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Chapter 5 

Act 2: Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed (2)

“AAAAARGH!”

A fountain of blood erupted into the air as one of Gwae Geol’s arms was sent flying.

The Demon that had been lurking in the shadows finally revealed itself, and with it came an aura of killing intent so sharp it felt like it was carving the flesh off their bones.

It was only then that the Ghostkin boys realized they’d walked straight into a predator’s hunting ground of their own free will.

This was no Ghost Infant.

The monster standing before them was something infinitely deadlier.

“Run!”

Gong Wol-jang was trembling so hard he could barely stand, and Gwae Geol was wailing as he clutched the arm that was spurting blood. The only one who still had his wits about him was Gong B-chwi.

He grabbed Gwae Geol and tried to get them out of there.

But they hadn’t made it more than a few steps before they slammed into something.

An invisible barrier had locked them inside.

As if to mock them, the Demon that had lured them in was munching Gwae Geol’s severed arm quite loudly in the suffocating silence.

Trapped in a nightmare where they could neither fight nor flee, all that’s left in them is fear.

Belatedly, the words of the adults flashed through their minds like an alarm.

“The Immutable First Principle of Demon Hunting.”

“Never advance upon an unknown threat.”

“Much time has already passed, but I doubt those idiots knew exactly where the Demon was.”

Nighttime was when Demonic Qi ran thickest.

Considering how these creatures operated, it probably hadn’t been active for very long. Taking into account the fact that they did not know its exact location, it was highly probable that they hadn’t crossed paths with it yet if they were lucky. If not, they probably had not encountered it for long.

Yise sorted through his thoughts as he sprinted at full speed.

Even if he got here, he probably wouldn’t be much help. The best he could do was buy them a little time.

The bigger problem was that he didn’t know the boys’ exact location either.

He did, however, have a general direction of where he had to go.

He mapped out the origin point where the rumors of the crying Demon had first sparked, then drew a mental line between that place and the Ghost Temple. He then ran while searching diagonally across the area along that route.

He had ample reason for doing so.

For starters, this was Ghostkin territory.

Most Demon instinctively kept their distance here because they could sense the oppressive aura of the Ghostkin. Which meant whatever had shown up was a Demon possessing intelligence, if it had approached on purpose, it was probably hunting individual Ghostkin moving between the village and the Ghost Temple.

To put that off, it needed the ability to mask its Demonic Qi well enough to slip past Mong Ryeon and the temple’s elite combatants.

So Yise concluded that it had to be a monster capable of weaving a Demonic Qi barrier.

Yise reached into his robe and pulled out a miniature wooden spirit totem affixed with a silver bell and a paper talisman. It was a Ghost Treasure known as the Tracebinding Totem.

It was an item specifically designed to hunt down spatial dimensions hidden by Demonic Qi.

And if it reacted…

Jingle.

While running at full speed with Dokkaebi Steps, the bell that had been completely silent finally rang out. And defying the laws of nature, the talisman fluttered against the wind.

Yise immediately pivoted and changed direction.

At the end of that path, he could feel a thick layer of Demonic Qi.

A Demonic Qi Barrier.

A closed-off pocket dimension designed to bar anyone from entering the caster’s permission.

Just as he promised, he fired a signal flare into the sky first, then drew his Boundary-Tearing Sword and tore a gash through the barrier before stepping inside.

The shimmering distortion of his vision cleared, and the scene within the barrier came into view.

Sitting in the center was a Demon with a grotesque appearance. It possesses the face of a human, the body of a horse, and the horns of a dragon.

The Demon was currently feasting on Gwae Geol’s body.

Just as he suspected, it was one of the two species of Demonic Ghosts Yise had anticipated.

Danger Level Six, a Mid-Grade Demon.

The Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed.

“This is bad.”

Among the demon slayers, the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed had a notorious reputation for being extraordinarily aggressive. It was considered the weakest among its peers, but that was only because it was a fallen creature. It had once achieved a higher realm, but after being hunted and forced to flee time and again, its core power had permanently degraded.

What stood before him now was a degraded version of what it once was, but objectively speaking, he had absolutely no chance against it.

The monstrous Demonic Qi seeping off its body screamed at him that one wrong step would turn him into its next meal.

“Stay calm.”

He steadied himself and chanted the words like a mantra.

He reminded himself that he had stood against the ood when he hunted the Snail-Headed Scholar six years ago when he was just a kid.

He self-hypnotized himself to move forward with the resolve of someone who’d already thrown his life away.

The Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed glanced at Yise and then looked away, utterly indifferent to the new prey that had entered. It went right back to focusing on its meal.

Apparently, it had decided he wasn’t worth worrying about.

“Gwae Geol is… gone.”

There was no saving someone who was currently being digested. His only option was to exploit the Demon’s distraction and bail the other two out.

Gong Ii-chae had collapsed with black blood soaking through his front, and Gong Wol-jang had wet himself from terror and was completely incapacitated from how his eyes had rolled back.

Yise moved carefully, making sure not to agitate the Demon, and slowly approached Gong B-chwi.

He pressed an elixir into his mouth.

—For a normal human, the pill was basically a mythical panacea. But for the Ghostkin, it was a potent item that would instantly halt blood loss and stabilize their vitals.

“Get up. You need to run out of here on your own two feet.”

As the medicine’s effects spread through his body, Gong B-chwi’s eyes slowly began to focus.

“W-Why are you here…”

“Can you walk? Just nod your head.”

Gong B-chwi gave a slow nod.

“Gong B-chwi, look behind me. See the hole I ripped in the barrier? Walk out through there as fast as you can. Gong Wol-jang. When I give the signal, grab this and run the other way. Tear through the barrier and get out, then carry your older brother on your back and head back to the Ghost Temple.”

Yise grabbed Gong Wol-jang by the jaw and stared dead in the eyes. The crushing grip upon his chin dragged his dazed pupils slowly back to reality.

Gong Wol-jang cave a slow nod.

“Wait, but then you’re—”

“If you hesitate, we all die. Don’t look back, just run like your lives depend on it. Got it?”

As if sensing something was going on, the munching sound of the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed came to a stop.

“Now!”

Yise hauled Gong B-chwi upright and shoved him toward the torn entrance he’d made in the barrier, and Gong Wol-jang’s legs moved on reflex.

Seeing its prey scatter, the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed finally lost its apathy and exploded off the ground in a rage. It went for Gong Wol-jang who was the one still looking relatively uninjured.

The thing moved so fast it was a blur to the naked eye.

But suddenly—

Bang!

A heavy wooden shield intercepted the creature’s path and slammed directly into its horns.

Yise had stepped into the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s trajectory and deflected the blow with a sharp strike of his shield.

He had predicted that while the Demon might permit prey to walk in on its own, it would never tolerate its prey escaping, and that it would prioritize attacking the healthier target; this was the moment that prediction proved to be accurate.

Even though Yise was the one sent flying backward from the collision, he had at least succeeded in preventing the Demon from swinging its dragon-like horns at Gong Wol-jang.

“I could barely even see it.”

Trembling with tension, Yise hoisted his shield up high and tight.

Trying to dodge or counter by sight alone was out of the question against this thing.

But thankfully, the hatched and shield in his hands were no ordinary weapons; they were precious relics that Mong Ryeon had carefully crafted for him.

She had boasted that they were forged from elemental materials by Cultivators, and the shield’s absurd durability certainly proved it.

His best option was to use his Dokkaebi Senses to track the Demon’s movements as best he could, absorb the impacts as much as possible, and pray the relics held together.

He peeked out over the top of the shield to check on the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s condition. He’d managed to coat it with Tiger-Killing Poison when they collided, but it didn’t look like it was working at all.

‘And here they claimed this stuff would drop a tiger dead on the spot…’

He’d be brought that poison just in case he ended up facing the other Mid-Grade Demon, so it’s not truly a surprise that it was useless against the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed.

In the blink of an eye, the monster blurred out of existence and reappeared mere inches from his face.

It reared up at point-blank range and unleashed a devastating kick with Demonic Qi into the shield.

Yise squeezed every last bit of strength he had into the grip on his shield handle.

The impact was so severe, the monster blurred out of existence and reappeared mere inches from his face. His vision flared white, his whole body shaking from the impact. Warm blood trickled from his ruptured eardrums, trailing down his jawline to drip from his chin.

It felt like he was stomped by a mad bull possessed by a ghost.

“Stay awake, damn it.”

He had intentionally positioned himself so that the direction he received the attack would foam him toward the tear in the barrier.

Staying as low to the ground as possible, he frantically scrambled backward until he was finally out of the enclosed dimension.

His muscles twitched involuntarily from the impact, and a trickle of blood slipped down from the corner of his mouth.

‘At least I made it outside the barrier.’

The Demonic Qi radiating from the two horns on the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed’s head blazed with a vicious light.

It let out a bestial howl, as if to say it couldn’t wait to slam this irritating little bug and chew through its organs.

Yise braced for the impact, yet he felt nothing connect with his shield.

Instead, his Dokkaebi Senses tingled sharply in warning from the back of his head. Sensing mortal danger in an instant, he immediately rolled his body to the side.

BOOM!

The Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed appeared from behind and stomped on the exact spot Yise had occupied just a fraction of a second prior.

The sheer force of the stomp carved a massive crater into the earth, kicking up a billowing smokescreen of dust and debris.

But the monster wasn’t finished; its long tail snapped like a whip and caught Yise mid-air, sending him flying just as he’d rolled to dodge.

“Ggha—!”

The sound of bones breaking echoed from somewhere within him, and a fountain of blood tore from his throat.

He was hitting his limits.

The blood he’d lost was soaking into the ground beneath him, and his vision was starting to waver like a heat haze.

He could probably take one more hit, maybe two.

‘It should be about time by now…’

Right as he was thinking things were going to get dangerous if they dragged on longer, an adult Ghostkin appeared out of nowhere and cracked the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed across the head with an iron club.

CLANG!

The sound of steel clashing against steel rang out and Yise’s body was lifted off the ground by the shockwave.

“Damn it, sorry I’m late.”

It was Gwae Cheon, the acting captain of the Ghost Temple’s warriors, along with two other Ghostkin who’d arrived almost simultaneously after spotting the signal flare.

Draped over Gwae Cheon’s back, Yise murmured his report.

“Gwae Geol had already been eaten by the time I got here. I secured the other two and sent them running back to the temple.”

Gwae Cheon could only shake his head in utter disbelief at the boy’s terrifying mental fortitude. Even while hovering right on death’s door, his first priority was to report on the safety of the others.

“What kind of monstrous willpower was this human kid forged from…?”

“Do we have a chance?”

But Gwae Cheon’s admiration was the last thing on Yise’s mind right now.

Even though the two adult Ghostkin had managed to catching the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed completely off guard, it didn’t look like their combined strike had left so much as a scratch on it.

By comparing the power of the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed he had experienced and the power shown by the adult Ghostkins just now, Yise concluded that they could not win this battle.

“Hold on tight.”

As if he were acutely aware of this fact, Gwae Cheon had completely abandoned the idea of fighting and was entirely focused on evacuating Yise.

He kicked off the ground immediately, and the fierce sounds of battle behind them gradually faded with distance.

But not long after, an overwhelmingly oppressive Demonic Qi surged from up behind them with terrifying speed.

Tearing through the woods like a loose arrow, the Wailing-Infant Dragon Steed was rapidly closing the gap with the freshly severed heads of the two adult Ghostkin clamped in its jaws.