The Egg That Hungers for Demonic Energy
Ssssss.
Whoooom.
"Hmm…"
Do-ha, his hand resting atop the small egg, let out a sigh.
"No good?"
"Yeah. Not healing at all."
What he held in his hand was the daughter he had taken from Baal not long ago.
More precisely, the egg in which Baal's daughter slept.
Should I call it a cocoon?
Either way, Baal's daughter was inside it, and nothing he tried would heal her. Great Heal magic had no effect, of course, and neither did internal energy, vampire magic, or anything else.
"Where is she even hurt?"
"No idea. I've spread my energy sense through it and I still can't tell."
When he rested the egg on his palm, he could feel a heartbeat — so she was definitely alive. But beyond that, nothing. He couldn't grasp her appearance, her build, her strength — none of it. All that came through the shell was that faint pulse.
Three full days of treatment, and not a shred of progress.
Bang!
"Hey, Cheon Seol-gyeong. You looking to die? Who kicks a door open?"
Cheon Seol-gyeong, who had been in the living room, had kicked open the door to the small room, and Do-ha snapped at him. The house was old enough that the hinges holding the door were already rotting. If a being as strong as Cheon Seol-gyeong started kicking things, they would shatter on the spot.
"Huuuh… I'm… done…"
Veins bulging at his temples, Cheon Seol-gyeong ground his teeth and glared at Canteas.
An hour ago, Canteas had summoned him out of nowhere and made him peel garlic. He had wanted nothing more than to obliterate everything in sight, but Canteas had issued it as a command, and his body had moved on its own whether he liked it or not. So for a full hour he had done nothing but peel garlic. Only after every last clove was done had he finally been able to move again — which was how he had ended up here.
"You… you goddamn bag of bones. One of these days, I will kill you."
"What, you go from peeling garlic straight to death threats? Take off those pink rubber gloves before you start talking."
"Aaaargh, Canteas!"
Canteas burst out laughing and needled him further, and Cheon Seol-gyeong finally snapped. The moment a command dropped, his body would freeze again — but he was going to land at least one hit first.
"Daring to raise a hand against your master? You've still got a long way to go."
Twitch.
"Huh? Wait…"
Whoosh.
They froze mid-motion.
Do-ha flicked his hand, and both Canteas and Cheon Seol-gyeong locked up solid.
"What was that just now? That felt different."
The egg resting in his hand had definitely twitched — nothing like its usual stillness. If he had set it down somewhere far away he might have doubted his eyes, but it was sitting right on his palm. The sensation had traveled straight up through his hand.
"What was that? Why did it just twitch?"
"Come on, let us go already."
Canteas shot Do-ha a look of pure frustration. The egg moving was great and all, but how long were they supposed to stay pinned by his energy?
"Ah…"
Whoosh.
Thud.
Do-ha pulled his energy back, and Canteas and Cheon Seol-gyeong's bodies unlocked.
"Hey. You two — do that again."
"Huh? Do what?"
"Argue. Just like a second ago."
The egg had twitched while Canteas and Cheon Seol-gyeong were sniping at each other. That was the only thing in the room that had changed.
"Hmph. Ridiculous. As if that egg would move just because we fight."
"Can't you cooperate even once? No wonder you don't have any friends."
"You little bastard! You're one to talk!"
"How am I one to talk? I've got Do-ha, Dimerof, Emilton, Namgung Je-u, Tunrad — all of them are my friends. You and I are different from the ground up."
"You… you damn son of a—"
Ssssss.
Once again, Cheon Seol-gyeong took the bait and ground his teeth.
And then—
Twitch.
I knew it!
Do-ha, who had been watching the egg without blinking, broke into a smile. When Cheon Seol-gyeong got angry, the egg reacted. No — more precisely, it was reacting to Cheon Seol-gyeong's demonic energy.
"Canteas. I've got it."
"Huh? For real?"
Whoosh.
Shhhhk!
Canteas reverse-summoned Cheon Seol-gyeong and hurried over to Do-ha. Do-ha's order to pick a fight had seemed odd, but he had gone along with it and needled Cheon Seol-gyeong anyway. And it had actually worked?
"It really twitched?"
"I think it's reacting to demonic energy."
"Demonic energy???"
An egg that reacted to demonic energy… He had never seen anything like it in his life.
"Should I pull Cheon Seol-gyeong back out? I reverse-summoned him because he was being loud."
"No need. I can make demonic energy myself."
Shwaaaaaah!
Demonic energy gathered above Do-ha's hand.
Twitch. Twitch.
"Ohh, it's reacting!"
Sensing the swirling demonic energy, the egg began to shake even harder — thrashing this way and that like a chicken egg on the verge of hatching.
An hour passed like that.
Shwaaaaaah.
Twitch. Twitch.
Even after pouring out enough demonic energy to level a building, the egg only shook. There was no sign it was about to wake.
Shuuuu.
The energy cut off.
"Hmm. What is this? It just shakes and that's it."
"Yeah."
The moment he withdrew the demonic energy, the egg went still again. What on earth was going on? What would it take to get a new reaction out of this thing?
"Did it at least heal any?"
"No."
Do-ha shook his head. He had kept injecting demonic energy the whole time, but it simply passed straight through the shell. He had hoped it might be healing her, but an hour of testing had made one thing clear — all the energy went through and scattered.
"Ugh, what is this?! It reacts to demonic energy but just lets it all drain away…"
Canteas rubbed his jaw in frustration. But something in those words snagged in Do-ha's mind.
"…What if it was a different kind of demonic energy?"
"A different kind? What do you mean by— Ah!"
There were two kinds of demonic energy in the world. The demonic energy used by martial artists of Moorim. And the demonic energy used by actual demons. They shared the same name, but the energies themselves were completely different.
"That's why Baal was keeping her against his heart."
"He was feeding her demonic energy!"
"Right. That's what it looks like. Then he got caught by the Whip of Penance and the energy supply cut off."
It finally made sense. The egg reacted to Cheon Seol-gyeong's demonic energy, but because it wasn't a demon's demonic energy, the power simply scattered every time.
"Then wouldn't it be better to just give her back to Baal?"
"Even if we handed her over, there's nothing he can do with the Whip of Penance still on him. Better that we heal her ourselves and bind him with a soul contract."
"That was why we took her in the first place."
"Yeah… fair point."
Do-ha slipped the egg into his subspace bag. Now that he knew the method, all that remained was to obtain the demonic energy to inject into it. And to get a demon's demonic energy, he needed a demon.
"You said a cardinal is coming to the cult in Argentina soon, right?"
"You're going to feed that guy's demonic energy to it?"
"Yep. He's a cardinal, so his demonic energy should be enormous. Heh heh."
"…You're the one who looks like the villain here."
Do-ha's smile turned razor-thin, and Canteas shook his head. Cast in the shadows of moonlight, that smile looked more villainous than anyone else in the world.
Clink.
Kang Ji-hwan's sharp eyes narrowed as his hand closed around his sword hilt.
"Not yet. Don't burn your strength from the start."
"Ah… I tensed up without realizing…"
Arms folded, Do-ha looked him over.
A month had passed. When the date Reden had given them finally arrived, Do-ha brought Kang Ji-hwan and Han Se-ah with him to Argentina.
"You look pale… Are you all right?"
"Ah, yes… I'm fine."
Selenia regarded Han Se-ah. The young woman's lips were pressed tight, and her complexion had gone nearly white.
"Try not to be so tense."
Selenia offered a gentle smile. Tension twisted the hands and kept people from bringing out their true skill.
"B-but… there's going to be a dragon…"
The day before they left for Argentina, Do-ha had suddenly summoned her and Kang Ji-hwan to the Association. And then he had said:
Tomorrow a dragon gate is going to open in Argentina. We're going hunting, so get ready.
And with that, he had turned around and left. If Do-ha hadn't been something like a master to her, she would have cursed him on the spot. Who in the world went off to fight a dragon with a throwaway line like that? It wasn't a stroll in the park.
"Do-ha-nim."
"Hm?"
"Will we… actually be any help?"
Kang Ji-hwan gestured between himself and Han Se-ah. They had abandoned the powers they once used and received entirely new techniques from Do-ha. He had learned the Formless Diamond Art, a rough close-combat style. Han Se-ah had learned poison arts and hidden weapon techniques. The new powers fit them like tailored clothes, and their progress had been astonishingly fast. But that was only true in training. Whether those skills would hold up in real combat — against a dragon, no less — was still an open question.
"Pwahahaha!"
Do-ha burst out laughing at Kang Ji-hwan's words. He wasn't mocking him. The sheer earnestness of someone gearing up to fight a dragon just struck him as endearing.
"You and Han Se-ah aren't fighting the dragon."
"What? Then…"
"You two will evacuate any civilians who might still be nearby, and deal with the monsters that come pouring out of the gate."
He had already informed the Argentine side that they would be hunting monsters. He hadn't been able to give them an exact location — he didn't know it himself — but hunters had been stationed throughout every densely populated city.
After the last monster wave, every hunter is on instant-response footing.
The entire world had become extremely sensitive to anything monster-related. That same sensitivity had made cooperation surprisingly easy. During the worldwide wave some time back, Do-ha had helped Argentina as well. Ever since, the Argentine government had shown him boundless goodwill.
"Huuuh… if that's all, then thank goodness…"
Kang Ji-hwan exhaled in relief — then frowned, tilting his head as something odd occurred to him. A dragon gate, and they were supposed to handle the monsters that came out of it? What did that mean? Didn't that still amount to dealing with the dragon?
"Is there going to be another gate wave?"
It couldn't mean they were supposed to take down the dragon, so he had to be talking about ordinary monsters.
"Nah, not that. They'll come out together with the dragon."
He had seen the footage from when a dragon appeared in Russia years ago. The quality had been terrible and the camera shook so badly he couldn't make out much detail, but he had caught glimpses of other monsters spilling out alongside the dragon.
Even without that footage, I already have a pretty good idea.
Dragons never lived alone. Whether it was a racial trait or simple habit, a dragon always kept monsters nearby to do its bidding — creatures neither too strong nor too weak, settled around its lair like a nest. The monsters in that old footage had almost certainly been the ones the dragon kept at its side inside the gate. They had simply come out together.
"So the hunters already stationed here will join the dragon hunt too?"
"No. I told them not to interfere."
Convincing the Argentine government had required a light touch of Canteas's black magic. No matter how friendly they were toward him, they had flatly refused to let anyone face a dragon alone — so he hadn't had a choice.
If they jump in trying to help, it'll just get annoying and get in the way.
Even if the fight turned out a little rough, it was better to handle it with just himself, Selenia, and Canteas.
Tszzzzzzt.
"Do-ha. Gate."
"Give me the coordinates."
Canteas, who had blanketed all of Argentina with skeletons, immediately relayed the coordinates to Do-ha.
Ssssss.
The location is… Santa Cruz.
Grab.
Shhhhk!
Coordinates locked in, Do-ha seized Kang Ji-hwan and Han Se-ah by the shoulders and teleported at once.