, who had volunteered to be the liaison for him during the Living Armor incident. And not Ha-eun, who had destroyed the black pillar that rose from beneath Sokcho's city center during the monster raid.
Why.
Why had he contacted him first?
“If you wanted to gather the Guardians, it would have made sense to contact Isabella first. If you wanted to call the people who participated in the Sokcho monster raid, you should have contacted my sister first.”
He didn't even have a particularly close relationship with Cheon Sang-gil.
The fallen Cheon Sang-gil looked up at Oh-jin with an incredulous expression.
“You… attacked me… for something as trivial as that?”
“Well, at the time, I just thought it was a bit strange. I wasn’t suspicious.”
If he had been, he wouldn't have come to Sokcho in the first place.
But.
“Isn’t it too much of a coincidence?”
A rift opening ten days ago, and Cheon Sang-gil discovering it in just three.
The fact that the rift was created to target Oh-jin alone, and that Cheon Sang-gil had contacted only him, bypassing Isabella—the main point of contact for the Guardians—and Ha-eun, who had once trained under him.
Taken individually, each could be dismissed as a coincidence, but when so many coincidences piled up, suspicion was inevitable.
“…Guh.”
The man on the floor, the one wearing Cheon Sang-gil’s face, swallowed a groan.
Twisting in agony, he lifted his head and a smirk spread across his lips.
“Even if you know my identity, it’s too late.”
*Gurgle.*
In an instant, his face began to melt and shift like clay, morphing through dozens of different faces.
Soon, his entire body transformed into a monster of black ooze.
It looked like the silhouette of a culprit from a mystery show.
Oh-jin narrowed his eyes, observing the creature made of black ooze.
The moment he saw the monster, a name popped into his head.
‘A doppelganger.’
A monster with the ability to change its form at will.
There were only rumors of such a creature existing in the Magyeong; it had never once been discovered on Earth.
‘Come to think of it, I also got Shapeshift in Sokcho.’
The ability he’d gained from Choi Jong-cheol, who had turned into a monster back then, was Shapeshift.
Could it have some connection to the doppelganger?
With no way to find an answer to that question, the doppelganger, now a mass of black ooze, revealed its pearly white teeth and spoke.
“Now that you are here… you will die at ‘his’ hands.”
After uttering the ominous warning, the doppelganger quickly rose to its feet and began to flee.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“Huk!”
Isabella, who had instantly appeared before the doppelganger, glared at it with eyes as cold as frost.
A small drop of blood gathered at her snow-white fingertips and fell to the floor.
“Mr. Oh-jin isn’t finished speaking yet.”
*Splaaash!*
The drop of blood that hit the floor formed a small puddle.
Crimson chains shot out from the puddle, wrapping around the fleeing doppelganger’s body.
“Gah! Let… let me go!”
The doppelganger twisted its body in a panic.
Isabella approached it with a leisurely pace.
“Damn it…!”
With a curse, the doppelganger’s body began to change with a gurgling sound.
It transformed into the spitting image of Oh-jin.
He looked at Isabella with affectionate eyes and opened his mouth.
“Isabella. You’re not going to attack me, are you?”
It was a unique power that only doppelgangers possessed—the ability to read the desires of their opponents and transform into the person most precious to them.
The sensory organ humans rely on most is sight.
Even if one’s mind knows it’s not real, seeing a being with the face and voice of their most beloved person would inevitably cause a moment of hesitation—
“What. Are. You. Doing?”
Her voice was low and沉.
Her bright blue eyes, which had been sparkling, constricted, turning as dark and emotionless as a doll's.
“…Huh?”
Feeling a terrifying killing intent that seemed to choke the very air from its lungs, the doppelganger trembled.
*Crunch!*
Isabella plunged her fingers into the collarbone of the doppelganger disguised as Oh-jin.
Flesh tore, and black ooze gushed out.
“I asked… what you think you’re doing.”
“Aaaaaah! Gack!! Uwaaah!”
*Crunch, craaack! Crunch!*
Like scooping the core from a piece of fruit, she violently dug her fingers into its collarbone.
A gruesome sound of crushing bone echoed as a desperate scream erupted from the doppelganger’s mouth.
“Of all people… how dare you, how dare you, how dare you… imitate Mr. Oh-jin?”
Isabella muttered in a voice thick with killing intent as she systematically dismantled the doppelganger.
She ripped out its clavicle, carved out the muscle and fat within, then twisted and tore out the connected shoulder blade.
“Guh! Gurgle! Krrk!”
As the brutal dismantling continued, the doppelganger’s eyes rolled back, and it began to foam at the mouth.
Just as Isabella seized the arm of the writhing doppelganger and plunged her fingers into its other collarbone.
“Hold on a second.”
Oh-jin placed a hand on Isabella’s shoulder.
Her eyes, which had lost their light, returned to normal, and a radiant smile bloomed on her lips.
“Yes, Mr. Oh-jin!”
It was an innocent smile, one you wouldn't expect from the woman who had just been mercilessly crushing bones and tearing flesh.
A drop of black blood that had splattered onto her cheek trickled down from the corner of her upturned lips.
“…Is she okay?”
Ha-eun whispered, her face pale with fright.
Oh-jin nodded as if to say not to worry.
As long as the fangs weren't pointed at him, it didn't matter how sharp they were.
“She’s fine.”
At least to me.
“Ah, ugh. Ah.”
Oh-jin approached the fallen doppelganger.
“Where’s the exit?”
“There… is no… exit.”
“Cut the crap.”
*Crack!*
“Aaargh!!”
Oh-jin brutally stomped on the stump where its arm had been torn off, his eyes glinting coldly.
If there was a way in, there had to be a way out.
The reason less than five percent of the Magyeong had been explored wasn't because people couldn't get in, but because they chose not to.
“You… will not… leave this place… alive…”
“Isabella.”
“Yes, Mr. Oh-jin!”
“Eek! W-wait! Wait a minute!”
As a beaming Isabella bounced toward it, the doppelganger’s face went deathly pale.
Not daring to meet her gaze, it pointed a trembling hand toward a tall rock formation.
“G-go straight in the direction of that rock… and a r-rift will appear.”
“Is that so?”
Oh-jin nodded and brutally stomped on both of the doppelganger’s legs.
“Aaaaaaaargh!!”
Its legs were crushed horrifically, as if caught in an industrial press.
“Isabella, can you keep these chains on it?”
“Yes. They should hold for about a day.”
Oh-jin nodded and turned in the direction the doppelganger had indicated.
“If you lied, you’ll be seeing me again.”
“Kugh… ugh.”
The doppelganger writhed like a worm and nodded.
[My child had such a cruel side to him.]
Vega, who was sitting in Oh-jin’s hair, spoke in a slightly shocked tone.
Having only seen Oh-jin’s heroic side until now, his current behavior felt somewhat unfamiliar to her.
Oh-jin asked, feeling a pang of guilt.
“Are you disappointed?”
[Not at all. To save the world, one must sometimes harbor poison in their heart. Pay it no mind.]
Vega shook her head and reached out a tiny hand to stroke Oh-jin’s head.
It was a ticklish sensation, like being brushed by a feather.
A small smile touched Oh-jin's lips as he started walking toward the rock formation the doppelganger had pointed to.
As they were slowly making their way toward the rocks.
“Mr. Oh-jin… over there.”
Isabella squinted, looking off to one side.
“What is it?”
“I smell blood.”
A very strong scent of it.
“…Let’s go.”
“I’ll take the lead, Mr. Oh-jin.”
Isabella moved to walk in front of Oh-jin, as if to protect him.
It was quite a distance; they walked for nearly twenty minutes before arriving at the location she had indicated.
It was a small clearing formed between towering rock formations.
Inside, hundreds of corpses were strewn about.
“Oh-jin, this is…”
“They’re members of the Cheonhye Guild.”
Oh-jin narrowed his eyes, examining the bodies.
They were violently torn and crushed.
The state of the corpses was gruesome, as if they had been sucked into industrial machinery.
[It looks like they were trying to protect something.]
Vega, who was looking at the scattered bodies with sorrowful eyes, murmured softly.
Just as she said, the bodies were positioned as if they had been trying to protect something precious from an intruder.
Oh-jin nodded and searched for whatever it was the Cheonhye Guild members had given their lives to protect.
“Oh-jin! I think it’s over here!”
Ha-eun pointed to a narrow gap between the rocks.
*Fwoosh!*
Flames flickered to life around her, brightly illuminating the area.
A narrow crevice between the rocks.
And inside it was…
“G-Grandpa…!”
The corpse of Cheon Sang-gil, a gaping hole blown through the left side of his chest.
He had been dead for quite some time; the stench of decay filled the air.
“……”
Oh-jin looked down at Cheon Sang-gil’s body and slowly closed his eyes.
He had expected it when the doppelganger appeared in Cheon Sang-gil’s form.
But seeing the body for himself left a heavy feeling in his heart.
‘I hadn’t just grabbed the snake’s tail.’
He had.
He had seized it not by the tail, but by the head.
The head of a venomous serpent with terrifying fangs.
*Ruuuumble!*
A thunderous roar echoed, and the entire rocky area began to shake.
Oh-jin bit his lip and raised his spear.
“They’re coming.”
From atop the high rock formations, a horde of hundreds of monsters leaped down.