Solo Leveling: Ragnarok - Chapter 143

Taeshik sensed the attack and spun around instinctively, blocking it. He stared for a moment at the corpses attacking him, then shouted, appalled, “But they’re dead!”

The impossible was happening. The villains that he’d personally beheaded were moving of their own accord and attacking him. That wasn’t all—their heads floated from the floor into the air, enveloped in a pale ghostly energy, and reattached themselves to the bodies.

“Are they undead?!” Despite his confusion, Taeshik reacted quickly. With a nimble movement, he ducked down and swung his dagger at them. The first step to fighting the undead was to immobilize them. Their legs were sliced off, but the ghostly blue energy reappeared to reattach the limbs. The undead growled.

“Wait, how in the world…” No matter how many times they were cut, the undead were simply being pieced together again. Taeshik backed away, gritting his teeth.

Another undead appeared. The three of them rushed Taeshik at once. Suho had been standing still until now, but he grabbed the magazine rack, which had fallen by the corner, and swung it. The huge fixture shattered as it slammed into the creatures.

“Huh.” Taeshik, backing away for a moment, stared at Suho with an odd look on his face. “You’re… pretty strong for a summoner…” He hadn’t expected much combat ability from the hunter in the first place. In guiding them here with his summon, Suho had basically already done his part. What could possibly explain this incredible strength?

Is he a druid, perhaps? These days, people liked to categorize hunters by the classes found in popular video games. One of them was the druid. Most druid classes in games were split into two types—one fought behind the animals they controlled, providing support from the rear, while the other joined their animals in close combat. From what Suho had just done, it seemed that he fell somewhere between a summoner and a tanker.

He might be more useful than I expected. Taeshik, who’d let his mind wander for a moment, caught himself and looked to where the creatures had been knocked down.

Such physical attacks could not harm the undead. As expected, they moaned and twitched beneath the shattered magazine rack before getting up again. They looked no worse for wear despite the blow. And that wasn’t all—their noises seemed to have attracted even more from outside the convenience store.

“We’re here to kill villains, aren’t we? What in the world is this?” Taeshik broke out into nonplussed laughter.

The convenience store was on fire, and the undead refused to perish no matter how many times they were cut up. It seemed like a scene from an apocalypse film, but the zombies in the movies could be eventually killed, at least. These refused to go down no matter how many times they were damaged.

Taeshik held his daggers in a reverse grip and shouted, “Sung Suho! Let’s get out of here for now! You take the lead with your summon!”

Suho did not respond. He was thinking of the Mad Blood Tyrant that he met in the demon realm. The Tyrant had been a parasitic force that wore a demon’s body like armor, and these creatures seemed similar.

Is there a follower of the Itarim here? Though Suho couldn’t explain it, these did feel different. And I can’t see any tags above their heads, either. That was proof, for starters, that they were not ordinary magic beasts.

He suddenly heard a scream and turned to see the villain that had been bothering him for some time. The man was still cowering behind his shield, bleeding. He seemed horrified by the sight of his companions, who had suddenly turned undead.

“N-not again! Wh-why did it happen to us…”

All right.We’ll start with him. Suho narrowed his eyes. “Kang Taeshik!”

“What? I told you to get over here!” Taeshik was busy dealing with the undead that were coming at him from outside.

“Stall them for me! I need a little time!”

“Wh-what? I’m a damage dealer, not a tanker!” Taeshik was baffled. Despite his words, however, he was still a B-rank hunter, and he could easily deal with the number of monsters present.

Suho immediately walked over to the villain hiding behind the shield.

“Eeek! S-stay away! Get away from me!”

“You.”

The villain continued to cower in fear.

“Get out here. We need to talk.”

“N-no! Get away from me!”

Suho slammed the transparent barrier mercilessly with his fist, but the shield proved sturdy.

The villain seemed to enter a fit of rage as he shouted, “D-did you think you could break through my shield with your fists? It’s indestructible unless my mana runs—” Suho slammed his fist against the shield once more, and the villain hiccuped, quivering from instinctual fear. But the shield remained sturdy, giving the man even more confidence. “I told you, it won’t work! Don’t waste your energy and just get the hell away from me! Your bare fists won’t even crack—”

Bam!

“I mean, they won’t…”

Bam!

“Th-that’s not possible…”

The stronger Suho punched, the quieter the villain’s voice became. The man simply could not understand it. Brute force like this wasn’t supposed to be able to break the shield.

“‘Not possible’? That’s rich,” Suho said with a grin. He raised his fist again, a black film of energy appearing over it. “I just need to hit harder than the shield can take.”

Bam!

With a final punch, the shield shattered. The villain’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. His trusty shield had just failed him.

Suho reached in and grabbed the man’s collar.

“Gah! B-but how—”

“You.” Suho raised him into the air with a single arm and glared at him. “Get out here.”

“P-please don’t kill—”

“You don’t really think that act will fool me, do you?” Suho glowered into the man’s eyes. The villain was terrified and waving his limbs about, but he was not who Suho was looking at. “I said, get out. The one hiding in there. I see you.” Suho grinned, baring his teeth.

The terrified villain suddenly froze, all expression wiped from his face. “Oh…” His head tilted at an odd angle, as stared back into Suho’s eyes. His lips moved. “How did you know? How did you know? How did you know? How did you know? How did you know? How did you—”

Wham!

A heavy punch to the skull shut the prattling man up. “Oh, sorry. You were creeping me out,” Suho said.

The man’s pupils dilated, and he stammered, “Y-you’re the real scary one.”

“Well, send those undead away before this gets even more terrifying for you.”

“But how did you know, really? How did you—”

Suho raised his fist again, preventing him from launching into another chant. How else? His eyes moved to the spot above his head.

[???]

The name tag was filled with only question marks. He had been the only villain in the convenience store with such a strange name tag. That was why Gray had attacked this man before going for anyone else.

“Beru,” Suho said.

Beru seemed to understand him immediately. “I sense no Itarim energy from him. This seems more…” The shadow ant could recognize most races from fighting countless enemies by Sung Jinwoo’s side, and all indications now seemed to point to only one possibility. “I believe this must be a demonic spirit.”

“A demonic spirit?”

“Indeed. They are generally ghost-type monsters, and because they reside in mystical realms, they are also called ‘the mystic beings.’ They are spiritual in nature and generally cannot be slain with physical assaults.”

“I knew it,” Suho said, nodding and looking around. He had found something about this fight strange. With all the fire burning around them, the fire detectors in the ceiling should have gone off already, but the premises were dry.

Suho raised the man higher in the air. “I don’t know how much of this is a hallucination, but undo it. Right now.”

“N-no. I will die if I do.” The demonic spirit in the body of the villain shook its head desperately, looking taken aback.

Suho had no intention of falling for the deceptive look on its face. It was lying even now. He gripped the man’s collar harder. “You want me to kill you now?”

“Lies. Lies! You can’t kill me anyway—”

[Skill: “Bloodlust” has activated.]

The creature’s gaze faltered in stunned shock as it made eye contact with Suho, its pupils dilating.

[Effect: “Fear” has been activated.]

[The target’s stats are reduced by 50% for 1 minute.]

What is this feeling? The demonic spirit felt heavy, like it was moving in water. Then it saw something—the deep abyss in the dark shadow that stretched behind Suho.

“Wh-who are you? Why do you have such an intense aura of death at your feet?” it asked. It was terrified, finding itself growing smaller and smaller in front of the hunter. This wasn’t merely an effect of the Bloodlust skill. Because demonic spirits were ethereal in nature, they could sense the abyssal depths that always accompanied Suho, and felt frightened that it might swallow them whole.

“F-fine…” The demonic spirit gave way in the end, unable to overcome its dread. The hallucination that had filled the convenience store and the space around it faded away, revealing the true state of the village.

“Ick! What the hell is this?” Taeshik, who’d been struggling with the undead out in front of the store, scowled. The stench of blood rushed at him from all sides, and the scene in front of him became far more wretched than before. Bodies covered in blood littered the ground.

Yami Village, which had looked quiet and peaceful at the outset, had become a ruin long ago. Even before Suho and Taeshik had arrived, terrible violence had been enacted within it.

“We were seeing illusions? I don’t recall hearing any of the prisoners being capable of something like this,” Taeshik muttered.

Grinding his teeth, Suho turned a savage look on the demonic spirit. “Tell me everything. What happened here?”

“W-well… Aiiiiiiie!” The spirit, which had been about to give Suho the information he wanted, suddenly began to screech.