Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 61 - Flag (2)
Chapter 61 – Flag (2)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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-Udeudeuk! Thud!
‘!!!!!!’
At the sight of So-hwa, dead with her neck snapped, her squad members were momentarily struck dumb.
Because all of them had gathered around her as their center, this death could only be even more bewildering.
Among them, one boy could not endure it and shouted,
“Y-you crazy bastard, what the hell are you doing?”
No one had expected this situation.
They were people who had only thought about trusting her, using that fellow somehow, and throwing him away later.
Their stamina still remained, and they had both eyes wide open and were watching, yet something like this had happened right before them.
Mok Gyeong-un’s lips twitched as he said,
“Shall I call it a pleasant mealtime?”
“What kind of bullshit is that!”
Another boy too seemed to come to his senses and immediately snapped back at Mok Gyeong-un.
Then, when he gestured with his eyes toward the other boys,
-Rumble!
the six of them surrounded Mok Gyeong-un in a circle.
At this sight, Mok Gyeong-un tilted his head slightly and opened his mouth.
“Unexpected.”
“What?”
“I thought you would panic like a swarm of bees following a queen bee.”
‘!?’
At those words from Mok Gyeong-un, the boys’ expressions twisted fiercely.
He had described them as fools who could not escape after falling for the one lone girl, So-hwa, so what fool would fail to understand that?
“You bastard, I will kill…”
“Do not get worked up!”
One boy shouted.
Then, taking a hand-and-foot combat stance toward Mok Gyeong-un, he said,
“Do not get excited and fall for the bastard’s trick. Even if So-hwa is dead, we are the ones with the advantage.”
“You are right. I almost fell for him.”
If they got worked up and charged one by one, they might instead be picked off individually.
Though having internal power sealed was the same condition for all of them, the fact that this bastard had dared do something like this meant he must have had some confidence in handling them.
“We suppress him together with a coordinated attack. And for killing So-hwa, let us kill him painfully.”
“All right!”
Mok Gyeong-un laughed shortly.
“Playing at friendship.”
-Pak!
No sooner had the words ended than Mok Gyeong-un kicked off the ground.
Dirt shot up to knee height, and Mok Gyeong-un’s figure reached the face of the boy standing before him in an instant.
‘Wh-what?’
The startled boy tried to check Mok Gyeong-un with a push kick.
However,
-Clench! Paak!
Mok Gyeong-un caught the boy’s ankle with one hand and then yanked it.
At that moment, his balance collapsed and the boy’s body bent backward.
“Huhk!”
They knew he was strong, but this was beyond expectation.
After yanking the ankle, Mok Gyeong-un swung the boy’s body directly toward another boy standing right beside him.
-Whiik!
‘Damn it!’
The startled boy hurriedly ducked to avoid it.
But that was not the end.
Using centrifugal force, Mok Gyeong-un turned all the way around once, then came down low this time,
-Thud!
“Ugh!”
and smashed the head of the boy lying low with the head of the boy whose ankle he was holding, so that he could not avoid it.
The two heads collided so hard that something seemed to crack.
It looked as though both boys’ skulls had been shattered.
‘What in the world is this bastard?’
Two of them had been taken down in an instant.
Even without internal power, how could he have such strength?
“At-attack him at the same time!”
When one boy shouted, two boys charged at Mok Gyeong-un.
One threw a kick at his face, while the other slid along the ground from straight ahead and aimed at Mok Gyeong-un’s ankle.
If that happened, then one way or another his balance would inevitably collapse.
So they thought, but
-Pak! Parurururur!
Mok Gyeong-un kicked off in that instant, spun in the air like a top to evade them, then
-Whik! Puk!
“Ugeuk!”
stamped the crown of the sliding boy’s head with the top of his foot.
-Thud!
The boy whose chin hit the ground rolled his eyes back and lost consciousness.
“You bastard!”
He had been startled for a moment, but not wasting the opening, the boy who had aimed for the face kicked at Mok Gyeong-un’s left leg, which was supporting his body, trying to knock him down.
But,
-Puk!
“Aak!”
The boy staggered, clutching his ankle.
He was the one who had kicked, yet his own ankle hurt as though it were about to break instead.
‘W-what in the world?’
“What are you doing!”
One boy, dumbfounded by the staggering figure, ran at Mok Gyeong-un to smash his head with a sharp stone.
But before he could, Mok Gyeong-un kicked his ankle.
-Puk!
“Aak!”
The leg of the boy whose ankle was kicked flew upward, and his body tilted the opposite way and fell.
-Thud!
In that instant, Mok Gyeong-un stepped on the boy’s neck.
-Udeuk!
The boy’s neck snapped, and he died on the spot.
The staggering boy and the only remaining boy who had not been able to attack yet could not hide their bewilderment at the sight.
Four had been taken down in an instant.
Though their internal power had been sealed, they too had learned martial arts and held the numerical advantage, so they had thought they would somehow be able to suppress him.
But that expectation had been completely wrong.
‘This crazy…’
This bastard, on pure strength alone, was comparable to someone at the second-rate level.
Only then did the emotion of regret arise in them.
When So-hwa had said they should bring him in, they should have stopped it somehow.
They had touched something they should not have.
“Aaaaaah!”
At that moment, the one boy who had not attacked chose to flee.
He had no confidence at all in handling that monstrous fellow.
Even five together had failed, so how could he handle it alone?
‘You dog…’
The boy with the twisted ankle cursed inwardly at the sight of the fleeing boy.
But even if he cursed him, he understood.
Right now, fleeing was the right choi…
-Slide!
At that moment, the eyes of the boy with the twisted ankle widened.
“Huk!”
-Thud!
The ankle of the boy who was running away lifted backward, and he fell.
As he wondered what in the world had happened, he saw Mok Gyeong-un stretching out his hand toward the fallen boy and making a pulling gesture.
Then,
-Paak!
at that moment the boy’s leg, no, his whole body, was dragged backward.
‘!!!!!!’
It was a sight beyond belief.
‘Seizing objects across open air?’
Seizing objects across open air.
It was a method by which an internal master with profound inner power drew objects or things he desired with true qi.
Seeing before his eyes something that should only be possible for a master who had reached the pinnacle of transcendence, the boy could not help but be shocked.
‘Impossible.’
What in the world was this?
Setting aside the fact that he was doing such a thing, was not his internal power clearly sealed?
It was while he was still in shock.
“N-nooooo!”
-Chwarurururur!
The fallen boy clung to the ground and tried to endure somehow, but he was dragged over anyway, leaving long nail marks in the earth.
Then the fleeing boy’s ankle was caught by Mok Gyeong-un’s outstretched hand.
-Pak!
-Udeudeuk!
“Kkeuaaaaak!”
The moment he caught the ankle, Mok Gyeong-un twisted it.
The boy, whose ankle bent in the opposite direction, screamed, but Mok Gyeong-un stepped on the back of his neck.
-Udeuk!
The screaming boy’s breath was cut off just like that.
‘Ahhh.’
The face of the boy with the twisted ankle, who had been watching this, turned pale white.
They had truly touched something they should not have.
Rather than monster, the word demon-ghost suited this thing better.
How could there be someone like this?
Even if the seal on inner power were removed, could anyone really handle this demon-ghost bastard, who could seize things across open air?
-Tremble tremble!
His body shook violently.
He wanted to steady himself, but all strength left his legs and he collapsed.
-Thud!
Mok Gyeong-un turned his head toward him, then walked over with a smile.
It was the first time in his life that a smiling face had felt this terrifying.
At that moment, the boy’s mind chose the best among all the methods now available to him.
-Papat!
The boy dropped to his knees and bowed his head to the ground.
Then he shouted toward Mok Gyeong-un.
“I surrender! I surrender! I will do anything you say! If you tell me to become your slave, I will, so please, just spare my life!”
The boy had decided that begging to be spared, no matter what, was the only answer.
If he could only survive, this kind of humiliation did not matter.
“Please spare me…”
“Shh.”
“Pardon?”
“Be quiet.”
At those words from Mok Gyeong-un, the boy shut his mouth uneasily and raised his head.
As that happened, Mok Gyeong-un looked in a certain direction in the forest, then gave a short laugh and said,
“There was one more little rat.”
‘!?’
The moment he heard that, the boy thought of one of their former squad members.
He was the boy meant to join them near dawn after they killed Mok Gyeong-un.
They had told him to follow at a distance. Had Mok Gyeong-un noticed him?
Come to think of it, from the direction Mok Gyeong-un was looking, it sounded as though something was running away into the distance.
‘…Yes. Run and tell someone, anyone, that he is dangerous.’
This bastard was completely different from the others.
He had gone beyond competition and was committing slaughter.
At that moment, Mok Gyeong-un took something like a wooden doll from his robes, formed a strange hand seal, and murmured,
“Yeonwonjise guhwandowon dispel.”
Then he put it back into his robes.
What had he just done?
As the boy found it strange, Mok Gyeong-un turned his head and approached him again.
Then he bent his knees, lowered himself, and said,
“Ah. What was it you were saying just now?”
“Sp-spare…”
-Tak!
At that moment, Mok Gyeong-un grabbed the boy’s head.
The boy tried to knock his hand away in terror, but
-Udeudeuk!
Mok Gyeong-un snapped his neck just like that.
Then, gazing into the eyes of the boy now dead with his head twisted, he grinned and said,
“It is good not to torture you with false hope needlessly, right?”
With those words, still holding the dead boy’s head, Mok Gyeong-un recited in his mind the formula for the Form of Attachment.
It was a pleasant mealtime.
He had to absorb the death aura while the loss was as small as possible.
* * *
-Tatatatatak!
‘He is completely insane.’
A boy was running.
The boy’s flesh crawled because of the scene he had just witnessed.
He had been keeping his distance when he heard the screams and, startled, had moved closer, only to be horrified by what he saw.
Without even getting near the flag, the squad members including So-hwa were slaughtered indiscriminately.
No, it was almost at the level of massacre.
‘A demon-ghost. A demon-ghost.’
And was his internal power really sealed after all?
It did not seem so.
At the end, what he had done had looked no different from seizing objects across open air by drawing them in with true qi.
‘Does that make any sense?’
Could a brat only seventeen years old perform something that should be possible only for an internal master with profound inner power?
He was completely confused.
But no matter how chaotic his thoughts were, one thing alone was certain.
‘I have to tell them.’
He had to tell someone, whether it was the other boys or the people of Corpse Blood Valley conducting this gate.
He was already dangerous enough, but if he alone did not have his internal power sealed, then this was no different from chea…
-Pak!
At that moment, the boy’s body was flung backward as though it had collided with something.
Catching himself with an instinctive recovery roll, the boy turned and took a stance, then stared ahead in alarm.
But he could see nothing at all.
What in the world?
‘What did I just collide with?’
Puzzled, he rose to his feet and unconsciously turned his head.
At that moment,
“Hheok!”
The boy shrieked and fell backward.
‘Th-this…’
The boy doubted his own eyes.
Something with a hazy form stood before him, and it was a gigantic monk with a necklace of skull prayer beads hanging around his neck.
The monk was looking down at him with pure white eyes, and it felt as though his heart would stop.
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