Chapter 11
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Chapter 11: Predation (Feeding)
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"So this is where you are. The place where that delicious scent is coming from……."
With blue Ghost Fire scattering from his eyes, Yeon So-hyeon let out a wild laugh. The sound was horrific, like metal being scraped against a steel plate. Inside his mouth, teeth as sharp as saw blades glinted eerily, and his crimson throat was like an abyss, its depths impossible to fathom.
"Ugh……, ughhhhh!"
The man who had wet his pants at the grotesque sight lunged forward in a fit of hysteria. Under normal circumstances, anyone would have lost their mind at the sight of such a nightmare. But these were men who had prowled the back alleys of Luoyang, a place as brutal as a slaughterhouse. While they were not martial artists capable of protecting their minds with Internal Energy, the grit they had forged through blood and violence was real.
"Die!"
The blade in his hand flashed. There was no trickery; it was a strike so clean and swift that even he was impressed by it.
"……!"
But the next moment, he realized his wrist had been caught by his opponent. For a split second, he thought the opponent’s palm was small and soft, without a single callus. And it was colder than a river in midwinter—so cold that frost seemed to settle from his wrist.
"Ughhhhh……!"
He kicked out at his opponent. Or rather, he tried to. But the opponent was far faster in crushing his hand. It was as if he had no bones or muscles. It was easier than crushing a cold, stale dumpling.
*Thud!*
His hand, still gripping the blade, rolled onto the ground, scattering blood.
"……Guaaaaaah!"
The 'monster's' grip strength was so far beyond common sense that his hand had simply been severed. As he fell backward, clutching his spurting forearm, one of the larger men lunged forward. He gripped his blade tightly with both hands, intending to throw his entire body weight into driving the steel into the monster's torso in one go, but……
*Clang!*
Sparks flew where the monster’s palm met the blade.
"Ugh!"
The impact, as if he had slammed his sword against a stone wall, caused the large man to lose his grip on the weapon. He scrambled to retreat and look for another opening, but the monster was far faster, snatching both of his wrists.
"L-let go……!"
He let out a wild shriek, struggling with every ounce of his strength to break free from the opponent’s grasp. But no matter how much he thrashed, the opponent’s grip did not budge. It did not even tremble. And then, it began to squeeze, slowly.
"Ugh, stop, stooooop……!"
The action felt as if the monster had been disappointed by how easily he had severed the previous man’s wrist. This time, he was being leisurely, as if he wanted to see what would happen by slowly adding pressure. There was no need to draw upon Demonic Qi. He was simply, lazily, and leisurely adding force. Soon, the sound of bones breaking and flesh tearing echoed through the air.
"Ughhhhh! Ughhhhhhhh!"
Even in the midst of this, the large man kicked wildly at his opponent, but it was no different from kicking a brick wall. Instead, his own broken ankle dangled uselessly.
"Guaaaaaah……!"
As his bones were pulverized and his flesh was squeezed, the sound of tearing tissue mingled with his screams, echoing through the back alley. Like squeezing a piece of fruit rich in juice, a mist of blood rose along with the thick scent of gore.
"……Gurgle."
The large man, collapsed on the ground, twisted his body like a bug with its limbs crushed in the filthy alley. Due to the unimaginable pain, his broken teeth flowed out of his mouth, mixed with blood. If left alone, the man would have died from blood loss and excruciating pain, but his opponent had no intention of letting him go.
The large man felt his ankles being grabbed. The next moment, his legs were torn off, one at a time. The blood spraying from his legs, which had essentially been ripped out, drew long arcs against the alley walls. This was not martial arts or combat technique. It was pure, unadulterated violence. It was a mockery born of overwhelming physical strength.
"Ugh……."
The large man twitched for a brief moment before falling still.
"Hmm?"
A strange light flickered in Yeon So-hyeon’s eyes as he looked at the corpse. Pale hands were rising from the darkness of the ground, dragging the body down. There were dozens of them, large and small, stark white. Among them were the hands of a child, an old man, and a woman. Just like that, the corpse sank into the deep darkness of the floor. The blood he had scattered was also absorbed, sinking away as if it had never been there.
*Thump-thump! Thump-thump!*
Yeon So-hyeon felt his Dantian pulsing violently. His vitality surged, and a sense of exhilaration skyrocketed.
"Ho?"
Yeon So-hyeon half-closed his eyes, from which blue Ghost Fire was rising, and enjoyed the refreshing sensation.
"……U-ughhhhh!"
At that moment, one of the men, whose entire body had been frozen by the nightmarish scene, turned and began to run without looking back. The back alley was dark and filled with obstacles. He ran even as he tripped and rolled into a pit of filth, even as his clothes and skin were torn by unseen things. He did not stop, even though he felt as if his lungs were about to burst out of his throat.
But for some reason, the alley never ended. Even though it was a back alley, no one was looking out. Not a single light could be found on the night streets of Luoyang. The alley before his eyes spun in circles.
Then, a hand burst through his stomach. The grip that clutched his entrails was stained with his own blood, glistening even in the darkness.
"……!!"
He wanted to scream with all his might, but his abdominal cavity had been severely damaged, and his diaphragm had been torn away. He knelt on the ground, desperately trying to gather his own entrails.
"……."
Yeon So-hyeon looked down at the man without a word. In that gaze, not a shred—truly, not a shred—of humanity could be glimpsed.
*Thump.*
He raised his arm and drove it into the man’s back. His penetrating strike tore through the man’s torso once more with the sound of ripping leather, churning inside. Because he had used only pure physical strength without the need for Demonic Qi, it was far from clean. And that roughness and messiness were exactly what he had intended.
Yeon So-hyeon pushed the corpse, its torso torn open, to the side.
*Thump.*
Just as before, the corpse of the man who had fallen dead was dragged away by the white hands rising from the floor. Not a single drop of blood remained.
*Thump.*
Yeon So-hyeon’s reason was sharp, but his mind was overflowing with madness, and his heart was racing with ecstasy.
"This makes no sense……!"
That unintelligible mutter came from the fourth man, who was cowering in the corner.
"This is a dream, it must be a dream."
This space had already been eroded by the Demonic Qi flowing from Yeon So-hyeon—from the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic. The third man, who thought he was running away down the alley, had not actually managed to run ten steps, and the man cowering beside him had long since had his mind and spirit suppressed.
This was the true face of Yeon So-hyeon, the true face of the Demonic Qi of the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic. Compared to this, intimidating the servants earlier that morning had been nothing more than child's play. The Demonic Qi that he, and the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic, were emitting in earnest was enough on its own to destroy a person’s mind and twist their reason. He hadn't even injected the Demonic Qi directly into their heads. Simply by deciding to manifest his Qi, he had already seized control of the space.
*Thump.*
The time it took to tear apart the man whose mind had been suppressed was but a fleeting moment. His limbs, torn in several directions, sank into the floor.
"Hmm……?"
At that moment, he felt the man whose wrist he had twisted off earlier escaping into a different alley. The man must have been running as carefully as he could, but this territory was already Yeon So-hyeon’s. Yeon So-hyeon let out a low laugh and lightly kicked off the ground. It was the Dark Flow Transformation.
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"Damn it, where am I? Where is the path!"
It was a familiar back alley that he had considered his own front yard, but not anymore. The man clutched his wrist, circling in one spot. To be precise, he was just running in circles through the complex alleyway in the shape of a '口'. He had succeeded in escaping that horrific spot, but his mind and spirit had already been eroded by the Demonic Qi.
"Is anyone there?! Is there anyone?!"
The man shouted, vomiting blood. His unfocused eyes wandered the empty air. What on earth had happened? He couldn't understand it. A ghost? A monster? A messenger of death? Of course, he himself, like other people in Luoyang, had believed in superstitions to some extent. But that was only believing in invisible things like fate, gods, or luck—not in the monsters from the ghost stories used to scare children.
Then what was that? He shouted in a fit of hysteria.
"Why are you doing this to me?! Why?!"
Perhaps because he had lost too much blood, he felt dizzy and knelt on the spot. He wailed.
"……There are so many bad bastards in this world, why me?!"
He felt his entire body freeze in an instant. It was because he felt a clear breath against his ear. It was a freezing, cold exhalation mixed with the thick smell of sulfur and the intense scent of blood. 'It' whispered into his ear with a voice full of metallic clanging.
[You are only the beginning.]
And then, it swallowed the man whole.
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"Did you eat them all?"
At the old man’s question, Yeon So-hyeon slowly stroked his stomach.
"……Now that you mention it, I no longer feel hungry."
The overflowing juices. The texture of raw, uncooked meat. Even though he had just committed an act that defied the laws of heaven and was utterly repulsive—the act of cannibalism—he felt no particular sentiment. He had simply escaped the agonizing hunger, and he was satisfied only by the faint feeling of fullness.
"Devouring the wicked is the first and final requirement that the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic demands of its vessel."
Yeon So-hyeon recalled the memory. Had it been called 'the Heaven-Defying scripture that burns and consumes all the darkness in the Saha World on behalf of the indifferent and lazy heavens'?
"Furthermore, the more wicked people you devour, the more you will be able to realize the power of the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic."
So, you receive as much as you give? It was a reasonably logical system.
"However, Elder. It seems that 'devouring' does not merely refer to the act of me eating something myself."
Yeon So-hyeon recalled the sight of the corpse being dragged into the floor by countless hands.
"That is correct. Those hands are the Hungry Ghosts of the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic. They will exert physical influence within the 'domain' you manifest using Demonic Qi to assist in your 'meal'."
Just then, a tremor began from the ceiling.
Stone powder trickled down from here and there, and dust billowed up.
The pillars of light descending through the cracks in the ceiling also began to narrow bit by bit.
"It seems the time is nearly up."
"Is that so..."
The pillar of light illuminating the old man also gradually diminished, and his body seeped into the deep darkness.
"We shall meet again soon."
In the darkness, the old man’s eyeballs flared up like blue Ghost Fire.
"Until then, may you have a good hunt..."
Yeon So-hyeon bowed deeply toward the old man.
Soon, a thick darkness swallowed everything.
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