Chapter 142
Chapter 142
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 142
Chapter Title: Contact Request, Nowon-gu Hunters (4)
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6.
“……Alright, are all the tools ready?”
“……Saw blade is prepared.”
“……Spoon’s here too.”
From the darkness came a rustling murmur.
A sinister chill.
The acrid stench of chemicals.
And…… lights piercing straight through her eyelids.
What…… is this……?
Do Ye-jin sluggishly lifted her eyelids. Amid the blinding glare…… she saw people.
“She’s awake.”
“Oh, you’ve risen. Daughter of the Abyss.”
The intense backlight hid their faces…… and that made it all the more chilling.
What is this place?
She tried to move, but there was a thick metallic clank.
Clank……?
In her panic, she whipped her head around…… and saw her body tightly bound to an operating table with iron chains.
“Please don’t get angry. Though even if you do, you won’t be able to vent it.”
A pointed hat…… Bishop Song Chan-un stepped into the backlight.
“What are you. Who the hell are you!”
“Those chains are blessed with Iikiras’s holy water. Wonder what effect that has?”
“Why…… why have you tied me up?! Where is this?!”
Who is this guy……?
He looks familiar……?
Trying to remember brought a throbbing headache.
As if her consciousness was blocking the memory.
Like recalling some past would shatter her mind completely.
“It severs your communion with the gods. Or, simply put, you can’t use your unique skills.”
Song Chan-un gestured, and his subordinates removed the hat and handed him gloves.
“It might sting a bit, but bear with it. You’re a god, after all? Ah, it’ll sting quite a lot, actually.”
Song Chan-un donned the gloves and mask, whistling cheerfully.
“Mu, eot, bu, teo, hal, kka, yo, je, ge, jeom, ji, hae, ju, se, yo, i, kil, ra, s!”
He wiggled his index finger and gripped something metallic.
“Wow…… perfect, my lord. Exactly what I wanted!”
It was…… a spoon.
For some reason.
That sight triggered primal terror. Her whole body began to tremble uncontrollably.
Clank clank clank.
Gotta get out, gotta escape…… but these chains have some power, my body won’t respond……
“Alright, where to start? Left eye? Right eye? No worries! You’ll recover fully under the stars’ grace anyway.”
“What……! What the hell are you trying to do!”
Do Ye-jin wanted to roar, but her voice came out frail, like a girl’s.
“Ah.”
Song Chan-un paused at her cry.
“Whoops, no good. I almost defiled that noble holy flesh without explaining.”
Holy flesh?
What did that mean?
“Do you know? That our world…… this Earth has already been destroyed five times.”
Earth destroyed……?
Like volcanoes erupting and killing dinosaurs…… something like that?
“The stars test one world up to five times.”
“Before dinosaurs…… what was there?”
“You, us, and this world too. We’re existences that shouldn’t be, couldn’t be.”
The story and words grew more complex. Her mind couldn’t keep up. Terror choked her breath.
“That’s why the stars call this the 6th Temporal Axis.”
6th Temporal Axis?
Meaning the sixth timeline?
“And perhaps…… there’s an existence that might reveal the purpose of this 6th Temporal Axis.”
“……?”
“That’s you…… Arishel!”
That instant.
Something cold burrowed into her left eye.
A sickening squelch.
The next moment, a dizzying red agony erased her left vision in a flash.
“E, hee, hee, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”
“Ah…… Aaaahhhhhhh…… It hurts…… It hurts…… It hurts……!”
“Ahh…… This ecstatic prayer! Yes! Call out to Father like that!”
“It hurts…… It hurts…… I said it hurts……!”
“That’s how Father will descend for you!”
Clank clank clank clank clank clank.
It hurts…… Hurts so much I’ll die…… She thrashed wildly, but the chains held firm.
“Alright, brothers? Store this as sample 1. Label it left eye.”
Clink…… He set down the spoon.
Now he gripped a surgical saw…… reflected in her bloodied vision.
“Hmm~ So, continuing the explanation?”
He tapped her leg several times, then──
“──Stop, please, please, stooooop, aaaahhhhhhh────no──!”
Her shin flesh was sliced.
The bone inside scraped coldly, then shattered in agony…… Do Ye-jin sobbed out a scream.
“……From what I heard from the stars, your father is awfully cautious…….”
Save me…….
Please…… save me…….
“But they say the darkest place is under the lamp, right?”
Dad…… Mom…….
Uncle Kim Baek-jun…… Shin Tae-yeop…… Sister Su-jin…… Sister Hwa-yoon…….
“……Maybe he hid the key to the secret somewhere in your holy flesh…….”
But they didn’t come.
Do Ye-jin’s world held only light, blood stench, mad laughter, and pain.
“……Oh right, about the 6th Temporal Axis secret. Just in case you didn’t get it…….”
The dissection of the holy flesh continued.
The man sliced her wrists, smashed her kneecaps with a hammer, extracted bone shards.
But why.
Did it all feel like it was happening far away.
“……Still okay? Holding up? Right……?”
His body glistened, soaked in her blood.
“Ah…… You look exhausted. Oh no, can’t have that. Guess we’ll stop here for today…… Ah, one moment.”
He approached with a grin. Holding something.
“No point waiting for the other to heal anyway, so I’ll borrow your right eye too.”
The last thing Do Ye-jin saw.
Was a gleaming metal mass in the backlight…… swelling to devour her right vision……
“How is it? What’s it feel like? Feel the abyss in your heart? Someone approaching? Feel who made you, where he is now? Hehe…… Ehehihihi…… Ehehehehehehe…… Ha, hahahaha…… Hahahahaha, ahahahahaha……!”
7.
“Alright…… Let’s go check who’s calling us.”
A trap?
Or a real ally?
We resumed movement with amplified leg strength.
From skyscraper to apartment rooftop. Rooftop to commercial building.
Then to Korea University’s main gate.
Crossing the gate cautiously, the central plaza stretched out desolate.
The once green lawn was choked with withered weeds.
Damn…… Tension made my heart pound.
If this really is an ambush……?
I kept wiping cold sweat from my palms on my coat.
Shiiiik─────!
My heart leaped then.
─────Pabababak!
Sudden whooshes of air.
Three darts embedding at my feet.
“Stop right there!”
The voice that followed.
Echoed burdensome-large in this ruined world.
Low and thick…… a man?
Looking toward the darts’ origin, shadows beyond the front fountain.
Three…… no, four?
No hostility or killing intent. All in pure white priest robes.
“Representative…… no, Lead Hunter only to the fountain.”
I held back Lee Seong-mi as she bristled to step forward.
“Wait for the signal.”
Without waiting for a reply, I walked to the fountain.
Prepare for the worst……
My grip tightened on the Dawn Sword.
One step, one step.
Finally, someone emerged from their side.
“The one who left the message…… you?”
Tall and gaunt build.
Sharp, nervous impression?
Innate look…… or from tension…….
“I’m Choi Su-cheol. You? What should I call you?”
Polite speech……
Sides not clear yet, but I’ll match his courtesy.
“Kim Baek-jun. You’re Nowon-gu Hunters…… right?”
“Nowon-gu affiliated…… used to be.”
“……Used to be?”
“Can’t enter Nowon-gu without permission now.”
What’s that mean.
Can’t enter Paradise?
I raised a brow, and as if to earn trust, Choi Su-cheol raised both hands.
“It’s true! Hard to believe, but…… see? I came out unarmed.”
“Why call me?”
“Few enemies in that snowy field. We need each other, don’t we?”
“Each other?”
Choi Su-cheol kept glancing around, as if terrified of something.
“First──”
“──One question first.”
“……?”
“Why make contact so hard? Could’ve talked in Jegi-dong.”
Choi Su-cheol nodded toward his back.
“I’ve got companions too. Had to get them out of the main force.”
Main force……?
I inhaled sharply.
“The unit that raided Jongno-gu?”
“Yeah. Wait! Calm down. They didn’t join the killing! Just like we did in Jegi-dong!”
Thinking I was angry? I shook my head.
“No! Not asking that. Do Ye-jin…… is that kid alive?”
“Do…… what?”
“Do Ye-jin. 16-year-old girl! Looks…… super cute.”
Choi Su-cheol tilted his head, then turned to his group.
“They say so. Anyone know her?”
I barely swallowed dryly.
No matter the answer…… don’t break.
“If it’s the kid Choi Soon-yul dragged off……”
An eternity passed, then a girl answered.
“……She was alive. Until just back in Gangbuk-gu.”
She’s alive…….
I nearly collapsed.
What snapped me back was the girl’s tone.
“Until?”
“Those guys…… the shaman and her lackeys feed people.”
“Feed? Not eat?”
“Yes. Feed.”
“To what?”
Choi Su-cheol’s group.
Adult woman, girl, young man—their faces froze one by one.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
What?
Why’s everyone suddenly like this?
As I pressed for an answer, Choi Su-cheol spoke with uneasy gasps.
“To the god…… on Surak Mountain.”
A god?
I almost scoffed.
But couldn’t…… because the heavens shuddered, and biting cold swept in.
Why’s it suddenly so cold……?
Unexplained dread hit; I frantically pulled my coat tight.
“No lie. Hwang Ga-in…… that psycho birthed a god.”
“How……?”
“Don’t know how! Point is, it’s real…… and they feed it human sacrifices.”
That’s…… what it was?
Why no bodies left behind?
“Even those hit by Im Ga-hee’s <Tortunal> didn’t die. They became offerings.”
“W……?”
“Song Chan-un calls it [Frozen Mountain Offering]…… Used mainly for high-level hunters.”
Oh god.
Amid despair, glimpsed hope left me gasping.
Choi Uk…… is alive…….
What RinRin said was true.
“Even top hunters once…… all fell there…….”
Choi Su-cheol bit his lip helplessly.
“My condolences…… Anyway, when and where’s the offering?”
“On Surak Mountain. When? At least a week’s grace.”
A week? How?
“Lucky. God entered hibernation today.”
Hibernation?
Explanation: God rests a week, active one to two days.
Sleep that much? Not a baby,
“The shaman…… that woman in Nowon-gu now?”
“Yeah, but can’t go straight to Nowon-gu.”
“Why……?”
“Song Chan-un’s got a barrier up.”