The Soul-Harvesting Puppeteer - Chapter 69
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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 69
Chapter 2
‘This current has always guided me to a continent higher than where I actually wanted to go. And the stronger I become, the higher it takes me. Why is that? What standard is this ocean current imposing on me?’
Han Eol sensed that the third current drawing his body seemed to be singing something like this to him.
Low places don’t suit you.
At your level, you should be going to at least this height.
Don’t resist—just follow where we lead.
Look at what’s happened since you surrendered yourself to the current.
You’ve grown dramatically stronger because of us, haven’t you?
Haven’t you?
Of course, no such song actually reached Han Eol’s ears.
But he was certain of his conjecture.
‘Should I trust this current one more time and surrender to it?’
If his guess was right, the moment he chose the third ocean current, he would find himself exploring somewhere higher than the 5th Continent—probably the 4th Continent.
Greater danger would lurk there, but in exchange, the rewards would be all the sweeter.
‘On the other hand, if I follow the first current and choose Highland’s 5th Continent?’
Then Han Eol would come and go from Highland without major risk.
But the gains would be proportionally smaller.
On Earth, there was a saying: High Risk, High Return. The greater the risk one took, the greater the reward—such was the way of the world.
‘To hell with it.’
Han Eol squeezed his eyes shut and mounted the third current.
Whoooosh—
The moment Han Eol made his active choice, his body, which had been hesitating, was yanked through the third ocean current like an arrow and sucked into a single point.
Now was the moment his sixth Highland adventure was truly about to begin.
‘Adventure my ass. Damn it.’
Han Eol wanted to go back ten seconds and cuff his past self on the ear.
The moment Han Eol burst from the blue mist, what awaited him was a bizarre world and bizarre existence beyond imagination.
This place was like the surface of Jupiter.
Lethal toxic gas filled the air for tens of thousands of kilometers overhead, and the gas swirled like the eye of a storm.
The diameter of the storm’s eye alone exceeded tens of thousands of kilometers by rough estimation.
Even with the hardened scales and muscle of the highest-order Dragon Race, Han Eol could barely stand in this gas storm.
What was even more bizarre was that despite the toxic clouds, stars from the night sky poured down in crystalline clarity.
A surreal landscape spread above Han Eol’s head, as if he were gazing up at the Milky Way from the vacuum of space itself.
Beyond the Milky Way, nebulae billowed like cumulus clouds as new stars were born.
On the opposite side, ancient stars died, creating black holes in their wake.
Between star and star descended auroras of five brilliant colors, like the polar lights of the Arctic.
Within this cosmic landscape, a bizarre existence undulated into view.
The bizarre entity, with a Transcendent Being’s form spanning hundreds of thousands of kilometers and bearing stars upon its head as it looked down upon Han Eol, was continuously morphing without any fixed shape.
And beneath that entity’s body, thousands of long tentacles—enough to wrap around Earth several times over—writhed like tangled threads.
These tentacles appeared thread-like only because the entity’s body was so vast that they looked slender by comparison; in reality, each tentacle’s girth was no trifle. The thickest ones measured tens of kilometers, the thinnest still several kilometers across.
Ughhh.
Merely meeting that entity’s gaze made Han Eol feel his head would split open.
It seemed that with just a single tentacle, that existence could wrap an ordinary star around itself and crush it to pulp.
What was even more terrifying was the resonance that entity emanated.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
A low, steady resonance echoing slowly.
Han Eol unconsciously lost himself in that resonance and fell into synchronization with it.
In that instant, every blood vessel in Han Eol’s body ran wild as if caught in a resonance phenomenon.
Han Eol’s heart would burst.
His cerebral arteries would explode.
Had Han Eol not possessed the body of the highest-order Dragon Race, merely synchronizing with the resonance this entity poured forth would have sent blood spraying from every orifice and killed him outright.
‘Could this really be a god?’
Han Eol was an atheist.
But the moment that entity entered his vision, without knowing why, he felt this way.
An entity one must never dare to oppose.
A being one should never presume to resist.
A god before whom any creature ought to surrender everything and submit.
Trembling, Han Eol began to bend his knees before this divine existence.
But at that very moment, the Omniscient Hand from within Han Eol’s mindscape descended into this dimension.
Han Eol fought to suppress the part of him that wanted to submit entirely, desperately clawing for any way to survive.
‘Soul. I need to find the soul of that strange being.’
But the soul won’t come into focus.
The Omniscient Hand, which once gazed down upon the souls of every living creature in existence from a higher dimension, now floundered, unable to locate this being’s soul.
The reason remained obscure.
Was it because the being was so vast that he couldn’t determine where within it the soul lay embedded? Or was it the dense, poisonous miasma shrouding its surroundings? Or perhaps something else entirely? Han Eol found the entire situation bewildering.
Chapter 3
It happened then.
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The intent of the strange being drove directly into Han Eol’s mind.
Unlike the brainwaves of the Spirit Race, this was not language but pure meaning.
“Urgh—”
Unable to comprehend the overwhelming intent, Han Eol doubled over and retched.
The strange being transmitted its will to Han Eol once more.
Strangely, this second transmission Han Eol could understand.
It had been translated into the language of the Spirit Race and conveyed as a brainwave.
[How fortunate that you waited in this place. Spirit Slayer, who has ascended beyond the 4th Continent of Highland after long struggle—reaching the 3rd Continent.]
‘!!’
Han Eol was startled by two things at once.
For one, this cosmic realm was not the Highland 4th Continent he had anticipated, but the 3rd Continent.
‘What the hell. Why did it bring me to the 3rd Continent?’
Han Eol resented the current that had drawn him here.
More precisely, he wanted to strike his past self for choosing that particular current.
‘Damn it. What kind of assessment did it make of my abilities to bring me here? How am I supposed to survive before such a divine being? Hell.’
Han Eol cursed inwardly.
The second thing that startled him was the very expression the being had used: [I have been waiting for you in this place.]
‘Then does this mean this region is where one arrives when ascending from the 4th to the 3rd Continent?’
As Han Eol turned these conjectures over in his mind, the strange being’s intent was translated into the Spirit Race’s language and transmitted to him once more.
[The world possesses countless methods of attack, as numerous as the stars themselves, yet none prove so useful as striking the soul directly. You Spirit Slayers are most fortunate to possess such a rare gift. How could I not cherish you?]
‘Cherish us? How, exactly?’
Even as Han Eol stood bewildered, the strange being extended two of its thousands upon thousands of mighty tentacles toward him.
The base of each tentacle, where it connected to the being’s body, was several kilometers in diameter—like gazing upon a towering mountain peak.
Yet as the tentacles extended, they tapered sharply, until their tips had narrowed to something approximating a human torso in girth.
Moreover, the tips were blunt like an elephant’s trunk, studded sparsely with stiff, coarse hairs.
Along the entire length of each tentacle sprawled countless spherical nodules and tumor-like protrusions—so grotesque that anyone with trypophobia would find the sight unbearable.
Then it happened.
The tips of those two tentacles, now looming mere paces from Han Eol, split open with a sickening sound. And from within burst forth—coated in viscous secretions—living creatures.
The one on the left resembled a Dragon Race, its entire body covered in glistening scales.
The other appeared to be an entity wreathed in bark, bearing an uncanny similarity to the Zodiac of the Spirit Race.
‘Ugh. It’s fused those things to the tentacle tips? Urgh—’
The nausea that seized Han Eol transcended all bounds of revulsion.
At that instant, the eyes of both fused creatures snapped open.
Flash!
A bolt like lightning erupted, hurtling toward Han Eol’s soul.
This was no ordinary lightning. It was a spiritual attack that disregarded all matter and substance, tearing only at the soul itself.
‘Agh?!’
Han Eol gasped in shock.
The instant fear gripped him, an energy barrier sprang up in a protective sphere around him.
It was useless.
The spiritual lightning—the Spirit Lightning—that had lanced from that grotesque tentacle tip passed through the energy barrier as if it didn’t exist and tore into Han Eol’s Soul Sea.
Boom—
In that same instant, the 108 Asuras that had clung like statues to the outer wall of his Soul Sea swarmed forth like hornets to meet the Spirit Lightning.
Each Asura bore three faces—one gazing ahead, one to the left, one to the right—and their entire bodies gleamed blood-red.
These Asuras—these blood-Asuras—threw their forms against the Spirit Lightning, absorbing the blow.
Each collision shattered fragments from the blood-Asuras’ bodies, yet each time demonic spirits welling from the Blood Sea seeped into their forms, restoring them.
As Han Eol held firm against the Spirit Lightning assault, a second creature—the other Spirit Slayer fused to a tentacle—made its move.
Whoosh—
This time a razor-edged blade shot toward Han Eol’s soul.
Neither was this a blade of physical substance, but the Spirit Sword—one that cut only at the soul.
Han Eol’s energy barrier proved useless once more.
Even the scales of a supreme Dragon Race offered no defense against spiritual attacks.
In the end, the Spirit Sword flew into Han Eol’s Soul Sea without a sound, darting straight overhead.
Immediately, half of the 108 Asuras were deployed to intercept it.
Spirit Lightning and Spirit Sword clashed above the Blood Sea, and the 108 blood asuras fought desperately to defend against the enemy’s onslaught.
But the blood asuras alone struggled to withstand the terrifying attacks of the Spirit Slayers.
And with good reason.
The Spirit Slayers, whose tentacles had been forcibly fused with their bodies by this bizarre entity, were themselves Transcendent Beings who had advanced beyond Highland’s 4th Continent all the way to the 3rd Continent.
For the blood asuras to have held out this long against the attacks of such Transcendent Beings was no small feat.
As Spirit Lightning and Spirit Sword tore through the crimson Soul Sea—the Blood Sea—with mad fury, Han Eol found himself on the brink of panic.
‘No, this won’t do.’
Desperate now, Han Eol sent the Omniscient Hand into his own Soul Sea.
Fortunately, the method worked. The Omniscient Hand seized the Spirit Sword by force and shattered it. Then it clenched tight around the Spirit Lightning, snuffing it out.
‘Ugh. It hurts.’
But in the process, Han Eol felt a pain as if his palms had been seared by white-hot lightning and sliced by a blade.
Then the bizarre entity’s will burrowed into Han Eol’s mind once more.
[Heh. You repelled your seniors’ attacks so easily? Impressive. I am so pleased with you that I shall combine you with a tentacle of considerable age.]
The bizarre entity extended yet another tentacle toward Han Eol.
Chapter 4
This tentacle was several times longer and thicker than the two before it.
‘Ahhhhh.’
Watching the tentacle ooze toward him as if to swallow him whole, Han Eol felt his bladder nearly give way. At the thought of being forcibly merged with that grotesque thing, his entire body erupted in gooseflesh.
‘Damn it. I have to find the soul. Somehow, I have to find that entity’s soul.’
Han Eol pushed himself frantically.
But no matter how hard he searched, the enemy’s soul remained invisible.
Even when he swept across it with Akine’s Eye sprouting from the Omniscient Hand, and even when he deployed Gilit’s Eye, he could see nothing at all.
‘I can’t see it. If I can’t see it, I can’t extract the soul. How am I supposed to handle this? Ahhhhh.’
Despair.
Utter, crushing despair.
In the end, Han Eol’s spirit broke.
In truth, from the moment he first encountered this entity, Han Eol had suspected it was a god.
‘How can a mere human like me dare to defy a god? If a god wishes it, shouldn’t I willingly surrender myself and become part of the divine?’
And this strange thought gnawed at Han Eol’s mind.
The Soul Harvester Puppeteer
Author |
Junon
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Corp.
Editor in Chief |
Editorial Department
Published by |
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
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@dreambookss
Submissions |
[email protected]
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Samyang C&C Corp. – 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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