The Black Dog Yokai - (3)
As I climbed Namsan, I saw several human corpses along the way. The bodies of the dead had no limbs attached. And every single one of their faces wore a bright, cheerful smile. A good death? A peaceful passing? No. This was a dog's death. Just because they died smiling didn't make it a peaceful end. They had been toyed with and killed by a yokai. This was nothing but a miserable, worthless death.
I hadn't hesitated, yet I still couldn't save them. This... saving these people had been beyond my ability. "..."
No. That was just self-consolation. If I had used my fox magic from the hotel room and flown straight toward the direction of the scent, I might have been able to save them. In the end, it was that same damn hesitation that stopped me from saving anyone. Seeing dead bodies was still something I wasn't used to. Nausea surged up my throat, but even so, I kept moving my feet toward the direction of the scent.
The smell grew thicker. Was it the stench of garbage? The rot of corpses? No. There were no words that could describe this smell. It was a foul odor that carried the distinct feeling of malice.
When I finally reached the source of the scent, sure enough, there it was. A black dog covered in fur darker than pitch black was tearing into a person and eating them.
"Ehehe, that tickles!"
The person... was still alive.
The moment I grasped the situation, I immediately channeled my spiritual power and yanked the fallen person away from the black dog. Then I healed them, but...
"W-what are you?! A yokai... you're a yokai!"
Of course. This person wasn't normal either. As the one whose life I had just saved hurriedly fled the scene, I slowly looked over the black dog in front of me.
The most striking thing was, as expected, the smell. It was a malicious stench strong enough to numb my nose. The black dog's fur was so dark that I thought if there hadn't been any streetlights, I wouldn't have been able to see it at all.
I growled at the black dog.
"Is it you?"
Grrrrrr.
"I'm asking if it's you. The yokai that turned those people into that state."
The black dog stared at me intently, then opened its mouth in a low voice.
[Are you a spiritual beast?]
"No, I'm a reaper. Because in a little while, I'm going to kill you."
[There was once a spiritual beast who said the same thing in the past. Was it the Red Snake among the Five-Colored Snakes? So spiritual beasts still remain in this era... I thought they had all either died or achieved ascension.]
"The way you're dodging the question makes it look like you're pretty scared of me. What, are you panicking because your ability isn't working?"
I wasn't entirely sure, but in my spiritual beast form, the black dog's ability didn't seem to affect me. At least for now, my cognitive abilities were still intact.
Before I beat this black dog to death, there was one thing I absolutely had to confirm.
"Answer me. Are you also a yokai who received the Prince's Divine Instrument?"
[The Prince's Divine Instrument...?]
"Don't play dumb. You're probably one of those yokai aiming for ascension too, right? What, did it tempt you by saying it'd help you ascend if you tormented a thousand humans?"
[Ah, the Prince's Divine Instrument. Ascension. Now that you mention it, there was something like that. Indeed, what a nostalgic name.]
"..."
What was this thing planning? It was acting like the whole thing had nothing to do with it. Obviously it was lying, but for some reason, I had this strange conviction that it wasn't telling a falsehood.
...Had my cognitive abilities been paralyzed? If that was the case, I couldn't let this black dog live any longer.
Fox Magic.
I didn't have much spiritual power left. If I was going to do this, I might as well end it in one go. I summoned thousands upon thousands of golden fox flames and hurled them at the black dog.
Spiritual power wasn't simple physical force, but if I had to convert it, the power of a single fox flame was roughly equivalent to a 5.56mm rifle round from the military.
Thudthudthudthudthudthud!
The ear-splitting sound of impacts echoed across Namsan. Every time a fox flame struck, the black dog's body burst apart helplessly. And there were thousands upon thousands of those flames. There was nothing left of the black dog's body.
How many minutes had passed? I withdrew the fox flames. I could no longer visually confirm a target.
Sniff sniff.
The smell was still there. It was too early to say "Got it."
[That hurts.]
...Damn it. It was still alive after all.
The scattered pieces of the black dog's flesh from all over the place began to gather back together. They kneaded into a single mass and reformed the shape of the black dog. Even after taking all those fox flames, the black dog was completely fine.
I hadn't thought it would be easy to exterminate, but... I never imagined it would revive looking this unscathed.
Spiritual power had the ability to burn away demonic energy. Spiritual beasts were existences that held an inherent advantage over yokai. Since that black dog was a yokai, there was no way it should have been able to withstand my fox flames without a scratch. What the hell... was going on here?
[Are you curious about how this is possible?]
"..."
[It's simple. Beings like you who are the darkness of the world cannot possibly defeat those like me who are the light.]
"Don't spout bullshit!"
To think it would call itself light after treating dozens, hundreds of humans like toys. If it had said that to provoke me, then it had succeeded perfectly.
[Bullshit? Ah, a dog. That's right. So to you, I still appear as a black dog?]
"Shut up already!"
I poured my spiritual power into another attack against the creature that kept spouting incomprehensible things. But none of my attacks worked on the black dog.
[It seems you have not yet awakened your spiritual eye, young spiritual beast.]
"Just shut your mouth and die already, please."
[Do I still look like a black dog to you?]
[Still?]
[Still?]
[Still?]
[Do I...]
[Still look like a black dog?]
I kept pouring spiritual power into attacks against it. They were crude, almost mindless assaults. After my attacks turned it into scattered flesh, it would revive again and speak once more.
[Still.]
[Do I...]
[Look like a black dog?]
My head was starting to spin. Each and every word it spoke carried power. It wasn't a figure of speech. There was literally some mysterious force that couldn't be explained physically. The power of words. Word spirits... As far as I knew, there was only one kind of being that could wield them.
Ah. No way...
[Still.]
[Do I...]
[Look like a black dog?]
No. It wasn't a black dog. It had never been a black dog.
"...Dokkaebi."
Only now did I realize why my spiritual power—which should burn away demonic energy—had no effect. It wasn't a yokai to begin with.
A dokkaebi. My enemy. No. The enemy of both humans and yokai alike.
Its face was filled with infinite spirals. Clockwise? Counterclockwise? Both. It was a double helix spiral.
Its body was chaos. Chaos darker than pitch black, darker than the distant universe itself. The dokkaebi's left arm was imbued with starlight, and its right arm held moonlight. Its form was impossible to gauge. It was incomparably more chaotic than the 'formless shadow' that had taken a dokkaebi's shape before.
Was there any other word that could describe this being's appearance? If there was one that came close, it would be chaos. Nothing but chaos.
Shiver.
The moment I realized the identity of the being before me, my body began to tremble. It wasn't simple fear. It was an unknown terror that came from facing a creature fundamentally different from me.
Did it breathe? Did it hear with ears and see with eyes? Did it sleep? Did it have a heart? This thing called a dokkaebi completely ignored all those basic elements that defined living beings.
The black dog—no, the dokkaebi—stroked its club and spoke.
[It has been several hundred years since the half-god, the Head-Suppressing Deity, vanished from sight.]
[We have waited for the right moment.]
[And now, that time has come.]
Swoosh!
Since my spiritual power was nearly depleted, I extended my sharp claws and raked at the spiral that I assumed was its 'face.' Cracks appeared in the spiral. Yet it offered me no resistance whatsoever.
I kept slashing at it with my claws. Its spiral began to lose its rotational force. Unlike before, now that I could perceive its true identity, my attacks were actually landing properly.
I didn't know why it wasn't resisting me, but this was my only chance to kill it, so I continued...
"Over here!"
At that moment, three Force Arts users appeared.
"What the—it's real! And it looks like she's almost done with it?"
"A black dog and a seven-tailed fox... which one's on our side?"
"Idiot, didn't you hear what the Director said? The fox is our ally."
"Hey, fox! We know the situation, so we'll help you out. We'll eradicate this black dog right here."
Ah. This was... checkmate.
It seemed the Director had given them a proper explanation about me. The fact that they were approaching me with goodwill was definitely a positive thing, but the situation was too bad to celebrate. No. It was beyond bad—it was the worst.
I urgently shouted at them.
"Get out of here!"
"What?"
"Run as far as you can! As far away as possible! This dokkaebi... I mean, this black dog, it paralyzes human cognitive abilities—"
[Spiritual beasts.]
[Are the enemy of all.]
[They are the darkness of the world.]
Only now did I understand. It wasn't that the 'black dog yokai' had the power to twist human cognition. It was using the dokkaebi's innate ability of word spirits to distort human perception. Human cognitive abilities collapsed pathetically easily.
Crack.
The sound of ribs twisting echoed. The Force Arts of the three users slammed directly into me.