Chapter 377
Chapter 377
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 377
Chapter Title: The Demon's Seed
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In a dark alley, a man stood with his hat pulled low over his face.
He was extremely tense. Every nerve on edge, the man glanced around, wary of anyone who might be watching.
He had suppressed his presence and was even cloaked in stealth, moving silently.
"Hey."
The man jumped in surprise and whipped his head around. Someone had closed the distance without a sound, speaking from the shadows.
A chill ran down his spine. He couldn't even make out the figure's face, much less its features. An unnaturally thick shadow cloaked the area where its face should have been.
"You?"
The words were blunt, but the meaning was clear. Deny it here, and this thing would kill him.
Fortunately, the man nodded. The arrangement was already in place.
"I came because I was told there was something to receive."
"Then you know who I am."
"Yes."
The man rashly opened his mouth.
"D-."
In that instant, scarlet eyes gleamed in the darkness. Sensing the threat, the man clamped his mouth shut.
The being before him was a demon. He never imagined one would brazenly wander the heart of the city amid the ongoing counter-war.
"Don't look at me with such wide-eyed surprise. We've always been right beside you. You just never noticed."
The demon's words were a warning. We'll be beside you from now on, too. Don't get any funny ideas.
This man had reached this point on wits alone. He mimed zipping his lips with his fingers.
The demon soon drew something from its bosom and handed it over. It was a small seed shaped like an almond.
"Is this it?"
"You must make it bloom."
Fail, and you die.
The unspoken threat hung in the air. It wasn't his sharpness that told him; those blood-red eyes left no room for doubt.
The man nodded. Just as the demon turned to melt back into the shadows...
Shwick-.
In the blink of an eye, someone severed the demon's neck.
With a crisp, clean slice, the demon's head soared into the air. As it spun through the void and tumbled to the ground, its gaze locked precisely on the man.
Even severed and rolling across the dirt, the face still seemed to mouth the words.
We're watching.
"Eek!"
The man recoiled in terror. The attacker, who had swooped in from nowhere to behead the demon in one stroke, landed lightly on the ground.
It was Lee Soo-hyuk, who had felled the demon without a single drop of blood staining his blade.
"Missed it."
The man's puzzled expression deepened at Soo-hyuk's mutter.
Missed? With the head rolling on the ground like that?
The woman who arrived right behind him cleared up the confusion.
"Hard to call that a miss. It was just a puppet doll to begin with."
"They were prepared for something like this?"
"Seems like a cautious bastard."
"Or they have ulterior motives."
The man didn't recognize Soo-hyuk's face, but Hiels did.
"Gr-Grand Mage!"
Only then did Soo-hyuk and Hiels turn in surprise to the shouting man. With the demon gone, he was their only remaining lead.
"Who are you?"
Soo-hyuk kept his sword drawn as he asked. The implicit threat—that he could lose his head just as easily—prompted a hasty reply.
"I'm Bang Ji-hyuk!"
The name wasn't what mattered. It was his affiliation.
"A Blue Zone ranker?"
"You know me?"
Of course he did.
Soo-hyuk had a solid grasp on Blue Zone's rankers. He had memorized the names, faces, backgrounds, and skills of all the major high-rankers. They'd clash someday, after all.
Bang Ji-hyuk wasn't that important. Just a name he'd heard in passing.
Chasing a demon had led him straight to a Blue Zone ranker.
How was he supposed to take this?
Soo-hyuk spotted something clutched in Bang Ji-hyuk's hand.
"What's that?"
Realizing exposure was bad, Bang Ji-hyuk hurriedly covered it. But that changed nothing.
"Think you can hide it like that? Better to spill it to us than face a trial. Trust me, it's better for you."
"I-it's really nothing."
"We'll decide that. If you'd met the Heavenly Demon here, maybe we'd let it slide. But a demon? No choice now."
Bang Ji-hyuk wavered despite Soo-hyuk's logic. He knew it made sense, but something held him back.
"If you're worried about your guild, don't be. If it's unavoidable, we won't even mention your name. Can't trust me? Trust the grand mage here, then."
The grand mage's reputation worked wonders everywhere. Bang Ji-hyuk glanced at Hiels, then steeled himself.
"This is..."
That was when it happened.
Bulge-.
The seed in Bang Ji-hyuk's hand swelled grotesquely. It expanded so rapidly, it might as well have been a balloon instead of a seed.
Then...
Pop!
The bloated seed burst, spraying crimson blood in all directions. Blood from a seed was bizarre enough, but the sheer volume was unnatural.
Drip-.
A barrier had already sprung up before Hiels. One of the spells designed to shield her body.
"It burst the moment he opened his mouth."
Hiels stared gravely at the spot where Bang Ji-hyuk had stood.
"This guy's probably..."
Dead, obviously.
"Uh... uhh?"
Legs buckling, Bang Ji-hyuk slumped to the ground. He was fine.
Soo-hyuk was already at his side.
"Huh?"
Hadn't Soo-hyuk been right next to her moments ago?
Hiels blinked back and forth between the empty space beside her and Soo-hyuk.
The sword was caked in the exploded blood. Only then did she piece it together and gasp.
"You deflected all of it?"
In that split-second burst, he'd shielded himself and slashed away every drop heading for Bang Ji-hyuk.
She wasn't shocked at blocking blood with a sword. What stunned her was the precision—Bang Ji-hyuk unscathed, not a single drop on him.
Not the speed, but the finesse.
Bang Ji-hyuk, so close to the action, was even more floored.
"Could you be..."
His eyes widened.
Without the mask, the identity hadn't even crossed his mind. The one who'd whipped a blade right in front of his nose in a flash was none other than Lee Soo-hyuk.
Realization turned Bang Ji-hyuk's face even paler than before.
"You have no intention of letting me live."
He was convinced Soo-hyuk would kill him.
Showing his unmasked face meant it was fine—dead men tell no tales.
But he was wrong.
"Plenty have seen it already. And I don't plan to hide anymore."
The mask was purely for the stream these days. In his past life, it had been an item's effect. Now? Just aesthetic.
Blub-.
The blood on the ground floated up and coalesced. Hiels had gathered it with magic.
"Why did it suddenly explode like that?"
A hefty blast. But the power mattered less than the trigger.
"Something they couldn't let get out."
He knew a handful of demons had slipped into the middle world, lurking among players. Major guilds were hunting them aggressively.
But this city brimmed with high-rankers for the counter-war.
Scheming here, where even the Demon King couldn't act freely?
Demons seemed like blood-hungry brutes, but they weren't. In cunning, they outdid humans.
Such reckless moves had to have a purpose.
"What were you about to say earlier?"
"It... said I had to make it bloom."
"Bloom?"
Hiels shot him a puzzled look. But it faded as she noticed Soo-hyuk's face twist with menace.
"Figure it out?"
"Got a hunch."
"Lucky you. I'm drawing a blank."
Soo-hyuk pressed again.
"Who ordered this? You didn't act alone."
"I... don't know."
"Don't know?"
"Yeah. Orders came down from above out of nowhere. Just hold this and wait at the spot."
With the dam broken, Bang Ji-hyuk's answers flowed freely.
Then...
"Double trick."
"Pardon?"
Bang Ji-hyuk's eyes bulged at Soo-hyuk's words.
In that instant, Soo-hyuk's hand shot to his head. Before he could react, a rip-rip sounded from his scalp.
"Aaaagh!"
Bang Ji-hyuk screamed. Like hair yanked out? No—this felt like raw flesh torn free.
Staring at Soo-hyuk's hand in shock, he saw something smaller than a nail twitching.
"Remember again. What did you say earlier?"
"Huh? What?"
Bang Ji-hyuk blinked vacantly, clueless about his own words.
Hiels clocked it immediately.
"Hallucination worm."
Hallucination worms were a type of insect demons controlled. Implanted in the head, they warped memories or induced hallucinations.
The extent depended on the demon's skill and worm count. More worms diluted power; fewer intensified the distortions.
"Weak hallucination—didn't touch self-awareness, just tweaked memory a bit. Efficient for puppeteering him."
"Clever bastard."
"Demons outsmart us in treachery. No lines they won't cross."
Soo-hyuk knew far more about demons than expected. Once, he'd fought them on the front lines.
"Know anything about these?"
"I-I don't! If that creepy thing was in my head, I'd have yanked it out ages ago!"
Bang Ji-hyuk yelled in protest. He hadn't even known it was there.
Hiels eyed the wriggling worm in Soo-hyuk's hand, then Bang Ji-hyuk.
"Is Blue Zone up to something?"
A demon spotted here, of all places—and its contact a Blue Zone ranker. Pure coincidence?
"Who knows. Coincidence or not."
"What're you saying?"
"This one's separate from bad blood with us. Demons are involved."
"Like that's easy."
Objectivity was tough for Hiels too. She'd just lost her master, the Dragon Lord.
"We'll see when we check."
"How?"
"How else."
The solution wasn't distant or complex.
"We'll meet him. Not hard."
He meant confronting Kim Il-su directly.
"You sure? It'll be awkward."
"Why for me?"
Decision made, Soo-hyuk turned away.
"The guilty one's always the uncomfortable one."