Immortals vs. Grim Reapers - chapter 50
Chapter 50. Ghosts Die Twice (2)
[Why do you think I don’t know?]
The Prince of Gangreung answered nonchalantly, but Ju Gangrim read the hidden agitation within.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know; he couldn’t know.
No, he didn’t want to know.
Because the Prince of Gangreung was not an ordinary person, but a powerful shaman.
“If you knew who I was, you wouldn’t be talking about life threads and hell.”
Ju Gangrim cackled as he wildly swung his hand axe at the enhanced ghouls.
The enhanced ghouls were strong. And the ‘sal’ clinging to his life thread was pushing Ju Gangrim to the brink even with minor crises.
But that was all.
Ju Gangrim had enough skill, strength, and luck to withstand both the ‘sal’ cast by the Prince of Gangreung and the attacks of the enhanced ghouls.
This was all the Prince of Gangreung had.
If he could overcome this, the Prince of Gangreung’s head would be next.
“A shaman who doesn’t know the identity of the person trying to kill him? Shouldn’t you be throwing rice grains and shouting ‘Why are you here now! What’s that on your back!’ as soon as you see my face?”
It was a statement heavily biased against shamans, but it also dug into the Prince of Gangreung’s solar plexus.
The Prince of Gangreung had no answer after that. It was an implicit acknowledgment.
Ju Gangrim fluttered the hem of his robe towards the charging enhanced ghouls and whispered to the Death Sword.
“I offer ten years.”
***
“Damn it, damn it, damn it…”
The Prince of Gangreung muttered, scattering rice grains on the floor. The floor was already full of rice grains. These were the grains he had scattered to see the divination he wanted.
And he had spilled countless amounts of blood on the floor and summoned ghosts to find out the identity of the one attacking him.
But he couldn’t figure out Ju Gangrim’s identity at all.
“How can this be my fate?”
When he killed and interrogated Ttaekachi, he learned the three characters of the name Ju Gangrim. But that was all.
He couldn’t find out where Ju Gangrim was born, where he worked, or even when he would die.
From the start, he thought it strange that Ju Gangrim was still alive even after he cast ‘sal’ on his life thread.
The Prince of Gangreung is the strongest shaman in Korea. With that level of effort he put into casting the ‘sal’, unless protected by a general-level guardian spirit, one should have died instantly from a heart attack.
That’s only possible when hiding in a safe house; even a guardian spirit can’t protect if one deliberately puts oneself in danger.
‘Yet he keeps surviving even as he throws himself into peril.’
The Prince of Gangreung wondered if Ju Gangrim had a powerful guardian spirit attached to him and tried to find out. But he only felt a bizarre and gloomy energy; Ju Gangrim was entirely alone.
‘Can a mere individual possess luck at the level of a guardian spirit?’
The Prince of Gangreung shook his head.
Having ‘sal’ attached means that regardless of how long one’s life thread is, ‘accidental death’ will come. It’s human fate to die from choking on saliva or standing up after sitting for too long.
That’s one’s horoscope, one’s fate.
It’s destiny in the realm of the individual, something that can’t be helped.
“Just what is your true identity?”
The Prince of Gangreung could feel the enhanced ghouls being dismembered and sliced outside even now.
The enhanced ghouls should have been enough to hold Ju Gangrim for sufficient time. No, given the level of Ju Gangrim he had experienced, they could have even inflicted fatal wounds unless he wielded that lightning.
But the Prince of Gangreung couldn’t imagine the enhanced ghouls winning.
He could only envision Ju Gangrim, covered in blood, kicking down the door and sneering at him moments later.
Just then, an eerie air seeped into the Prince of Gangreung’s shoulder. He flinched and shuddered.
[I told you to serve me earlier.]
“Shut up.”
The Prince of Gangreung answered, trying not to look back. Behind him was the spirit he had accepted.
Over the past hundred years, the Prince of Gangreung had accepted countless ghosts.
And to bind them, he accepted the spirit of Jongmyo, the power to control all ghosts in this land.
He was certain he would become the true Shaman King, but the result was something he never imagined.
It wasn’t a ghost.
It couldn’t be called a general spirit or a deity. Though it called itself a king, the Prince of Gangreung instinctively knew he had failed.
The Hundred-Year Boy called this ghost a Dueoksini.
A monster that had become a swamp of evil spirits, with all sorts of ghosts merged together.
The Prince of Gangreung, lacking confidence to handle the Dueoksini, didn’t use an ounce of its power and only borrowed its authority to move the lesser ghosts.
Until now, that had been enough.
Until now.
“I won’t need to use your power. I can’t insult my ancestors.”
An eerie laugh spread through the air.
The Prince of Gangreung anxiously bit his fingertip until it bled.
He stared at the dripping blood, then began rolling rice grains stained with blood in his palm again.
The Shaman King who rules all ghosts on the Korean Peninsula.
Under such a Prince of Gangreung’s rule, even general spirits, guardian spirits, and ancestral spirits were mere lesser ghosts.
Especially since the opening of the ‘Gate’, it had become even easier.
Originally, inserting a spirit into a human body was an extremely difficult task, but after the Gate opened, it became simple, and even easier when fed the Shine Sand handed over by the Vito Family.
Thanks to this, the Prince of Gangreung came to believe that even the revival of the dynasty he had dreamed of wasn’t impossible.
But now, to crumble like a sand castle to someone whose identity he doesn’t even know?
However, the miserable result was approaching before his eyes. The Prince of Gangreung gritted his teeth and rolled the rice grains in his hand. Then his eyes widened at the result.
For the first time in nearly decades, the Prince of Gangreung divined his own fate.
How much of his life thread remained and how he could live.
He had tried a few times even after becoming immortal, just in case, but always got the same result, so he stopped doing it.
The result was ‘sal’ (殺).
Moreover, it was ‘suicide’ (自殺).
His life thread ended today. He couldn’t see how to live beyond this, or even how to avoid it.
The Prince of Gangreung felt his heart pounding. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead and his breathing quickened.
The fear of death he experienced in the museum was reviving. The scenery of the afterlife he saw when struck by lightning was creeping up, grabbing at his legs.
The Prince of Gangreung tried to stand but found himself sitting down without realizing it.
Die? Me? And by suicide, no less?
As the Prince of Gangreung who had wielded power and controlled fate through divination, shamanism, and horoscopes, he was more confident than anyone in the results he produced. But suicide?
It was impossible.
No despair or fear could break him.
No, even if it did, how could he, possessing immortal power, be killed?
The Prince of Gangreung had been burned, drowned, and shot.
Nothing could kill him.
He never had ‘sal’ attached to him.
The Prince of Gangreung frantically searched for a way to avoid this fate, but nothing was possible with the lesser ghosts he commanded.
“Damn it!”
The Prince of Gangreung wiped the sweat from his forehead while exploring every possible method. Even now, Ju Gangrim was approaching him with heavy footsteps.
Without even facing him, the Prince of Gangreung already felt like his heart might stop.
‘He’s alive even after being hit with ‘sal’. Then, I can do it too!’
The Prince of Gangreung scattered all remaining offerings, chicken blood, and even his own blood, and began to dance.
The knife and bell fan in his hands clashed loudly, making noise.
As the Prince of Gangreung danced frantically, he felt a cool sensation tickling his cheek. Again, he heard the Dueoksini’s whispering voice.
[Have you finally decided to serve me?]
The Dueoksini and the soon-to-arrive Ju Gangrim.
The Prince of Gangreung wondered which of these two he feared more. The deliberation wasn’t long.
“I… I will serve you.”
Again, cackling laughter spread. The Prince of Gangreung gritted his teeth and concentrated despite the laughter muddling his head.
Whether he performed a ritual to suppress the Dueoksini later or satisfied it with offerings, stopping Ju Gangrim was the priority now.
[You said his name was Ju Gangrim? You want me to repel him?]
“I will handle him myself.”
The Prince of Gangreung barely managed to answer.
“There’s some powerful guardian spirit behind him blocking the ‘sal’. Please defeat that guardian spirit.”
At the Prince of Gangreung’s words, the cackling laughter faded away.
Before the container door opened, the Prince of Gangreung reviewed Ju Gangrim’s horoscope, which he had already repeated several times.
Surely there must be a way to discover his identity somewhere here. If the evil spirit could sever that connection, he could find a way to deal with Ju Gangrim.
***
The Prince of Gangreung, along with the Dueoksini, delved deep into Ju Gangrim’s horoscope and fate. They traced his traces to find Ju Gangrim’s guardian spirit.
At first, they felt nothing but dark and gloomy energy.
However, the Prince of Gangreung borrowed the Dueoksini’s power to clear away the darkness and uncovered Ju Gangrim’s hidden horoscope.
Indeed, the Dueoksini’s power was immense, quickly revealing traces that the Prince of Gangreung hadn’t been able to find before.
The Prince of Gangreung shook his bell even more frantically, boosting the Dueoksini’s power.
The Dueoksini licked its lips at the strong power it felt from the Prince of Gangreung.
But the more he traced Ju Gangrim’s life, the stranger the Prince of Gangreung felt.
In Ju Gangrim’s life, there were more dead than living. Endless slaughter and scenes of carnage were the entirety of his life.
‘Is this guy some kind of Yaksha from hell?’
That’s when it happened.
Both the Prince of Gangreung and the Dueoksini felt the presence of a powerful being standing behind Ju Gangrim.
A dark and gloomy energy.
[It’s the spirit behind him.]
The Dueoksini realized that this very energy they had been feeling was the background spirit.
It was so large and massive that they couldn’t properly detect it, like blind men touching an elephant.
Indeed, there was an enormous guardian spirit behind Ju Gangrim. The Prince of Gangreung was almost overwhelmed by its scale for a moment, but he wasn’t even scared.
The Dueoksini he served was an evil spirit among evil spirits that had devoured all the ghosts in the eight provinces of Joseon and even stolen and borrowed the authority of kings. Who would dare stand against it?
‘It’s beyond the level of a general spirit. Is he really serving a Yaksha?’
The Prince of Gangreung thought that an ordinary human couldn’t possibly avoid ‘sal’.
In other words, if he could defeat this background spirit, Ju Gangrim would instantly die from the accumulated ‘sal’.
“I am the Shaman King who rules all ghosts in this land!”
Suddenly, glossolalia burst from the Prince of Gangreung’s mouth.
“Reveal your identity!”
But the background spirit showed no movement. The Prince of Gangreung raised his voice even more, as if in desperation.
The Dueoksini’s power was the strongest he had ever wielded.
With this power, it would be simple to crush Ju Gangrim. If only this background spirit weren’t there.
‘How great a being do you have behind you? A directional god? A king of the underworld?’
Now it was a fight close to stubbornness. He felt he could only be satisfied if he at least discovered the identity of this being.
The Prince of Gangreung stepped into a deep realm he had never entered before. He didn’t even know it was possible to reach such a level of depth.
But fear, his fate closer to death than ever before, allowed his steps.
[Ah!]
Suddenly, the Dueoksini let out a groan. Then that groan quickly turned into a terrible scream.
[Ahhhhh! No! Stop! Stop! No…]
Riiip.
With a sound like something being torn apart, the Dueoksini’s voice cut off. The Prince of Gangreung felt his shoulders lighten.
He frantically searched for traces of the Dueoksini, but couldn’t find any trace of it anywhere in the world.
It meant the Dueoksini had been annihilated.
In a single moment, without sound or presence.
Something revealed itself in the heated Prince of Gangreung’s vision.
There was a flower blooming.
No, the first thing the Prince of Gangreung saw was a floral print shirt.
But that was all.
Immediately after, the Prince of Gangreung’s vision went dark as if the lights had been cut.
The sharp scent of tobacco lingered at the tip of his nose.