Chapter 11
Chapter 11
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: Predation
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"Here it is. The place that smells so delicious......"
Blue demon flames flickered from his eyes as Yeon So-hyeon let out a mad cackle.
That laughter was as horrific as nails scraping across sheet metal.
His mouth was lined with saw-like fangs that gleamed menacingly, and his scarlet throat resembled an endless abyss.
"Ugh.... Uwaaaah!"
A man who had pissed himself at the grotesque sight charged forward in a frenzy.
Any ordinary person would have lost their mind at the nightmarish spectacle before them.
But these men had clawed their way through Luoyang's back alleys, which were no better than slaughterhouses.
They weren't martial artists who could shield their minds with internal energy, but their grit, forged in blood and violence, was real.
"Die!"
The blade in his hand flashed.
No feints, just a clean, lightning-fast strike that even he would admire.
".......!"
But in the next instant, he realized his wrist had been seized.
For a split second, he thought the opponent's palm was small, soft without a single callus.
And colder than a winter river.
Frost seemed to settle over his wrist.
"Uwaaaah......!"
He kicked out at the opponent with his foot.
Or tried to.
But the opponent crushed his hand far faster.
As if there were no bones or muscles.
Easier than crumbling a cold dumpling.
Crack!
The hand gripping the blade tumbled to the ground, spraying blood.
"......Kuaaaah!"
The monster's grip strength defied common sense, severing his hand clean off.
As he clutched his spurting stump and staggered back, one of the burly men rushed in.
He gripped his blade with both hands, intending to drive it into the monster's torso with his full body weight in one go...
Clang!
Sparks flew where the monster's palm met the blade.
"Urk!"
The impact felt like slashing a stone wall. The burly man dropped his weapon.
He tried to retreat hastily and wait for another opening, but the monster snatched both his wrists first.
"L-Let go......!"
He let out a guttural roar, thrashing with all his might to escape the vise-like grip.
But no matter how hard he struggled, the opponent's hand didn't budge an inch.
Not even a twitch.
Then it slowly tightened.
"Uwaaah, stop, stooop......!"
It was as if the initial effortless crush had left it unsatisfied with snapping the wrist.
This time, it added pressure gradually, leisurely, as if curious to see what would happen.
No need to draw on demonic energy.
Just casually, leisurely, applying raw strength.
Soon, bones cracked, flesh tore, the sounds echoing out.
"Uwaaah! Uwaaaah!"
Even amid the agony, the burly man kicked wildly at the opponent, but it was no different from kicking a brick wall.
His own shattered ankle dangled uselessly instead.
"Kuaaaah......!"
Bones splintered into fragments, skin and muscle squelched like overripe fruit, the screams filling the alley.
A thick bloody mist rose with the stench.
"......Gurgle gurgle."
The fallen burly man writhed on the filthy alley floor like a crushed insect, parts of his body mangled.
Unimaginable pain shattered his teeth, mixing with blood that dribbled from his mouth.
Left alone, he'd die from blood loss and torment, but the opponent had no intention of letting him go that easily.
The burly man felt both his ankles gripped.
In the next moment, his legs were torn off one side at a time, rolling away.
Blood from the ripped limbs arced across the alley wall.
It wasn't a martial art or technique.
Just pure violence.
Mockery through overwhelming brute force.
"Ugh......"
The burly man twitched briefly, then went still.
"Hmm?"
A glint entered Yeon So-hyeon's eyes as he regarded the corpse.
Pale hands rose from the floor's shadows, dragging the body down.
Dozens of large and small white hands.
Some were children's, some old folks', some women's.
The corpse sank into the deep darkness of the ground.
Even the blood he had sprayed was absorbed and vanished.
Thump! Thump!
Yeon So-hyeon felt his dantian pulse strongly.
Vitality surged higher, euphoria soaring.
"Oh?"
Half-lidded eyes flickering with blue demon flames, he savored the refreshing sensation.
"......Ugh, uwaaaah!"
Then, one of the men frozen in horror bolted without looking back.
The alley was dark, cluttered with obstacles.
He tumbled into a puddle of filth, snagged on something that tore his clothes and skin, but kept running.
Lungs burning like they might burst from his throat, but he didn't stop.
Yet for some reason, the alley never ended.
Even in a back alley, someone should have peered out.
Not a single streetlight pierced Luoyang's night.
The path ahead spun dizzily.
Then a hand burst through his gut.
The fist clutching his innards was stained red, glistening even in the dark.
"......!!"
He wanted to scream with all his might, but his diaphragm had ruptured along with his abdomen.
Kneeling, he desperately clutched his spilling guts.
"......."
Yeon So-hyeon silently looked down at the man.
Not a shred of humanity in that gaze.
Thump-.
He raised his arm and thrust it into the man's back.
His spear hand ripped through with a sound like tearing a leather sack, churning the torso roughly once more.
No demonic energy needed—just pure strength—so it was far from clean.
And that brutality, that messiness, was exactly what he intended.
Yeon So-hyeon shoved the mangled corpse aside.
Thump-.
Just like before, white hands from the floor dragged the fallen body away.
Without leaving a single drop of blood.
Thump-.
Yeon So-hyeon's reason remained sharp,
But his mind overflowed with madness, his heart pounding in ecstasy.
"This can't be real......!"
The incomprehensible mutter came from the fourth man, huddled in the corner.
"It's a dream, has to be a dream."
The space was already eroded by the demonic energy from the Jeam Heavenly Scripture that Yeon So-hyeon wielded.
The third man thought he had fled down the alley, but he hadn't even made ten steps. The one cowering nearby had long since had his mind subjugated.
This was a true facet of Yeon So-hyeon's—no, the Jeam Heavenly Scripture's—demonic energy.
Compared to this, terrorizing the servants that morning was mere child's play.
The demonic energy it unleashed in earnest was enough to shatter minds and twist wills on its own.
He hadn't even injected it directly into their heads.
Simply manifesting it deliberately let him dominate the entire area.
Thump-.
Subjugating the mind-broken man's body took only an instant.
Limbs torn in multiple directions sank into the floor.
"Hmm......?"
That's when he sensed the first man—whose wrist he had twisted off—slipping into another alley.
The man had fled as stealthily as possible, but the domain was already Yeon So-hyeon's.
Yeon So-hyeon chuckled lowly and kicked off the ground lightly.
Dark current transformation.
* * *
"Fuck, where the hell is this? Where's the way out!"
The alley he knew like his own backyard had become unrecognizable.
Clutching his wrist, the man circled the same spot.
Precisely, looping a complex alley in a square pattern.
He had escaped the horrific scene, but his mind was already corroded by demonic energy.
"Is anyone there?! Anyone?!"
Spitting blood, he shouted.
His unfocused eyes wandered the void.
What the hell was happening?
He couldn't comprehend.
Ghost? Monster? Reaper?
Like anyone in Luoyang, he believed in superstitions to some degree.
But that meant unseen fate, gods, luck—not the boogeymen from children's ghost stories.
So what was that thing?
In a frenzy, he yelled.
"Why are you doing this to me?! Why me?!"
Had he lost too much blood? Dizziness hit, and he dropped to his knees.
He wailed.
"......There are so many bastards in the world—why me?!"
In that instant, his whole body froze.
Hot breath brushed his ear clearly.
Sulfur and intense blood stench in breath cold as ice.
The "thing" whispered in his ear with a voice full of metallic tones.
[You're just the beginning.]
Then it devoured him whole.
* * *
"Aren't you full yet, lad?"
At the old man's question, Yeon So-hyeon slowly rubbed his belly.
"......Come to think of it, the hunger's gone."
Overflowing juices.
The texture of raw meat.
It had been a while since committing the heinous act of cannibalism, defying heaven's laws and utterly repulsive.
Yet no particular emotions stirred.
Just relief from the agonizing hunger, a slight fullness that satisfied.
"Devouring the wicked is the first and last demand the Jeam Heavenly Scripture makes of its practitioner."
Yeon So-hyeon recalled the memory.
*'The scripture that devours all darkness in the Saha world in place of the indifferent and lazy heavens—a heaven-defying canon.'*
"And the more wicked you devour, the more of the Jeam Heavenly Scripture's power you'll awaken to."
Give and take, was it?
A reasonable system, in its way.
"But elder, it doesn't seem like 'devouring' means me eating them directly."
Yeon So-hyeon pictured the corpses dragged into the floor by countless hands.
"Indeed. Those hands are the Jeam Heavenly Scripture's hungry ghosts. In the 'domain' you unfold with demonic energy, they exert physical influence to aid your 'meal.'"
Then vibrations began from the ceiling.
Dust and stone particles trickled down everywhere, clouds of grit rising.
The light pillars from ceiling cracks narrowed bit by bit.
"Time's almost up."
"Is that so......"
The light pillar illuminating the old man shrank too, his body melting into deep shadow.
"We'll meet again soon."
In the darkness, the old man's eyes bloomed with blue demon flames.
"Until then, happy hunting......"
Yeon So-hyeon bowed deeply to the old man.
Soon, the suffocating darkness swallowed everything.