The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 63

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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 63. First Turning Point (2)

A piercing shriek tore through the air!
The agonized cry echoed through the canyon so violently that even the creatures scrambling toward the barrier halted their assault to turn and look.
Lightning spread in all directions like a fish meeting water, unleashing a brilliant discharge. Sparks danced across Medusa’s entire body, charring her skin black, and her fluids began to melt away.
Medusa writhed in agony. Bug, which had been violently struggling against the human just moments before, forgot all about grinding its prey and opened its jaws wide. A corpse marked with distinct bite wounds dropped limp to the ground.
Another Spell Orb struck Medusa’s head. Dozens of light arrows poured down in a cascade, pummeling her body indiscriminately. A fresh scream of torment tore from her throat, vibrating through the entire gorge.
Normally, she could have weathered dozens of simple spells like this with ease. But severely wounded as she was, and with the electrical sparks still crackling unabated—
Shriek, shrieeek!
Seol Jihoo trembled with fury and glared toward the direction the Lightning had come from, his entire being burning with rage. There stood the human, nocking another arrow and aiming it squarely at him. Medusa’s eyes widened in shock as he raised his hand to point—
A deafening roar erupted!
Medusa vomited forth an enormous inferno, her rage unleashed. Seol Jihoo, who had loosed the arrow, reflexively threw himself to the side.
Crash!
The wild flame that missed its target obliterated half of a jagged outcropping. Burning fragments scattered like spray, and fire began to spread across the canyon.
‘If I just throw this last one…’
Seol Jihoo reached for his final Spell Orb when he suddenly lifted his head.
The air on his face grew scorching. Black smoke billowed up from numerous spots, obscuring his vision. Beyond it—
Pound-pound-pound! Multiple legs thundered across the ground, the noise deafening. A furious buzzing also bombarded his ears simultaneously.
In a heartbeat, a single leg thrust through the thick smoke. Then dozens of insects came pouring out all at once, cutting through smoke and flame.
“Damn—”
He didn’t even have time to finish the curse. Seol Jihoo, seized by panic, hurled his final Spell Orb and instinctively spun around to flee.
Behind him, explosions and roars mingled in a cacophony of sound. When he glanced back, his breath caught in his throat.
Medusa’s fury was so immense that the hundreds—no, the thousands—of creatures pursuing him blotted out his entire field of vision.
They were coming straight at him, no question about it. Watching them surge forward with both speed and ferocity, Seol Jihoo kept his focus locked ahead.
The distance neither widened nor closed easily. Whether turning around massive stones or climbing a hill, the minimal deceleration was thanks entirely to his magical power reserves.
Maybe the plan will succeed after all, he thought—then a sudden flutter of wings near his ears stopped him cold.
A metallic stench washed over him, and his neck stung sharply. Without thinking, he ducked hard.
Swish!
Something vile raked diagonally across his neck. It didn’t fall to the ground—instead, with a sickening flutter, it curved sharply in midair and dove back at him.
The enormous cockroach with four fully spread wings was Cockroach itself.
He had no time for horror. As Cockroach surged past him, he caught sight of more of them rising sporadically into the air.
Worse still: the terrain ahead was the midpoint and the steepest of all—a sharp, climbing ridge.
As Seol Jihoo entered the slope, he had to acknowledge the mistake: he’d underestimated the enemy’s aerial prowess. The problem was that recognizing the threat didn’t change the situation.
The Cockroaches, now at great altitude, suddenly dove en masse.
“!”
Seol Jihoo, scrambling upward, held his breath at the collective behavior of his enemies. Like raptors hunting prey, they descended with razor-sharp, undeniable force.
What alarmed him more was that they weren’t concentrating their assault on the human alone—instead, maintaining their momentum, they landed at an angle across the slope itself!
From all sides and directions, the landed Cockroaches skittered forward in a sliding charge. The distance he thought he’d maintained collapsed in an instant.
Crack-crack-crack!
The sight of them hurling forward, scattering sparks and stone fragments, was nightmarish beyond description. Their thunderous roars were the desperate frenzy of creatures determined to seize and kill.
Seol Jihoo ground his teeth at the suicidal charge. They’d chosen to ram rather than swarm—and Cockroaches were far larger than Bug, their mass doubled or more. In terms of sheer momentum, they were like runaway trucks with broken brakes. A single glancing blow would send him flying or leave him dead.
Originally, he’d planned to use this tactic once he’d cleared the ridge summit, but with his life on the line right now, he had no choice.
‘Trust.’
Trusting in Ian, he poured mana into his Festina Earring without hesitation. A powerful gust wrapped around his entire body. And Seol Jihoo pivoted sharply to avoid the massive black form barreling in from his side.
Boom!
The colliding Cockroaches tumbled and flew skyward.
He poured more mana into the ground, launching himself forward. He barely grazed the other Cockroaches.
What the Cockroaches hadn’t anticipated was that the human’s speed could push even further. Thanks to this, he managed to evade most of them through his increase in speed, but he couldn’t afford to let his guard down.
The one stroke of luck was that the enemy couldn’t change direction easily.
He cut an S-pattern through the gaps of the oncoming charge, racing forward. Just as he broke free from the chain collision, his expression darkened.
The summit of the Hill was within sight, but still airborne Cockroaches remained—each one gripping a Bug in its grasp.
The Cockroaches that had launched their suicide attack had already achieved their goal: they’d forced the human to alter his course several times.
Perhaps sensing his unexpected agility, they converged and closed the gaps, then dropped all their Bugs at once.
‘Damn it all!’
Watching Bugs rain down like a downpour, Seol Jihoo clenched his teeth.
To dodge them, he’d have to take a wide detour—but they’d definitely catch him. To charge forward blindly would be suicide; the timing of their descent was perfectly, damnably calibrated.
The only remaining option was speed. The problem: he wasn’t confident he could handle a double layering of the enhancement here and still manage the acceleration once he went over the ridge.
But the situation forced his hand. Seol Jihoo steadied himself and began channeling his mana.
As he stacked the acceleration, his body began to tremble. Like a car pushed beyond its limits, he vibrated violently.
In that state, Seol Jihoo lunged forward like a leopard. The moment he locked eyes with the falling Bug, he threw his upper body back with all his might.
If he’d been running upright, collision would have been certain. But across a gap of barely eighty centimeters, Seol Jihoo slid through as if surfing.
Immediately after, his body lifted—then his lower abdomen lurched downward with a sickening sensation. He dropped past the slope’s edge and tumbled down the incline.
‘Nnngh!’
The solid rock face beneath him heated from the friction.
The danger wasn’t over. The edge of the Hill drew terrifyingly near. If he continued this way, he’d break at least two bones, and what came after was all too clear.
‘Please!’
Through burning pain in his back, he strained with every fiber and drove his palms down against the ground. His body lurched upright, but his legs couldn’t keep pace with the velocity.
As his body tilted precariously, a foot thrust out at last made contact with solid earth.
Crack! The sensation of his foot shattering nearly broke his mind. His breath caught; fire blazed through his chest.
Yet somehow he didn’t fall. The momentum carried him forward into a run, and he could manage it because he’d lived through this once before. He summoned the memory of running on the track,
“Arraaahhh!”
and pounded his feet down with raw fury, one step and then another, until at last he seized his balance.
Then he began to accelerate again.
From the parasites’ perspective, it was maddening. This human who kept slipping away filled them with such rare frustration that they shrieked in anguished fury. The Cockroach, its rage ignited to a fever pitch, pursued like something unhinged, while the Bugs curled their bodies into spheres and rolled down the steep slope in a spinning blur.
Even as Seol Jihoo felt his breath catch at their relentless pursuit, his focus never wavered.
After pushing through three or four crises in quick succession, the situation had shifted.
The terrain ahead was almost flat compared to the rough ground he’d already traversed.
More importantly, his vision cleared. Before him loomed sheer rock faces, cut as if by a knife on both sides. Between them lay a depression—a valley.
The finish line was close.
Feeling success within arm’s reach, Seol Jihoo kicked into his final sprint.
Bang!
Triple stacking at last.
Seol Jihoo vanished into the valley like a tempest.

“Done!”
Ian clenched his fist tight.
His heart had been in his throat when Seol Jihoo blazed through the Hill’s summit with acrobatic grace; doubt had crept in as he descended; but now, watching him regain his footing and accelerate, doubt transformed into elation.
His impulse was to dance. But there was no time for that.
Parasites poured down the cliff—a sight that dizzied him even from above—arranged in the formation of an arrowhead, pressing their assault relentlessly.
If Seol Jihoo was the linchpin of this operation, Ian was second.
The young man had already exceeded expectations in his role. All that remained was to savor the fruits already laid bare.
Ian stood at the cliff’s edge, on a triangular outcrop that jutted forward unnaturally. Across the ground lay white powder, spread thickly in a line more than eight meters wide.
Ian swung his staff with force.
“Liquefaction!”
Something extraordinary occurred. The white powder transformed smoothly, liquefying entirely and saturating the ground beneath it.
Hissing and churning, it dissolved the stone rapidly, eating deeper inward. Soon a groove wider than two finger joints appeared, running in a long line.
“Crack!”
He brought his staff down immediately after. Before the groove, which deepened with each passing moment as the rock dissolved, cracks began to spider across the surface with sharp snaps.
“Crack!”
He spoke the same incantation again. The fissures split faster this time, spreading like a web in all directions.
It was around then that Seol Jihoo entered the valley.
Ian reached into his robes, pulled out a sealed pouch, and shook it violently. Green-tinted powder dispersed like mist, evaporating into the air. Then the old mage invoked his fourth memorized spell.
“Ventus Gladio!”
A sharp whistling sound gathered at the end of his staff.
From this point forward, not a single mistake could be tolerated. White steam rose from the crevice, obscuring his view, but no vapor could blind the eyes of a mage pouring every ounce of his will into focus. Sweat streamed down his face; blood vessels strained crimson in his eyes as he watched and calculated at lightning speed.
And the moment he confirmed that Seol Jihoo had passed the entrance and reached the center of the valley, Ian did not hesitate. He brought his staff down with all his might.
A roaring gale—compressed and condensed into blade-wind—shot downward. More precisely, it vanished into the deep chasm that the liquefaction had carved, followed by the sound of something sweeping past with violent force.
Crack, crack-crack-crack!
In the next instant, the triangular cliff face burst forth in dust, slanting abruptly out of alignment. In one motion it separated from its base, revealing a clean-cut fracture before tumbling downward,
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
Crack-shatter!
After striking the cliff face several times, it suddenly fractured into dozens of pieces.
Jagged boulders fell without end, great meteorite-sized stones plummeting down onto the throng of parasites swarming and shrieking in pursuit of Seol Jihoo through the narrow passage.
A precisely calculated attack, refined through repeated computation. Blinded by the relentless manipulation, the parasites couldn’t dodge and had no choice but to endure the hail of stone.
Moments later.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
With each collision, the valley trembled violently, shaken by the terrifying roar of explosion.

The rock that struck the Bug pierced through its carapace and smashed against the hard earth. The force amplified by its fall shattered the stone into fragments the instant of impact, detonating it like a grenade. Even those lucky enough to dodge were swept up in the violent spray of shrapnel radiating outward in all directions.
Thus, after that first collision, the valley transformed into a living hell.
Those killed in the initial strike were the fortunate ones. Others were crushed and burst beneath the ricocheting boulders, their bodies shredded by flying debris. The rebounding rocks scattered green body fluid and parasitic remains across the ground.
Seol Jihoo, having barely escaped, did nothing but run.
He could barely hear anything. The violent impact had left his eardrums ringing with tinnitus. He could only rely on instinct to guide him.
Suddenly, he realized time had slowed. His vision swayed side to side, and his body felt heavier.
Then it dawned on him—time hadn’t slowed at all. His speed had simply returned to normal. The duration had ended.
And with it came the familiar disorientation. Bewildered, he spun around and his eyes flew wide. A single Cockroach was charging after him like a dart, having somehow survived the chaos.
Seol Jihoo’s reflexive hand pat told him he’d left his spear behind—and in nearly the same instant, the Cockroach’s blades lashed out from both sides, skewering him like meat on a spit.
In his shock, as Seol Jihoo toppled backward, he suddenly felt something solid catching his back and arms wrapping around him gently, holding him steady.
Rose-gold hair tickled his face. The moment his eyes met her deep rose-gold gaze, Seol Jihoo blinked.
Teresa. She looked down at him with the fervent eyes of a girl in love.
“…! …!”
Her lips moved rapidly as if she were speaking, but his ears were too dizzy to make out the words clearly.
The princess, seeing his dazed face, closed her lips and gazed at him intently. Yet the fierce delight glinting in her eyes could not be hidden.
Then, unable to restrain herself, Teresa suddenly brought her face closer—near enough that their noses almost touched, their breathing ragged and audible.
She swept back her cascading hair and opened her mouth.
“You know what?”
Her voice was flushed with excitement.
“You’re so damn cool and sexy!”
In the next moment, his hands felt her fingers suddenly wrap around the back of his head.
“You’re so damn cool and sexy!”
Teresa suddenly covered his face with hers. Seol Jihoo wore an utterly blank expression. It wasn’t until five seconds later that he realized the soft, moist sensation brushing his lips was hers.
“Mph, ngh, mff, ghhh….”
With a long, sucking sound, Teresa drew his lips in like she was pulling with her mouth, then swallowed before finally pulling her face away. She let out a sharp breath through her nose and licked her lips with her tongue.
Teresa gently set the bewildered young man down and turned to survey the valley, her excitement still not fully subsided.
The rocks had fallen on the vanguard and center of the parasite formation, throwing the rear guard into immediate chaos.
But they too were rats in a cage. Around Teresa, a dozen Earthians and hundreds of soldiers stood ready.
The crucial detail was that the troops weren’t only here.
“A delicious feast has been laid out.”
Dylan, who had fallen back immediately after his sniper shot,
“I suppose. Or is it just scraps left over?”
And Cho Hong,
“Scraps or not, I’ll take them! I’d welcome such mouth-watering scraps any day!”
And Hugo.
Through countless narrow passages branching into the valley, hidden Earthians and elite soldiers emerged from their positions.
As nets were cast in rapid succession, the Bugs and Cockroaches struggling at the rear finally looked around them. But it was far, far too late.
With a metallic ring, Teresa drew her beautiful longsword and raised it toward the sky.
Ian, watching from above, could not contain his admiration. From beginning to end, everything had unfolded exactly as Seol Jihoo had envisioned it.
‘Did he truly orchestrate this entire situation?’
“Charge!”
In that moment, Teresa’s cry echoed far and wide across the valley.
Uuuuuuuuuuh!
“Forward!”
Ian’s eyes gleamed.
The ten divisions of the ambush force,
The Ten-Sided Ambush Formation!
launched their assault simultaneously against the lured enemy.

(To be continued in the next installment)

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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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