Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Stealing the Yulturen Soul Statue
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The demon clan's domain lord left his second son Zelo and two knights behind before boarding the elevator.
The remaining spots were filled by the human-form beasts.
Just like that, around fifty of them vanished into the elevator.
Zelo clenched his fist and ground his teeth.
"Damn it! At this rate, all the credit will go to Demuto, that bastard."
"Zelo, please calm down. If we stay like this, we might really get pushed out of the succession race."
One of the knights left with Zelo tried to soothe him.
Zelo nearly exploded in anger but managed to rein it in.
"Right. It's not over yet. The city's core still has no owner."
Zelo muttered to himself as he lifted the Yulturen soul statue in his hand up to his eyes.
"With this, I still have a shot."
"You're right. And as you know, buildings like this don't have just one elevator. If we can find another one somewhere... "
"If we're lucky and it goes higher than this one, even better."
"Exactly. Then we can shove Demuto out of the way."
"Good! We can't waste time sitting around here. Let's move!"
Energized by his subordinate's advice and encouragement, Zelo took the lead with renewed vigor.
* * *
"What are you gonna do?"
"I'm thinking about it."
Geon-woo, who had been watching Zelo's group from afar, frowned slightly at Pang's question.
"You can take them, right?"
Pang asked again.
"The system's abilities are sealed, but demons aren't pushovers. The human-form critters aren't much worry, but those three demons... not sure."
"Yeah?"
"No telling what they're hiding."
"I see. Then we use those."
"Those what?"
Geon-woo gave Pang a puzzled look at his vague reference.
"Why play dumb? Dark Phoenix."
"The mercenaries? Why bring them up here?"
Geon-woo shot back with a what-are-you-talking-about expression.
"You turned my body on Earth into half a corpse."
"So?"
"After going through that, I get what your mercenaries are now."
"You do?"
"They're corpses."
"Hm?"
"Don't make me repeat myself. I don't know what trick you pulled, but I can guess your whole merc unit's made of corpses."
"Yeah?"
"And their powers don't rely on the system. I can tell just from the doping effects I'm still feeling here."
"Fine, say it doesn't rely on the system. But how do I call mercs here?"
"Corpses fit in space-expansion pouches too. Bet that's how you carry them around."
"Ugh."
"What? Hit the nail on the head and it stings?"
"Hoo."
Geon-woo let out a small sigh at Pang's words.
= Even I can't deny it. Turning Pang half-dead back on Earth was a bit hasty, drugs for boosting physical abilities aside.
Ilryeong chimed in, agreeing with the assessment.
"You put a lot of thought into this? Even guessing that far?"
"That's admitting it?"
"Partially."
"Yeah. So it really was an Easter egg? Starting not long after the first expedition kicked off?"
"Yeah."
Pang figured Geon-woo's ability came from an Easter egg, and Geon-woo let the misconception stand.
In a way, Ilryeong could be seen as an Onborad Easter egg anyway, and he didn't feel like explaining the details to Pang.
"So you can really summon the mercs?"
Pang asked brightly now that Geon-woo had conceded.
"Possible. But restrictions make it tough."
"No way their powers get weaker or something?"
"Nah. Just takes time to summon."
"Whoa, summon? Not just pulling them from a pouch?"
"It's the same thing. Just takes a bit to open the pouch mouth."
"Oh, got it. Anyway, better hurry. They're starting to move."
Pang nodded toward Zelo's group, picking up speed.
"Congrats on sniffing out my secrets this far, but you better keep them zipped. Or no more avatar doping, and I'll cut off your Earth body's meds too."
"Blackmail?"
"Yep."
"Tch, I'll behave if I wanna live. Got it. Don't worry."
Pang grumbled but accepted Geon-woo's terms.
"Good. Let's do it."
With Pang reined in, Geon-woo immediately began opening the dimensional gate.
A tattoo appeared on the back of his left hand.
Pang noticed but shrugged it off.
Minor physical changes when using specific skills or abilities weren't uncommon.
After about three boring minutes, a black hole opened in midair, and Dark Phoenix mercenaries stepped out one by one.
"Huh? Something's off."
Pang quickly spotted the differences from before.
"Some lineup changes."
Geon-woo brushed it off casually.
Then he headed straight after Zelo's group.
* * *
"Aw, not this one either."
Zelo glared at the Yulturen soul statue in his hand, frowning.
An open door stood before him, but it led only to another corridor, not the elevator interior he wanted.
"At least we opened a new path. Could lead to a treasure room."
"Treasure my ass. When a dimension fragments, anything of real value mostly evaporates."
"But some stuff survives sometimes. That's why people go nuts for dimension fragments."
"Tch. True. If it was totally empty, no point coming in here."
"Come on, chin up."
After several failures, Zelo's enthusiasm had waned.
But he couldn't just sit there, so he started walking again.
And in that instant!
Flash! Slash!
"Argh!"
Something gleamed, slicing Zelo's wrist and snatching the Yulturen soul statue.
Clang! Whoosh!
"What the—? Die!"
"Chaa!"
The two demon knights behind Zelo drew their swords and swung.
Clang-clang! Scraaape!
But their blades sparked off the ambushers' bodies without cutting in.
"Magic armor?"
"A human?"
The knights blurted out why their attacks bounced and the ambushers' identities.
Flash!
"Huh?!"
"Where?!"
"Ugh, enemies over there, on the left!"
By the time the knights lost track of the teleporting dark spirit, wrist-severed Zelo spotted Geon-woo and the jiangshi.
"Attack! Get the statue back!"
He immediately ordered his critters.
Enemies mattered, but recovering the Yulturen soul statue was priority.
Without it in this Yulturen ruin?
Escaping would be near impossible.
"I wasn't planning to let you live anyway. Wipe 'em out!"
Geon-woo responded by sending his jiangshi at the critters.
He leisurely took the Yulturen soul statue from the dark spirit's hand.
= What do you think, my lord?
Ilryeong couldn't hold back her curiosity and latched on.
'You handle the death jiangshi. The living ones can manage themselves.'
= Aw, the death jiangshi can handle it too.
'Your speech?'
= My apologies, my lord.
'You're all over the place anyway. Do what you want. And how am I supposed to check this mid-fight?'
= S-sorry.
'You get fixated on one thing and blank out on everything else. Gotta fix that.'
"Whoa, this is nuts. Total one-sided beatdown."
While Geon-woo mind-spoke with Ilryeong, Pang butted in.
"You've seen the squad before. Why the fuss?"
Geon-woo played it cool.
But Pang jumped.
"Don't bullshit me. Some are way stronger than before. Obvious at a glance."
Pang's eyes flicked between the five living jiangshi.
Ten jiangshi total, excluding Ilryeong.
Five were perfected by transferring demon jiangshi spirits into user bodies: living jiangshi.
They clearly stood out from the death jiangshi, even to Pang.
Pew! Pew! Screeech!
Even clad in black magic armor, Gungryeong—the unmistakably female archer—loosed arrows nonstop.
Lightning-fast shafts tore through the air, embedding in human-form critters' vitals.
Gungryeong came from a Lerazie commander jiangshi spirit. Lerazie were demons innately skilled in archery, with arrows twice as fast.
Their racial trait halved resistance on targets, amplifying the effect.
Applying it to projectiles and herself boosted her speed massively.
Gungryeong wielded it fully, dropping critters left and right.
Meanwhile, Dokryeong and Gongryeong toyed with foes in close quarters.
Get near Dokryeong, and poison sank in, foes vomiting blood as they fell. Strike at Gongryeong, and she'd phase into illusion, dodging before rematerializing to stab or slash.
Human-form critters were no match.
That left the demon knights to them, but it changed nothing.
"Urgh, Earth humans! You're supposed to be up top—how are you here?!"
Zelo roared while channeling mana to block Sullryeong's assault.
Sullryeong had cast a spell slowing Zelo's entire group, and he countered knowing it.
Had it landed clean, they wouldn't have lasted this long.
"Hahat, is that guy retarded? What the hell's he yelling?"
Pang snickered shortly at Zelo's shout.
Geon-woo understood Zelo but saw no need to tell Pang.
"Hm, the knights seem vanilla. But that one's got a knack for blocking Sullryeong's spells?"
"What're you doing?"
Pang asked sharply as Geon-woo muttered oddly mid-fight.
"Sizing them up."
"Huh?"
"You're in the loop on my mercs being jiangshi now, so I'll tell you."
"Jiangshi? The mercs are jiangshi?"
"Jiangshi's the most familiar term for walking corpses. That's why I call 'em that."
No need to dive into Ilryeong dimension linguistics, so Geon-woo glossed over the naming.
"Jiangshi or whatever. So what do demons have to do with sizing up jiangshi?"
Pang skipped ahead, figuring the connection from "sizing up" to jiangshi.
"When making jiangshi, you retain some of the original's abilities."
"Good materials make good jiangshi, huh?"
"Pretty much."
"Got it. So by your standards, of those three demons, only the one-armed loser's usable?"
"Nah, none worth keeping."
"Yeah?"
"But maybe capture 'em alive as spares for emergencies."
Geon-woo pointed at Zelo.
Soon after, he sent the dark spirit to Dokryeong's knight matchup, pulling Dokryeong to subdue Zelo instead.
= All wrapped up neat without you lifting a finger, my lord. As expected.
Fight over, Ilryeong beamed proudly at Geon-woo.
He directed jiangshi to loot and collect bodies, then sat off to the side.
"What're you up to?"
Pang approached and asked.
"Gotta check this out."
Geon-woo held up the Yulturen soul statue.
"Ruin access key?"
Best guess from a Pang ignorant of demon tongue.
Geon-woo chuckled.
"About to find out. Should be fun."