Chapter 74

Chapter 74. The Performance Begins (3)

Personality clicked his tongue as he watched the aura disperse before his eyes.

"That wasn't enjoyable at all. At the very least, I wish your deaths would provide me with some entertainment."

Roll, roll.

Personality rolled his eyes around energetically before grinning, as though a good idea had occurred to him.

"Self-harm? That sounds interesting."

He gave the two priests who had endured the panic disorder a delighted smile.

Personality pointed toward the priest who was struggling to remain standing beside the one who had fallen to his knees.

"Unable to accept the reality before him, he chose to abandon his sight."

The priest Personality had pointed at lost focus in his eyes and raised both hands toward his face.

"Ah, aah... God, please forgive me for the sin of witnessing something I should never have seen."

CRUNCH! SCRATCH! SCRATCH!

"Ghk! Father Choi!!"

One of the three priests, whose face had turned deathly pale, grabbed the wrists of the priest who was clawing at his eyes.

Drip. Drip.

"Uh, aah..."

Thud.

Father Choi, who had been violently digging into his eye sockets without letting out a single scream, collapsed and died from shock.

"Next... Yes, I think you'll do nicely."

Having enjoyed Father Choi's death, Personality pointed toward the priest kneeling on the ground.

"N, no! Don't do this!"

Thud!

The priest who had been selected was so frightened that he fell onto his backside. His companion's death had been a terrible shock.

Of course, Personality had no intention of granting the priest's wish. He opened his mouth.

"The memory he most desperately wished to forget crawled out of the abyss."

Shiver, shiver.

The kneeling priest suddenly began trembling as though he had been struck by a terrible chill. He kept looking around as if searching for something, rubbing his arms.

"Ah... No."

Then his expression filled with despair, as though he had seen something he should never have seen.

"Honey! Ayeon!"

It was the horrifying memory of the day he had lost his family.

"Father Hwang! It's all that bastard's trick! Get a hold of yourself!"

"Ah, ah, ah!! Hh, hhh... Hehehe... HIIIK!"

The last remaining priest grabbed Father Hwang's shoulders and shook him desperately, but his efforts were useless. Unable to endure the memory, Father Hwang gradually lost his mind.

BANG!

"Ghk! Father Hwang!"

As though he had made a decision, Father Hwang pushed away the priest who was holding him and slowly walked toward Personality.

"Wait for me. I'll be with you soon..."

Father Hwang opened his mouth wide and extended his tongue.

Then,

CRUNCH! Thud.

His eyes rolled back as he spat out blood and departed to join his family.

Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!

Satisfied by Father Hwang's death, Personality applauded.

"This is entertaining in its own way."

Personality had deliberately spared the priest whose face had turned pale, allowing him to watch the terrible spectacle of bloodshed and despair.

But his enjoyment didn't last long.

"Watching the same thing over and over is getting boring..."

CRUNCH!

Personality casually stepped on the dead Father Hwang and looked around at the other priests.

He saw eyes filled with fear, eyes burning with the desire for revenge, and all kinds of other expressions.

"There are still so many delicious expressions left, aren't there?"

As he had announced earlier, he felt it was time to reduce their number.

Personality opened his mouth and was about to take his next action when,

"WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION?!"

Jungon suddenly launched himself forward from behind and slammed his thick, aura-covered fist into Personality's right cheek.

BAAANG!

Struck by the heavy punch, Personality was lifted into the air and sent flying like a dart.

CRAAASH! BOOM!

He only stopped flying after crashing through three trees planted in a row along the street.

"Haaah. Haaah. Watch what you say."

Jungon's eyes looked hollow after delivering the punch. He appeared somewhat exhausted, and blood was running down one of his legs.

Riiip!

Clenching his lips tightly, Jungon tore part of his cassock and pressed it against his injured leg. A deep cut made by a shard of glass was clearly visible.

After tying the cloth around the wound, Jungon looked toward the place where Personality had fallen.

Did I get him?

Pat. Pat.

Personality stood up without any apparent injury and brushed the dust from his clothes.

"You're better than the other insignificant creatures."

An ordinary demon would have suffered far more than a scorched cheek. Its face might have been completely destroyed. However, Personality seemed to regard Jungon's punch as nothing worth mentioning.

As proof, not a single stitch around Personality's mouth had broken.

"But even you are nothing more than an insignificant creature."

Meanwhile, halfway up Namsan,

Michael gathered aura into his feet and increased his speed.

Crunch, crunch!

Every time his feet touched the ground, the sound of leaves and branches being crushed could be heard.

He was moving through a forest where no proper path was visible.

Instead of following the trail toward Namsan Tower, Michael was running straight up the mountain along the shortest possible route.

Slash! Slash!

Of course, he didn't forget to deal with any demons he encountered along the way.

"M, my body..."

"Ghk! I, I don't want to die."

Michael swung Durandal in an instant and horizontally cut through the waists of two demons. Then he concentrated white flames in his hand.

Fwoooosh!

"Demons have no right to wish for life."

After reducing the two demons to ashes, Michael resumed his climb.

Rumble. Rumble.

The vibrations he felt while climbing caused Michael to frown.

Thick tree roots were breaking through the ground and rising to the surface.

"...Is the fish trap almost finished?"

If even the roots were already emerging so clearly, the fish trap was probably on the verge of completion.

The fish trap was a type of barrier created by Marbas.

Anyone could enter it freely, but nobody was allowed to leave.

Clench.

An unpleasant memory suddenly came to mind, but Michael quickly pushed it aside.

Just like the previous fish trap, this one would disappear if he destroyed the core at its center.

"Hmm. The farther I go, the more troublesome things become."

He detected dozens of demons within a hundred-meter radius.

The problem was that they were strangely different from the demons he had easily cut down so far.

A perfect example was the demon currently moving freely through the trees.

"Marbas's monkeys."

When asked to name an animal that carried many viruses, most people would probably mention bats.

However, monkeys carried just as many diseases that could be transmitted to humans.

Since monkeys were also more active than bats, Marbas had created demons modeled after them.

Rustle, rustle!

The demons known as monkeys watched Michael cautiously as they moved from tree to tree.

Their skill at moving through the trees seemed to compensate for many of their physical limitations.

"How long have they been here to have already synchronized this much?"

Once a demon completed its demonization, the longer it remained in the human world, the more its body synchronized with its original body in Hell.

That was why demons who had stayed in the human world for a long time could recover more of their original strength.

Splatter!

As though marking its territory, one of the monkey demons scattered mucus around the area.

Whenever the mucus touched a tree or a rock, the surface turned purple.

"They've practically made themselves at home."

The more purple a tree became, the more noticeably it began to rot.

With so many affected trees, the entire area where the demons had gathered felt like a forest of death.

Several pairs of yellow, glowing eyes shone within the dying forest.

"Look at those eyes."

The fact that the monkeys had been positioned here suggested that they weren't merely trying to delay him. There was probably another purpose behind their arrangement.

"Perhaps they're here to prepare for that."

Michael sensed piercing demonic energy approaching from behind them.

He suspected it belonged to one of the kin Mikhail had mentioned.

Grab!

Michael raised Durandal vertically, pointing the tip toward the sky, and gathered his aura.

No matter how much the monkeys had synchronized with their original bodies, or whether they had been created by a Great Demon, they were still far too weak to stop Michael.

It seemed better to finish them off quickly and prepare to face the creature approaching from behind.

"libértas [Libertas]."

No sooner had Michael finished speaking than white flames began rising from Durandal's tip.

"..."

Glance.

Nod.

The monkey demons watching Michael from the trees exchanged glances.

Deciding that they didn't know what Michael intended to do with his sword, they signaled to one another.

"Kreeek!"

Monkey demons suddenly burst out of the ground. Their positions were carefully arranged to surround Michael.

Because his attention had been focused on the trees, he hadn't thought to check beneath the ground.

"Trying to be clever, are you?"

It seemed he had fallen into the demons' trap. However, he had already cast Libertas.

The masses of white flame that had appeared in the air instantly intercepted the demons surrounding him.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The demons, their entire bodies engulfed in flames, died without even having time to scream.

Crackle! Crackle!

Even after consuming the demons, the White Flame continued burning as though determined not to leave behind a single corpse.

"Kreeek! Kreeek!"

When their prepared trap failed, the monkey demons began crying out aggressively.

"Quit chattering. You're noisy."

Whooooosh.

Michael released waves of aura filled with murderous intent.

"Kreek?!"

One of the demons hanging from a tree was so startled by Michael's murderous aura that it nearly fell.

The other demons instinctively shrank back.

They could sense the overwhelming difference in power through Michael's aura.

"Stop getting in my way. Get lost."

The moment he finished speaking, a round mass of White Flame formed at the tip of his sword.

From that mass of light, small flames the size of a human fist emerged.

Float.

The flames began drifting through the air, moving as though they were dancing.

However, their numbers greatly exceeded the number of demons.

"Kreeek! Kreeek!"

The demons were terrified by the overwhelming number of flames.

Some had already turned around and begun fleeing.

"Don't run away. You're all destined to be purified anyway."

Michael irritably lowered Durandal toward the monkey demons.

At the same time, countless flames rushed toward them.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Under an aerial assault that was practically a bombardment, the demons were too busy trying to preserve their fragile lives.

"KREEEK!!"

Some tried to escape by moving through the trees, but,

BOOOOM! BOOM!

There were simply too many flames targeting them.

Thud! Thud!

In the end, the demons who couldn't escape were shot down and fell to the ground with their bodies on fire.

Nevertheless, a few surviving demons chose to flee toward Namsan Tower.

Not a single demon dared to bare its teeth at Michael any longer.

"Where are you all running off to in such a hurry, you fools?! Don't forget your duty!"

At that moment, a deep voice rang out, and a long tongue suddenly shot out from between the trees.

SLURP!

"Kreek!"

One of the fleeing demons became stuck to the tongue.

"KREEEEEEEK!!!"

The demon struggled desperately, clawing at the extremely sticky tongue in an attempt to free itself.

But all its efforts were meaningless. Not a single scratch appeared on the tongue.

WHOOOOSH!

Having caught its prey, the tongue was pulled back in an instant.

Crunch! Crunch!

The sound of bones being crushed could be heard, as though the demon was being eaten.

THUD! THUD!

"Croak, croak."

At the same time, an enormous toad emerged from the trees.

A figure was sitting on top of its head.

"Is this supposed to be Cerberus or something? I've never seen a three-headed toad before."

Just like the mythical guardian of Hell, the toad carrying the figure had three heads.

Michael clicked his tongue at the sight of a toad that was so far removed from common sense.

However, something else had caught his attention even more.

"Are you another one of Marbas's kin or whatever you call yourselves?"

The being sitting on the toad had yet to reveal its appearance. Michael could only hear its voice and sense its demonic energy.

Mikhail had called himself one of Marbas's kin. Since the demon above was releasing demonic energy far more threatening than that of the other small fry, it was probably another member of that group.

"Kin... Kin, kin? Ah, that's what Cell called himself, wasn't it?"

The demon thought carefully about Michael's question before slowly answering.

"That's right. I am Radiation, one of the kin who serve Lord Marbas."