Hunting Time (6)
He pulled in the crystal ball while spitting a constant stream of curses. The flames surrounding Mrs. Pearl’s body weakened a little due to the great effort she had applied just before. It took time to chant the spell again.
“Sprouting hatred!”
Yellow smoke spread around him. However, at that time, Mrs. Pearl’s fire curtain seemed to have been relatively sparse. It wasn’t completely burned and was buried a little on her naked body. And the guy who witnessed it…
“Hahahahaha! It’s over! You bitch!”
Mrs. Pearl created a strong spark on her skin in contact with the smoke, perhaps because of anxiety caused by the mad laughter poured out. Still, it seemed to be one step late.
“Eaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!”
She twisted her body in confusion.
From Mrs. Pearl’s thighs that had come into contact with magic, flesh began to sprout in a strange form. The rough surface, similar to tree roots, swelled as if it sprouted from branches, and they were several times thicker than her thighs’ original size. Their length also grew to the point of being dragged to the ground.
“No!”
Seol, feeling the crisis, rushed forward, but the Wizard’s attack was quick.
“Revenging lightning! Sextuple!”
-Crackling!
“Keaaaaaaaarrrgh!!”
Six spheres surrounded Mrs. Pearl, and red lightning struck her even more violently than before. She grounded her teeth and endured the pain that her whole body was getting hit with.
In the hot flame she created, the intact skin burned, and smoke erupted. The veins in her eyes burst, and she vomited blood on the floor like some form of black resentment.
“Eeeeaaaaaaarrrghhhh!”
-Kwoooooooooong!!
Even looking at that, I couldn’t do anything but wait for the completion of the barrier.
Now, the density of the Mana transmitted from the altar had been condensed close to the maximum. Soon!
-Bang bang!
Seol threw himself forward and jumped in the middle of the river of lightning. Without leaving any trace, the lightning that attacked Mrs. Pearl vanished. At the same time, another jewel of the artifact was broken. It was the third jewel that broke.
There was no way he would miss that opportunity. As soon as Seol approached him, the Wizard prepared magic while aiming at me. However, Seol didn’t stay still either. He collected intangible Mana in both hands and attacked the mage by punching incessantly.
The Wizard also responded by returning the spheres around his body and created a shield to respond to the sudden burst of physical attacks. Mrs. Pearl that collapsed behind…
-Kheeeeeeiiiiik!
“Uuugh!”
Unable to move properly due to the massive flesh on her thighs, she collected a mass of highly condensed heat in her hand. She was trying to make it like a dagger and cut off the roots that had sprouted from her thighs.
The human body, made with a transformation technique, was no different from an actual human at that moment. As she gave her strength, the smoke burning her skin and muscles erupted with a nasty smell.
Seol, who had been pushing the Wizard for a long time, discovered it later. He kicked his target with all his might, and the shock caused the Wizard to bounce back and around but soon stopped. It was thanks to the spheres that followed their owner.
Seol, who made that momentary gap, looked back and shouted.
“No! You fool!”
He quickly ran back and stood in front of Mrs. Pearl. Then, by sharpening her intangible Mana, she cut off the mass of flesh that had sprouted on her thighs.
-Slash!
In the meantime, blood splattered like a fountain to see if it was connected to the blood vessels, then evaporated in high heat before it even touched her cheek. She gathered flames in her hands and halted the bleeding by putting it on the cut part – a bloodied cauterization.
-Cheeeeeeiiiiik!
While she grounded her teeth and treated her wounds, Seol attacked the Wizard once again. As he continued avoiding the attack, he kept glancing towards me.
Seol protected my surroundings closely and came to the front while Mrs. Pearl was stopping the bleeding. From that guy’s point of view, it would be a great chance. At that moment, if there were a gap, even for a moment to shoot magic at me, I would be defenseless.
-Bang bang! Bang bang bang!
Seol’s punches continued. Whenever he struck the Wizard’s shield, the Mana wrapped in his fist exploded. The enemy kept firing magic at me in the gap, but Seol blocked it with his body every time.
I noticed two more jewels on his necklace were broken, and all five were used. Now Seol’s life was gone. If he was hit directly by magic once again, it might be dangerous.
After he died, then I was the top priority.
It was dangerous.
No…
It could’ve been dangerous, even if it was 10 seconds late.
-Ghrrrrrrrrrrrrrh!
I could see it. Twelve branches of Mana covered the sky like a parabola and joined together at the top of my head. The fused pillar of power fell like a beam of light piercing the clouds. What I had been doing so far was controlling that Mana.
As I observed the flow, I realized that the time had come.
-Ghrrrrrrrrrrrrrh!
I wasn’t the only one that noticed that something had changed.
“This is it!”
Realizing that the sensation was unusual, the Wizard reached out to me, but Seol blocked him again. After the bleeding ended, Mrs. Pearl also stood up. The moment he wriggled his finger toward me again, I completed the barrier.
-Whooooooong!
When the barrier was completed, a unique wave wrapped around us—a pleasant sense of closure. It was a neat feeling as if the pieces were all in sync.
“… It’s done.”
I chuckled.
“This is… fuck, what the hell have you done?!”
I conveyed my thoughts to Seol via Parvache.
[Seol! Step back!]
Now his artifact was useless. Seol didn’t question the telepathy delivered by Parvache and distanced himself from the Wizard. As if waiting, he yelled and pointed his finger at me. Mana was condensed, and red lightning spattered.
-Splatt!
Perhaps she was concerned about the situation. Instead of Seol, Mrs. Pearl went in front of me and blocked it.
Although she lit the flame to stop the lightning…
-Whirrrrr!
The red lightning bypassed her and ran into her, as it had done before. However, having completed the barrier, I no longer had my hands and feet tied.
I put Mana on my hand.
-Crackling!
Without a hitch, I struck the lightning with my bare hands.
“What… what…”
Even without defensive artifacts, once my hands and feet were free, that was nothing.
The expression of the guy who noticed the meaning of the phenomenon seriously hardened. Various makeup and powder coatings melted away, and even black ash marks remained dirty on the skin, but it felt like he had become pale.
I breathed magic into the Speech Dissolving Bead, and I spoke in a voice of the alien race that was heard like a scraping iron.
“I see your spell combinations are incredibly fast, but it’s too honest. I can deflect it off quickly just by reading the texture of the Mana.”
“What the…!”
Looking at his distorted expression, I said, “Not yet. It’s not over.”
That barrier, completed with White Deer’s help, was just the preparation for that game. But, it took quite a lot of time and effort to prepare.
Space was created through the branches of the Enchanted Wood and cohesive Mana. That barrier’s role was ‘to draw a line’ – to put it in a little simpler way.
The barrier itself didn’t exert physical power. It just served to inform that that was the designated space. It essentially sent a message saying not to cross that line.
Why was I collecting so much Mana when I was only drawing a line? That was because the one who should be deceived through that line was a very high-ranking guy.
That line would play a role in limiting the scope of one spell to be changed now.
The spell to be cast at that moment borrowed the power of God. There was no need for long chants, massive artifacts, or to draw magic circles.
God’s spell was a moment of action. With just one word, the power of God came to reality.
All I had to do was call the generic name of the God I recognized. That was because the rituals corresponding to the calculation of the spell’s chant and complex formulas were already completed a long time ago.
I poured out of my lips the spell I had already received half a year ago, the divine spell engraved on my soul in exchange for a part of my body.
“The Sanctuary of Kylgeniapros…”
As soon as the spell was completed, the nature of the space changed.
***
“What… what is it?!”
The guy looked around in confusion. The night sky, once dyed dark blue, had currently turned into red blood. The wind wasn’t blowing anymore. I sensed an alien presence every time I inhaled and exhaled.
The Wizard constantly spewed out Mana around him, using it to examine the space. However, the information coming back remained unchanged.
The Mana’s concentration and arrangement that made up the interior were no different from before I used the magic. The buildings remained the same, no physical movement was detected, and there were no abnormal reactions to the living things.
Still, the apparent change that anyone could notice would inevitably lead to further confusion. The atmosphere that turned red in an instant as if you were on another planet… a truly alienating presence that was different from Mana.
“What… what…”
The Wizard muzzled, speechless. Even Mrs. Pearl, who was already prepared, had her eyes wide open. Seol’s expression was also shaking for the first time today.
“You… how…”
He looked at me with a blue face, but he kept fiddling with his ring. The direction the Mana was going to was outside. However, as time passed, his expression became gloomier.
“Can’t the message magic pass outside?” I said while looking at him.
He opened his eyes wide. As if he was stabbed to the point, his sweat was seen flowing down his forehead.
“There can be no message magic that reaches outside. Conversely, there is no way to contact or monitor this place either.”
No communication magic could leak out, and from that moment on, no matter what happened there, the Guardians of the Great Convention outside wouldn’t notice anything. That was how much freedom of action I had.
“How… how do you…!”
“If people look from the outside right now, this space will look like a red haze. They won’t know what’s going on inside. Even satellite images are useless.”
The more he listened to me, the more serious his eyes became. Ah, I could hear it. I could hear his head rolling all the way here.
There were strange magic, enormous Mana that completed the barrier, a strange presence around him, the ominous feeling that the whole space was ‘changed,’ and the last disconnected communication.
Given all of this, the conclusion he would make was obvious. The way the Wizard thought was discernible, after all.
I watched his hand fiddling with a different ring.
“Well? Have you made up your mind? Now, try running away.”
When the thoughts were caught again, the Wizard trembled, but he smiled as if he had regained his composure.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alien. I don’t know what the hell is this, but we’re going to go today. Just wait a little bit. We’ll be back soon…”
At that moment, his smile broke. His white face was now horribly distorted. His lips with red lipstick were strangely twisted.
“… What the hell… what are you?!”
An unknown joy was rising in my heart. Was it just those guys? Were they trying to resurrect Earth’s Truth-Seekers? Was it them that brought me my stress, fear, and anxiety?
And ironically, there was a cold wave of anger on the back of the joy filling my depths.
“Why? Why are you bothering me so much? Why did you touch me when you are trembling with such fear?”
I replied with a smile.
“Is the teleport not working? It’s weird. The artifact that you executives carry around with. It’s an object that can return you to a designated place by simply triggering it anytime, anywhere.”
He breathed in quietly.
“It’s even impossible to make it anymore. The artifacts were made and given to you by ‘the Great One.’ I heard that no matter how much the executives try, it’s impossible to imitate that teleportation ring.”
Watching that dizzy expression made me feel relieved. A perfect environment had been created, and at that moment, all I had to do was take action. I mumbled leisurely.
“It’s time to hunt…”
