S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 89

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 89. The Leader’s Anguish (9)
The evil that slumbered within Kim Yeoul’s depths had awakened: Yasha.
With his appearance, the tide of battle reversed in an instant.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!
The young Kraken took a merciless beating—pitiful enough to stir sympathy.
Lee Minji, Choi Gang-im, and Brian gaped in shock, unaware of Yasha’s existence.
Even the adult Kraken seemed unable to process this grotesque situation where its own offspring was being methodically slaughtered; it froze mid-motion.
Late-arriving fury kindled, and it lashed out with a massive tentacle—only to be swatted aside.
“Get lost.”
Yasha flicked a dismissive kick as if irritated.
Common sense said that when a human kicks a building, their bones shatter—not the building.
But common sense crumbled in real time.
A human’s kick sent the Kraken’s massive tentacle flying backward.
Was he becoming superhuman for five-second intervals like Lee Minji?
No. He savagely pummeled the young Kraken while simultaneously facing two tentacles from the adult. The secret was unmistakable: each time his blows connected, a black lightning flickered.
That flickering black lightning was clearly the answer.
‘He’s learned a new skill.’
Just as Kim Yeoul had gained two new skills upon reaching Level 150, Yasha had also learned two new ones.
One of them was undoubtedly the Black Lightning he was displaying now.
‘If a skill works on a Kraken, it has to be S-rank.’
After picking up another S-rank Skill at Level 50, Yasha had become a God of War that astonished even Brian.
But two tentacles remained, and they bore down simultaneously to crush the ship’s hull.
Chae Mujin watched the tentacles and Yasha in turn, thinking fast.
Was defending against the immediate threat of those tentacles truly the right call?
It was not.
“Minji! Gang-im! Hold on however you can!”
With his strength recovered, Chae Mujin charged forward.
Not toward Lee Minji’s direction, nor toward Choi Gang-im’s.
He ran toward Yasha, shouting as he went.
“Full power!”
He’d never coordinated with Yasha before.
But he shared consciousness with Kim Yeoul.
Reading Chae Mujin’s intent, Yasha raised his interlaced fists above his head.
Then, in a perfect arc, he brought them down with tremendous force toward the young Kraken’s torso—and at that instant—
Chae Mujin granted Yasha a Buff adding ten thousand attack power.
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!
The moment of impact: Black Lightning exploded, the world went dark for a breath, then blazed bright again.
Struck head-on by the Black Lightning at full strength, the young Kraken’s entire body split open, gushing blood everywhere, and upon seeing this, the adult Kraken shrieked.
Kiaaaaaaaaa!
Twelve massive tentacles thrashed the surface in a frenzy, glowing with terrible fury. The sea itself seemed to boil in rage, and the speedboat rocked like a fallen leaf caught in the catastrophic upheaval.
Yet thanks to that chilling seizure of desperation, the enormous whirlpool that had been poised to swallow the vessel froze for an instant.
Chae Mujin did not miss that needle’s-eye opening. He threw his full weight against the wheel, driving it downward.
The engine roared, and the boat shot forward.
Eeeee-eek!
Even as it glowed, the Kraken relentlessly extended its tentacles to pursue the fleeing vessel.
Then a cruel stratagem flashed through Chae Mujin’s mind.
He seized the mangled corpse of the young Kraken—now a heap of blood and shattered flesh—and indiscriminately drove his Broad Sword through it, then hurled the entire mass overboard into the icy sea.
The moment its dying blood splashed into the water, the crazed pursuit stopped. The adult Kraken abandoned the chase and dove into the depths to retrieve its offspring.
“Hah… ugh.”
Chae Mujin, gripping his heart as if trying to tear it free, collapsed onto the deck.
He had clung to consciousness by sheer willpower, but his body, pushed beyond its limits, burned out like a broken fuse.
“Hold… hold position.”
Even in that final moment before his eyes closed, he issued orders to his first-years before surrendering to oblivion.
* * *
Splash.
The gentle sound of breaking waves snapped his eyes open.
A brilliant blue sky poured across his entire field of vision.
The moment consciousness returned, his whole body flooded with vicious pain as if shattered—yet paradoxically, that terrible agony proved he was alive, and he laughed faintly.
“I’m alive.”
At those words, Lee Minji suddenly thrust her face down at him.
“Are you conscious? Do you remember who I am?”
“Memory’s fuzzy… but I’m pretty sure you were a glutton.”
“Oh my god! I was so worried for nothing!”
Kim Yeoul and Choi Gang-im’s faces came into view next.
They too had bandages wound tightly around various parts of their bodies, though the knots looked fairly skillfully tied.
‘Brian treated them.’
With effort, he lifted his head and saw his own body equally wrapped in bandages from neck to toe—wrapped so tightly around the joints he could barely move them.
“Did you turn me into a mummy?”
Brian answered from nearby.
“Patients stay still. You took the worst injuries out of all of us.”
“Did we manage to land on the island?”
“We did. Honestly, I’m surprised you woke up at all. I told the others you’d be unconscious for at least a day.”
“I’d rather save the lying around for when I’m dead.”
As he forcefully lifted his creaking arm to tear away the bandages, Lee Minji gasped and seized his wrist.
“You said ‘Rest is part of training too,’ didn’t you?”
“Did I really say that?”
“Maybe not.”
“But we don’t have time to lie here like this.”
When he spoke seriously, Lee Minji released his hand.
He unwrapped the bandages and sat up. Checking his wristwatch, he’d been unconscious for roughly an hour.
He gazed out at the sea where the Kraken battle had raged.
It was calm.
Yet somehow that calm made him uneasy.
Reading his thoughts, Brian placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke.
“Don’t worry. Krakens don’t come ashore.”
“I know that… but something strange did happen. A young Kraken appeared out of nowhere. If one abnormal thing occurred, why not two?”
“What surprised me more was that Kim Yeoul, of all people, subdued that young Kraken?”
Kim Yeoul’s eyes trembled at the sound of his words.
Had she not said anything this whole time?
“That’s a matter for later. Right now, we need to secure the Saint’s Corpse Flower. Explanations come after.”
“Tch, well, if the captain says so, then so be it.”
He knew his first-years were equally wracked with pain, every movement a scream.
But in real combat, even this godforsaken agony had to become as natural as breathing.
Without showing it, he calmly unfolded his Map and traced their route.
“This island has an especially dense population of Pirate Goblins. Once we start fighting, they’ll swarm from every direction. We’ll stay hidden as much as possible and climb to that mountaintop.”
Moving while crouched was difficult enough; running in that posture was harder still. On a steep mountain, it was exponentially worse.
Buffs were meaningless at this point.
What they needed was sheer stamina and willpower.
Fortunately, the training thus far had not been wasted. Despite their ragged breathing, his first-years pursued relentlessly in his wake.
“Mujin.”
After a while, Brian called out, and he turned.
“Let’s rest for a bit.”
“Are you tired?”
“Your wound opened. You’re bleeding.”
At that, he lowered his head and saw the bandages around his waist already stained dark red. Blood from the reopened wound was seeping down his pant leg, soaking into the dirt beneath his feet.
“Healing Light.”
He channeled Healing Light boosted by mana surge, but the healing speed fell short of satisfaction.
Climbing like this, the shallow wound would tear again within moments.
He cut away the blood-soaked bandages and retrieved a Medical Stapler from his Shadow Bag, handing it to Brian.
“You know how to use this, right?”
“…You ruthless bastard. You want to drive iron staples into living flesh? At minimum, you’d need anesthesia.”
“My body’s barely feeling anything anyway. It’s fine. Do it quickly. Goblins can smell blood.”
Tick, tick, tick.
Steel staples drove ruthlessly into the gaping wound.
Chae Mujin himself didn’t make a sound, but his first-years watching his expression was another matter entirely.
Kim Yeoul scrunched her face as if her own flesh were tearing, yet burned the image into her eyes, while Lee Minji and Choi Gang-im stared blankly at nothing.
He firmly tied fresh bandages over the stapled wound and concealed the blood stains beneath dirt, covering all trace.
“We move out again.”
He would have preferred to reach their goal without further combat, but inevitably, the moment came when they had to face the Pirate Goblins.
His first-years automatically prepared to engage; he raised a hand to stop them.
“Let’s go with Assassination, Brian.”
“Weren’t you trying to give the kids Experience Points?”
“This doesn’t seem like the time for that.”
“…If that’s what you say.”
After buffing Brian, he moved with stealth and speed to eliminate the Goblins cleanly.
Logically, there was no need for such urgency—he knew that himself.
But this wasn’t logic’s domain. It was instinct’s, and instinct cannot be seen or explained.
‘I hope my instinct is wrong this time.’
Was he truly being overly cautious? Had accumulated fatigue and injury caused his brain to malfunction, leading to this misjudgment?
Contrary to his anxiety, the party reached the Crater atop the mountain where the Saint’s Corpse Flower lay dormant, arriving without major incident.
* * *
The Saint’s Corpse Flower occupied a remarkably precarious location.
Dead center of an enormous crater.
The only path was a perilous cliff’s edge, barely wide enough for a single person to place their feet and walk across.
Lee Minji, who had formed a monocle with her hands to examine the Corpse Flower, murmured.
“I thought something called a Corpse Flower would look far more grotesque, but… it doesn’t?”
“It can look grotesque if mana doesn’t protect it.”
“What?”
“The Corpse Flower is a Parasitic Flower that feeds on mana from corpses. Once the mana supply is cut, it rots immediately. To prevent that, you must transport it while wrapping it in a protective mana barrier.”
Brian added a remark to Chae Mujin’s explanation.
“Even with mana protection like that, after six hours it rots anyway. That’s why we have to gather it fresh each time.”
“What finicky plants.”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t Lee Minji grumbling—it was Kim Yeoul.
“But… the bottom of the crater isn’t lava, is it? Water, maybe?”
When one thinks of a crater, one typically imagines churning lava, yet beneath the sheer cliff exactly as Lee Minji observed, a strangely blue liquid rippled eerily and cold.
Lee Minji, curious, craned her neck to peer over the edge, but Chae Mujin seized her by the nape of the neck and issued a chilling warning.
“If it were lava, we’d be lucky. Fall into that, and you’re done for.”
“What? Why?”
“That’s a Deep Dive. A Dungeon within the Dungeon, leading to… a gateway to Hell, you could say.”
The same phenomenon Chae Mujin had encountered on the Snowy Mountain long ago—as long as one didn’t leap into it of their own volition, it posed no immediate threat.
“Everyone wait here. I’ll bring it back.”
He walked the narrow, vertiginous cliff edge. He felt the anxious gazes of his party behind him.
But Chae Mujin thought nothing of it. Even if he stumbled here, he could simply climb back up.
At last reaching the Saint’s remains, Chae Mujin knelt reverently on one knee.
“Forgive me for disturbing your eternal rest.”
After a brief moment of silence to seek permission, he gently plucked the Corpse Flower blooming at the head of the remains. Simultaneously, he enveloped it in a dense protective mana barrier to prevent the flower from decomposing.
Now he only needed to return safely.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
The ground beneath his feet convulsed violently.
This was no mere localized earthquake. A terrible vibration stretched from the distant sea, rending the entire continent asunder and extending here.
A destructive roar as if dozens of giants were trampling a forest and charging forward swept across the mountain range and crashed into the crater.
Crack, crack.
A splitting sound erupted from beneath his feet as though bone shattered. Terrible cracks jagged across the narrow cliff path, and the earth split open.
“Mister!”
“Don’t panic.”
He couldn’t use Buff Link. The moment he activated it, the mana barrier protecting the Corpse Flower would vanish.
The ground beneath him crumbled and collapsed in the blink of an eye.
Yet Chae Mujin was already airborne. Landing in a stable posture, he immediately located the source of the sound, and his fist clenched.
The physical form of that indescribable dread revealed itself beyond the forest crashing to splinters.
“Kraken……”
The Kraken, which had never once set foot on land, now walked across the earth beneath the sun.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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