Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 49
Chapter Title: Prepared the Monster Emperor Paper Talisman
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It was a bug creature of a form I'd never seen before.
A centipede-like bug creature whose length was impossible to gauge burst out from piles of dung all over the nursery, attacking the users.
Psshshshsh!
"Cough! Poison!"
Whirrr! Crunch crunch crunch!
"Uwaaaak!"
Clang! Clang! Clang clang clang!
That centipede creature was only about as thick as a person's thigh, but its body, covered in sturdy chitin, deflected most of the users' weapons.
On top of that, the way it spewed poisonous mist, coiled around users to bind them, and stabbed its saliva-dripping saliva into their crowns was downright chilling.
"Let's go after Gremix."
Geon-woo knew that the centipede bugs rampaging everywhere in the nursery were actually all part of a single entity.
A monster known among the demonkin as the Bug King.
It paired with a queen to make a nest, and what looked like centipedes were protrusions sprouting from the king's body.
"Where are we going?"
Paeng didn't suggest saving the users.
Excluding Geon-woo and Paeng, there were only six unscathed users left anyway.
And dying here wouldn't cause any major issues for the users, so there was no reason to get attached.
"Where else? Down, obviously."
Geon-woo smirked at Paeng's question and summoned his psychokinesis.
The ground beneath Geon-woo and Paeng immediately gave way, sinking downward.
"Aah! So going underground is no big deal for you, huh, Geon-woo?"
Paeng nodded once more, marveling at the utility of Geon-woo's psychokinesis.
"But how's Gremix getting to the queen?"
As the floor dropped, Paeng glanced at Geon-woo and asked.
"It's not like only I can use psychokinesis."
"One of the possessed users could use psychokinesis? I don't think I've ever seen that."
"He deliberately never used it, not once. But in the nursery, I sensed psychokinetic energy from the direction Gremix headed. Doesn't that tell us everything we need to know?"
"Makes sense."
"And thanks to that, we get to head down a bit easier. No loss for us."
"Huh?"
"Right now, the king and Gremix's group are fighting down below."
Geon-woo chuckled as he peered diagonally in one direction.
He had sensed Gremix's party getting attacked by the king's centipede protrusions on their way underground.
"We'll be fine?"
"No worries. The king's centipedes have no idea we're coming down, and even if they did, they couldn't pierce the compressed walls."
Psychokinesis was an avatar awakening ability, but bolstered by the overwhelming mental power of the Heavenly Brain Multi-Tasking Spirit Jiangshi Technique, it had long surpassed normal limits.
If Geon-woo got serious, he could probably uproot the entire rocky mountain housing the queen's nursery and slam it upside down.
The king's puny centipede protrusions were beneath notice.
"Alright, we're here."
Plop plop!
As Geon-woo spoke, the descent halted, and the dirt wall ahead crumbled away.
"Man, you're seriously OP!"
While Paeng exclaimed in awe again, Geon-woo floated a mana lantern into the air.
A small chamber came into view.
Carved into dark red rock was a tunnel about two meters wide and four meters deep.
Inside it sat a bug with an especially bloated abdomen.
"That's the queen?"
Paeng glanced at Geon-woo and asked.
"Yeah. That's the queen, and that's the king."
Geon-woo pointed at the bug in the cave and the dark red rock forming it.
"The king?"
Paeng blinked in surprise at the word and stared harder at the queen's cave.
He realized then that what looked like dark red rock was actually insect chitin.
"The king is protecting the queen inside its own body. And over there."
Geon-woo indicated the wall behind the queen.
More precisely, the king's carapace, which had several fist-sized holes.
"What's that?"
Paeng spotted the orbs inside the holes and asked.
"Those are the queen's eggs. She lays them, and the king nourishes them. That's what Gremix's crew is after, too."
With that, Geon-woo summoned psychokinesis and shifted the earth.
"Huh? What're you doing?"
Paeng yelped in shock.
Geon-woo was sealing off the queen's cave with dirt.
Kiiiiiiii! Rumble rumble rumble!
An enormous mass of earth poured into the queen's cave.
Geon-woo was crushing the queen to death under the weight.
Naturally, that pressure transmitted to the king as well.
The king writhed in agony from the massive pressure piercing its body.
The ground shook like an earthquake as the colossal king's body moved.
"Finding the queen's location was the only issue. Once we located the nest, it was basically over."
Geon-woo turned to Paeng and said.
"Dude, this feels too anticlimactic. We went through hell to get here, and now the queen, her eggs, the king—everything's just..."
"But we've still got three opponents left to deal with."
Geon-woo jerked his chin toward one dirt wall as Paeng grumbled.
Whoosh!
Right on cue, the wall collapsed, revealing three users.
Gremix and two other possessed users.
"Huh? How are you two here?"
Gremix spotted Geon-woo and Paeng beyond the dirt pile and asked in astonishment.
"How else? We came looking for the queen, obviously."
Geon-woo replied.
"You found the queen?"
Gremix jumped in surprise.
"Found her? We've already taken care of the queen and all the eggs she was guarding. Oh, and we're in the process of dealing with the king holding her, too."
"The queen and the e-eggs?"
"We can't risk even one bug egg slipping through—who knows what could happen. Especially ones the king was specially protecting."
"W-Wait. The king? You've been saying 'king' this whole time?"
Gremix dropped the formal speech, glaring at Geon-woo as something felt off.
"Queen's here, so of course the king's here. What else would you call the massive bug protecting her?"
"Ah, so that's why you're calling it the king..."
"What, you think I'd know about the Bug Queen and King—stuff only demonkin know?"
"Of course that doesn't make any se— You!"
Gremix started to respond, then realized he was being toyed with.
Geon-woo's words implied he already knew about the queen and king.
And that the knowledge came from demonkin origins.
"Not the sharpest, huh."
"Tell me about it."
Geon-woo and Paeng sneered at Gremix and the two other possessed users.
"Doesn't matter how. You two already knew about the queen and king. So you struck first."
"That's not all. You keep denying it, but we already know you're demonkin possessions."
Geon-woo drove the final nail into Gremix, who was still trying to hide their possessed status.
"T-Then..."
Gremix looked at Geon-woo with trembling eyes.
"The ones waiting for eggs back on Earth have mostly been wiped out by now. Heh heh heh."
Paeng answered for him.
Disappointment flooded Gremix's face.
"Possession's pretty neat. They react so human-like."
Paeng shuddered and rubbed his arms at Gremix's expression.
"Well, demonkin are intelligent beings not much different from humans, with emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure."
Geon-woo remained unfazed, as if it were no big deal.
He had already turned a few demonkin into jiangshi spirits and absorbed bits of their memories in the process.
So he acknowledged demonkin as an intelligent species.
But that recognition didn't change his view of them as targets for extermination.
To Geon-woo the mercenary, enemies weren't worthy of emotion—even if they were fellow humans, let alone alien demonkin.
"The tribes waiting on Earth have been exposed too? Then our plan's a total failure."
Gremix wiped the expression from his face, as if he'd already assessed the situation.
He signaled with his eyes to the two users flanking him.
Shing! Whoooosh!
The two users aimed their weapons at Geon-woo and Paeng.
One wielded a longsword like Paeng; the other held a staff, condensing mana.
"Right, no more talk—just fight."
Geon-woo smirked and nodded at the sight.
With everything out in the open, the only option left was to settle it.
"Chaa!"
The longsword user charged Paeng first.
Paeng scowled at him.
"You think I'm easy pickings?! You bastard!"
Clang! Clang! Clang clang!
Paeng didn't summon his hydra, facing the longsword possessed user with raw physical prowess alone.
Geon-woo shook his head, recognizing Paeng's usual stubborn streak kicking in.
But Geon-woo's leisure ended there.
The user beside Gremix activated psychokinesis with mana condensed in his staff.
Boom boom boom! Boom boom boom boom!
The ground surged up around Geon-woo.
Sharp spears formed from the earth.
"Ever heard of Iron Maiden? This is the earth version."
The psychokinetic possessed user confirmed Geon-woo buried in the dirt pile and shouted triumphantly.
Crunch crunch! Crunch crunch crunch!
Sharp spears inside his dirt Iron Maiden pierced toward Geon-woo.
The possessed user sensed Geon-woo not using psychokinesis and taking the earthen spears full-on, certain of victory.
But then.
Pow pow pow! Pow pow!
"What, this weak? What good's it?"
Moments later, Geon-woo emerged, shattering the Iron Maiden without any special abilities.
He'd smashed through the dirt pile with bare fists and feet, leaving the psychokinetic user slack-jawed.
"That wasn't supposed to happen..."
The Earth user's psychokinesis he possessed was top-tier.
Plus, the user had innate earth-affinity powers.
Lucky enough to snag an avatar with similar abilities, his psychokinesis was even stronger.
Otherwise, they couldn't have broken through the Bug King's attacks to reach here.
Yet that mighty earth power crumbled so pathetically.
"My turn now?"
But his shock didn't last.
Intent on giving back as good as he got, Geon-woo trapped him in a dirt pile of his own.
"Iron Maiden, huh? I like it. Let me imitate it—try to endure."
Geon-woo said it considerately, but the outcome was already clear.
Red avatar blood seeped from the dirt pile Geon-woo made.
"You were hiding your power."
Gremix muttered, eyeing the bloodied dirt pile of his subordinate.
Geon-woo's psychokinesis during the raid had seemed inferior to his subordinate's.
For the subordinate to fall so easily meant Geon-woo had been holding back.
"Not coming at me? Not like that'll save you."
Geon-woo said to Gremix.
"I don't want to look pathetic in a hopeless fight. Just kill me."
But Gremix spoke of death nonchalantly.
"You sneaky bastard. Figure since dying here just wakes you up in your home dimension, no big deal?"
Geon-woo glared at him.
"Returning to our dimension would make it hard to possess lowly Earth bodies again. But it's not impossible."
Gremix met Geon-woo's eyes, signaling it wasn't over.
"Yeah, figured as much. But I've got something prepared too."
Geon-woo scowled at Gremix's reaction but pulled a yellow Monster Emperor Paper Talisman from his dimensional storage, as if he had a counter.
"Hm?"
Gremix eyed the yellow paper curiously.
"Let's see if this works on you."
The talisman prepared to suppress the souls of possessed demonkin.
It made its debut in Geon-woo's hand for the first time.