Chapter 60
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 60
Chapter Title: Malice Swallows Paradise
In the dead of night, outside the orphanage building.
The moon, as if frightened by the tragedy about to unfold, hid behind the clouds, casting the world into darkness.
The streetlights fought feebly to push back the gloom, but a strange chill still permeated the air.
The orphanage was already in a secluded, quiet location, but tonight, the silence was deeper. It wasn't just the early morning air.
The two people standing outside knew this all too well.
They stood not in the yard, but beyond it, to protect the children.
Footsteps dissolved into the shadows, but a viscous, unsettling presence refused to be concealed, seeping out from the darkness.
Slowly, steadily, it drew closer.
Red's gaze shifted toward the presence. They were already surrounded.
From the shadows, several skull masks emerged.
Recognizing the unmistakable masks, the two women's expressions hardened slightly.
"The Cult of the Grim Reaper..."
Red muttered the name under her breath, then spoke.
"Rene."
"It's already done."
Rene's tentacles had already emerged to surround and protect the children, ensuring they wouldn't be caught in the crossfire.
The moment anyone with malicious intent set foot inside the orphanage, her tentacles would claim the insolent intruder's life.
Red squinted at the cultists, wondering why the Cult of the Grim Reaper had come.
There was one possible reason.
"Retaliation?"
"Perhaps. But if they knew who was here, they wouldn't dare attack so recklessly."
"They aren't the type to care about that. How did they even find this place... No, wait."
The orphanage's location was not widely known. Few people were aware of it.
However, Isaac, their former comrade, knew where it was, and he was connected to the Cult. It wasn't strange for them to know the location.
Still.
They weren't the kind to engage in retaliation that wasn't cost-effective.
More importantly, the Cult of the Grim Reaper wasn't sentimental enough to act on behalf of a comrade.
They were terrorists driven mad by fanaticism, moved by faith rather than camaraderie or profit.
Which meant they came with a purpose.
Was it the children? Or her? Or perhaps Lily?
"Well, we can just leave a few alive and ask them..."
Before Red could finish, the cultists shot forward.
Their footsteps were completely silent. Moving swiftly, melting into the darkness, they looked like first-rate assassins.
The two women showed no signs of surprise or fear.
Rene stomped her foot lightly.
In that instant, tentacles erupted from every direction—from cracks in the ground, from crevices in the building.
The fleshy appendages shot toward the cultists with the speed of predators lunging for their prey.
"Guhk."
"Aargh!"
Screams echoed through the darkness.
The sounds of crunching muscle and bone were vividly audible in the night.
No matter how nimbly they moved, they were slower than the tentacles. No matter how well they hid their presence, they were easily detected and caught.
They must have thought the shadows they hid in were their nest, but it was the final moment for those who failed to realize they were already in the jaws of a beast.
Of course, a few, like seasoned veterans, broke through the storm of tentacles and surged forward.
Deftly dodging the appendages, they aimed for the two women's lives with the staves in their hands.
"Oh..."
Red let out a small sound of impressed surprise.
To not only survive Rene's tentacles but also press the attack meant they were quite skilled.
For Red, who had somewhat underestimated the Cult, it was a refreshing shock.
But that level of skill was far from enough to take their lives.
Just as the first cultist to reach her swung his staff at her head, he was sent flying by an unseen, piercing kick.
The second challenger thrust his staff at her side. Red easily dodged and kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to groan and kneel before her. She then sent him flying with another kick.
Another cultist tried a surprise attack from her blind spot, but Red caught his staff and twisted it sharply.
Before he could resist the force, the arm holding the staff was snapped, and he collapsed.
And so on.
Without moving a single step from her spot, Red effortlessly defeated the approaching cultists.
They attacked with enough force to wipe out an ordinary town or a decent Fixer agency, but it was nowhere near enough to overwhelm the two women.
Red found it strange that the cultists continued to charge to their deaths, despite the overwhelming difference in skill.
*'What in the world are these guys...'*
Before Red's thought could finish, a figure radiating a power far different from the cultists closed in.
For the first time, Red raised her guard. A tremendous force struck her with a violent roar, as if the air itself was exploding.
The shockwave sent the air blasting outward and shook the ground.
Red's body was pushed back slightly.
'!!'
Frowning slightly, Red snatched a staff sent flying by the shockwave and hurled it at her opponent.
With a deafening boom, the figure easily deflected the staff that tore through the air and created some distance.
The moon, hidden behind the clouds, slowly revealed itself, bathing the scene in its light.
"So it was you."
"..."
Black hair, black suit.
Red eyes and black eyes stared at each other.
The man lightly tapped the ground with the tip of his shoe, as if shaking off his leg.
Red also shook her arms, dispelling the lingering numbness.
"Just as Midas said, you really were with them. Choi Hyun."
At the name Red uttered, Rene's eyebrows twitched.
"Choi Hyun... You don't mean *that* Choi Hyun, do you?"
"Yes. The very one you're thinking of."
Choi Hyun.
The one who embodied Wrath of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Now, the sole survivor of the Seven Deadly Sins.
"So you had an ace up your sleeve. But even you must know you can't beat me. You didn't come here to die, so what's your business?"
"..."
Choi Hyun remained silent.
Unseen sparks flew between their gazes, and the surrounding commotion died down.
A taut, tense atmosphere settled between them.
Just as Red and Choi Hyun both shifted their feet, the heightened tension on the verge of snapping—
"Stop!"
A strange voice called out from the darkness.
The air changed.
The aggressive cultists suddenly retreated, and Choi Hyun tempered his hostility.
Rene retracted her tentacles for the time being, and Red looked past Choi Hyun toward the dark road.
*Step, step.*
*Clap, clap, clap.*
The one who emerged from the darkness, clapping his hands, was a black-haired man with narrow eyes.
"Quite impressive. As expected of you two. Better than I'd hoped."
"Who are you?"
"Introductions are important for a first meeting. My name is Han Yiyeon. I'm the prophet of the Cult of the Grim Reaper. To put it simply, you could say I'm the one who advises them and shows them the way."
Realizing this man was the prophet Midas had mentioned, Red and Rene heightened their vigilance.
Yiyeon smiled, an affable, friendly smile.
"Our reason for coming here is simple. We came because we want to be friends with you."
"Friends?"
"Yes."
The corner of Red's eye twitched.
She tried to read the hidden meaning behind his words, but his beaming smile was a hindrance. He was dangerous because his true intentions were impossible to discern.
Midas had warned her. If she met the prophet, she was not to speak with him.
Red observed Yiyeon.
Based on the circumstances, she judged his ability was likely brainwashing or hypnosis.
But he wasn't holding any special tools, nor was he making any suspicious movements. That meant he possessed some kind of power related to hypnosis or brainwashing, but no matter how closely she looked, she couldn't see anything unusual about him.
He looked like a perfectly ordinary man.
She retorted with a cynical smile.
"Did the method for making friends change without my knowing? You show up in a mob, attack without warning, and then say you actually want to be friends?"
"I just wanted to check something. And I believed you two would be fine. No one got hurt, so it doesn't matter, does it?"
"Hah..."
Red let out a hollow laugh at his shameless attitude.
She hesitated, wondering whether to end the conversation and attack. Opportunities to engage with a high-ranking member of the Cult were rare.
Red kept a close eye on him, continuing the conversation in hopes of gathering even a sliver of information.
She didn't let the tension leave her body, ready to spring into action at the first suspicious move.
"What's your reason for wanting to be friends?"
"I... ahem. We have something we want to do, and we absolutely need your power for it. Normally, we'd take our time, go step-by-step to get to know each other, but I figured, why bother? So I came myself."
"And the reason is?"
"You'll find out naturally once we're friends."
"You're not going to tell me now?"
"It wouldn't be any fun if I told you now. There's an order to things."
*What a ridiculous thing to say about order,* she thought, swallowing the retort.
Red lowered her gaze slightly, but kept her senses sharp.
She felt nothing from the man named Yiyeon. There was none of the aura or presence one felt when facing a powerful foe.
*So, is he lying?* she wondered, but when she looked at Yiyeon's face, there was no hint of deception.
Her long-honed instincts were focused not on Yiyeon, but on Choi Hyun.
She couldn't figure it out.
She couldn't let her guard down.
To come here so confidently with such a ridiculous reason meant he had something to rely on.
At the very least, Choi Hyun wasn't his trump card.
"For someone talking about order, you're certainly closing the distance quickly."
"It's fine if I'm the one to approach first. Everyone likes me, after all. Who would dislike someone they like getting closer?"
"How arbitrary."
She concluded that any further conversation was pointless.
The enemy was right in front of her.
They weren't the type to just leave if she told them to. The only option was to fight.
"Sorry, but I'm picky about my friends."
Red pulled her leather gloves taut.
Rene shifted her leg slightly, and tentacles began to emerge from all around.
Despite the rejection, Yiyeon's smile didn't falter, as if he wasn't hurt at all.
"Everyone says that at first. But after they talk with me, their minds change. This friend next to me, the ones you defeated—they were all the same. So you will be, too."
The corners of Yiyeon's mouth lifted into a chilling arc.
Yiyeon raised one arm high.
*Fwit!*
At the same time, Red kicked a small shard from the ground, sending it flying.
It had enough force to shatter an arm and moved faster than a standard bullet. Neither the cultists nor Yiyeon noticed it.
It was about to hit its mark when Choi Hyun's leg kicked out and shattered the projectile.
Yiyeon grinned.
"Looks like we need a change of scenery for our talk."
Red shot off the ground.
Her fist closed the distance in an instant, but just before it could slam into his chest, Choi Hyun's leg blocked it.
As fist and leg collided, a violent gust of wind swirled around them.
The fierce wind battered Yiyeon's face, but he paid it no mind and snapped his fingers.
The ground began to vibrate violently.
A mass of black energy surged from the ground and shot toward the sky.
The writhing mass looked like a serpent ascending to the heavens, and a darkness deep enough to shroud the entire area descended.
The darkness then took the form of a giant serpent, which immediately opened its maw and swooped down, swallowing the orphanage and everyone outside in a single gulp.
Within the gloom, chilling red eyes flashed, and Yiyeon's voice echoed.
"When you wake from the dream, everything will be different."