Immortals vs. Grim Reapers - chapter 39
Chapter 39. The Shaman King (4)
Even as he staggered and fell, the Prince of Gangreung indicated the direction from which the bullets had been fired. Immediately, a storm of gunfire from the ghouls swept through.
The bullets shattered railings and walls, but the screams or groans the Prince desired were not heard.
“Find him!”
At the Prince’s command, the gathered ghosts scattered in all directions.
The Prince absorbed two ghosts.
The lead bullets lodged in his face popped out with soft thuds, and he recovered instantly. The Prince drew a deep breath and shouted loudly.
“Do you think you can defeat me with such childish tricks!”
As he shouted, all the ghosts in the museum simultaneously echoed his voice, yelling in unison.
With a voice that reverberated throughout the museum, the Prince roared at the insolent intruder.
“Wounds like these don’t even leave scars!”
The Prince drew the dagger strapped to his ankle and slashed his palm. As he squeezed and sprinkled the blood, the ghosts shrieked in unison and dashed through the museum.
Objects in the museum shook chaotically and fell, creating a cacophony. It was nothing short of a rampage, but surprisingly, the Prince remained calm in his thoughts.
‘He has no intention of running away. But if I show him that this area is as good as in my grasp, he’ll have no choice but to become cautious.’
With the ghosts running and rampaging about, Ju Gangrim couldn’t carelessly reveal himself. Moreover, the Prince was protected by a thick contingent of ghouls.
Ruler of spirits and flesh.
This was the ability the Prince of Gangreung possessed.
“I am the new king who will rule New Korea! The Shaman King with the authority to govern all ghosts in this land!”
“That’s definitely in the top 3 of the craziest things I’ve ever heard.”
The Prince twisted his lips at Ju Gangrim’s voice coming from behind a pillar on the opposite side.
Can’t even ambush properly but still running his mouth?
He wondered if the guy would still be able to run his mouth when encased in cement.
At a single gesture from the Prince, the ghouls swarmed forward. But what awaited them was a ghoul sitting motionless with its head cut off.
With a Claymore mine attached to its stomach.
Bang. Steel ball fragments tore apart the ghouls that had rushed in.
Splat, splat.
The Prince watched blankly as blood and flesh splattered across his face and body. It seemed that over a third of the ghouls had been blown away by the explosion.
“Lopez, that minion of yours, was doing some funny things with zombies.”
This time, Ju Gangrim’s voice came from a completely different direction. The Prince gritted his teeth at Ju Gangrim, who was attacking with tricks without revealing himself.
But regardless of his anger, the Prince had no intention of being fooled by the same trick twice.
He manipulated the ghosts roaming the museum, pushing them all towards where Ju Gangrim had been.
“Jang Han-taek was also pulling some funny tricks. Did he learn from you?”
However, Ju Gangrim took a deep breath and shouted loudly.
“Spirits of the dead, heed the call of the afterlife!”
It wasn’t something he knew or had been taught. He simply shouted what sounded impressive.
It might have worked even if he had said something like “Teletubbies, assemble!”
But powerful language that one can immerse oneself in tends to carry strength, and this shout had a greater effect than a simple yell.
Crack.
A sound like an iceberg splitting echoed through the museum.
It was the sound of all the objects that had been shaking falling to the floor as the ghosts simultaneously froze in place.
The Prince was flustered when he realized the ghosts weren’t obeying his commands.
Ju Gangrim was equally surprised.
Until now, he had seen ghosts flee in surprise or scatter, but never prostrate themselves like this.
At that moment, Ju Gangrim gradually realized what had changed.
His robes had been completed.
Ju Gangrim was now in the full form of a death messenger from head to toe.
Until now it had been a temporary phenomenon, but Ju Gangrim could feel that his robes had finally become complete.
The moment Ju Gangrim declared himself a being of the afterlife, the Death-Summoning Sword acknowledged him as a death messenger.
[The Death-Summoning Sword takes note of your growth.]
[The Death-Summoning Sword grants you permission for enhancement.]
Ju Gangrim knew what he needed.
“I’ll increase my defense.”
***
“You, what on earth is your identity…!”
The Prince had never seen anyone with stronger soul control than himself before.
He had been an unparalleled existence in this land for ages.
Just as he was about to become the rightful king of the dead, some madman had appeared.
The Prince gritted his teeth and forcibly moved the ghosts.
Though trembling, the ghosts began to gather in the center of the museum, as if being dragged by the Prince’s power. Soon, the ghosts began to chaotically mix and merge into the bodies of the ghouls.
The possession that Jang Han-taek had done was now being forcibly performed on the ghouls’ bodies.
The ghouls instantly inflated their muscles while letting out monstrous cries.
“Go!”
Whether this guy was truly a superior shaman or whatever, he wouldn’t have the ability to extract forcibly possessed ghosts.
The rampaging ghouls, seemingly intent on not letting Ju Gangrim escape, discarded their guns and charged.
Ju Gangrim pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed it at them from atop the stairs.
An explosion occurred, but the ghouls used the corpses of their leading comrades as shields and pounced on Ju Gangrim in one breath.
Thud, thump.
Watching Ju Gangrim get instantly overwhelmed, the Prince gritted his teeth. No matter how skilled this guy was, possessed ghouls were on par with enhanced zombies.
There’s no way he could handle them in close combat…
Thud, thump!
Something shot up from among the ghouls.
They were fingers.
No, teeth.
And hair, and bones, and unidentifiable chunks of flesh and blood.
Thud, crack, crunch, boom, squelch, smack, crackle, bang.
“What the hell…”
Ju Gangrim, covered in blood and flesh from head to toe, was frantically swinging his hand axe, dismembering the ghouls.
He broke necks with ghoul feet, ripped off jaws with his hands, and swung his axe with eyes flashing an ominous green light.
Before his hand axe, the ghouls were mere trees being felled.
The ghouls tried to scratch, stab, and bite him, but his robe didn’t yield easily, as if made of rebar.
Their nails were torn off and teeth broken, barely managing to make a single hole.
But Ju Gangrim didn’t stop there.
“I offer 10 years of my lifespan to the Death-Summoning Sword!”
Shrriiiek.
The moment the hand axe that was the Death-Summoning Sword transformed into a long curved sword, the ghouls that were being felled now became rice stalks being harvested.
Ju Gangrim grinned as he sliced through the ghouls’ necks like bundles of reeds.
On his blood-soaked face, only his eyes and teeth gleamed.
The Prince unconsciously recalled the Yaksha painting he had seen earlier.
A Yaksha punishing the sinners of hell.
“Are you some kind of Yaksha?!”
Though hard to accept, the scene before his eyes was undeniably real.
***
Bang, crash, boom.
The ghosts sliced by the Death-Summoning Sword couldn’t remain in the ghouls’ bodies and escaped with screams.
When Ju Gangrim set foot on the last step of the stairs, piles of dismembered ghoul corpses were tumbling down behind him like mountains.
Atop this mass of countless corpses, Ju Gangrim wiped the blood from his face and stared at the Prince of Gangreung.
“The cleanup is roughly done.”
Ju Gangrim said, baring his teeth in a wild grin.
The Prince looked at the corpses of the dead ghouls as if he couldn’t believe it.
Ju Gangrim’s condition wasn’t normal either.
Wounds from being beaten, torn, and bitten remained all over his body.
However, Ju Gangrim seemed unperturbed, as if it wasn’t worth worrying about.
The Prince still had over 10 ghouls by his side. But the Prince felt these ghouls were now meaningless.
He felt completely defenseless before Ju Gangrim’s eyes. The composure he had when they first met was unimaginable now.
“I don’t know if these ghouls are all you have, but I think I understand one thing.”
“What?”
“Those ghosts. You extracted them from these ghouls, didn’t you? Exploiting them in life, exploiting them in death, and even extracting and exploiting their souls. You’re truly a model villain.”
The ghosts the Prince commanded were the souls of his dead organization members.
Normally, they should have become zombies due to the Gate upon death, but the Prince extracted their souls before they could turn, keeping them by his side to use.
He was truly an exploiter who thoroughly used up his targets.
The Prince gritted his teeth and shouted.
“Reveal your identity! There’s no way I wouldn’t know someone like you!”
“You’re acting like you have a lot of friends. I’m the death messenger who’s come to take you. Isn’t that enough to know?”
The Prince ordered the remaining ghouls beside him to open fire.
Ju Gangrim quickly disappeared back into the darkness.
The Prince tried to calm himself, but he hadn’t anticipated being so one-sidedly overwhelmed.
Until now, he had been able to handle most enemies just by commanding ghosts and moving the dead.
But Ju Gangrim was shattering all of that.
“The kings are all dead, idiot. It’s time for you to die too. Taste the iron mace of democracy.”
“Shut up!”
The Prince gritted his teeth and clenched his fist as if he had made a decision.
He slashed his palm again with the dagger, letting the blood flow. This time, the wound didn’t heal.
The Prince began chanting something as he let his blood drip onto the floor.
He was an exceptional shaman and successor, and the king of a shadowed kingdom.
As long as this land was full of death, he couldn’t be defeated.
“────.”
Not long after the Prince began mumbling a chant that sounded like both a song and a poem, the air in the museum began to shake.
All the ghosts in the museum started chanting in unison, mimicking the Prince’s voice.
‘What’s this?’
Ju Gangrim, hiding behind a pillar, realized something ominous was happening.
Thinking he should stop the Prince even now, he took out a gun he had prepared and fired at the Prince.
He knew ordinary bullets couldn’t kill an immortal, but he thought it might at least interrupt the chanting.
Thud, thump.
However, the bullets aimed at the Prince couldn’t penetrate the surrounding ghouls.
That’s when the Prince began to walk out from among the ghouls on his own.
Ju Gangrim flinched at the sight of the Prince. Blood tears were streaming from the Prince’s eyes.
The Prince seemed unaware of his condition as he began to move his body.
“…Dancing?”
The Prince started dancing while shedding blood tears. At the same time, his voice grew even louder.
The chant carried an unpleasant rhythm that made one’s stomach churn.
As the dance began, something flowed past Ju Gangrim’s feet.
It was ghosts.
Ghosts, melting and becoming fluid-like, were being drawn towards the Prince.
The ghosts in the museum had now become a great river, and the Prince was swallowing them all.
The lyrics of the Prince’s mumbled chant began to drill into Ju Gangrim’s ears.
At the first death, the first degree of impurity.
At the second death, the second degree of impurity.
At the third death, the third degree of impurity.
All impurities go to you.
Though he couldn’t understand what it meant, he could tell it was some kind of curse.
Ju Gangrim felt increasingly anxious.
The longer the Prince’s dance and song continued, the worse the situation seemed to become.
“Did you think I’d just stand by and watch while you dance?”
Ju Gangrim pulled out all the bombs he had and threw them at the Prince.
He thought he could at least shut the Prince’s mouth, but it was just a delusion.
The Prince, his eyes rolling wildly, simply stared at the falling cluster of bombs.
Boom.
The bomb cluster fell with a thunderous noise.
There was no explosion.
Thud, thud.
Simultaneously, the sound of ghouls collapsing was heard from various places.
Ju Gangrim was left speechless at the sight of only the Prince swaying and dancing on the lower floor.
The Prince’s dance moves could hardly be described as human.
Ju Gangrim was reminded of a masked dance.
The image of dancing while wearing a long-sleeved outfit and a smiling mask.
But the Prince’s dance was more like a long-limbed mollusk or sea anemone swaying about.
Just watching it made him dizzy and nauseous.
Impurities wandering everywhere.
Impurities defiling the garden.
Impurities defiling the main hall.
Impurities defiling each gate.
Impurities clinging to people, begone.
Suddenly, the Prince swung his arm rapidly.
Swoosh!
Ju Gangrim felt an eerie wind brush past him. But nothing unusual happened to his body.
Instead, his spirit phone urgently rang.
«Yeomna: ? What’s this. Your life thread suddenly got thicker.»
«Yeomna: Seems like no ordinary skill. Are you dealing with some formidable sorcerer?»
«Yeomna: Ah, you’re already dealing with the Prince of Gangreung?»
«Gangrim: Please pay attention. But what do you mean it got thicker?»
«Yeomna: Not thicker. It got more deadly (sal).»
«Yeomna: It means a fatal destiny suddenly appeared in your fate.»