The Soul-Harvesting Puppeteer - Chapter 37

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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 37
Chapter 8
A short while later, Han-eol spotted one of the Aktos that had finished hunting.
This Aktos possessed a body as massive as a giant, with a head resembling that of a horse. Moreover, the creature gripped a spear, an axe, a hammer, and a shield in its four hands, and across its broad, splayed shoulders hung a herbivorous animal that looked like a buffalo.
‘Get ahead of it first. Move carefully so the Aktos doesn’t notice.’
Han-eol issued the command silently in his mind.
The Flying Ship understood instantly and, taking the greatest care to avoid the Aktos’s gaze, swept far around in a wide arc before setting Han-eol down in the bushes ahead.
‘There are no other demon beasts nearby, are there?’
Beep-beep-beep.
At Han-eol’s question, the Flying Ship conveyed its answer through flashes of blue light.
Han-eol knew what that signal meant—an affirmation.
He owed it to his earlier study of the Flying Ship’s operation at the Pitbangul Library.
‘So now I have a proper stage to fight the Aktos?’
As Han-eol watched, the Aktos approached his hiding place with heavy, thundering footfalls—thud, thud, thud, thud.
The creature’s massive frame, approaching five meters in height and bristling with deadly weapons, proved far more intimidating than Han-eol had anticipated.
And the Aktos’s horse-like head was somehow even more terrifying than he’d imagined.
Thump-thump-thump.
Han-eol’s heart hammered wildly in his chest.
Facing this fearsome demon beast one-on-one, his nerve was wavering.
‘It’s fine. I have the Four-Layer Defense System, so I won’t die. The Aktos can only attack at close range, and it’s not fast like Ssangdu-jo, is it? So there’s definitely a chance to fight.’
Han-eol steadied himself with this self-hypnosis, recalling Ssangdu-jo.
When he’d first been assigned to the Holy Group’s First Unit, Han-eol had once fought Ssangdu-jo—a demon beast shaped like an owl with two heads.
The two Ssangdu-jo that had rushed at him then were impossibly fast. His sluggish motion tracking couldn’t follow their darting movements.
Ssangdu-jo wasn’t even a particularly powerful demon beast.
Yet Han-eol had nearly died that day.
‘Objectively speaking, the Aktos is far stronger than Ssangdu-jo. No matter how much the Ssangdu-jo pecked with its beak or raked with its claws, it couldn’t leave a scratch on the Aktos’s hard skin.’
Besides, this wasn’t a Aktos from the 8th Continent—it was from the 5th Continent.
Naturally, the raw power of this creature shuffling toward him from afar would be incomparably greater than that of an 8th Continent Ssangdu-jo.
‘And yet I still think this Aktos is more manageable than the Ssangdu-jo. Why? Because I think my signature technique will work well against this creature.’
As he murmured this to himself, courage welled up within Han-eol.
By then, the Aktos had closed the distance to mere dozens of meters.
Han-eol’s eyes perceived the creature’s soul.
A hexagonal fortress, solid as diamond.
Four tentacles jutting from the outer wall of the fortress.
The weapons connected to those tentacles resembled a spear, an axe, a hammer, and a shield.
The Aktos’s soul was safely protected within two layers of hexagonal fortifications.
Even so, if Han-eol were to reach out with the Rainbow-Colored Hand right now, he could easily harvest the Aktos’s soul.
‘But then I wouldn’t be able to test the Four-Layer Defense System.’
Han-eol deliberately suppressed the instinct that demanded he pursue only Soul Harvest, forced what courage he could muster, and burst out from the bushes.
This action might put him in immediate danger.
But ultimately, it was the path to greater safety. He needed to understand the Four-Layer Defense System’s true capabilities so that later, he could make sound decisions.
‘Damn it all. Let’s go.’
Han-eol clenched his teeth and charged at the Aktos.
Snarl!
The Aktos reacted instantly.
The savage demon beast reflexively hurled the herbivorous animal it had been carrying on its shoulder far away as the small figure suddenly exploded from the bushes.
Simultaneously, the thick calf muscles of the Aktos contracted powerfully, then snapped outward like a spring.
Boom!
A sound like the earth splitting open thundered forth.
The Aktos shattered the sound barrier in an instant. Behind the creature as it charged at Han-eol like lightning, a sonic boom phenomenon erupted.
‘Huh?’
Han-eol’s breath caught in his throat.
His hair stood on end.
In truth, the information Han-eol had gathered about Aktos came from the 8th and 9th Continents. So he had no sense of just how explosively a 5th Continent Aktos could charge.
Of course, Han-eol had undergone rapid growth recently.
But that improvement was limited to defensive power and knowledge; his reaction speed and motion tracking remained unchanged.
Before Han-eol could even gasp in shock—’Wha—?’—the Aktos had already crossed dozens of meters and brought its hammer crashing down on him.
Han-eol scarcely managed any response at all.
Crash!
A deafening explosion tore through the air.
Han-eol reflexively released a burst of Spirit Force, forming an Energy Barrier with a diameter of 2.5 meters around his body.
Aktos brought down a massive hammer in a full swing, striking the Energy Barrier with tremendous force.
Chapter 9
In truth, Han-eol hadn’t even registered where the blow was coming from.
But the schools of palm-shaped fish swimming across the Energy Barrier’s surface knew better. Transparent fish and yellow fish suddenly swarmed toward the point of impact and detonated in rapid succession—Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The transparent fish’s explosions were at least ten times more powerful than the yellow fish’s.
The cascading energy from the fish swarms didn’t touch Han-eol at all; it existed solely to neutralize the external attack—the shockwave from Aktos’s hammer strike.
What?!
The Energy Barrier’s response was so violent that Aktos’s eyes went wide.
Blood streamed freely from Aktos’s palms where he gripped the hammer.
Han-eol, meanwhile, remained oblivious to the danger.
Aktos thrust a spear forward with his other hand.
Simultaneously, he swung an axe in a low horizontal arc, aiming for Han-eol’s waist.
Both attacks came at once.
Han-eol didn’t consciously perceive either of them.
Again, the fish within the Energy Barrier reacted first.
Dozens of them split into two streams and rushed toward Han-eol’s front and side, detonating together.
The violent burst of energy canceled out both the spear thrust and the axe strike.
Han-eol sustained no damage whatsoever.
Instead, it was Aktos’s hands that tore open. His palms were now slick with blood.
Grrgh? Grrgh, grrgh, grrgh.
Furious, Aktos roared and entered Frenzy Mode.
His face flushed crimson in an instant, and the speed and ferocity of his attacks doubled. He wielded his spear, axe, sword, and even his shield in a relentless barrage against Han-eol.
‘W-what?!’
Han-eol blinked rapidly.
He was already struggling to keep up with Aktos’s normal assault.
Now the creature was twice as fast.
There was no way Han-eol could respond. He could only sense something moving in a blur, felt like he was caught in a maelstrom.
Fortunately, Han-eol’s Energy Barrier absorbed nearly all of Aktos’s Frenzy Mode assault.
Some of the fish swimming across the barrier’s surface were consumed in the process, but in return, Aktos’s hands were shredded down to the bone.
Even Aktos’s weapons, hundreds of times harder than steel, had their edges shattered.
His spear shaft warped and bent grotesquely.
Grrgh?
Aktos hesitated, alarmed.
The creature wavered—should he press the attack on this tiny being, or should he flee while he still could?
‘Phew. That was close.’
Then Han-eol, surprisingly, regained his composure.
‘This is incredible, though. The Energy Barrier alone neutralized such a powerful attack.’
Aktos’s offensive power far exceeded that of the Yeong-jok.
In Frenzy Mode, Aktos was a genuine threat even to young Giritt.
An adult Three-Eyes-Eight-Tails Giritt would make short work of Aktos, certainly, but an immature Giritt would struggle to handle a 5th Continent Aktos alone.
Yet Han-eol had managed the Frenzy Mode Aktos with nothing but an Energy Barrier.
‘Should I test the Spirit Barrier while I’m at it?’
Han-eol considered this for a moment.
‘But what if I get hurt? Maybe I should be satisfied with testing the Energy Barrier?’
He hesitated only briefly before closing his eyes tight and deactivating the Energy Barrier.
‘When else will I get a chance like this? If I’m going to stay alive, I need to know exactly what I’m capable of.’
Grrrowwwl?
Aktos’s eyes widened in shock as the yellow barrier protecting the small human suddenly vanished.
His hesitation evaporated instantly.
Grrk, grrk, grrk, grrk.
Aktos triggered Frenzy Mode again and unleashed a merciless barrage of strikes.
‘Nngh.’
Han-eol clenched his fists tight, seized by primal dread.
But this time, he forced himself to focus, eyes wide open.
His crude Body Tracking Vision couldn’t possibly follow Aktos’s lightning-fast assault.
His mental manifestation—the Rainbow-Colored Hand—was another matter entirely.
More precisely, the two small bumps protruding from the Rainbow-Colored Hand held the key.
Click, click, click, click.
The eye-shaped bumps tracked every single one of Aktos’s frenzied attacks without missing a beat.
Thanks to this, the swift attacks of Aktos were imprinted vividly in Han-eol’s mind.
While Han-eol devoted himself to raising his reaction speed, the Spirit Barrier enveloped his body like an impenetrable fortress.
Hehehehehek. Hehehet!
Evil spirits pouring from the Skull Ring let out a chilling laugh and formed a cylindrical barrier around Han-eol’s body.
Aktos’s attacks exploded against this barrier.
Striking down with the hammer, thrusting with the spear, lashing with the shield, cleaving with the axe.
These were devastating attacks capable of shattering solid stone in an instant.
Yet the Spirit Barrier proved far more resilient than expected.
More than merely tough, each time Aktos’s attacks connected, the evil spirits hurled back a barrage of curses in retaliation.
This was the Spirit Barrier’s Curse Reflection attack.
Khroogh.
Whether the spirits’ vicious curses had found their mark, Aktos suddenly broke into a cold sweat. He trembled with an untimely chill, his body shuddering involuntarily.
‘The Energy Barrier is slightly superior in defensive power. It also feels more stable. But the Spirit Barrier has the Curse Reflection function, so it’s worth using.’
Han-eol had assessed the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Now he had gathered test data on two of the Four-Layer Defense System’s components.
What remained were Bark Skin and the Pyros Ring.
To test the performance of these two defense systems, Han-eol would need to drop the Spirit Barrier entirely and face Aktos’s attacks bare-handed.
But the thought of reaching that point terrified him.
Each blow from an adult Aktos of the 5th Continent carried more impact than a dump truck striking at one hundred eighty kilometers per hour.
No matter how much Han-eol trusted Bark Skin and the Pyros Ring, standing defenseless before such power was not an easy choice.
‘Forget it. I’ll test those later.’
Han-eol’s decision stemmed from another reason entirely.
Chapter 10
Click.
The two eyes sprouting from Han-eol’s Rainbow-Colored Hand suddenly shifted their gaze toward the distant hill below.
At that moment, new images were captured in Han-eol’s mind.
Beyond that hill, three adult Giritt were hiding and watching Han-eol. All three of them were concealed in Stealth Mode.
In truth, the reason the Giritt had secretly followed Han-eol was a sense of incongruity.
‘Our master seems strange.’
‘He’s using our Giritt language without even employing brainwaves?’
‘Wasn’t this the one who despised our language as inferior?’
‘There’s something. Definitely something going on.’
The slave Giritt who guarded the Hangar exchanged meaningful glances with one another, then quietly tailed Han-eol.
In fact, the Yeong-jok who had constructed this No. 3 facility on the Coast had not visited the Hangar in recent decades since ascending to the 4th Continent.
Yet this master had suddenly appeared—and more than that, the atmosphere felt different from before.
‘Our master seems much weaker now.’
‘It’s like he might not even be our master.’
The Giritt were tired of being exploited as slaves.
Moreover, the prospect of overwhelming knowledge and relics they could seize if they eliminated their Yeong-jok master became a powerful temptation.
So the three Giritt tailed Han-eol in secret, whispering amongst themselves to learn more of the situation.
But the master was certainly strange.
First of all, it made no sense for the extraordinarily noble Yeong-jok master to hunt a mere Demon Beast like Aktos.
“Haven’t you always made us hunt Aktos ourselves?”
“And look at that. What kind of ambush is this just to catch Aktos?”
The Giritt whispered to each other from beyond the hill.
The Puppet Master Who Harvests Souls
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Juun
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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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