Chapter 192
Chapter 192
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: Refined Lady, Old Ties, American, Long-standing Grudge (5)
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Scarlett bit her lip as she watched the receding Yeomyeong.
‘Crazy bastard. If you’re gonna die, do it alone.’
She grabbed her gun and headed straight for the cockpit.
Fortunately, that damn “auntie” had only just placed her hand on the brake lever.
Click.
No need for words. Scarlett immediately aimed at the auntie. The cold barrel zeroed in on the back of her head.
“Hands off the brake.”
The auntie turned her head to look at Scarlett. She didn’t seem particularly scared. If anything, her expression was one of sheer disbelief.
“What the hell are you doing all of a sudden?”
“Hey, auntie. The living should stay alive. I’m not about to die with your idiot husband.”
“Idiot…? I save your life, and now you’ve got nothing nice to say?”
Maybe the husband jab hit a nerve, because anger flashed across the gukbap auntie’s face.
Scarlett felt a twinge of guilt but pressed on.
“You wanna stop the train right here and get eaten by a Titan? If you’re set on a lovers’ suicide, go ahead—just the two of you. Don’t drag an innocent like me into it.”
“…Lovers’ suicide? Either way, if the train’s worth of flesh comes rushing in, the end result’s the same, isn’t it?”
“I’m gonna separate the head car from the rest. Buy a little time, and reinforcements from HQ will arrive… At least it’s a better shot at survival than your husband’s reckless plan.”
“That’s your opinion. What if this isn’t a mind field?”
The saintess wearing the gukbap auntie’s face stared intently at Scarlett. Scarlett placed her finger on the trigger and spoke.
“I’m not here to argue with you. Drop the gun and get out of the cockpit. Now.”
The saintess glared at Scarlett for a moment before complying with the threat. Or so it seemed.
She removed her hand from the brake, placed both hands behind her head, and headed for the cockpit door.
“Without struggle, there is no peace…”
She bowed her head and quietly recited a prayer.
It was a prayer to the red god of struggle, Lord Redox—one of the rare offensive blessing spells in the Five Gods Church.
“…for I have come to bring you the sword.”
The prayer was so soft that Scarlett only caught the final line.
“A spell?”
The moment Scarlett realized what it was, a red fist materialized in the air and slammed into her body.
But its power… far exceeded the saintess’s expectations.
Boom!!
Scarlett didn’t even have time to scream before she was smashed into the cockpit wall. The impact shook the entire train car.
“Huh?”
What? She’d only meant to knock her out.
The saintess stared dumbfounded at the red fist, which responded by making a V-sign with its fingers.
“Huh… Lord Redox?”
How? The gods couldn’t descend to this land.
The only place she’d ever seen a god communicate like that was the saint’s sanctuary where she’d received her blessing…
Before her confusion could deepen, the red hand impatiently pointed at the control panel.
“Oh.”
Only then did the saintess remember what she had to do. She rushed back to the controls and yanked the brake lever.
Screeech!
The change was dramatic. The brake screamed as it engaged, wheels grinding against the rails, the whole train lurching violently.
The train came to a halt, and Lord Redox’s red hand vanished.
The saintess raised her rifle and aimed it at Scarlett.
For a moment, she considered putting a bullet hole in her head right there—but she shook off the thought.
Mercy? No, there was still information to extract from this woman.
‘Necromancer and the fallen star…’
She lowered the gun, unslung the rifle strap, and used it to bind Scarlett’s arms and legs.
She must have tied it around the broken bones, because Scarlett groaned in her unconscious state.
She’ll be in hellish pain when she wakes up.
Of course, the saintess dragged the bound woman out of the head car without a second thought, whether she suffered or not.
It was the moment when the Titan and Yeomyeong clashed beneath the overcast sky.
***
Yeomyeong didn’t set foot in the swamp.
He scattered dozens of ice spikes into the air and used them as stepping stones to leap into the sky.
[Splitter—walker of the path?]
Whether watching his feat or in admiration, Mira’s voice echoed through the air.
[Whose star are you?]
Yeomyeong didn’t answer. This was no time for words—it was time for violence.
The killing intent of Juga Shibili Style enveloped his body, while the mana of Wave Yang Art coursed through his veins.
Gathering on his sword was a surging blade aura.
[Waves? Poseidon?]
With those incomprehensible words, the undead Titan swung its hand at Yeomyeong.
Before the arm of the giant—formed from countless corpses—Yeomyeong was no more than a fly. But even flies had their own sting.
As he leaped, his sword pierced the Titan’s hand like a hornet’s stinger.
The next instant, the mana of the blade aura exploded, simultaneously cleaving through rotting flesh, bones, and the twisted mana binding them.
Amid the spray of blood and flesh, Yeomyeong landed on its wrist and ran up its arm. His target: the Titan’s head.
Reaching the shoulder in a flash, he leaped high and stomped down toward the head.
True Strike of Flying Leg Art—the same technique that had finished the Titan at Incheon Port.
Kuuuugh!
As the Titan’s death cry filled the air, its head burst like a rotten tomato.
The power was incomparable to Incheon.
Yet the result was the same as at Incheon Port.
The immense shock dispersed the spell comprising the Titan, and its massive body began to collapse.
[Impressive!]
It had lost the Titan in a single clash, but the voice didn’t seem to care.
Of course—there were still nearly twenty Titans left… No, more were rising in real time.
‘The whole swamp is a corpse field.’
Yeomyeong stood atop an ice spike, gazing at the Titans filling the horizon.
No fear. Attrition warfare? He was confident there too.
But something else bothered him. If this was someone’s mindscape as he suspected…
What kind of being could possess a mindscape like this?
‘…The god of the undead?’
As Yeomyeong pondered, one approaching Titan suddenly tore off its own arm.
Suicide? No, not quite.
It clutched the crushed flesh and bones in its hand, then reared back its shoulder.
And hurled it.
Chunks of flesh, infused with tremendous acceleration and twisted mana, rained toward Yeomyeong.
He dodged the barrage by leaping between ice spikes, but that was just the beginning.
[Dodge this too!]
Nearly ten Titans ripped flesh from themselves, gripped it, and assumed throwing stances.
Titans could be used like that?
Yeomyeong gritted his teeth and dashed through the air.
As if on cue, they hurled the flesh.
The chunks were so dense they blotted out the overcast sky.
No room to dodge this time.
Yeomyeong raised his sword to bat them away. But…
[Corpse Explosion]
Right in front of his blade, the chunks detonated all at once.
!!!!!
The explosion roared like the world was ending, but Yeomyeong couldn’t hear it. His eardrums had burst in the initial blast.
All he heard was the piercing ring in his head, all he saw was flesh filling his vision.
And even as he plummeted, the explosions continued.
The deafening blasts echoed loud enough for everyone on the distant train to hear. On and on, until Yeomyeong sank into the swamp.
[Star, reveal your true form!]
The voice chattered gleefully, utterly convinced of victory.
It wasn’t wrong. To anyone watching, Yeomyeong was as good as dead.
But the next moment, something even the voice hadn’t anticipated occurred.
Boom!!
The head of a Titan preparing to throw exploded out of nowhere.
Not just one. Another, and another.
[What?]
That set it off—heads of the horizon-filling giants began exploding one after another.
Toppling behemoths. Explosions shaking the swamp.
Only then did the voice realize what was happening.
Someone else—not him—had used Corpse Explosion. And with such precision that it could detonate his Titans.
Boom, boom, boom!
Proving the hypothesis, Titans caught in the blasts toppled in succession.
Faster than new ones could rise from the swamp. In mere minutes, only one Titan remained standing.
[How?]
The voice’s question turned toward the swamp where Yeomyeong had fallen.
There, half-buried in the muck amid rotting blood and flesh, was Yeomyeong.
His body was a shredded mess, like a chicken that had escaped the slaughterhouse. His abdomen and chest gaped open, exposing his guts; his face was caked in blood.
Impossible to fathom how he was still alive—but what truly rattled the voice was something else.
The staff in his hand.
A bone staff with writhing, loathsome eyes—the very one Mira had held in the train.
[When did you…?]
Yeomyeong couldn’t answer. The backlash from using twisted mana had pulverized his lungs.
He’d only tapped the abundant twisted mana around him, yet his veins and organs were shredded.
Without Juga Shibili Style’s regeneration, he’d have died dozens of times over.
Agonizing pain surged throughout the regeneration, but Yeomyeong spat out the blood pooling in his mouth and kept up the bravado.
Soon after, with his lungs and windpipe barely mended, he lifted his head toward the last Titan and curled his lip.
“Nice job with the staff, you bastard.”
Thoroughly flustered, the voice forgot to raise new Titans and asked.
[What kind of star are you? Waves and death at once? I’ve never heard of such a star.]
Yeomyeong tensed his waist to hide his trembling legs, wiped the blood from his eyes, and replied.
“What’s with this star crap… What the hell does that even mean?”
[You don’t know? How? You’re clearly a star.]
The voice added in a baffled tone.
[Don’t tell me you’re unaware?]
Whatever it blabbered, Yeomyeong focused on regenerating. A little more time, and he’d be mobile…
Suddenly, the last Titan’s face began to twist.
Like molding clay into a face.
The horrific difference was that the material was corpses, but the result was the same.
Sharp eyes, crooked nose, thin lips.
The Titan now gazed down at Yeomyeong with a vividly human face.
[Martial arts, magic, even necromancy. America wouldn’t create an uncontrollable star like you. Who made you, anyway? Some idiot?]
Was that face its true form? Its tone had normalized, though the loathsome voice remained.
Yeomyeong pulled his feet from the swamp and said.
“Who made me? Hell if I know. I was born on my own.”
Blatant sarcasm. But it didn’t register as mockery—the thing regarded him seriously.
The massive eye sockets, forged from corpses, peered past Yeomyeong’s flesh into the depths of his soul for a moment.
Then it shook its head abruptly.
[It’s true. You have no parents.]
“…”
As Yeomyeong gripped his sword tighter at the sudden filial insult, the voice in the Titan continued.
[Even without parents, someone must have pulled down your star. Who? Who created such a reckless monster…]
Mid-sentence, it recoiled in shock.
‘…What now?’
The Titan and Yeomyeong exchanged bewildered glances.
Heavy silence, locked gazes.
The silence stretched, until the moment Yeomyeong finished regenerating.
The Titan spoke in a trembling voice.
[What are you? How can your soul be over four thousand years old?]
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