A sudden gale assaulted their camp. Scarlett’s small fire couldn’t endure and was put out. Thankfully, the sun hadn’t quite set yet and the sky was crimson, so there weren’t any issues with visibility.
The black haired girl was standing right next to the fire. The place she was standing allowed her to attack both Sungmin and Scarlett.
When?
Both of them thought the same question at once. The girl’s approach was so fast neither of them could recognize it.
Aine stood up from her crouching position. The fact that she was not in a state of hunger was a fortune for Scarlett and Sungmin.
Scarlett didn’t know who the girl was, but felt the ominous feeling coming off her. That kind of feeling was very unfamiliar to her.
“…What are you?”
However, Scarlett wasn’t fearful. One of her strengths – at the same time, a weakness – was that she acted like herself regardless of the situation. Scarlett distanced herself from Aine with a few steps.
‘What are you doing?’
Scarlett acted as soon as she came to a guard, but Sungmin didn’t. He only stood and looked at Aine. His thudding heart resounded loudly in his ears. Aine did’nt move either. She blinked her yellow eyes and stared at Sungmin’s face.
“…You…”
Sungmin’s lips moved. This was his first meeting with Aine. However, she didn’t feel unfamiliar to her. Even though they had never met before… he felt that he knew her. No, rather than that.
A sense of kinship.
“Who are you?”
Before he could ask, Aine asked him first. Aine was feeling the same thing that Sungmin was feeling. It was just that, her progression of emotions was different to that of Sungmin’s. From kinship came discomfort. Sungmin was feeling the same discomfort by that point, but they differed in the way they handled their ‘discomfort’.
It happened in an instant. Aine’s hand seemed to twist in a strange way before turning into a tentacle, shooting towards Sungmin.
“Hey!”
Scarlett shouted out to Sungmin and she acted at the same time. She swung her hand, and magic energy rippled with it. The tentacle that aimed at Sungmin’s heart changed course mid-way due to the interfering magic energy. Sungmin gasped deeply and took several steps back.
“Get yourself together! What the hell are you doing!”
Shouted Scarlett with a stiff expression. Sungmin sharpened his mind and moved. He picked up his spear from the floor, but he couldn’t be relieved just yet.
Aine returned the tentacle back into her arm. She repeatedly gripped and loosened her hand while looking at Sungmin’s face. Aine did not care about Scarlett’s presence. She only looked towards Sungmin.
“There’s something strange about you,” muttered Aine.
When she reached out with her leg, a pitch-black magic energy shot up from beneath her. The ominous form made Scarlett bite her lips. She reached out inside her chest and took out a large pair of gloves and put them on.
“Who are you?”
Aine asked. Sungmin did not reply. Unfamiliarity, ominousness. And an unknown hostility. No, rather than that, the one in front of him was trying to kill him. He couldn’t just let himself be killed.
“…Lee Sungmin.”“Lee Sungmin? Is that a name? I’m Aine.”
Replied Aine. She frowned once, before smiling.
“So that’s it.”
That was the end of it. Aine’s right arm changed form again. The right arm that ignored the balance of the human body and became a muscular monster arm. Seeing the punch flying towards him, Sungmin hurriedly used the Shadowless Phantom.
The increase in his internal energy allowed him to move faster. The punch hit the ground and spat earth and rocks everywhere. Sungmin swung his spear towards the cloud of dust approaching him.
The dust cloud settled. Beyond that, Aine once again swung her tentacle arm towards Sungmin. Sungmin realized who Aine was. The words that he heard from Lloyd passed by in his mind. It was about the chimera girl that could change the form of her limbs.
There was no time to think. The girl’s attacks were strange and without pattern. The tentacle that flew towards him was thicker than a whip, yet sharp like a blade. Sungmin exerted his internal energy into his spear and deflected Aine’s tentacle.
No, he thought to do so. Along with the pain that almost ripped his hands, the spear spun in reverse in his hands. Aine’s attacks were incomparably stronger to the punch of the ogre chimera.
‘I can’t… deflect it!’
Because he consumed the Greater and Lesser Restoration pills, he was able to hold. If it was before he had consumed those, the attack would have ripped his arm away from his body.
She couldn’t be taken lightly just because she looked young on the outside. The opponent was a freak that drove the Gold Tower Lord Lloyd half to death. Sungmin barely gripped his hands and defended himself from Aine.
Meanwhile, Scarlett had finished her preparations for battle. Metallic symbols on the gloves on her hands mitted light. Scarlett licked her lips and reached out to empty air.
Every time she moved her fingers, characters were written midair. A yet-incomplete ‘Spell Engraval’ of the Lecir school was cast. Magic was cast through the red string of spells engraved into the air.
Just as Aine was about to attack Sungmin, she trembled, sensing the threat behind her back. The presence of Scarlett, whom she did had ignored, messed up her senses. A bird of fire created through a spell assaulted Aine’s back.
“Uh…!”
Aine hurriedly turned around and extended her hand. The heart that moved Aine’s body made her immune to most types of magic. This ability of hers was something that Prescan wanted his ultimate creation to have, and although incomplete, was capable enough to drive Lloyd almost to death.
However, the magic that Scarlett casted was fundamentally different to that of normal magic. Scarlett’s Spell Engraval (呪文刻印) was a mixture of magic (魔法) and spellcraft (呪術), and was founded especially on Onmyoudou (陰陽道-Way of Yin and Yang) and Qimen Dunjia (奇門遁甲-A type of ancient Chinese divination) fields of spellcraft.
(T/N: I ain’t translating that shit. There IS NO translation. Go to wikipedia)
Boom!
The firebird that clashed with Aine did not scatter but swallowed Aine’s body whole. Aine’s body flinched amidst ultra high-temperature flames. Aine did not know of pain, but still felt that the flames burning her body were uncomfortable.
Crunch.
Aine’s body transformed inside the flames. If simple magic immunity didn’t work, then she only needed to change her body so that it was inflammable. Her outer skin became ash and fell on the floor, and below that was an armor-like skin.
“Body transformation…? Polymorph? No, wait. It’s not a dragon, right!”
Saying that, Scarlett waved her hand again. Due to her support, Sungmin was able to catch his breath, and calm down the tremor in his heart.
What made Sungmin’s heart chaotic was the existence of the heart inside his chest. The Black Heart – Sungmin didn’t know how he became one with this thing, but if the thing thumping inside his heart was indeed the pitch-black heart levitating inside the dungeon, if it was really that.
‘Aren’t I…. the same as that little girl right now?’
The same as a freak that chewed on and ate a live heart?
He had no room to think about such things. Regardless of the reason, Aine was trying to kill him. The attack that aimed precisely at his heart could not be considered a cute greeting.
Let’s just consider this an opportunity, he thought. This was his first proper battle after he had consumed the Restoration pills. He no longer needed to restrain himself from using the Shadowless Phantom and Nine Skies Infinity Spear that used a lot of his internal energy.
When he approached Aine using the first move of the Shadowless Phantom, Traceless First Step, Aine was raising her head from a crouching position. Sungmin and Aine met gazes. Instinct, and sixth sense warned him. Sungmin retracted his spear and immediately moved sideways.
An invisible punch grazed past his ears. Even though it wasn’t a direct hit, his ears were in pain and his vision blurred momentarily. He could see Aine in a punching stance.
“…Hundred Steps Divine Fist?”
Aine did not reply to that question. However, she was showing discontent on her expression. After gripping and loosening her hands a few times, she went into a punching stance once again.
Then, another round of invisible fists started again. The Hundred Steps Divine Fist was not visible to the naked eye. However, the senses he trained in Mount Msh allowed him to dodge those attacks.
However, he couldn’t focus on dodging. While she punched with her right, Aine changed form of her left hand and attacked Sungmin.
If Sungmin was alone, then he would not have been able to hold against Aine. However, he was not by himself. The fact that Scarlett stayed with Sungmin was a great fortune for him. Lecir School’s Spell Engraval. Albeit incomplete, the magic of the Lecir school allowed Scarlett to become the lord of the Red Magic Tower at a young age.
On top of that, her natural affinity with Aine was also an element of luck. The current Scarlett was far from being on par with Lloyd, but the peculiarity of Spell Engraval gave Aine a tough time. Not only that, Prescan’s help was absent, so it was natural for Aine to be disadvantaged.
A hand of earth shot out from the ground and grabbed onto Aine’s leg. Aine, even while swaying, manage to swing her left arm. The tentacle ripped apart the air and attacked Sungmin. Sungmin lowered his stance and closed the distance with Aine. His spear attempted to pierce Aine’s chest, and at that time, Aine twisted her torso, taking the spear hit with her left shoulder instead.
Crunch! There was a sound of muscles and flesh being ripped, and bones breaking. The moment Sungmin’s spear hit Aine’s left shoulder, Aine almost simultaneously swung her right arm to slice off her legs. Aine was pushed back, but did not roll on the floor. She immediately did a roll in the air, and when she landed, her severed legs had already regenerated.
“You’re a freak.”
Said Scarlett in an annoyed tone. Yes, annoyance, just that. She no longer felt a threat from that mysterious thing. Although the battle was short, it was enough to determine who was the advantageous one in this battle
“Yeah.”
Aine’s reply didn’t seem to consider the disadvantageous situation at all. It wasn’t that Aine was ignorant.
It was the truth.
When Aine smiled, an enormous amount of magic energy rippled. Scarlett, who considered her side to be superior, realized how hasty she was in that decision. The scale of magic energy that Aine was giving out was beyond Scarlett’s imagination.
“What kind of freak are you…!”
Scarlett frowned as she muttered that. Scarlett was not aware of the fact that the girl in front of her drove Lloyd, the Tower Lord of the Gold Magic Tower, almost to death.
Sungmin was in a frontal confrontation with that monster. The heart beating inside Sungmin’s body, and the heart that Aine possessed were the same. However, just because they possessed the same hearts, they could not be considered to be the same species.
The enormous magic energy that Aine showed him was beyond what Sungmin was capable of understanding. Even though Sungmin wholly absorbed the energies inside the Greater and Lesser Restoration pills, the ominous magic energy Aine gave off was incomparably larger.
Such a freak was aiming for him. It wasn’t the eyes that looked at the same kin. It was only a cryptic hostility, and it wouldn’t end just with her gaze.
Sungmin did not want to die.