This… is undoubtedly a different dimension.
The air is thick with the smell of sulfur, reminiscent of the acrid stench near a volcano, and even the ground is a dark, burnt black, as if it were scorched rock.
“There’s no need to be afraid.”
He gripped the seven-section staff tightly, his face wary, and stood ready to face Ji-wol-Hyeon, who was standing in front of him. “We were just caught by this guy’s teleportation magic and forcibly abducted into this space.”
Although he said that, Baek-Gye was still worried. Ji-wol-Hyeon didn’t seem that strong, and shouldn’t be a powerful sorcerer or exorcist.
When he knocked him out and grabbed him, he searched his body, took away his weapons and spirit tools, and used ropes, restraining talismans, and magic to control him. However, it seems that none of that worked now.
“This…” Yeo-myeong gasped, her face regaining its nervousness.
“So… I can still breathe, and I can still speak. I’m alive.”
“This kind of independent different dimension, if there’s an entrance, there must be an exit.”
Baek-Gye looked at Ji-wol-Hyeon.
“I’m guessing that if we defeat this guy, we should be able to find a way out of here.”
If there's a way to enter, there must be an exit. He had encountered this type of enemy in the past in game storylines. Defeating them would allow them to escape from desperate situations.
“Defeat me?”
Ji-wol-Hyeon smiled.
“How arrogant. To be stuck in such a desperate situation, at such a disadvantage, and yet to dream of turning things around. It’s truly laughable.”
He didn’t need to hide it now, and the expression on his face became sinister. The corners of the young man’s mouth curved into a smile, but there was no hint of a smile in his eyes.
“I don’t plan to kill you directly, because the order I received was to bring you back.”
Ji-wol-Hyeon’s voice was icy.
“However, it didn’t say to bring you back ‘intact,’ so it wouldn’t matter if you lost a hand or broke two legs, right?”
After speaking, the young man drew a short sword from the void, the tip of the blade tracing a line.
In an instant, the precious sword emitted a strange light, and the powerful spiritual energy wavelength caused the surrounding air to expand, howling like a gale.
“Not good.”
Baek-Gye had plenty of combat experience, and he immediately saw that Ji-wol-Hyeon was about to cast some kind of spell.
“Don’t give him a chance to cast the spell… Defeat him.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Yeo-myeong gripped the Suijin Sword with both hands, bent over, and gathered her strength before pushing off, dashing forward with the speed of a swallow. In the next second, the tip of the sword was about to stab Ji-wol-Hyeon.
The latter smiled slightly, stepping back at an even faster speed to avoid the tip of the blade, while the wave of power expanded.
In front of Yeo-myeong, a huge black sphere suddenly appeared. The Suijin Sword stabbed into it, as if hitting a rock, and sparks flew.
The sphere was like a giant shield, blocking Yeo-myeong’s attack.
“What is this thing?”
Yeo-myeong flew backward. The moment she saw this thing, a violent chill ran down her back, causing her to retreat.
The sphere was floating in the air. In the next second, a thin line appeared above the huge sphere, and the line slowly expanded, revealing rows of teeth, turning into a gaping mouth.
Instantly, the sphere opened its mouth wide, spewing out scorching steam, and floated forward, tracking Yeo-myeong. As it attacked the girl, teeth and darkness were about to cover her vision, as if it wanted to bite her in half.
Yeo-myeong raised the Suijin Sword, summoning lightning. The tip of the blade generated a lightning strike, and three snakes of lightning shot out, blasting toward the unknown sphere.
However, the sphere simply opened its upper and lower mouths, biting the lightning that invaded its mouth, and swallowed the spell released by the girl who had gathered spiritual energy.
Crack, crack.
The dark black lips moved as if chewing, and sparks of electricity leaked from the corners of its mouth.
“W-what?”
She stood there blankly, and even Baek-Gye held his breath.
He had never seen this strange “thing” before either—a monster? An alien? Or a Western demon… or some other kind of outlier. He, as a player, had no clue.
“In any case, this thing is very bad!”
As the thought flashed through his mind, he took out a cylindrical object from the pouch hanging on his waist and threw it forcefully.
Bang!
Accompanied by a small explosion, thick black smoke billowed out.
However, the thick smoke was sucked away by a vortex. The spherical monster opened its mouth wide and directly sucked away the thick smoke.
Yeo-myeong also woke up from her daze, and slashed out with her right hand, the light of her blade drawing a trajectory, striking the outer shell of the sphere.
The pitch-black outer shell was extraordinarily hard, and even the girl’s arm strength, enhanced by spiritual power, couldn’t do anything about it. Sparks scattered, and the sword was bounced back instead.
“So hard.”
Her palms were numb, and fear arose in her heart.
‘This thing can absorb spells… I can’t even cut it with my sword—’
Even the outer shell of the monster that absorbed the two fierce monsters wasn’t this hard. Her sword could always be used to deal with Yanju and Gyeonggi, but now she was confused. Could it be that her attacks wouldn’t work?
On the other hand, Yeo-myeong also observed something that she couldn’t understand.
She couldn’t feel the soul of this spherical monster.
You should know that Yeo-myeong’s most powerful means now is the “Power of Soul Shaving.”
That is a means of directly attacking the essence of life, that is, the soul.
But now, she couldn’t see through the essence of this enemy. These strange spheres had no soul, no spirit. They were like inanimate objects, like rocks, like minerals, empty inside… Her most powerful mystery couldn’t work on them.
“Careful!”
Baek-Gye reminded loudly. Suddenly, Yeo-myeong reacted and saw the spherical monster open its mouth wide, revealing sharp teeth, advancing to meet her in order to attack, about to pounce in front of her.
“Eat.”
Ji-wol-Hyeon said with a smile, “Eat whatever you want, legs or arms, just remember to leave the body and the head.”
After he said this, the huge mouth accelerated, like a ball, the sphere directly jumped up from the air, the upper and lower jaws opening and closing like a guillotine, about to swallow Yeo-myeong.
Whoosh!
Baek-Gye activated “Shrinking Ground.” He held Yeo-myeong in his arms and teleported to the other side. The spherical monster fell to the ground, its gaping mouth opening and closing, biting open the ground like a bulldozer.
Crunch, crunch! The big mouth began to chew, even crushing the hard rocks.
“What an outrageous thing?”
Along with a feeling of numbness in her head, Yeo-myeong finally came to her senses, looking at the spherical monster, a chill running down her spine.
“That’s right, if you surrender now, I can treat you a little more gently.”
Ji-wol-Hyeon’s voice came from not far away. “If you continue to be enemies with me, the consequences won’t be so fun.”
At the same time as he spoke, one black sphere after another appeared behind him, each sphere opening its mouth wide and rushing over.
“There are at least twenty of them…”
Yeo-myeong was speechless, and her face turned pale.
“Don’t be afraid, we still have a chance of winning.”
Baek-Gye analyzed calmly, “This is a type of monster I haven’t seen before. No, it shouldn’t be a normal monster, Yeo-myeong, can you see through their true form?”
“I-I can’t see it clearly.”
Yeo-myeong calmed down, then noticed that she was still being held in Baek-Gye’s arms, her snow-white skin dyed red. She coughed lightly and said, “They… have no souls, at least, I can’t see anything.”
—That’s strange? Why would they have no souls? Why can’t Yeo-myeong’s Heavenly Eye see the root of it?
Baek-Gye’s mind quickly thought. Just then, a flash of inspiration suddenly appeared in his mind.
“I understand what they are… These are the same as ‘Suiho,’ pseudo-life forms constructed by magic—”
Baek-Gye muttered to himself.
Before, he had defeated the Snow Hag Princess’s family, a monster called “Suiho.” In fact, that kind of thing wasn’t a monster either, but a crystallization of a natural phenomenon, a kind of spirit.
They were a product of the combination of water and a demonic energy core, more similar to slimes and elemental spirits.
“However, it seems that these pseudo-lives are more pure—”
As he spoke, Ji-wol-Hyeon smiled indifferently, “That’s right, this is the secret technique I mastered, ‘Curse Ball Devouring Hungry Ghoul.’”
The young man had no intention of hiding it.
After all, he didn’t think these two could do anything after falling into this desperate situation—even if they understood that the true form of these spherical monsters was pseudo-life forms, they had no way to break the situation.
“You were able to see through this, which is really a bit of ability, but unfortunately, it’s useless.”
As he spoke, a pitch-black outline split out from one of the spheres, a small sphere, generated like cell division.
“The most special thing about the ‘Curse Ball Devouring Hungry Ghoul’ is that it can reproduce on its own during battle. Now it has become twenty-one… Next, the number will increase, and you can’t possibly survive in this environment of increasing numbers… Oh, now it’s twenty-two, twenty-three…”
How can we fight this?
Yeo-myeong was completely stunned.
This was a completely incomprehensible enemy for her.
“Don’t worry.”
Baek-Gye put Yeo-myeong down.
“It seems that to defeat these strange spheres… we can’t use magic, but it’s much easier to use brute force close combat.”
He took out the Omamori with his right hand and stabbed it into his heart again.
Boom!
The demonic energy transformed into a black-red glow, enveloping Baek-Gye’s body.
In that instant, a thick pillar of fire also sprayed up from the ground, and his body swaying in the flames was as black as a shadow.
“Don’t be deceived by that guy’s words… All pseudo-life forms have their own demon core. Breaking it will kill them.”
Baek-Gye seemed to have put on a new outfit in an instant, his whole body covered in armor, holding a long spear in his right hand.
“As long as it’s life, there’s no possibility that it can’t be killed or defeated…”
He stomped on the ground with his right foot, rushing toward the spherical monster like lightning. The spherical monster opened its mouth wide, almost splitting into two hemispheres.
The moment the two crossed, the big mouth closed.
No, at the moment it closed, the spear had already pierced through it. Baek-Gye’s right hand threw the spear, and the tip of the spear pierced through from behind the spherical monster. The moment this strike succeeded, the spherical demon gradually disappeared, like a leak, turning into countless luminous fragments flying in the air.
“An invincible, unkillable enemy… I don’t believe such a thing exists.”
