The Soul-Harvesting Puppeteer - Chapter 22

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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 22
An hour later, Han Eol climbed to the center of the Cliff and wedged himself into a crevice between the rocks.
Darkness had fallen while he wasn’t watching, swallowing the world around him.
Han Eol didn’t light a fire—he couldn’t risk becoming a target for the Demonic Beasts.
He settled his hunger with nothing but Dried Combat Rations.
He’d skipped brushing his teeth without hesitation.
The crevice in the cliff face was barely forty centimeters wide. Han Eol lay within it, breathing carefully and steadily.
Since awakening his Special Ability and pushing his Vitality to 24, Han Eol could endure over a month without sleep.
Still, it made sense to lie here a while and recover his condition.
Han Eol gazed up at the Highland night sky and let his mind turn over the problem.
‘Normally when Guided Teleportation succeeds, you don’t land more than a hundred kilometers from your target, right? Today I’ve traveled way more than that, so just how much distance is left?’
The thought sparked a flicker of unease in his chest.
Han Eol shook his head, pushing away the fear.
‘I didn’t encounter a single Demonic Beast the whole journey today. This is the Base Camp vicinity on the 8th Continent, not the 7th. The Holy Group would’ve already exterminated all the beasts in this region. I can relax.’
That reassurance was precisely what doomed him.
The moment Han Eol convinced himself there was nothing to fear, a dark shadow fell across his head.
Chapter 2
In the darkness, the shadow itself barely registered.
All Han Eol glimpsed was a massive Demonic Beast plummeting from a dizzying height like a bolt of lightning, engulfing him.
‘Agh—!’
By instinct alone, Han Eol rolled sideways and tumbled straight off the cliff.
One hundred eight points of Agility turned him into something nimble as a mountain goat.
He tapped the sheer cliff face with his toes, traced a diagonal arc downward, and plummeted vertically to the ground below.
The winged Demonic Beast that had rushed him gouged deep scratches into the innocent cliff, then climbed again and carved a wide arc through the air.
By then Han Eol had already touched earth and was zigzagging away in full sprint.
Screeeee—
The winged Demonic Beast unleashed a piercing cry from above.
The instant Han Eol heard it, he bolted toward another rock crevice visible in the distance, running like madness itself.
‘I need to get into cover first, then watch for an opening to rip out the beast’s Soul.’
He was still forming his strategy when it happened.
Shriek!
Another winged Demonic Beast materialized beside him like a thunderbolt, folded wings spanning more than four meters, and drove forward like a wedge to bury him under its full weight.
They were a pair.
When the female flushed prey toward the ground, the male would ambush from cover and strike down the quarry—their hunting technique.
Crash!
“Nngh—”
Like a dump truck slamming into him, Han Eol flew dozens of meters before tumbling to a stop, coughing blood.
The A-Rank Vest had absorbed the brunt of the creature’s charge.
The Three-Eyed Eight-Tailed Beast Hide did its part too.
Yet even so, half a dozen of Han Eol’s bones snapped like twigs.
“Hark—hhh—”
Nearly eighty meters away, Han Eol barely managed to push himself upright.
His lungs felt torn; breathing came in ragged gasps. Every inch of his body screamed with agony, and crimson blood pattered down steadily.
He couldn’t tell if it was pouring from his nose or bleeding out from his mouth.
‘Have to run.’
One thought consumed him entirely: escape.
On his first Highland expedition, he’d dispatched six Seryung Clan beasts.
On the second and third runs, he’d pulled off a stunning upset against the Gilit Clan.
In all three fights, the Demonic Beasts had underestimated him and granted openings—that was the only reason he’d survived.
But Han Eol had grown drunk on these meager victories.
Had killing a 7th Continent Demonic Beast—one of the supreme predators that had descended all the way from the 6th Continent—fed his arrogance? Somewhere in his mind, without his knowing it, a poisonous complacency had taken root: ‘The 8th Continent is nothing.’ Now that misplaced confidence came back to haunt him.
Rest safely in a cliff crevice?
Wasn’t recuperating better than pressing on through the night?
Looking back, it was all nonsense.
He should have bolted toward the Base Camp and kept bolting—never stopping to rest, never letting his guard down, pushing every ounce of strength until he either died trying or made it through.
Han Eol regretted that he hadn’t.
But he couldn’t surrender to despair now. He had to find some way—any way—to survive.
Han Eol forced open his swollen eyelids, caked with blood and scabs. Then he fought to locate the winged Demonic Beast’s Soul.
‘Damn it.’
Impossible.
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh.
The two Demonic Beasts crossed paths at a speed Han Eol’s Dynamic Visual Acuity couldn’t possibly track, drawing closer and closer to him with each pass.
No matter how much Han Eol strained his eyes, he couldn’t perceive their souls.
‘Reinforcing defense alone won’t cut it. Fast ones are my natural predators, just like the ranged attackers.’
Han Eol clenched his lower lip hard.
The only reason he was still breathing was thanks to the A-Rank Vest and the Three-Eyed Eight-Tailed Beast Hide’s defensive properties.
But if he allowed the Demonic Beasts to strike him even a few more times at this rate, his defenses would crumble.
While Han Eol searched for a way out, the two flying Demonic Beasts drew closer, crossing paths at accelerating speeds until they were nearly at his face.
In the end, Han Eol had no choice but to flail his Rainbow-Colored Hand wildly, unable to properly track the beasts’ souls at all.
‘Please, just let it connect by luck.’
Han Eol threw himself on fortune.
Yet as he did, the thought of staking his precious life on mere chance filled him with maddening frustration.
Then the female Demonic Beast raked its sharp claws across Han Eol’s right arm.
“Gah!”
Han Eol lurched backward.
Fortunately, thanks to the beast hide, his arm wasn’t severed. Instead, his right arm took such serious damage that he could barely muster any strength in it.
The male Demonic Beast then clawed at Han Eol’s left shoulder.
Han Eol tumbled roughly across the ground.
In the process, he swung the Rainbow-Colored Hand again.
But it missed once more.
Without seeing the beasts’ souls, his attacks wouldn’t land.
Screech, screech.
The two Demonic Beasts now circled around him, shrieking as if toying with him.
Han Eol dropped to his knees and cried out in frustration.
‘Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.’
Han Eol despised this helplessness. He hated having his safety threatened.
Chapter 3
That instant, the male Demonic Beast lunged forward like lightning and drove its body into Han Eol’s chest.
‘No.’
Just before the impact, Han Eol reflexively crossed both arms in an X to shield himself.
He was trying to protect his chest by any means necessary.
Fortunately, Han Eol managed to block with his arms before taking the full force of the beast’s attack.
The Pyros Ring saved him.
Of course, the damage Han Eol sustained wasn’t light. The male beast’s hard skull shattered both of Han Eol’s forearms instead of his chest.
“Cough!”
Han Eol spewed blood and flew backward thirty meters. He crashed to the ground and lay there, hacking up black blood without ceasing.
The female Demonic Beast spread its wings wide and dove, driving its sharp talons into Han Eol’s chest with a vicious strike.
“Hack!”
Han Eol spattered blood again.
Screeeech—
The female Demonic Beast threw its head back and shrieked triumphantly, then drove its hooked beak down toward Han Eol’s face.
In that final moment before death, Han Eol finally saw the Demonic Beast’s form clearly.
A bulbous skull optimized for ramming attacks.
A beak that curved downward in a smooth arc.
A head resembling an owl.
Chest feathers puffed out like a rooster’s.
Yet strangely, this flying Demonic Beast had two heads.
‘Ssangdwjo……’
Han Eol recalled the Demonic Beast compendium from his training sessions.
Ssangdwjo were Demonic Beasts frequently encountered on the 8th Continent—fast and difficult to fight, but less dangerous than the Seryung Clan.
‘I’ve slain the Gilit, broken the Seryung, and here I am being tormented by a mere Ssangdwjo.’
Han Eol was speechless.
The truth was that his Special Ability possessed absurdly broken power—capable of instantly obliterating even transcendent-tier Demonic Beasts.
In other words, Han Eol was an Ability User with an exceptionally high ceiling.
But outside of his Special Ability, his other stats were relatively low, making him fully capable of losing to weaker Demonic Beasts.
So Han Eol occupied a unique position—an Ability User with an extraordinarily high peak but an equally low floor, one who could effortlessly topple the strong yet suffer crushing defeats at the hands of the weak.
‘Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk.’
Han Eol laughed bitterly.
The laughter came from a sense of déjà vu.
On his first Highland expedition, Han Eol had been trampled by the alpha Seryung’s foot and found himself in this exact same predicament.
During the second Highland expedition, Han Eol had been helpless against the male Gilit’s ranged attack, tumbling pitifully across the ground before looking up at his opponent from this exact position.
And on the third Highland expedition, Han Eol had found himself in a similar predicament, seized by the throat by a female Gilit.
Yet all three times, Han Eol had pulled off a reversal victory from this position.
The moment the Demonic Beast had Han Eol completely pinned, deliberating “How should I tear apart this pathetic human?” — that instant was Han Eol’s opportunity.
A chance to gaze directly into the enemy’s Soul and rip it away.
A chance to kill the Demonic Beast instantly.
This time too, Han Eol only seized that opportunity after being driven to the brink of death.
‘Kekekek.’
As Han Eol grinned widely, his teeth stained with blood, the female Ssangdwjo tilted her head in confusion.
In that instant, the opponent’s Soul unfolded across Han Eol’s vision like a drawing on two-dimensional paper. The image took the following form.
‘Tch.’
Han Eol clicked his tongue without realizing it.
The Ssangdwjo’s Soul was disappointingly crude in nature.
These Demonic Beasts of the flying-beast lineage possessed only a single layer of fortress containing their Soul, and their weapons for attacking enemies were equally simple.
‘These creatures are definitely inferior to the Gilit Clan and the Seryung Clan. Yet here I am, utterly helpless against such a low-grade Demonic Beast.’
Han Eol sighed inwardly. The confidence that had swelled in his chest since defeating the Three-Eyed Eight-Tailed Beast slowly deflated.
And in that moment, the Rainbow-Colored Hand descended from the higher dimension back to the lower one, effortlessly extracting the female Ssangdwjo’s Soul.
Shriek!
The female Ssangdwjo let out a single dying cry and collapsed onto Han Eol’s body.
Instant death.
No flowery circumlocution was necessary. The two syllables “instant death” sufficed to describe the present situation.
Screech? Screech-screech?
As the female suddenly collapsed, the male Ssangdwjo flapped his wings frantically. Panicked, he flew over hastily and examined his mate first.
Shriek!
This male too had his Soul extracted by Han Eol’s Rainbow-Colored Hand and perished instantly.
With both Demonic Beasts fallen, Han Eol shakily pushed himself upright.
“Nngh. Hah.”
Han Eol shoved the heavy corpse of the female Ssangdwjo with all his strength, creating a small gap, then twisted his body sideways and barely squeezed out.
Having found his freedom, Han Eol drew two Space-Compression Vacuum Packs from his backpack and compressed both Ssangdwjo corpses inside.
Han Eol did not bother extracting the Demonic Spirit Stones from these beasts separately.
Both Ssangdwjo had only thumb-nail-sized Demonic Spirit Stones in their chests.
Having already collected the radiant Demonic Spirit Stones from Demonic Beasts like the Seryung and the Gilit, stones of this caliber barely registered with Han Eol.
He did not even drink a Recovery Potion.
‘These scratches will just heal with time.’
Part of his reasoning was to conserve the precious potion.
‘After being outwitted by a Demonic Beast like the Ssangdwjo, how dare I waste an A-Rank potion? I need to suffer. Only then will I stay sharp and keep my wits about me.’
The other part was self-reproach.
Han Eol endured the pain raw, as if imposing punishment on himself.
The Puppeteer Who Harvests Souls
Author |
Junon
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Editorial Director |
Editorial Department
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dream Books
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7th Floor, Gwangseong Building, 28 Bongeun-sa-ro 114-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
UCI |
G720:N+A063-20260703071
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blog.naver.com/dreambookss
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@dreambookss
Submissions |
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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dream Books.

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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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