Immortals vs. Grim Reapers - chapter 40
Chapter 40. The Shaman King (5)
Die? Ju Gangrim was flustered. Weren’t death messengers supposed to be immortal?
«Gangrim: Death messengers can die too? I thought my lifespan was 20,000 years?»
«Yeomna: Do you think everyone dies at their predestined time?»
«Yeomna: Having ‘sal’ means your fortune has turned so bad that you could drown by falling backwards and burying your nose in a plate.»
As Ju Gangrim had suspected, what the Prince of Gangreung had been doing was indeed a curse.
Ju Gangrim thought he might have heard of exorcism rituals before.
But this was a ritual to kill, a ritual to cast deadly fate.
Just then, the glass ceiling shattered, raining down towards Ju Gangrim’s head.
Ju Gangrim barely dodged, but seeing a glass pane larger than himself shatter right before his nose made him realize this was no ordinary situation.
“The ‘sal’ on our life threads is the same for both of us.”
«Yeomna: It’s not ‘fattened’, it’s ‘attached’, I tell you.»
«Yeomna: And you’d better stop it quickly.»
«Yeomna: The ‘sal’ is getting stronger, and it looks like your heart might stop as soon as the divine shaman ritual ends.»
«Gangrim: No way, why would a death messenger die to a mere shaman! Who collects the soul if I die?»
«Yeomna: Yeah, you’re right. You won’t die. Other immortals wouldn’t die from this fate-casting ritual either.»
«Yeomna: Instead, while you’re knocked out, he’ll carefully peel off your ‘sal’ and bury it evenly across the eight provinces.»
Ju Gangrim bared his teeth and fired his gun at the Prince of Gangreung.
If this was some kind of curse, hiding would be useless.
Misfortune would continue to approach Ju Gangrim, casting the shadow of death, and dragging out the fight would only put him at a disadvantage.
Ju Gangrim’s head-on strategy was to approach while suppressing with gunfire, then finish with the Death Sword.
As Ju Gangrim charged, the Prince of Gangreung swung his swaying limbs towards him. Thinking the arms were like incredibly long whips, Ju Gangrim barely managed to lower his posture and dodge.
Kagagagak.
Four large gashes were carved into the wall, shattering the exhibits.
It was the trace of the Prince’s fingernails. Ju Gangrim doubted whether the Prince’s current state could even be considered human.
Thirty-eight impurities go to the upper hall.
Twenty-eight impurities go to the middle hall.
Eighteen impurities go to the lower hall.
Whoosh, whoosh.
The Prince of Gangreung relentlessly swung his arms, slashing the museum to pieces. Ju Gangrim sighed as he watched from behind a pillar.
In the darkened museum, amidst countless corpses, a man danced with elongated limbs, shedding blood tears and smiling.
“What an unpleasant face to deal with.”
Unpleasant as it was, he had no choice but to face it.
The Prince of Gangreung had dismissed all his subordinates and challenged Ju Gangrim to a direct confrontation.
He was clearly using his most powerful sorcery.
If he could overcome this, the Prince would have no more tricks up his sleeve.
“It wouldn’t do for a death messenger to back down from a fight between an immortal and a death messenger.”
Ju Gangrim let out a long sigh, then charged towards the Prince of Gangreung.
Whirrrr, whirr.
With a sound of tearing air, the Prince’s hand whips slashed through the void repeatedly. Ju Gangrim focused more intensely than ever before. He felt the murderous intent approaching eerily.
Death lurked in every direction.
A misstep meant death, a slap from the hand whips meant death. Swallowing saliva wrong could mean death, even food poisoning from last night’s dinner could kill him.
Thud, thump.
The surging waves of death heightened Ju Gangrim’s senses to the extreme.
Paradoxically, from the moment he became aware of the ‘sal’ on his life, Ju Gangrim was demonstrating the focus of his prime.
Even as his body was being slashed, he was narrowly avoiding vital areas and parts necessary for movement.
Though the ‘sal’ was strong, Ju Gangrim believed in his luck that had sustained him through humanity’s final moments.
“I offer 100 years of my lifespan to the Death Sword!”
***
Kwajajajajak.
As the Death Sword grew explosively, a sound like thunder cracking echoed.
The hand axe that was the Death Sword instantly grew to Ju Gangrim’s height, scattering lightning all around.
Bang, kaboom.
Electronic devices everywhere exploded simultaneously, filling the surroundings with bright light.
Ju Gangrim had never offered 100 years of his lifespan to the Death Sword before. He felt that the more he enhanced it, the more difficult it became to handle.
It would be nonsensical to exhaust himself wielding a weapon beyond his capacity.
Even using 10 years made his whole body ache, and now he was using ten times that.
As expected, from the moment the Death Sword began to grow, Ju Gangrim felt his vision blur.
But his body was still moving.
‘That’s enough.’
Ju Gangrim swung the sword at the Prince of Gangreung as if to split him.
Kwakwakwakwang.
Lightning erupted throughout the entire museum.
Ju Gangrim could barely open his eyes in the blinding light. His whole body felt like it was shattering, his knees about to buckle.
But he couldn’t collapse.
Because the enemy before him hadn’t fallen yet.
Amidst the blackened, scorched surroundings, the Prince of Gangreung stood still, panting with burns and festering wounds.
Just as Ju Gangrim was barely standing, so was the Prince. The dance had stopped, but the cast ‘sal’ was still effective.
Ju Gangrim gritted his teeth and readjusted his stance.
‘He’s an immortal.’
Even if struck by lightning and charred black all over, he wouldn’t die.
Ju Gangrim swung his sword again. But this time, there was no explosive lightning like before. Only thin, thread-like sparks brushed past the Prince of Gangreung.
However, the Prince threw his entire body to dodge as if a train had passed by.
Bang, crack.
He threw himself so clumsily that the sound of something breaking could be heard as he collided.
Ju Gangrim smiled painfully as he glared at the Prince of Gangreung.
“Seems you’re quite scared of the lightning?”
The Prince of Gangreung glared back at Ju Gangrim as he struggled to his feet.
Both Ju Gangrim and the Prince of Gangreung were pushed to their limits.
No, to be precise, the Prince still had some strength left. But the Prince was looking at the Death Sword that had just displayed that insane power as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Lightning?”
The Prince muttered in a voice that seemed to have fallen to the depths.
“That wasn’t lightning… That was…”
The Prince struggled to find an appropriate term, but nothing in the world could compare to that phenomenon.
Ju Gangrim snorted and asked back.
“Seeing how scared you are of lightning, you must have committed many sins?”
Ju Gangrim didn’t know, but the Prince of Gangreung had clearly seen what had happened.
The first time Ju Gangrim swung his sword carelessly, it was merely aiming for his arm. Even the lightning that erupted didn’t even graze the Prince’s body.
However, the moment the force of the lightning brushed past his body, the Prince glimpsed hell.
Though brief, the Prince tasted the scorching pain of being submerged in the boiling pots of the Eight Hot Hells, his flesh peeling off. He felt the crushing pain of being trapped in the glaciers of the Eight Cold Hells, every cell compressed to the point of bursting.
In that fleeting moment the lightning passed, the Prince was trapped and tortured in that instant.
‘It wasn’t a hallucination.’
The Prince trembled, gasping for breath.
While studying shamanism, he had researched numerous hells and heavens. But even while serving ghosts and generals, he had only imagined what hell truly looked like, never seeing it once.
Even the general spirits and deities he served only spoke abstractly about the afterlife.
Having never seen it with his own eyes, the afterlife was just a topic outside his interest. After becoming an immortal, the afterlife was merely something to be sneered at.
But now he could say.
The afterlife exists, and hell was always waiting with its jaws open beneath his feet.
The lightning Ju Gangrim had created with his swing had merely shown a preview.
And this realization awakened a new emotion in the Prince of Gangreung.
Fear.
The fear that Ju Gangrim might truly be a death messenger come to take him.
“Phew…”
Ju Gangrim forcibly tensed his trembling hands. However, the Death Sword began returning to its familiar hand axe form.
Even that was shaking as if about to drop at any moment as the strength in his hand kept fading.
‘What to do about this.’
Ju Gangrim glared at the Prince of Gangreung with a bitter smile. It seems his training had been insufficient after all.
He admitted it was reckless, but Ju Gangrim had never been anything but reckless.
In the midst of the world’s destruction, survival itself was a reckless act.
He had survived even in the gu poison of high-level awakened ones like Gerald.
Ju Gangrim slowly began approaching the Prince of Gangreung. He ignored the feeling of his muscles tearing all over his body, the dizziness from blood loss, and the sensation of broken bones stabbing his nerves.
At the spirit’s command, the flesh moved honestly.
Thud, thud.
As Ju Gangrim slowly approached, the Prince of Gangreung also began to rise.
Ju Gangrim readjusted his grip on the hand axe and prepared for the final battle.
Ju Gangrim still had one last card, but it would be useless if the Prince had any strength left.
There was only one way to check if this card would work.
To use it directly.
As the Prince of Gangreung took a step, Ju Gangrim braced for the clash.
Tatatata.
At that moment, Ju Gangrim realized that the Prince of Gangreung was a more formidable opponent than he had expected.
Because he started running away before Ju Gangrim could approach.
Ju Gangrim stared blankly at the Prince’s retreating back for a moment before belatedly shouting with a curse.
“Hey, you son of a…!”
However, as Ju Gangrim tried to chase after the Prince of Gangreung, he stumbled and collapsed.
His entire body was at its limit.
The Prince’s body must surely be at its limit too, but there was no way to catch up.
Ju Gangrim frantically searched around and found a gun dropped by a ghoul.
Tatatatatat.
Gunshots rang out, and a few bullets hit the Prince of Gangreung. The Prince staggered and groaned in pain but continued moving without looking back.
His determination to escape desperately while limping was unwavering.
When the magazine emptied, Ju Gangrim crawled to pick up another gun. But most of the guns lying around were either out of ammo or broken.
Meanwhile, the Prince of Gangreung had already reached the museum entrance and was grabbing the door handle.
Ju Gangrim thought he had no choice but to try, whether it worked or not.
“Lee Hwi!”
Lee Hwi. That was the Prince of Gangreung’s true name.
Ju Gangrim’s soul summoning began.
***
Zing.
The moment Ju Gangrim’s voice rang out, the Prince of Gangreung’s face slammed into the museum’s glass door.
His body had seized up from the overwhelming pain, causing him to lose control.
Glass shards embedded in his face, but that was nothing compared to the tremendous agony tearing his body apart.
“Arrrggghhhh!”
Hearing the most wretched scream a human could make, Ju Gangrim realized the soul summoning had worked.
To be honest, it was half a gamble.
He had found the Prince of Gangreung’s name in the genealogy, but he couldn’t be sure if the Prince still recognized it as his true name.
Immortals live for ages and take on various names. Which one they consider their true name is a matter of personal consciousness.
Ju Gangrim smiled and tried to take a breath to perform another soul summoning, but he choked.
“Kak, keulek! Keok, heok! Heuk!”
Ju Gangrim coughed violently, his face turning pale, before planting his face on the floor.
Ju Gangrim belatedly realized that the ‘sal’ attached to him was still in effect.
To the point where even swallowing saliva carelessly could make him choke.
After a while, when his breathing finally calmed, blood-tinged coughs and drool streamed out.
The Prince of Gangreung, who had been clinging to the glass door handle and writhing, was now crawling out again.
“You, bastard, wait…!”
Ju Gangrim also crawled, chasing after the Prince of Gangreung.
It was the most thrilling chase in history.
The battle between an immortal who had just been commanding hundreds of ghosts and unleashing divine punishment and a death messenger was now unimaginable.
After a few bouts of coughing, Ju Gangrim managed to attempt another soul summoning with a hoarse voice.
“Lee Hwi…!”
But this time, there was no scream.
The Prince of Gangreung escaped the museum with both hands tightly covering his ears.
Ju Gangrim stared blankly at the sight before shouting in an angry voice mixed with bloody coughs.
“What, a soul summoning of all things doesn’t work just by covering your ears…!”