Chapter 120
Chapter 120
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: Caught in the Net
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“I knew it’d end like this. You bastard, who the hell do you think you’re targeting?”
A low mutter from Ja-seong, growling like a beast.
A ferocious rage blazed in his murderous glare.
Seeing it, the Jade-Faced Yin Demon forgot even his pain and murmured blankly.
“How... how...?”
How did you get here?
How did you sever my right arm?
Confusion and doubt swirled in the Jade-Faced Yin Demon’s eyes.
Of course, Ja-seong had no intention of resolving his questions.
“What’s a dead man got to be so curious about?”
Unlike usual, Ja-seong’s tone was crude.
Even though he’d foreseen this situation, actually facing it had heated his blood.
In truth, the aura he exuded was more savage than ever before.
Even Hwa-ryeon, outside the range of his presence, flinched in slight surprise.
So what must it have been like for the Jade-Faced Yin Demon, fully exposed to it?
“Ugh, ughhh...!”
He trembled in terror, forgetting even the pain of his severed arm.
And proof that his mind was being consumed by fear appeared immediately in reality.
Before long, the Jade-Faced Yin Demon’s illusions vanished.
Fear of Ja-seong had shattered his focus, making it impossible to maintain the spell.
The same went for the peerless beauty that had earned him his moniker.
His smooth face, tall stature, and firm body melted away into the air.
Revealed beneath was the Jade-Faced Yin Demon’s true form.
“...So that’s your real face?”
No longer was there a peerless beauty before Ja-seong’s eyes.
Just a hideously twisted hunchback stood there.
“Wh-what...?”
Jegal Seon looked down at his own hand with trembling eyes.
The long, smooth hand—unusual for a man—had vanished, replaced by twisted fingers of mismatched size and length.
Just seeing it told him what had happened.
The illusion had broken.
His utterly repulsive true appearance was laid bare for all to see.
Right in front of others!
“Ugh, aaahhh—! Don’t look, don’t look at me!”
Jegal Seon collapsed to the spot, curling up and desperately trying to hide himself as he screamed.
In his vision, Ja-seong and Hwa-ryeon stared at his hideous form without filter.
‘They’re... they’re mocking me...!’
It wasn’t true.
In reality, Ja-seong merely glared at him coldly, and Hwa-ryeon only gazed at Ja-seong’s back, not sparing him a glance.
But in his eyes, it looked as if the two were mocking him.
‘Hideous monster.’
‘Filthy beast.’
Painful memories from childhood conjured hallucinations and auditory illusions on their own.
Jegal Seon screamed, vomiting blood.
“Don’t... mock meee—!”
The wounds in his heart erupted as rage.
Reason fled, and fear vanished with it.
Filling its place was hatred and murderous intent toward Ja-seong and Hwa-ryeon.
‘I’ll peel off that pretty face skin, sever your limbs. Then ravage the woman beside you at will and strangle you both to death...!’
With eyes rolled back, Jegal Seon recklessly cast an illusion beyond his capacity, ignoring the situation.
In his current state, with his upper dantian sealed by his master Sa-kyeong, blocking external connections, it was an exceedingly dangerous act.
But Jegal Seon, already half-mad, lacked the judgment to consider such things.
“Kuaaaak!”
With a beastly roar, Jegal Seon’s form turned to black smoke and vanished.
The black smoke spread in all directions, engulfing the entire area inside the barriers he’d created with talismans, plunging it into complete darkness.
“Ke, kehehehe...!”
In the darkness, Jegal Seon leered wickedly at Ja-seong and Hwa-ryeon, who looked around in confusion.
Dark Night Sensory Deprivation Technique.
It was a spell on the cusp of the highest realm among illusion arts.
When cast, everyone within its range except the caster lost all senses.
Sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch.
All five senses humans used to perceive their surroundings were destroyed.
“In this darkness, only I remain unharmed. You won’t sense my attacks at all.”
Meaning Ja-seong currently couldn’t detect Jegal Seon’s attacks or even feel pain.
Just as in Jegal Seon’s vile thoughts earlier, even if his limbs were severed, he wouldn’t feel a thing.
‘Can you still mock me after becoming a limbless cripple?’
“Ke, kehehehe...! Ugh!”
Jegal Seon, gloating, groaned at the pain in his crown.
The backlash from recklessly using a top-tier spell without regard was hitting.
‘Can’t drag this out.’
Even with talismans’ aid, using something like the Dark Night Sensory Deprivation Technique in a sealed state was suicidal.
One misstep, and he might truly become an idiot.
To minimize the backlash even slightly, he had to hurry.
Jegal Seon drew a dagger from his bosom and bit the sheath with his teeth, since his right hand was gone, pulling the blade free.
Grinning at the sharply honed edge, he raised the dagger and charged at Ja-seong.
“First, your right arm!”
Thinking to repay the severing of his own right arm in kind, he swung the dagger.
For a body ignorant of martial arts, it was swung with considerable force, cleanly slicing the blankly standing Ja-seong’s right arm...
It didn’t.
-Swish
Though he shouldn’t sense anything, Ja-seong casually twisted his torso to dodge the dagger.
“...Huh?”
Jegal Seon froze at the completely unexpected result.
Ja-seong’s foot slammed into the gut of the stunned man.
-Thud!
“Guh!?”
Jegal Seon screamed and flew backward.
He rolled helplessly on the ground, looking up at Ja-seong with trembling eyes.
“H-How... exactly...?”
As stated before, within the Dark Night Sensory Deprivation Technique, victims sensed nothing.
Much less detect an attack and counter—absolutely impossible.
At least by his common sense.
“You shouldn’t feel anything at all...!”
Yet that common sense shattered before his eyes.
An unbelievable event in reality.
Like most, Jegal Seon first denied reality itself.
“...Coincidence. The Dark Night Sensory Deprivation Technique failing? No way.”
He’d coincidentally dodged the dagger, and the counter had coincidentally hit him.
At the point of two coincidences, he discarded rational judgment that it couldn’t be chance and concluded as such.
Ignoring his worsening headache and the impact to his gut, he rose and regripped the dagger.
The moment he tried attacking Ja-seong again, Ja-seong struck first.
In an instant, he closed in and swung, slashing a long gash across Jegal Seon’s chest.
“Guh... ack?!”
Jegal Seon’s chest split open, blood spraying.
But the wound was shallower than expected.
“Oops, misjudged the distance. Gonna take more time to get used to this.”
A light voice, as if it were nothing.
But that casual tone pierced Jegal Seon’s mind sharper than anything.
“Is it... really not working on him?”
Already the third time.
No longer could he dismiss it as coincidence.
The enemy before him was clearly perceiving and targeting him precisely.
In Jegal Seon’s eyes, Ja-seong looked nothing short of a monster.
Terror welled up in his heart once more.
“Ugh, ughhh....”
Just as fear had exposed his true form earlier, now it was crumbling the Dark Night Sensory Deprivation Technique.
Already overextended, once cracks formed, it collapsed uncontrollably.
‘R-Run. Gotta run.’
With even the Dark Night Sensory Deprivation Technique broken, there was no chance of victory.
No, against that monster, there never had been.
He’d realized it too late.
‘Should’ve run from the start.’
Jegal Seon fled, belated regret mixing in as he roughly staunched his severed right arm’s stump to put distance between him and Ja-seong.
Soon, he arrived in a bustling entertainment district of Han-gu.
Even late at night, crowds filled the streets, and he smirked confidently.
‘Hide in there.’
He started to plunge into the crowd but hesitated.
He’d remembered he was still in his utterly repulsive hunchback form.
Due to the backlash from the Dark Night Sensory Deprivation Technique, he couldn’t change appearance with illusion right now.
If he entered the crowd like this, countless people would see this ugliness.
Exposed again to endless loathing and contemptuous stares.
‘N-No, not that. I hate that...!’
His head screamed to dive into the crowd and escape, but his feet wouldn’t move.
After a mere two breaths of hesitation, his feet finally moved.
But that brief pause sealed his fate.
-Slice
“Kehek!?”
A slicing sound, then burning at his ankle followed by agony.
His legs buckled involuntarily, and he rolled on the ground.
“Kuhhh...!”
Jegal Seon clutched his blood-soaked ankle, groaning in pain.
Above him came a cold voice.
“Got you, bastard.”
“Hiiik...!”
Lifting his head, he saw the monster’s face looking down with a chilly smile.
Pale-faced, Jegal Seon scrambled backward on his butt, then turned and crawled away desperately.
“Uwaaaah—!”
Mid-crawl and scream, a stab to his nape made him lose consciousness.
Ja-seong had struck his pressure point.
*
I looked down at the lecherous bastard passed out with his face planted in the dirt.
With his pressure point struck, he wouldn’t wake for a while.
“Kill him or save him?”
Thinking of how he’d dared hug Hwa-ryeon and spout nonsense about heavenly pleasure made me want to lop off his head right there.
Honestly, it wouldn’t matter.
Hadn’t Jegal Geun-yeong outright demanded I kill him?
“...Hoo.”
After a moment’s conflict, I sighed deeply and slung the lecherous bastard over my shoulder.
Decided to take him alive for now.
Killing him could wait anytime.
Besides, spraying blood in the street wouldn’t be great.
Carrying the lecher like that, I retraced my steps, only to run into Hwa-ryeon following behind.
She hurried over at the sight of me and checked my body all over.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
I shrugged nonchalantly, and she let out a relieved sigh.
Smiling faintly at that, I side-eyed the lecher on my shoulder.
“Looks like I gotta head back to the Jegal family branch. What about you? Want me to drop you at the merchant house first...”
“No, I’ll go with you.”
She cut me off mid-sentence, insisting firmly on coming along.
“Do as you like.”
Teasing lightly, I headed back to the Jegal family branch with Hwa-ryeon.