The Soul-Harvesting Puppeteer - Chapter 52

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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 52
Chapter 4
When Lee Sung-woo opened his eyes again a moment later, his gaze no longer wavered with confusion. He parted his tightly sealed lips and accepted Lee Gang-hyun’s intention.
“I understand your anguish, Chairman. I would have made the same choice in your position. I agree with your decision to restructure Shinseong Group around Han Eol going forward.”
“Dad, what are you saying? That’s absurd.”
Lee Min-seo cried out in protest.
Lee Sung-woo raised his hand to check his daughter’s outburst, then continued speaking calmly.
“From this moment on, I will no longer cling to this futile competition with my elder brother. I’m also stepping down from my position as head of the Pioneer Division.”
To be honest, Lee Sung-woo had never enjoyed waging this bitter family war against his brother. He had persisted until now only because he believed that becoming chairman himself would benefit Shinseong Group more than his brother—that heartless tyrant—ever could.
But now a nephew had appeared who had Awakened to a supernatural ability like the legendary Lee Hyun.
‘Then I must let everything go.’
With this resolution, Lee Sung-woo gazed steadily at his father.
‘Chairman—Father—may appear to be without blood or tears on the surface, but that’s not the truth. I don’t know how others see him, but I know my father. If Grandmother Lee Hyun were to return, he would step down from the chairman’s seat without hesitation.’
Lee Sung-woo respected his father.
The world pointed fingers at Lee Gang-hyun as a ruthless man who had purged his uncles and brothers, but Lee Sung-woo knew all too well how much his father had agonized over protecting Shinseong Group.
And Lee Sung-woo shared that same heart.
‘I cannot be a stumbling block to Shinseong Group’s development. It’s time to let go of ambition and step aside.’
As he cleared his heart, Lee Sung-woo’s expression grew lighter, as if a burden had lifted.
Lee Gang-hyun felt grateful for such a son, and proud of him too.
Meanwhile, Lee Min-seo felt a pang of sympathy for her father, who had surrendered everything.
“Ugh. You’re all too much. You really are.”
Lee Min-seo leaped to her feet, her voice cracking with emotion, and shrieked.
“Lee Min-seo. Stop this instant. What are you doing, acting so recklessly in a place like this?”
Startled, Lee Min-chul grabbed his sister by the collar and forced her back into her seat.
“Min-seo. Enough.”
Even Lee Sung-woo, who harbored a soft spot for his daughter, spoke in a stern voice to restrain her.
“Tsk.”
Lee Gang-hyun clicked his tongue and pressed the remote control button once more.
“It was wise to call Min-chul and Min-seo here today. Watch the footage that’s about to play carefully. Especially you, Min-seo—you need to pay close attention.”
Min-seo had originally intended to storm out of this gathering, unable to bear the injustice she felt.
But she was being held back by her father and brother. When that terrifying grandfather didn’t reprimand her, she found it surprising. Then curiosity kindled about what this footage he insisted they watch might be.
So Min-seo wiped her tears with her sleeve and reluctantly settled back into her seat.
The hologram video displayed a secret chamber.
This chamber was a space prepared behind Lee Gang-hyun’s 1st Office, a location not even Lee Myung-woo or Lee Sung-woo was permitted to access.
Naturally, Lee Min-seo had no idea where it was.
In the chamber shown in the footage, Lee Gang-hyun’s bodyguard stood alone, waiting.
A moment later, Yeon So-dam entered the chamber.
Lee Myung-woo, Lee Sung-woo, and Lee Byeol-ha recognized her face immediately.
‘Isn’t she the shaman?’
‘The chairman summoned a shaman to his secret chamber?’
‘Then there must be something important the group needed to judge.’
Both men developed these speculations in their minds.
Meanwhile, the younger Lee Min-chul and Lee Min-seo couldn’t grasp what was happening.
As everyone held their breath watching, the shaman Yeon So-dam closed her eyes tightly and tapped her remaining fingers with her thumb in succession, as if divining something.
Then, in that moment—
“Aaaahhh!”
Yeon So-dam shrieked as if she had witnessed something horrifying. Her eyes in the footage were wide with terror she could not hide.
Then one wall of the chamber exploded outward.
Through the rupture, the landscape beyond the chamber became visible.
It was the 1st Office of Chairman Lee Gang-hyun.
Now not only Lee Myung-woo, Lee Sung-woo, and Lee Byeol-ha, but also Lee Min-chul and Lee Min-seo realized where that chamber was located.
But that didn’t matter now.
The figure that emerged through the shattered wall was a youthful teenager.
He looked to be in his late teens.
His features seemed innocent.
Yet this innocent, seemingly gentle youth tore through the chairman’s office wall with brutal force, breaching into the chamber and lunging at Yeon So-dam.
The bodyguard stepped forward menacingly to block the suspicious intruder.
Protecting the shaman was one of the bodyguard’s assigned duties, so this was a natural response.
But the boy who had burst through the wall showed not a moment’s hesitation. His movements were light, as casual as brushing away a fly—and they brought devastating results.
Squelch.
The boy’s hand pierced the bodyguard’s chest as easily as it would tear through paper soaked in water, bursting out through his back.
The force of the impact sent a catastrophic spray of blood across the secret chamber’s walls.
“Gasp!”
The sheer horror of what had unfolded in an instant made everyone in the chamber recoil.
Lee Min-seo’s hands trembled visibly.
What made it worse was that the boy’s face—the face of someone who had just committed slaughter—still looked utterly harmless.
That made it all the more chilling.
Chapter 5
“Aaaaahhh!”
The priestess in the video screamed again.
Without hesitation, the boy seized her as a hostage.
In the next instant, the secret chamber’s hidden door burst open, and Lee Gang-hyun appeared on screen.
Immediately, the boy threw the priestess aside and lunged at Lee Gang-hyun, seizing him by the throat.
Lee Gang-hyun couldn’t even mount a proper defense against the boy’s lightning-fast assault.
Crack.
With a sickening sound, Lee Gang-hyun’s neck snapped ninety degrees.
To anyone watching, it was certain death.
“Ahhh!”
Lee Min-seo cried out involuntarily.
But in the next moment, a brilliant light erupted from Lee Gang-hyun’s ring, and as it did, his shattered neck regenerated, bringing him back to life.
The boy grabbed Lee Gang-hyun as a hostage and burst through the building’s walls at blinding speed—bang, bang, bang—escaping into the open air.
The video ended there.
Everyone swallowed hard.
Lee Myung-woo had only ever heard about it secondhand from his father; this was his first time seeing the footage.
‘Even though I already knew the general outlines, actually watching it feels different.’
The first emotion Lee Myung-woo felt was fear. The boy’s movements in the video were so fast that even his tracking ability couldn’t follow them.
‘If someone came at me at that speed and crushed my heart or broke my neck, could I survive it?’
That terror was the first thing to take root in Lee Myung-woo’s mind.
Lee Sung-woo and Lee Byeol-ha felt no different.
A heavy silence settled over the room.
After a moment, Lee Gang-hyun pressed the remote and turned off the video.
“That boy in the footage is Han Eol.”
“What?”
Lee Sung-woo’s eyes widened.
“Is that… really true?”
Lee Byeol-ha stammered.
“That can’t be right. Demon Spirit Reversal isn’t supposed to be that kind of Supernatural Ability…”
Lee Byeol-ha’s bewildered murmuring voiced what others were thinking.
Lee Gang-hyun supplied the answer.
“No one knows his mother’s Supernatural Ability with precision. My late brother was the one who witnessed it most closely, and he passed on what little he knew to us. The rest of us can only speculate based on that. So we shouldn’t rush to judge Han Eol’s abilities with shallow knowledge. And there’s something else.”
Lee Gang-hyun paused and looked around at everyone with piercing eyes.
His gaze settled on his granddaughter, Lee Min-seo.
“Hic.”
Lee Min-seo gasped in surprise, her hiccup involuntary.
Lee Gang-hyun turned his attention away from his granddaughter and addressed the family with grave caution.
“There’s something all of you must remember. This goes for Sung-woo, Byeol-ha, Min-chul, and Min-seo as well—and Myung-woo, you need to keep this in mind too.”
“What is it, sir?”
Lee Gang-hyun ground out his answer to Lee Myung-woo’s question.
“His mother possessed a terrible Supernatural Ability, but she used it only against Demon Beasts her entire life. She never harmed a person. That was the kind of person she was.”
“Ah.”
When Lee Hyun’s name came up, Lee Byeol-ha couldn’t help but let out a wistful sound.
Lee Gang-hyun pressed down on the chill creeping up his spine and emphasized the difference between Lee Byeol-ha and Han Eol.
“Han Eol is different. As you just saw in that footage, the boy has no qualms whatsoever about harming people.”
“Ah, ah, ah.”
This time Lee Sung-woo, Lee Min-chul, and Lee Min-seo all gasped at once.
Their ears caught Lee Gang-hyun’s voice cutting through the shock.
“That footage was from when I was interviewing Han Eol to see whether he should be accepted as a member of our family. But I was the only one who thought of it as an interview. The boy had other ideas.”
According to Lee Gang-hyun, Han Eol had shown no belief whatsoever that he was of the Shinseong Group’s direct lineage.
This suggested that Han Eol was not the type to harbor empty dreams and delusions, but rather someone grimly realistic and pragmatic in his thinking.
Lee Gang-hyun went on to explain that from the moment Han Eol first underwent Awakening, he had deliberately concealed both the nature of his Supernatural Ability and its true level.
People of this temperament were exceedingly difficult to handle—they trusted no one around them and kept hidden daggers coiled in their hearts.
The direct lineage of the Shinseong Group’s owner family gathered here had learned Imperial Studies from childhood, so they understood such things well.
“At the time, Han Eol judged that my summoning him to the office had another purpose behind it. What action he took upon feeling threatened—you’ve all seen it in the video.”
“Ah.”
“What was the first thing Han Eol did? He assessed the situation and determined whom he should take hostage to gain the greatest advantage. In the end, he broke through the wall, entered the Secret Chamber, seized the person who seemed most suitable as a hostage, and then exchanged me for that hostage. Along the way, he disposed of anyone who got in his path as one might crush an insect.”
……
“A child raised like a wild beast in Old Earth’s harsh environment. His looks and Supernatural Ability seem to come from his aunt’s genes, but his temperament—that’s mine. Twisted as it is.”
“Good heavens, Chairman.”
“How could you speak of yourself that way?”
When Lee Gang-hyun described himself in such unflattering terms, those present didn’t know how to respond.
In that moment, Lee Sung-woo and Lee Byeol-ha grasped something, their pupils contracting sharply.
Lee Hyun’s Supernatural Ability plus Lee Gang-hyun’s temperament.
This terrible equation had been etched into both their minds.
They understood at once what such a horrifying combination meant.
“Chairman, thank you.”
Lee Sung-woo sprang to his feet and bowed his head to Lee Gang-hyun.
Lee Gang-hyun gave a small nod.
“The Pioneer Division commander understood my meaning.”
“I’m grateful you thought of me and my family—especially Min-seo.”
Lee Sung-woo bowed once more, expressing his gratitude.
Lee Min-seo looked bewildered.
“What do you mean? The Chairman was thinking of Father and me?”
At her younger sister’s slow response, Lee Min-chul grabbed her ear and whispered urgently.
“Can’t you understand? He’s saying you nearly ended up like that bodyguard in the video because you couldn’t control your temperament and provoked that reckless Han Eol.”
“Huh? Eek, ugh, ugh, gulp.”
Lee Min-seo’s hiccup started again.
Her face had gone pale as a sheet.
Chapter 6
In the car heading home from Subiyeok-won, Lee Sung-woo sat quietly in the rear right seat with his eyes closed.
His state of mind appeared quite troubled.
Lee Min-seo, sitting beside her father in the back, hadn’t settled either, repeatedly clenching and unclenching her hands.
Min-chul in the front seat was also lost in thought.
It made sense—they’d learned shocking truths at Subiyeok-won, so the entire family’s mood was naturally unsettled.
Then Lee Sung-woo’s wristwatch vibrated with a soft buzz, buzz.
When Lee Sung-woo tapped the watch face, a message appeared.
After checking the message, Lee Sung-woo turned to his son.
“Min-chul, your uncle says he’d like to arrange a meeting. He wants to introduce Han Eol to you and Min-seo formally. What do you think?”
Lee Min-chul considered for a moment, then accepted his uncle’s proposal.
“I’ll meet him.”
“You’re going to meet that boy?”
“Yes. Running away won’t change anything.”
Lee Sung-woo nodded once and turned to his daughter.
“What about Min-seo?”
Lee Min-seo bit her lip firmly.
She seemed unable to decide what to say.
Min-chul answered on behalf of his sister.
“Father, I’ll take Min-seo with me.”
At her brother’s words, Lee Min-seo hesitated, then finally agreed.
“All right. I’ll go with my brother.”
“Good. You’ve thought wisely. I’ll ask Lee Myung-woo to set the date.”
Lee Sung-woo sent a message to Lee Myung-woo’s phone right away.
For the two brothers of the Shinseong Group to exchange messages directly without going through their secretaries was something that hadn’t happened in over a decade.
The Soul-Harvesting Puppet Master
Author |
Juno
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Samyang C&C
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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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