“ kuhk ..”
Blood spurted from Aladdur’s mouth. As he looked down at the bloody hand boring through his chest, his facial expression looked one of disbelief as he looked to see who had attacked him. He let out a gasp, choking on the blood coming up his throat, he cursed his pitiable death
“So… shitty…”, Aladdur uttered with a broken voice and a miserable face,”This forest fucking sucks…”
With his last words, Aladdur fell forward and planted his body dead on the ground. The fighters who were watching him screamed, threw their dignity as they saw the gruesome sight. Henemy, the red headed monster licked his bloody hand with a smile forming on his pale lips.
[Hehehe… So many fun toys here.], the enemy mumbled incomprehensibly.
After meeting Lee Sungmin, the weakened and pale-faced Henemy, who wandered around the forest saw the warriors of 3 great families gathered together. There was no reason to hesitate. As monsters already do kill humans, the case was special for Henemy who was recovering his strength based on the fear lingering in the forest. As he killed the warriors he would consume their fear and add it to his strength along with eating his fill.
[It’s the first time I’ve seen so many humans since I settled in this forest… How fearless kekeke..], Henemy continued to mumble, giggling to himself at the foolish humans.
Ever since his heart was pulled out by Kumiho, the Nine-Tailed Fox, he had continued to weaken and was dying by the day. Although he settled in the forest to prevent his looming death, it could not be completely stopped as he was just delaying the inevitable.
So killing these foolish humans was actually something completely necessary. If he had so much fear to collect by killing them, he might be able to gain enough strength to build upon by further devouring all the fear left in the forest. If he was able to do that, he would, in theory, be able to go back and kill Kumiho and retake his heart.
[Are you afraid?], Henemy asked with a cruel smile to the faces of the fighters dying in utter fear.
Fear was contagious. As it spread the more he killed, the better the outcome. Even though he was weakened, he was still at the apex of Predator in his prime. The fighters from the 3 great families would still be like swatting flies to him.
“Who are you?”, Zhuge Taeryong said, trying not to fumble on his words and let his fear become present.
Henemy took a glance at the man holding his sword that was shaking, as if glancing at a new toy to play with.
[kekeke… Haven’t you ever heard of the King of Monsters?]
“No… it can’t be… Henemy?”
This time it wasn’t Zhuge Taeryong who knew the identity of the killer, but rather Namgung Heewon. He had collected all the information on the monsters currently residing in the Forest of Temptation through Erebrisa.
“Ready your swords!”, Namgoong Heewon shouted.
The order made the members of the Namgung clan come to their senses and drew out their swords. Seeing that he looked like a completely incompetent fool right now, Zhuge Taeryong shouted at his Zhuge family members to do the same.
[Ah resistance.. Even better! The more you try to fight back, the more despair you will have that will turn into fear. It’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to have such a fulfilling meal.], Henemy spoke, baring his bloodied fangs.
Dang Ah-hui stammered and pulled out her sword. The blades of the warriors shot out in all directions, the dozens or practitioners attacked Henemy all at once.
Dedeuk!
From Henemy’s back a thick aura materialized to protect him from the attacks.
“Form a pincer attack!”, Zhuge Taeryong shouted.
Although their numbers were growing incredibly low from the death count, they still had enough members left to form a kind of pincer attack to try and confuse Henemy.
Namgung Heewon quickly rushed over to Murong Seojin where she was standing trembling with the sword in hand to check up on her.
Henemy was no fool and decided to move first. The practitioners tried to form a semi-circle and split their ranks to divide his attention, but Henemy quickly broke through the formation and grabbed one of the practitioners in the mid way by the head.
Sprattt!
The practitioner’s head grabbed by Henemy, popped like an exploding watermelon, as blood, bits of bone from his skull, and brain matter flew from the lump of flesh that was once his head.
[GAHAHAHAHAH!], Henemy burst into a maniacal laughter.
His mouth started to open to such an obscene degree it looked like a snake enlarging its mouth to swallow a mouse whole. Then, he chomped on the remaining flesh of the dead practitioner’s head and chewed the flesh loudly.
The other martial artists suddenly flinched at the grotesque scene and shuddered noticeably. They had spent a whole week without much rest, food, water and constant tension. This scene was starting to crack their sanity as fear started to envelop them.
“AHHHHH!”
Zhuge Taeryong shrieked in absolute fear as he had never seen something so vile and cruel in his entire life. The formation also broke apart from the hesitation apparent from the practitioners. This would only lead them to their deaths. As a formal pincer attack required the attackers to rotate to rest the members of the party while the opponent would be worn down slowly.
Henemy though being merciless was no fool. He planned out the best way to incite as much fear as possible and jumped towards the group with blood spraying everywhere. However, he did not kill them …yet. He tore off the limbs one by one and incapacited the opponents to remove their mobility and make them shriek in horror. The cries and sounds were frightening all those who listened and only grew Henemy’s power further.
Namgung Heewon made the most rational thought he could and decided to try and flee. He glanced over to Murong Seojin. If she gave him a gap he would take her by surprise and flee with her, whether she was willing or not.
[Escape…We need to escape together.], Dang Ah-hui sent a mental message to Namgung Heewon noticing his intentions and wanting to live too.
[What?], he responded as he didn’t expect it.
[I’m going to rush order my fighters to rush into battle and draw attention. So please…take me with you!], Dang Ah-hui said without a trace of hesitation.
Namgung Heewon was no saint, especially so in this situation, but his face was contorted with disgust at Dang Ah-hui’s utter lack of comradery to throw away her subordinate’s lives away like that.
More and more people died as time passed. Namgung Heewon was no fool and knew through Erebrisa that the fear was only making Henemy stronger. He had to come to a decision quickly.
Henemy was very cunning, and had a thorough understanding of the opponents positions from start to finish. Naturally he did not want to waste any fear that he could collect.
“What the hell… is that…?”, Zhuge Taeryong was sprawled on the floor trying to inch away bit by bit as he saw the gruesome scene before him.
Henemy raised his body up after eating a limb from a practitioner. He gave a silent gaze at the crawling Zhuge Taeryong and looked at him with indifference as if he were utter trash.
For Henemy, there was nothing that disturbed him more than a competitor that tried to take away his prey. If such things happened to him, he would grow enraged and stop his hunt just to take out the opponent that tried to poach his prey. Of course he also had to learn the identities of such beings well. Those 5 elders from Predator were exactly those kinds of opponents.
[Hm?], Henemy noticed a familiar presence and gave out a questioning look.
He finished licking off the blood from his hands and looked in the direction of the presence. As he rose his naked body up his eyes opened wide. He knew that presence familiarly as it was one of the former 5 elders of Predator from his time of rule. But it was a bit weird. A naked monster walked out from the forest with an aura of Heoju.
[Huh?]
The monster of immortality in front of him was a manifestation of Heoju’s fear that had accumulated over the several years of fear that came to the forest. It wasn’t the half-breed Lee Sungmin he had seen earlier.
[What the…]
He stopped the massacre of the martial practitioners and focused his attention on the new stimulation in front of him. It wasn’t as if Heoju had resurrected or sent a manifestation of himself. This was an entirely new entity that had been residing in the forest for a long time. Instead of fearing the surging power of the monster in front of him, Henemy smiled viciously. If he ate and consumed that monster, he would get millions of fear stricken souls to eat. Getting revenge on that damned fox, no… even ruling all of Eria would not be a dream anymore. He could regain his ambitions.
[Good luck! HAHAHA!]
Henemy threw away the head he was chewing on in a pile of flesh that was once a first rate martial artist. He lunged at the monster in front of him. Although that monster had a lot of fear racked up, Henemy was the pinnacle of Predator in his time. Even if he was weaker than before, there was no way he couldn’t kill a newborn baby monster that hadn’t even lived for 400 years.(T/N : the monster in front of Enemy right now is the so-called monster of immortality the sorcerer Lee Sungmin contacted, spoke of. The monster isn’t actually a baby, it’s just not nearly as old as Henemy who’s around 600-700 years old.)
He had to kill it. He was going to rush in and tear the limbs off that monster and slowly devour it. But Henemy’s thoughts stopped there.
Henemy didn’t even know that his arms had been torn apart and his head pulled out. The body of Henemy, who lost both its arms and head, rolled the ground at the same speed as it was running forward. The monster of immortality left Henemy’s corpse to rot and fall to the ground and turned its attention to the remaining martial artists. Those who survived could not understand the situation, but they had no choice but to acknowledge that the monster in front of them was much, MUCH worse than the being that had started to slaughter their forces apart.
“Sa, save… Save me.”
Zhuge Taeryong muttered in a low voice, as he started to piss his pants and grab his arms in fear as he laid sprawled on the ground, scared shitless. Namgung Heewon looked at the monster with a pale face. It was the same with Dang Ah-Hui who started to shake uncontrollably in fear as the strength in her body seemed to leave her.
“…Seojin.”
Namgoong Heewon called out to Murong Seojin in a small voice. Murong Seojin, who covered her mouth with both hands, not daring to utter a sound, looked around to face Namgung Heewon.
“Run away, don’t look back.”, he said quietly, in a grave tone to her.
Namgoong Heewon was feeling that he could not escape even though he said he would earlier. The opponent in front of him right now was something he couldn’t possibly fathom. Even if someone tried to escape right now, the forest was like a labyrinth and there wasn’t much hope. Despite that, he still told Murong Seojin to run in the slim chance she might be able to live.
But the monster did not approach them as they thought it would. It stopped walking and turned it’s head to look at the lush trees. Then, the ground shook like an earthquake. The trees break apart and form a pathway. The monster stood still and saw the forestry change significantly. The survivors were facing the monster but dared not move. Everyone knew it. As soon as any of them made a movement, that monster would rush in their direction and slaughter them. Of course it wasn’t a certainty. But the fear of ‘maybe’ was the deciding factor for them.
—
[Now I know why the forest was acting that way to you], Heoju murmured to Lee Sungmin as the old yokai understood the forest’s intentions.
[This forest seems to want you to clean up that shit.]
Lee Sungmin stopped running.
The path made by the trees wasn’t an incredibly long distance like he thought it would be. He never thought there would be pursuers so close, nor would he expect to see such a gruesome scene before him when he arrived. Lee Sungmin saw the dead, the wounded, the unidentifiable corpses, and the warriors of the pursuing party that were somehow still alive..
“…Ghost…ghost…ghost gun…”, Zhuge Taeryong stammered and muttered quietly.
“…Long time no see, brother.”, Namgung Heewon spat out, partially relieved to see Lee Sungmin, and partially in hope that he might save them.
“Are you still calling me brother?”, replied Lee Sungmin tilting his head to the side in confusion.
“There’s no reason why I can’t call you one, once a brother always a brother right? Hahah.”, replied Namgung Heewon, with a cold sweat dripping down his back.
Lee Sungmin felt a bit of pity seeing someone he really enjoyed talking to in the past end up in such a state. He then turned his eyes, to meet the monster in front of them. But, he recognized the face of the monster as one he had seen long ago in the sleeping forest.
[That thing has the same face as me…figures.] ,said Heoju without any surprise as if he were somewhat expecting it.
Lee Sungmin narrowed his eyes at the monster in the shape of Heoju that was buck-naked. Aside from the toned and well-defined muscles, his lower body was particularly…big…
* Ahem*
Standing behind Lee Sungmin’s back, Rubia covered her eyes with both hands, and gave out a slight cough. But her eyes still peeked through the slits of her closed fingers while her cheeks flushed bright red.
[Something seems to have gotten smaller.], Heoju grumbled clearly unsatisfied at the monster’s already humongous girth.
(T/N : tling this scene literally had me cracking up with laughter enjoy lmao)
“I have to kill that?’
[That’s the situation, isn’t it? The forest obviously didn’t want you to leave and led us here to find that thing, so isn’t it rather obvious? Don’t tell me you’re scared?]
‘You.. no it.. Looks strong.’ (T/N : Gosh so much ‘that’s what she said’ material)
[Well it may be strong as it was born out of the fear of my very identity, but you’re quite strong yourself these days.], said Heoju, seemingly enjoying the situation.
[Why don’t you give it a try?]
There was no need for Heoju’s last words because the monster had already moved.