Chapter 208
Chapter 208
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 208
Chapter Title: Man's Descent
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At the same time the Mercenary King began to move.
Ignito and Spello were also moving simultaneously.
It was because Ignito, who had warned Charlie and vanished, had found Spello.
The two had always relied solely on their vast mana and overwhelming skills, wandering bare-handed.
But this time was different.
In Ignito's hand was a long golden staff.
In Spello's hands were two daggers that resembled iron but gleamed with a subtle white platinum sheen.
They gripped their weapons tightly and exchanged glances.
"You felt it too, right, old man?"
The corners of Ignito's mouth stretched into a long grin.
"The mana cutoff."
Spello nodded wordlessly.
At that very moment, as the Mercenary King staggered under mockery...
Ignito and Spello suffered the same phenomenon: their strength draining from every muscle due to the mana cutoff.
And they knew precisely what it signified.
"That guy's on the move."
"That's why we're rushing around like this, isn't it?"
Ignito enveloped his golden staff in flames.
The fire didn't burn crimson but shifted to an even brighter golden blaze.
"But it's odd, don't you think? That both you and I felt it at the exact same time?"
"We'll find out when we get there. It might not just be us—every Royal Class could have sensed it."
"If that's the case! Heh heh heh."
Ignito's lips split wider still, twisting into a manic smile.
"Maybe he crossed paths with that bastard Yong-un?"
Ssssk.
Just as Ignito summoned his flames, Spello unleashed a bone-chilling frost that froze the air around them.
The platinum daggers in Spello's hands began to ice over.
Yet they didn't turn white with frost—instead, they retained their platinum hue while exhaling plumes of platinum vapor.
Sizzz.
Craaaack.
The two daggers emitted eerie sounds.
The surrounding air froze solid in tandem.
"We've already wasted time. Can't afford to lose him now."
"Then let's go."
Ignito's hand landed on Spello's shoulder.
In an instant, golden flames engulfed them both and vanished.
Whooooom.
This was no ordinary chill.
A razor-sharp aura like a midwinter gale—his first encounter with such ferocity.
Even the blood-soaked, corpse-strewn battlefield of the Demon Extermination War hadn't felt this oppressive.
As if it had devoured the grudges of hundreds of thousands—no, millions, tens of millions...
'Vicious.'
But...
This vicious, horrific energy felt strangely familiar.
A first-time sensation, yet the moment he sensed it, Yong-un knew its source.
"Man."
An immense presence laced with inexplicable wrongness.
A power vaster and denser than anything he'd encountered before.
The instant Yong-un set foot in the now-darkened House of Ghost-Slaying Soul-Extermination, he understood.
This aura meant...
The enigmatic god-like being known as "Man" had descended.
Creeeak. Thud!
The moment he passed the first floor, heading up to the second...
Every door on the second floor slammed shut.
He traversed the hallway, thick with a haunted-house eeriness.
Then, abruptly...
Creeeeak! Thud!
The door to Myung-su's room at the end of the locked hallway flew open.
A shock for any ordinary person—but Yong-un calmly extended the Demon-Slaying Sword low and approached.
Standing before the wide-open door...
"You've arrived."
Man, possessing Seong-min's body, and Barum wearing a dazed expression.
Finally, Cheon-il—Demon Cry's possession complete—stood with arms crossed, eyeing Yong-un.
"Cheon-il."
Yong-un scowled at the aura emanating from Cheon-il's form.
Like Young-il, a duke-level demon's energy flowed effortlessly from Cheon-il's body.
Naturally, as if tailored to fit perfectly.
"No need to worry."
Tap.
Man addressed the grimacing Yong-un.
Having set down the large wooden box he'd never shown before, Man stared straight at him.
"Your eyes tell me you've drawn quite close to this world's hidden truths."
Yong-un's brow twitched at Man's cryptic words.
In his pursuit of Royal Class status, he'd brushed against realities he wished to ignore—dark truths laid bare.
But such insight was reserved for Yong-un or Mu-hee alone.
As the house's Ghost Soul, uniquely bound to Korea's Seong-min, it was utterly unknowable to him.
Thus, Yong-un's lingering suspicion gained weight.
Absurd as it sounded...
"You truly are a god."
That suspicion was solidifying into certainty.
"Heh."
Man let out a chuckle at Yong-un's words.
"Not an unreasonable conclusion. A god..."
Creak.
Man opened the ancient-looking wooden box.
Inside lay a single sword—pristine, luxurious.
Jet-black from pommel to tip.
"Take it."
"No need."
"No time for debate. Take it."
"I said I don't need it."
Whoosh.
Purple Geuk-ui energy gradually cloaked the extended Demon-Slaying Sword.
Cheon-il, Barum—even Seong-min.
His cherished ones, stolen by this man.
Man, in Seong-min's body, gazed steadily at Yong-un.
Then thud, he snapped the box shut.
"You already wield a fine blade."
Yong-un's blazing eyes, on the verge of erupting, slowly dimmed.
The Geuk-ui shrouding the Demon-Slaying Sword receded as well.
'Too many debts to kill him now.'
Besides, Man's eyes held no enmity—the true mark of a foe.
As if extending aid once more, Man wore his signature cold, enigmatic expression.
"You believe I'll return them."
"...?!"
Yong-un's eyes widened ever so slightly.
Man's flat tone pierced like mind-reading.
"I will return them. But etch this deep: these aren't yours. They were mine from the start."
Man's gaze shifted to Barum and Cheon-il.
Then to Seong-min's reflection in the mirror.
"This too. And..."
Yong-un's face in the mirror's depths, Demon-Slaying Sword in hand.
"That as well."
Fwoooosh.
Man smiled.
Thump. Thump.
Barum, dazed in place, and Cheon-il, body wrested by a duke-level demon, crumpled like stringless puppets.
Yong-un clenched his fist and demanded of Man.
"Why go to these lengths?"
"To sweeten fruit well-ripened. Plant a tree without care, and even lush growth yields bitter harvest."
"What are you talking about?"
"I sowed many seeds, nurtured trees. Poured my heart into them. But I never knew the right way to raise them."
What on earth was he saying?
Incomprehensible drivel, one line after another.
Patience spent, Yong-un surged his energy.
Man, beholding this, deepened his smile.
"Trial and error complete. My final tree is finished."
"What do you—"
"Ah, failure's hour approaches. I've claimed what I sought, bestowed what I would. The choice is yours."
The vicious aura saturating the house withdrew into Man.
Having retracted all he'd extended, Man pointed at Yong-un.
"Sincere counsel is wisdom to one, nagging to another."
Man had accomplished much through Seong-min's form, as now.
Yet this withdrawal differed from before.
The faint trace of Man in Seong-min's body began to fade.
"Farewell to this vessel too. Fear not—I'll leave what's useful at your side."
As if departing for good.
It was then, as Man dimmed...
Roar!
Golden flames erupted before Yong-un's eyes.
'Ignito?'
At the familiar aura, Yong-un stepped back.
Ignito and Spello emerged amid the golden blaze, lunging at Man in Seong-min's body.
"Found you!"
"Not escaping this time."
The platinum daggers slashed vertically, poised to cleave Seong-min in two.
Ignito's flames snaked like shackles, aiming to bind Man's feet to the ground.
But...
Snap!
Man, in Seong-min's form, stomped once—nullifying it all.
The full-force strikes of the two Royal Classes, now seemingly stronger than before.
Man's waning presence hurled Ignito and Spello backward, then fixed on Yong-un.
"Until next time, then."
Thump.
Seong-min's body slumped lifelessly.
"Where do you think you're going!"
Spello, flung back, kicked off the wall and charged Seong-min anew.
His frost-laden daggers thrust for the heart.
But Seong-min, abandoned by Man, merely lay with eyes closed.
Just as innocent Seong-min faced entombment in ice...
Claaaang!
Yong-un appeared before him.
Spello's daggers clashed against the Demon-Slaying Sword.
A Geuk-ui vortex followed by Extreme Hell Heaven Sword sheared away the chill coating Spello's blades.
Craaaunch.
Bereft of Spello's menacing energy, they were mere daggers.
Unable to budge the Demon-Slaying Sword—scraping futilely along its flat—Yong-un bellowed at Spello.
"He's already gone. Stand down."
"We catch him! Out of my way!"
Blind to Man's departure, Spello pressed on.
Claaaang!
Yong-un unleashed Geuk-ui, blasting Spello back in one stroke.
"Kuhk..."
He then slammed the Demon-Slaying Sword into the floor and roared.
"Over my corpse! If you crave blood, take mine first!"
A battered, common sword notched to hell by low-level demons.
With that single blade, the Demon Head had shielded his subordinates amid the Demon Extermination War.
Yong-un faced five Murim Alliance warriors, standing before his dying men.
Right wrist shattered, left leg ruined beyond repair—he gripped the nicked sword from those low demons and confronted them.
Had the returning Great Demon unit not arrived then, death was certain.
That merit earned him the Great Demon trials.
Saving eleven dying low demons post-mission granted entry to Ma Hyun-dong.
A fateful gift: the nameless manual of Cheon Noe-ja.
Yet one thing still baffled him.
The Great Demon whose rescue led to that immense fortune in Ma Hyun-dong.
Impossible to track down.
Not identical circumstances, but now—not Sword Demon—Yong-un stood before Royal Classes once more.
And oddly, that Great Demon's face resurfaced.
'A common face, yet uncommon.'
Even as he rose to Great Demon, famed as the high master Sal-gwi, he'd never found him.
Assumed dead, nothing more.
"Then I'll carve you up."
Rage boiling inexplicably, Spello clenched his twin daggers.
The moment he surged his energy...
"Old man!"
Ignito seized Spello's shoulder.
"Snap out of it. He's gone."
Spello glanced at the fallen Seong-min.
"Damn it."
He whirled roughly, lashing out to shatter an innocent wall with his foot.
Irritation overflowing, he stormed outside.
Ignito watched his retreating back, smacking his lips in regret.
"Waited forever for this... What a shame."
"What're you on about?"
"Why do you think we helped you? How'd we even track your location?"
Yong-un's brow furrowed.
"No shot at meeting that guy now. We came to nab and grill him. Blew it? So what's our play?"
Unspoken, but Ignito seethed too.
Then his eyes caught an old wooden box—eerily like his own.
"Hold up."
Firmly shut, not open.
And Yong-un's unchanged Demon-Slaying Sword.
Ignito, hostility flaring, abruptly approached the box and wrenched it open.
Thud.
Should've held Man's "gift"—the pitch-black sword.
But the box gaped empty.
"You... didn't take it?"
Ignito's lips quivered.
Yong-un eyed him coolly.
"Any reason I should? Try stopping my Royal Class ascent if you dare."
"No! Wait!"
For whatever reason, Ignito wiped away his budding malice.
He grabbed Yong-un's hand.
"This changes everything. Skip the box? That guy's coming back."
"What?"
"Us... wanna talk?"