The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 169

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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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Episode 169. Skirmish (4)

“Hold! Advance, hold!”
Raising his hand quickly, he shouted, and the soldiers halted their march, swiftly forming a defensive formation.
Thanks to Plone’s dazzling display across the battlefield, a gap had opened up—and Seol Jihoo came sprinting over to ask the question.
“What is it?”
The soldier pointed ahead with a trembling index finger.
“It’s… running away.”
His voice carried a note of deflation.
Seol Jihoo turned his gaze forward.
It was true. Medusa—the target their squad, along with four others, had been hunting—was backing away, her body turned to flee, growing more distant by the second.
“Do we really have to capture Medusa? If she’s running…”
“…We have to capture her.”
The soldier continued with difficulty.
Medusa was merely the primary objective. The ultimate goal was the Nest.
If there was one thing that set Medusa apart from ordinary Parasites, it was that she was a Mother Unit—spawned directly by the Nest itself.
She possessed reproductive and absorption abilities, and her control over other Parasites was exceptional.
Though she was classified as a higher-tier species, she was incomparably more intelligent than Hydra, whose intelligence was relatively inferior.
That was why Teresa had devised this operation around the Nest’s one weakness: during Infiltration attempts, it could do nothing else.
In other words, capturing Medusa amounted to forcing the Nest to choose between two options.
‘Stop Infiltration and maintain battlefield control?’ Or ‘Continue Infiltration and abandon the troops?’
If the former—ideal. If the latter—still acceptable. A single Medusa could control over a thousand Parasites, and losing that force alone would significantly weaken the enemy’s military strength.
Hydra was still holding out, but only one of them seemed to be fighting, and it was built purely for combat strength anyway—its control abilities were negligible.
“So capturing all of Medusa’s kind is the first step to victory, but…”
The soldier chewed at his lip, uncertain what to do.
They could pursue, certainly. But going too deep would be dangerous.
The advance was already moving too quickly; the front line was already misaligned with other units. Push any further, and they’d risk encirclement.
No—they would definitely be encircled.
Medusa, unlike other Parasites, was cunning enough that this was likely a deliberate trap to draw them in.
Indeed, standing here in the thick of battle, the enemy’s relentless assault—which had been hammering at them moments ago—had suddenly ceased entirely.
She was probably waiting for them to advance deeper before moving to surround them.
“Damn it! After provoking her so much, and now she runs…”
The soldier was caught in conflict.
Seol Jihoo confirmed his target. Medusa glanced back repeatedly as she drifted away at a slow, deliberate pace.
Watching silently, Seol Jihoo quietly gripped his Pendant and whispered softly.
“Plone. You there?”
[Yes!]
Plone, catching the whispered words somehow, replied. In the next instant, black smoke swirled through the air and shot skyward.
“Whoa!”
The soldier’s eyes shot upward, and he gasped.
A hammer blazing with brilliant light was materializing in the sky.
Mjolnir—the Divine Attack spell learned upon ascending to High Priest rank.
Almost certainly, a priest of at least high-rank status had heard of their plight through the Archer and was sending reinforcement.
The radiant hammer descended vertically as though it were divine judgment raining down from heaven itself.
Medusa, focused on the luring stratagem, never saw it coming. The result: Mjolnir struck the back of her skull with devastating force.
Kiiiieeeeee!
Half her head torn away by the sneak attack, Medusa thrashed about. The Parasites escorting her convulsed in sympathy.
Though not a mortal wound considering her regeneration speed, the Holy essence imbued in the blow was her supreme weakness, and her body was paralyzed for a moment.
Medusa struggled to recover, began to turn desperately to retaliate—then froze, and threw herself into flight with renewed urgency.
That was when it happened.
Crack. Without warning, Medusa’s skull exploded.
That wasn’t all. Her chest was suddenly torn open, her torso crushed, and chunks of flesh sloughed away.
The enormous form that had resembled a tower began to decompose entirely.
If one looked carefully, one might glimpse smoke trailing across Medusa’s body, but there was no time to notice such details in this urgent moment.
“Chance! Charge!”
The soldier, reassured by the support of priest and mage, roared until his throat burned.
[Hooraaay!]
Plone cheered, convinced she had brilliantly completed the task she’d been asked to perform.
Yet that roar,
[Meeeeee?]
had transformed within seconds.
Shredded remains crawled sluggishly toward a single point, clumping together like jelly. Layer by layer, they climbed higher, swiftly reconstructing the tower.
[What, what is this? What is this!]
Panicked, Plone slashed and tore at it with all her might, but only managed to slow the regeneration speed.
Medusa continued steadily coming back to life.
Seol Jihoo, who had hoped for something more, exhaled sharply.
The Mother Unit, having inherited the absorption ability, was a mass of parasites like a Nest—its regeneration speed was unmatched by anything else.
Moreover, with corpses and allies scattered everywhere, it could revive itself countless times if it so chose.
To kill it completely, he would need to sear the entire body with divine power or burn it to ash.
Asking Plone, who was in some ways similar to the undead herself, to wield such power was simply unrealistic.
Out of desperation, he threw a Mana Spear at the remains, but the enemies sensed it like ghosts and desperately threw themselves in its path instead.
The soldiers and team members charged forward without hesitation, seizing the moment, yet the Honor Guard’s resistance was fierce when the Mother was threatened.
More troubling still, he could see that even the enemies who had been quietly preparing an encirclement were now rushing forward en masse.
The fact that the control ability hadn’t vanished proved that even though her body was shattered, Medusa’s consciousness remained intact.
‘What can I do…’
It was then that Seol Jihoo’s eyes, clenched with determination, flashed with sudden brilliance.
“Plone!”
Plone, bewildered and at a loss, immediately responded to his call.
[What should I do? I, I….]
“It’s all right. You did well.”
Seol Jihoo soothed the panicked Plone and asked her for one more favor, which she gladly accepted.
A moment later, Seol Jihoo’s body launched skyward.
Recalling the time he had visited an ancient emperor’s retreat, he chose to approach Medusa by flight.
If he could just seize Medusa, the outcome would be decided one way or another—that much the soldiers had made clear.
With most of her forces occupied protecting the Mother, there would never be a better opening than this.
Everything would be decided in a single, fleeting moment.
Crossing the air in a straight line without obstruction, he nearly caught up to Medusa in the span of mere seconds.
Without pause, he hurled Mana Spears to try to grate her nerves, but the situation proved far more difficult than he’d hoped.
As if refusing to allow a second ambush, roughly a dozen cockroaches that had been guarding the Mother’s side flapped their wings violently and soared upward.
The instant Seol Jihoo resolved to break through while summoning Ter Succumb’s Blessing,
Thwack! An arrow—if it could even be called that—slammed squarely into a cockroach’s body, sending it tumbling, and Seol Jihoo’s eyes widened.
Each time a sharp sound cut through the air, another cockroach fell helplessly.
The marksmanship was so swift and precise that the last line of defense never even reached him before being completely decimated.
Recognizing the steel bolt that scarcely resembled an arrow, Seol Jihoo could finally guess the sniper’s identity.
‘Marcel Gioinea!’
But there was no time to rejoice. In that instant, Medusa—fully recovered now—had fire blazing in her eyes.
The moment her jaws gaped, those familiar flames erupted in a long stream.
Just as Seol Jihoo was about to activate the Bracelet, a pure white barrier suddenly unfurled before his eyes.
Two layers of it, no less.
Ssshhiii! The barriers melted, releasing white smoke, but the blazing inferno that had been surging forward also vanished in its wake.
The moment he arrived at a vantage point overlooking Medusa, Seol Jihoo didn’t hesitate.
“Now!”
Plone released him, and Seol Jihoo’s body plummeted vertically downward.
In the rushing headwind, he met her gaze. Medusa extended her long tongue.
Signs of movement appeared in the corpse-matter tangled around her torso—she still had reserves to draw upon.
[Danger!]
Plone quickly dove downward, but Seol Jihoo had already coiled his entire body tightly in midair.
The Bow Body Bullet Shadow wasn’t merely a movement technique—it was a body technique.
‘Then…!’
In the next instant, Seol Jihoo unfurled completely, detonating all his mana at once.
“Kyaa…?”
Medusa’s eyes, which had been waiting eagerly for the perfect moment, widened in shock.
She had no choice. Not a single blink had passed,
yet the considerable distance between them became nothing in the flash of that light.
All she could see in that instant was a human directly before her eyes, regarding her with an unwavering gaze, spear raised in both hands.
Medusa’s face twisted in horror. Her chest split left and right, twitching limbs erupting outward.
But that moment
“Kiii…!”
A spear blade half a foot long, blazing with brilliant golden aura, was already slicing cleanly through the creature’s head.
“Kiiiiiiiii!”
In the next instant, even as Seol Jihoo’s eardrums rang, he felt it unmistakably.
The viscous shock as the blade grazed his scalp, followed by the satisfying sensation of cleaving through massive flesh—a clean, powerful cut descending downward.
Through head and chest, through torso.
Crash!
The moment the spear struck earth, the ground buckled inward.
“Ugh!”
Seol Jihoo groaned deeply, lifting his gaze.
He watched Medusa’s arms rise frantically, her palms pressing against her temples.
She struggled on anyway, though the damage was already done—a futile effort.
A single thread of golden light, drawn vertically from crown to heel, drained downward like water trickling away.
As the gleaming line descended rapidly, the body split in either direction, cleaving slowly in two.
Ice crystallized across the severed surfaces, spreading in concentric rings, while the entire form blackened instantly with frost.
Soma’s Spirit—a force born to hunt the Mara.
The Mother Unit struck by that power crumbled to ash in moments, scattering like dust on the wind.
Medusa’s end.
The tingling that rose through his soles transformed into elation.

“Mom!”
Teresa, watching the battlefield from the Fortress Wall through Crystal Binoculars, clenched her fists.
An Earthian suddenly shot skyward—she wondered what that meant.
The moment she confirmed the figure was Seol Jihoo, she gasped in disbelief. Then, having sweated through the battle watching Medusa—that one she’d doubted could be caught—finally fall, she gasped again.
Teresa lowered the binoculars and murmured as if entranced.
“It’s impossible…”
Except for the squads containing Clair Agnes and Erica Lorence, every other group was struggling.
Seol Jihoo’s squad wasn’t exactly having an easy time either, but the significance lay in this: they were first, and alone they’d pursued and finally caught Medusa—the one of ten that tried to escape.
Of course, it was only possible because of Plone, but Teresa, unaware of that detail, could only stare at Seol Jihoo.
“Your Highness. The incantation is complete—what’s the matter?” Ian asked, noting her expression.
He’d come to announce the spell’s completion.
“Darling! Our darling!”
“Pardon?”
“No, never mind. What did you say?”
“The incantation is ready. Should I release it now?”
“…Wait a moment.”
Teresa raised her hand.
“How much longer can you maintain that spell before activation?”
“Well, we’re sharing the burden, so if you’d like, we could delay. Though wouldn’t it be better to use it soon?”
“No, it’s fine.”
Teresa shook her head.
“Thirty minutes—no. Just ten minutes.”
Ian looked baffled.
The Earthian they’d brought from Scheherazade for a price in gold was a mage specialized in mind-type magic, rare even in Paradise.
The original plan was to deploy large-scale Disruption Magic across the battlefield to throw control into chaos, then strike Medusa in the confusion.
But when she suddenly asked for a delay, Ian could only tilt his head in confusion.
Yet having witnessed Seol Jihoo’s prowess and seeing him move so decisively, Teresa had no choice but to revise her strategy.
They say the beginning is half the battle. The battlefield was already swept by the winds of extraordinary change.
Then there had to be a more efficient way to use this vital spell.
Her mind began to discard the old plan and construct a new, elegant stage.
His abilities—she’d witnessed and experienced them enough times to trust them completely.
As Teresa reordered the board with Seol Jihoo at its center, her face shone brighter than ever.
It was the first light of hope that had flickered since word of the Parasite’s advance.

At the same moment.
Undying Diligence, having just entered the narrow gorge, came to a halt.
Her slightly startled eyes gazed over the Peak, where battle raged beyond.
Ugly Modesty and Debased Chastity did likewise.
“Hm.”
“Oh?”
Each let out a short exclamation, their reactions one of wonder.
Undying Diligence, having grasped the situation in broad strokes, opened her mouth.
“…What’s happened here?”
Ugly Modesty burst into laughter.
“Remarkable. Has the Queen’s Army ever been pushed back so one-sidedly by insects since the founding of the Empire?”
“Right? It’s strange.”
Debased Chastity fluttered her wings.
“I thought we’d slip in nicely by the time we arrived.”
“Well… the Nest is still intact, so it doesn’t matter.”
Undying Diligence let out a dry chuckle.
“Besides, it was just a courtesy anyway.”
“Fascinating. Did you truly intend to speak with them?”
“Her Majesty desired it. I saw no reason to refuse.”
At that, Ugly Modesty giggled.
“Your sense of propriety intrigues me greatly. You sent troops under the guise of greetings? Her Majesty would weep if she knew.”
“Insects think a certain way. Beat them down enough, and they listen well.”
“Then they won’t listen any better now that it’s come to this.”
“Quiet. Whether we talk or not, the outcome will be the same.”
Undying Diligence replied coldly, her strides growing longer as she moved forward.
Ugly Modesty gave a shrug and stroked the Phantom Horse.
Though it was a bodiless spirit, the soft clatter of its hooves echoed quietly through the gorge.

(Continued in the next part)

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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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