The Soul-Harvesting Puppeteer - Chapter 6

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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 6
‘Damn.’
Han-eol squeezed his eyes shut.
Even so, blood welled up from his arms and chest, staining the white Snowy Field a sickly red.
Had the scent of human blood drawn them out?
Four more Seol-rang had gathered behind the alpha, their leader.
Grrr, grrrrr.
The low-frequency growls the creatures emitted reached him through vibrations in the ground.
‘Gasp, gasp.’
Han-eol found it harder and harder to breathe.
Within moments, six Seol-rang had encircled him completely.
Now there was nowhere left to run.
Yelp, whine.
As the alpha approached, the Seol-rang that had first cornered Han-eol tucked its tail between its legs and shuffled backward deferentially.
The alpha advanced with arrogant confidence, gazing down at Han-eol with contemptuous eyes. The octagonal Mana Stone embedded in the creature’s forehead gleamed with an eerie light.
‘To die like this—how unfair.’
Rage kindled inside Han-eol.
His eyes flew wide open, ignited by fury.
In that instant, the massive alpha Seol-rang came into sharp focus on his retinas. He could also see his own reflection clearly in the creature’s glittering pupils.
‘Bleeding, cowering—what a pathetic sight I am. Wait… hold on!’
The moment Han-eol caught sight of himself, something struck him like a thunderbolt.
Something had changed.
Something was different.
When the Highland environment had shown no physical transformation in his body, Han-eol had resigned himself to failure in awakening his Ability. He’d felt only disappointment.
But his soul—not his body—had shifted slightly.
More precisely, it wasn’t his soul itself that had changed, but the Mental Image that had been slowly revolving within it.
A gray, sagging hand.
Gray needle and thread.
Gray plaster paste as well.
And finally, gray lips pressed firmly shut.
These were the four Mental Images his soul had always contained.
But among them, the needle and thread, the plaster, and the sealed lips remained unchanged—the hand was different.
Color had been delicately layered onto what had once been grayscale.
‘What is this?’
Han-eol blinked in astonishment.
In that moment, the alpha Seol-rang pressed its snout against Han-eol’s chest and sniffed loudly.
Grrrrrr—.
Saliva flecked with white foam dripped from the creature’s gaping jaws, coating Han-eol’s face and chest in a slimy sheen.
‘Ugh.’
A foul stench stabbed through Han-eol’s nostrils.
The alpha’s rough tongue unfurled, lapping at the blood streaming from Han-eol’s forearm. It seemed the beast meant to savor blood as an appetizer before it truly began to feast on flesh.
‘Hngh. Ngh.’
When the creature’s tongue brushed the wound, searing pain lanced through his skin and radiated outward in waves.
Yet even as agony tore through him, Han-eol kept his eyes wide open, studying the creature’s soul.
Until now, every soul Han-eol had observed had belonged to a human. They naturally resembled humans in form, and their color had been close to gray.
The Seol-rang’s soul was no great departure from what he’d expected. Their essence took the form of a dull gray wolf.
‘As I thought.’
But suddenly his perspective shifted. The alpha Seol-rang’s soul abruptly flattened into something Two-Dimensional.
Chapter 4
One dimension is a point.
Two dimensions is a plane.
A picture drawn on paper—that is a Two-Dimensional world.
And the alpha Seol-rang’s soul, as it appeared to Han-eol’s eyes, looked exactly like a drawing on that paper.
Not only had the soul flattened to Two-Dimensionality—its entire surrounding had become flat as well.
Now the alpha’s soul sat nestled safely within three layers of a solid octagonal fortress, protected from external threats.
Beyond the fortress’s perimeter, three jagged horn-like protrusions jutted outward, which the Seol-rang wielded as weapons to attack or hunt external enemies.
If one were to visualize what Han-eol was seeing now, it would resemble the following diagram.
If an external enemy belonging to the Two-Dimensional plane were to attack the alpha Seol-rang’s soul, what would it need to do?
First, the enemy would have to break the three horns.
Only after penetrating all three layers of the fortress’s solid octagonal walls could it finally strike directly at the Seol-rang’s soul.
‘If Seol-rang is a two-dimensional existence and the outsider is also two-dimensional, then it makes sense. But why can I perceive this in three dimensions?’
Han-eol was bewildered.
The alpha Seol-rang’s soul now appeared as if printed onto two-dimensional paper.
Yet Han-eol’s vision looked down upon the opponent’s soul from a three-dimensional vantage.
‘In a three-dimensional world, if I reach down from above, I could touch Seol-rang’s soul without ever confronting those sharp horns. In that case, the octagonal barrier wouldn’t obstruct me at all, would it?’
The thought struck Han-eol like lightning.
The moment Han-eol grasped the concept of ‘touching the soul,’ his full-color hand within his Mental Image swelled and materialized of its own accord.
Needless to say, among all the living creatures present, none could properly perceive Han-eol’s hand.
It was the same principle by which a wolf trapped within two-dimensional paper could never comprehend the three-dimensional world beyond it.
Han-eol’s hand existed in a dimension one level higher than the current world—naturally a Higher Dimension far beyond mere three dimensions—and so no one except Han-eol could see the full-color hand that burst forth from his Mental Image.
Touching it was impossible as well.
Therefore, no being could obstruct Han-eol’s full-color hand.
Han-eol imagined a scene in his mind.
He pictured his thumb and forefinger closing like pincers, plucking out only the alpha Seol-rang’s soul locked within the octagonal barrier.
That imagination became reality at once.
His hand from the Mental Image thrust down from the Higher Dimension into the current one, and—pop!—it seized the alpha wolf’s soul and wrenched it free.
As a farmer pulls weeds from his field, Han-eol plucked the opponent’s soul clean from its roots—pop!
With that single motion, it was over.
Craaagh—
The alpha Seol-rang, who had no rival in this territory, expired the instant its soul was torn away.
The massive body of the Magical Beast, now soulless, crashed down heavily onto Han-eol.
Han-eol could not bear the weight.
“Hack—”
A cry wrenched itself from his lungs.
Several of Han-eol’s ribs cracked under the impact.
Had he not been wearing a Grade A Vest, he would have perished uselessly, smothered beneath the corpse of the beast.
The alpha Seol-rang’s weight was utterly staggering.
Yelp? Whimper-whimper.
The other Seol-rang leaped to their feet as their leader suddenly toppled. Startled by the abrupt catastrophe, they hesitated to charge at Han-eol.
They dared not rush forward with bared teeth, fearing the alpha might mistake them for rival predators and maul them for it.
They had not yet grasped that their leader was dead.
This delay gave Han-eol a moment to breathe.
‘Ugggh. I need to stay sharp.’
Even as the massive corpse crushed the air from his lungs, Han-eol sharpened his focus and surveyed the situation around him.
His gaze caught the soul of a second Seol-rang.
This soul too appeared flattened and trapped within a two-dimensional shape.
Yet unlike the alpha, this one’s barrier was merely a single octagonal form, and its attacking horns numbered one instead of three.
Of course, the number of defensive layers meant nothing to Han-eol. The moment he willed it, his full-color hand descended from the Higher Dimension into the present one, pinpointing the target Seol-rang’s soul and plucking it cleanly away.
Craaagh—
Another soulless Seol-rang dropped dead instantly.
With a heavy thud, the corpse fell upon the Snowy Field.
Whimper-whimper, whimper, whimper-whimper.
The Seol-rang panicked at the cascade of deaths.
In that confusion, Han-eol tore away the soul of a third Seol-rang.
Three corpses now lay scattered.
The terrified Seol-rang tucked tail and stumbled backward.
Even so, they bristled their fur for protection against this unknown assault, baring their sharp fangs fully.
Chapter 5
Kyaoooooo—
The cry of the Seol-rang had changed completely from before.
If anything, their fear became more apparent. As evidence of their desperation, the octagonal Mana Stones embedded in their foreheads projected a faint luminescent barrier.
Immediately, the soul shapes in Han-eol’s vision shifted. A circle formed around the octagonal barrier that encircled each Seol-rang’s soul.
‘A new defensive layer?’
Han-eol’s suspicion was correct. The Seol-rang had channeled their Mana to form an additional shield protecting their entire bodies.
Yet this barrier worked only against enemies of the same dimension. Against Han-eol’s attack—descending from one level higher and simply plucking away the soul—it was utterly worthless.
Defenseless, the souls were stripped away one by one by Han-eol’s hand.
Within mere seconds, the fourth and fifth Seol-rang fell dead.
Crack-snap.
The last survivor, alone now, tucked its tail between its legs and bolted.
Han-eol’s face darkened.
If he let Seol-rang slip away here, the creature might return with reinforcements.
‘No. That can’t happen.’
Han-eol gritted his teeth against the pain and summoned his will.
Within his Mental Image, the vivid hand withdrew into the Higher Dimension and re-entered this world in a blur—moving fast enough to intercept the fleeing creature before it could escape. Han-eol’s hand pierced straight through the octagonal barrier and struck Seol-rang’s Soul.
A hollow crunch.
The last Seol-rang shrieked once and plunged headfirst into the snow.
Dead on impact, once again.
A moment passed.
“Ugh… ugh, ugh…”
Han-eol’s jaw chattered violently. Pinned beneath the alpha’s corpse and buried in snow for so long, his blood had begun to congeal, turning sluggish and cold.
‘At this rate I’ll freeze. I have to… get up and out of here. Hrgh…’
Han-eol fought through the crushing pain in his chest and managed to wriggle free from under the creature’s weight.
The moment he saw six Seol-rang corpses scattered across the Snowy Field, unmarked and utterly still, electricity shot down his spine.
A gasp escaped him without thought.
“Ah… ahhhh… hnngh.”
Then, suddenly, a sharp pain flared through his left arm.
It was where the first Seol-rang had bitten him. The spots where the Magical Beast’s teeth had sunk deepest were swelling visibly, puffing up before his eyes.
‘The swelling isn’t the problem.’
His left arm hung limp and useless, broken. The blood he’d shed had already drenched everything within two meters.
Blood loss made his head swim and throb.
‘No. I have to stop the bleeding. Now.’
Fortunately, Han-eol’s Vitality Stat was higher than most.
Which meant his body healed at an exceptional rate.
“Ugh… ungh…”
He pressed his back against a tree, using it to keep his broken arm steady, then struggled out of his Backpack.
Once free of it, he opened the pack and retrieved the medication pouches first.
‘This is… Pain Reliever. And this must be the Antitoxin Injection for Magical Beast bites?’
Han-eol dredged up what he’d learned during training.
He crammed a handful of Pain Reliever into his mouth and chewed frantically. Then he fished out the Antitoxin Injection kit and drove the needle hard into his side.
Normally Han-eol was terrible with needles.
But circumstances left no room for hesitation. Most Magical Beasts in the Highland carried venom in their teeth, which meant you had to administer the Antitoxin Injection immediately after being bitten. Leave the wound untreated and you could collapse at any moment when the poison reached your heart.
‘Ahhh… the Pain Reliever’s working well.’
The sharp agony in his broken left arm dulled considerably. Using only his right hand, Han-eol clumsily wound bandages around his left arm, securing it tight against his body.
Next, he fished out a Spatial Compression Vacuum Pack from his Backpack with trembling fingers.
He’d already learned how to use these during his training.
Han-eol hurled the Spatial Compression Vacuum Pack toward the Seol-rang corpse.
The pack unfurled like a net, stretching wide enough to envelop the massive body whole—several meters long and heavy as stone.
Then the vacuum pack contracted with a whisper, shrinking down to the size of two palms pressed together.
An entire full-grown Seol-rang had been compressed into it, yet the pack had become remarkably small and paper-thin—barely a centimeter tall.
More astounding still was how dramatically the weight had reduced. Even the pack containing the alpha Seol-rang—which had weighed several tons—was light enough for Han-eol to lift with one hand.
It wasn’t feather-light, of course. The pack holding the alpha’s corpse still weighed easily ten kilograms or more.
But all things considered, that was remarkable.
“Heave.”
Han-eol pulled out a second Spatial Compression Vacuum Pack and retrieved another corpse.
After repeating this several times, all six Magical Beast corpses had been neatly stored in six individual Spatial Compression Vacuum Packs.
Han-eol stacked the packs carefully inside his Backpack.
The Puppeteer Who Harvests Souls
Author |
Juno
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Corp.
Editor in Chief |
Editorial Department
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Samyang C&C Corp. – Dream Books
Address |
7F Gwangseong Building, 28 Bongeunsa-ro 114-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
UCI |
G720:N+A063-20260703071
Blog |
blog.naver.com/dreambookss
Twitter (X) |
@dreambookss
Submissions |
[email protected]
(주) Samyang C&C – The contents of this book may not be used in any form or by any means without written permission from 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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