Chapter 180
It literally happened in an instant. It happened so quickly that it was difficult to comprehend the situation. As though a current had swept us away, the situation had reached a point of no return by the time we finally regained our senses.
It had probably started with Min-Seo's outburst. No, maybe I had been playing on the palm of Yu-Hyun’s hand from the very beginning.
"Department of Priests... She’s from the Department of Priests? Then what the fuck are you all doing? Catch her!” Min-Seo shouted.
The girl observing our negotiation process frantically tapped away at her electronic watch while running away without looking back. The members of the Department of Crusaders had been standing around in a dumbfounded manner, but they finally snapped out of it and began chasing after her.
"Gah!"
As she was running without paying attention, she tripped over her own feet and fell over. The students from the Department of Crusaders quickly caught up and subdued her. With a clank, they placed handcuffs on her wrists.
Immediately after that, light poured out.
From the distance, a massive cloud of light appeared and radiated light throughout the surface of the earth. The light was so remarkably large and bright that it was clearly visible even from this distance. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared blankly at the light. It had a strange allure that captured their gaze.
All those who gazed at the light were rendered speechless. It was as if they had lost their ability to formulate sentences. A deep and profound silence filled the area.
Su-Ryeon broke the silence. "What... is that?"
Min-Seo regained her senses shortly after and said, "What the... it seems to be another ridiculous stunt that the students from the Department of Priests are pulling, but this..."
"It must be Yu-Hyun’s doing," Dae-Man calmly interjected, crossing his arms. "Besides Yu-Hyun, I don't know anyone else who would do something like that."
Su-Ryeon looked at Dae-Man, who had spoken seriously in an attempt to look cool, in disbelief. “...But is it alright for you guys to just be standing around here like that? You know that the ten minutes are going to be over soon, right? You guys should run away quickly.”
Dae-Man shook his head.
"Why should we run away? If we were to fight, we would win.”
"What nonsense are you spouting? Just how would you guys win?" Min-Seo chuckled as if she couldn't believe her ears.
Dae-Man smiled.
"As long as Sun-Woo is on our team, guys like you don’t stand a chance.”
“Yeah, sure. We can just mow you down with numbers. You’ll get ganged up on and you’ll get jumped big time.”
“You would have seen it just now, but human wave tactics won’t work against Sun-Woo. He's a one-man army. The same goes for me."
“Why are you surreptitiously adding yourself in there? You’re just a small fry." Su-Ryeon teased Dae-Man with a chuckle.
A faint vein popped out on Dae-Man's forehead.
"It's because of me that Sun-Woo can fully demonstrate his abilities!"
"Ah, you scared the living crap out of me. Why are you getting so angry? It was just a joke..."
"I wasn’t getting angry..."
Dae-Man and Su-Ryeon continued to bicker with each other. Min-Seo occasionally inserted herself into the conversation and criticized Dae-Man.
I listened to their conversation. However, at some point, the contents of their conversation no longer reached my ears. My eyes remained fixed on the rays of light shining down. The sound of my heartbeat grew louder, and in sync with that sound, I began to hear voices.
Those weren’t the voices of the Loa. It was the sound of people screaming. They were the screams of people whose names and faces I didn't know, people who no longer existed in this world.
They died because of my incompetence.
During The Starless Night, the Levi Order relentlessly searched every nook and cranny in every house in an attempt to find Voodoo Cult members. After catching the cult members, they would dig pits, dump the cult members inside, then set them on fire. The bodies of those hundreds, perhaps even thousands or tens of thousands of cult members, were wrapped in the light of blessing.
On that day, a massive cloud of light appeared in the sky and scattered light upon the earth, just like now. Soon after the light faded, I began to hear the voices of people. It was a mixture of the shouts from the wrathful Levi Order, the screams of the captured Voodoo Cult members, and the cries of those who lost their families right in front of their eyes.
I stood blankly while watching the smoke that burned the Voodoo Cult members to death, and the light that was shining down from the skies within the tumultuous cacophony of voices. Eventually, I no longer could hear those voices. I could hear only the sounds of my heartbeat and my rough, labored breathing. Just like right now.
[Snap out of it. Isn't this an exam that you've determined to do well in...?]
“Hey, can’t you hear something...?”
Thump, thump, thump...
[Was today supposed to be the day that the choice was supposed to be made? It seems like I've mistaken the date...]
"Huh, what...?"
Ah, ah, ahhh...
[Prophet! If you need the power of the wind, just say the word! I'm always on standby...]
"It feels like the light is getting closer. Am I just seeing things...?"
Legba, Min-Seo, the sound of my heartbeat, Baron Samedi, Su-Ryeon, the screams, the cries, Bade, and Dae-Man—all those different voices and sounds entered my ears in a disorganized frenzy. As this continued, it became strangely quiet. I could no longer distinguish between the silence and the cacophony.
I couldn’t tell if the maelstrom was filled with sound or silence, but within that maelstrom, I trembled in fear. It felt like I was wandering alone through a deep mountain valley in the middle of the night, without being able to see or hear anything. I thought I would no longer feel fear from past memories, but I had been delusional.
I had to continue while constantly feeling guilt toward the people who had died because of my incompetence, and I had to constantly reproach myself for my past incompetence. Since everyone who had the ability to forgive me had died, there was no deadline for such repentance. Within my consciousness, I would reproach myself, repeat my mistakes, reproach myself once again, and quiver while recounting my past incompetence...
[And you would rot inside an abyss of self-pity and self-hatred.]
Within the entangled cacophony of voices, only Legba’s voice rang clear. It was just like back then, when I spent that moment that felt like an eternity with Legba inside the Crossroads.
Crack.
I bit my finger and twisted it apart until it broke. The intoxication spell engraved on my finger entered my throat and filled my lungs.
My consciousness became hazy, then cleared up. The tangled cacophony slowly returned to coherent sounds that could be processed once again. The skewed gazes also returned to normal.
"Sun-Woo! Are you okay? What's going on..."
"I'm fine," I replied before Dae-Man could finish speaking.
Dae-Man looked at me with a concerned expression and said, "No, you don’t seem fine at all. I can’t explain why, but it instinctively feels like that..."
"I said I'm fine. After taking on the mantle as the team leader, I have no intention of fumbling around and messing up your grades. Don’t worry.”
"No, the problem isn’t you, but rather...” Dae-Man started to say something but stopped midway.
His gaze was not focused on me. Instead, it was focused on the distant horizon, where the light was shining down onto the ground.
I couldn't fully understand what Dae-Man was saying. If I wasn’t the problem, then what was the problem? I had no idea what he was trying to say. I indirectly used the intoxication spell by breaking my finger, and by doing so, I was barely able to hold onto my sanity, but that didn’t mean that I was completely clear-headed.
Thump, thump, thump...
Ah, ah, ahhh...
The tangled cacophony had simply settled into coherent sounds that could be heard. However, that didn’t mean that I understood what those sounds meant. The sound of my heartbeat remained loud, and I continued to hear voices. I couldn’t tell whether the voices were actual screams or hallucinations, but they were echoing out incessantly from a distant place. It didn't take long for me to realize that it wasn't my heartbeat, nor was it a hallucination.
Thump, thump.
The heavy and unpleasant sound that shook the ground was getting closer. Unbeknownst to me, the cloud of light that had appeared to be on the distant horizon was actually approaching us.
Ahh, ahhhh!
What I thought were hallucinations turned out to be real screams. They resembled the screams and cries of the members of the Voodoo Cult, trampled mercilessly by the wrath and madness of the Levi Order. The screams echoed through the ruined city and gradually approached us.
"Sun-Woo, should we retreat or prepare for battle?" Dae-Man asked with a serious expression.
Min-Seo and Su-Ryeon seemed to be having some sort of conversation while preparing for a hasty retreat. They were not even considering the option of fighting back against the approaching cloud of light, which had the ability to attract and captivate people's gazes. It also had the power to overwhelm people and lower their morale.
Before giving the order, I looked up at the approaching cloud of light. Prior to negotiating with Min-Seo, I had first negotiated with Yu-Hyun. During that negotiation, Yu-Hyun was able to figure out that we had three hostages who were all students from the Department of Crusaders.
Yu-Hyun would have known that soon after dealing with the Department of Priests, we would proceed to do the same thing with the students from the Department of Crusaders.
In fact, we really did come to negotiate with Min-Seo right after Yu-Hyun. And we discovered a female student from the Department of Priests eavesdropping on us. She fled while reporting her location using her electronic watch, and then she became a hostage of the students from the Department of Crusaders.
It was at that moment that the location of the students from the Department of Crusaders was exposed to Yu-Hyun. At the same time, our location was also revealed. What Yu-Hyun had aimed for was for the students from the Department of Crusaders and the students from the Department of Paladins to wipe each other out. No, perhaps he didn’t intend for us to wipe each other out, but rather...
"...We’re too late."
The cloud of light was right in front of us. The sound of footsteps was getting closer, and the screams grew louder. We no longer heard the echoes of the screams. Instead, we were hearing the screams themselves.
Bathed in the light pouring down from the clouds, the students from the Department of Priests were advancing. The light of blessing resonated out from their bodies, and their expressions flickered with madness and a sense of unity. They were all intoxicated by the blessing.
Yu-Hyun was at the forefront with a spear in his right hand. The spear tip shone brilliantly and beautifully. No, the spear wasn’t just shining. The spear itself was composed entirely of light. With a loud thud, Yu-Hyun stabbed the spear into the ground.
"I have arrived!" he said.
His voice was exceedingly loud. It felt as if his voice wasn’t coming out directly from his vocal chords. Instead, it felt like his voice was reverberating out from the clouds of light covering the skies. Dozens of students intoxicated by the light stood behind Yu-Hyun, held up their handcuffs, and waited for his command.
Yu-Hyun took a deep breath, and as if it were extremely heavy, he lifted the spear of light with difficulty and pointed the tip toward us. The light radiating from the students shimmered along with the spear tip.
As if the spear of light controlled them, the students let out war cries and charged toward us. Perhaps as a result of the blessings, or perhaps as an effect of the cloud of light that was bathing them, none of the students expressed any fear or hesitation. They all simply beamed with delight. Joy that resembled lunacy was evident on their faces.
Min-Seo and Su-Ryeon shouted as they retreated.
"What the fuck is going on?! Did those guys smoke weed or something?”
"Ah? Hahhh? This situation is weird, isn't it? Ret-retreat! Let's retreat!"
Hearing Su-Ryeon's shout, the students from the Department of Crusaders shuffled backward, then turned their backs and ran away.
Min-Seo didn't run away. Instead, she drew two blessing arrays and forcibly fused them together. It seemed like she was trying to trigger the collision phenomenon.
Rumble, rumble—!
The blessing arrays made strange noises as they fused together and soon began to tremble precariously, indicating that the collision phenomenon was about to occur. It seemed like it would explode at any moment.
Fizzle...
Suddenly, Min-Seo's blessing arrays turned into dust and scattered away. The wind swept away the scattered remnants of the blessing arrays, and then they were absorbed into the spear that Yu-Hyun was holding.
Yu-Hyun lifted the spear with a triumphant expression and said, "As if I’d let you do that!"
"This motherfuck—!"
Clank.
Before Min-Seo could finish her sentence, handcuffs were placed on her wrist. Resistance was futile.
Due to the effects of the cloud of light, the so-called “Yu-Hyun's dogs,” who moved according to Yu-Hyun's orders, were swift and strong. It would be difficult to defeat them with conventional methods. I knew that very well. The Levi Order, who had captured the Voodoo Cult during The Starless Night, had also been in the same state.
Yu-Hyun's dogs were all big in stature. It seemed like only the students of the Department of Priests with a large physique and good blessing efficiency were appointed as dogs. That was why In-Ah and Ha-Yeon were nowhere to be seen.
"Sun-Woo, what should we do? Should we run?" Dae-Man asked within the chaos.
There was no opportunity for me to answer.
Yu-Hyun's dogs were capturing students from the Department of Crusaders and Department of Paladins as hostages at terrifying speeds. One of Yu-Hyun's dogs tried to handcuff Dae-Man's wrist.
Thud!
"Oh no! I threw you too hard! I'm sorry!"
Dae-Man grabbed the student from the Department of Priests who tried to capture him and threw him to the ground. As if unable to feel any pain, the dazed dog didn't grimace and just stared at the clouds of light floating in the sky with a blissful look in its eyes.
Dae-Man threw each approaching dog to the ground and hollered, "Sun-Woo! Answer quickly! Are we running away?"
"While I buy time, you have to run away. Or while you buy time, I'll run away," I said to Dae-Man while standing back to back against him.
I extended my fist toward the approaching dogs.
Smack!
[Wind Punch! I’ll say it instead of you this time!]
Wind flew out and struck the jaw of one of Yu-Hyun’s dogs. The dog collapsed to the ground after losing strength in their legs.
Even if we continued to subdue the dogs like this, however, there’d be no end to them. Due to the blessings, the dogs had forgotten how to feel fear. After getting hit, they would simply stand back up and surround us.
"...I will buy you some time. I will create a path, so you run away," Dae-Man said.
"How much time can you buy me?" I asked.
"I will last long enough to get you out of here. Trust me, just like I trusted you," he replied.
After saying that, Dae-Man threw another approaching dog to the ground.
I nodded.
"Alright, I believe in you! Pave the way!"
"Got it—!" Dae-Man shouted.
With a roar, he unleashed a blessing array. The light of blessing enveloped his entire body. Compared to the radiant glow surrounding Yu-Hyun's dogs, it was a feeble light. However, when infused into Dae-Man, even blessings of that level could exhibit explosive efficiency.
"Huff—! Come on—!" Dae-Man shouted as he crouched down and charged toward the dogs surrounding us.
Like a truck smashing into a moose, the dogs that collided with his bulky body were tossed onto the ground. When Dae-Man started charging forward, the encirclement collapsed, and an escape route opened up.
"Thank you, Dae-Man!”
“Remember this!"
I ran through the path that he had opened up for me. Occasionally, a dog would try to grab my wrist while I was fleeing, and Bade's Wind Punch would strike their jaw and knock them out each time.
Whoosh!
After widening the distance by a significant amount, I created a gust of wind and entrusted my body to it. Following that, my body became incredibly light. To an observer, it may have looked like I was running, but in reality, I was simply surrendering myself to the wind, which was no different from flying. I was finally able to completely shake off Yu-Hyun's dogs and escape.
While fleeing, I thought about my future plans. I had a lot of tokens in my possession at the moment. I could negotiate with Yu-Hyun to save Dae-Man and then diligently collect tokens again. Alternatively, it was possible to wait until the power from the cloud of light wore off and then wipe out the weakened dogs thereafter.
There was still plenty of time. Although I was retreating after losing many teammates at the moment, as long as I didn’t get captured as a hostage, there was always a chance to turn the tables. There was also a chance of victory if I joined forces with the other students from the Department of Paladins.
"Bade, just a little faster!"
Flutter.
That was what I was thinking, up until the moment a wing that was densely packed with brilliant golden feathers blocked my path. It was Yu-Hyun.
"Who are you talking to?" he said.
He was holding a spear made out of light in his right hand, and wings composed of light were sprouting out from his back. Just like me, he was flying. I was flying by leaving my body to the wind that I had created, and he was flying by pushing down the wind with his wings.
Splurt.
Without any time to think, the spear in his hand pierced me in the side. I felt pain that I had never experienced before—it felt like all the blood flowing in my body had suddenly stopped. The pain was intense and vivid. It was strange. Since I had offered my sense of touch to Baron Samedi, I shouldn't have been able to feel pain anymore.
"As expected, you’re the Cult Leader," Yu-Hyun said while looking down at me with an unpleasant and sticky smile.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦