Bang!
Sensing a presence behind him, Kang Taeshik instinctively turned and blocked the attack. He then looked at the corpses attacking him and shouted in shock.
"How can corpses...!"
An unbelievable situation was unfolding. The corpses of the villains he had personally decapitated were rising and attacking him. Even the severed heads, previously rolling on the floor, were enveloped in a blue aura and floated up, reattaching themselves to their necks!
"Undead?!"
Though surprised, Kang Taeshik reacted quickly. He immediately lowered his stance and swung his daggers at them.
Slash!
Slash!
Slash!
Against the enemies that don't die, the first priority is to take away their mobility. Kang Taeshik's attacks mercilessly severed the undead's legs. But once again, the blue aura leaked out and reattached the severed limbs.
[Grooooowl!]
"What the hell are these things..." No matter how much he chopped them up, the undeads' bodies kept coming back together. Kang Taeshik, gritting his teeth, was forced to retreat. At that moment, three of them simultaneously attacked him.
Thump!
Suho, who had been still until now, grabbed the corner of a fallen display shelf and swung it.
Crash!
The large convenience store shelf smashed into the three undead, shattering their bodies, and itself splitting into multiple pieces.
"Whoa." Kang Taeshik, who had retreated momentarily, looked back at Suho with a strange expression.
"For a Summoner, you have quite a lot of strength..."
He hadn't expected any combat prowess from Suho. Guiding them here with his beast's ability was practically the end of his role. But such monstrous strength?
'Is he perhaps a Druid-type?'
These days, it was trendy to classify hunters based on their skills, by using terms from games. And one of them was 'Druid.'
Druids in games were generally divided into two main types. Those who sent their summoned beasts to the front line while supporting from the rear. Or those who fought in close combat alongside their summoned beasts. Judging by his current actions, Suho seemed to be the latter, a hybrid between a Summoner and a Tanker.
'...He might be more useful than I thought.'
Kang Taeshik, lost in thought for a moment, snapped back to reality and focused on where the undead had been thrown to. Physical attacks couldn't kill them.
Groan!
As expected, the undead were wriggling under the shattered shelf, getting back up unharmed.
Moreover...
[Grooooowl!]
[Grooooowl!]
Perhaps due to the earlier commotion, more undead started appearing and swarming outside the convenience store.
"We came here to catch villains, and now we have to deal with this?!" Kang Taeshik let out a hollow laugh, his expression incredulous.
The convenience store was ablaze. Undead that kept getting back up no matter how much he dismembered them. It was like a scene straight out of an apocalyptic movie. No, at least zombies in movies could be killed. The problem with these guys was that they reattached their severed body parts no matter what he did to them.
Kang Taeshik gripped his daggers in reverse and shouted.
"Sung Suho! Let's get out of the building! Take the front line with your Summoned beast!"
"..."
But there he heard no response. At that moment, Suho was recalling the 'Mad Tyrant' he had encountered in the Demon Realm. If the Mad Tyrant was a parasitic demon that wore the corpses of demons like armor, wasn't it possible that these zombies were also someone possessing dead human bodies?
'Could they be apostles of Itarim?'
But something felt different from back then, even though he wasn't quite sure what.
'The obvious difference is that there are no name tags above their heads.' Which was evidence that these undead weren't normal magic beasts.
Moreover...
"Uhhh, uwaaaaah...!"
Suho's gaze was drawn to the screaming villain who had caught his eye earlier. He was still hiding inside the shield, bleeding profusely, but the sight of his comrades turning into undead had made him lose it.
'Alright. Let's start with this guy.' Suho narrowed his eyes and shouted.
"Mr. Kang Taeshik!"
"What! I said I need some help here!" Kang Taeshik was busy dealing with the undead swarming in from the outside.
"Buy me some time there!" Suho ordered.
"Wh-what?! I'm an assassin, not a tank...!"
Kang Taeshik was flustered. Of course, even as an assassin, a B-rank hunter like him could handle this many enemies quite easily.
Without waiting for his response Suho strode towards the villain hiding inside the shield.
"H-hey! S-stay away! Stay away from me!"
"Hey!!" As Suho approached, the villain cowered in fear.
"Come out for a second. Let's talk."
"N-no! Stay away from me!"
Bang!
Suho's fist mercilessly struck the transparent wall surrounding him. The shield however was sturdy. From inside, the villain shouted at Suho with malice.
"You think you can break my shield with brute strength?! My shield won't collapse until my mana runs out...!"
Bang!
Suho's fist struck the shield again, and the villain instinctively flinched. But the shield remained intact, giving the villain even more confidence.
"I told you it won't work! Stop wasting your energy and just get lost! You can't break my shield with your bare fists...!"
Bang!
"It w-won't..."
Bang!
"B-break..."
As Suho's punches grew stronger, the villain's voice grew weaker. Why was this happening?
It couldn't be. His shield shouldn't break from such crude physical attacks.
"Don't be so sure." Suho smirked and raised his fist once more. This time enveloped in black energy.
"If I hit it hard enough, it'll break."
And then, Bang!
Shatter!
The villain's eyes widened in disbelief, a fragment of the shield he was so confident in had shattered right in front of him, leaving a huge hole. Through which, Suho's hand reached in and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him out.
Gulp!
"H-how..."
"Hey." Suho lifted the shocked villain with one hand and glared into his eyes.
"Come out."
"P-please spare me...!"
"Stop with the pathetic acting."
Suho stared intently into the villain's widened eyes. No, to be precise, he was staring at something beyond those eyes.
"I said come out. You, hiding inside there." Suho smiled, a chilling grin spreading across his face.
As soon as he finished speaking. The villain's face, gripped by Suho's hand, went blank.
"...Ah." The villain tilted his head at an odd angle, staring blankly into Suho's eyes and mumbling.
"How did you know? How did You know? How did You know? How did You know? How did YOU KNOW?
Bang!
"Oh, sorry. You were so creepy, I hit you without thinking." Suho's fist slammed into the creature's head, silencing its incessant chatter.
Then, with dilated pupils, it stammered,
"...You, you're much creepier than me."
"Get out while I'm asking nicely."
"How could you know? How could you...?" The creature tried to repeat the same words, but Suho raised his fist again, silencing it.
'How did I know?' Suho's gaze shifted to the creature's head.
[???]
Name tags full of question marks.
Among all the villains encountered in the convenience store, only this one had such a strange name tag above his head. That's why Gray attacked this one first.
"Beru." At Suho's command, Beru, who immediately understood his intent, replied.
[I don't sense Itarim's presence. Rather, it feels more like... ] Beru had fought alongside Sung Jin-woo against countless enemies and was familiar with most races. In this situation, there was only one possibility.
[It seems to be a member of a Demonic Spirit Clan.]
"Demonic Spirit?" Demonic Spirit (魔靈). It literally meant an evil spirit.
[Yes. They are mainly ghost-type monsters that live in the Spirit Realm. Being non-material entities, they are difficult to kill with physical attacks.]
"As expected." Suho nodded and looked around.
Something had felt off all along. How could a fire be raging like this without the buildings' fire suppression system activating? Suho grabbed the Demonic Spirit by the collar again and said,
"I don't know where the illusion starts, but dispel it now."
"I-I can't. I'll die if I do." The Demonic Spirit panicked and shook its head vigorously.
But it's feigned expression didn't fool Suho. It was also part of the act. Suho tightened his grip.
"Should I kill you now?"
"It's a lie. You lie. You can't kill me..." That was when it happened.
[Skill: 'Bloodlust' activated.] The Demonic Spirit shuddered as it met Suho's gaze, its dilated pupils reflecting pure terror.
[Effect: 'Fear' has been activated.]
[The target's stats are reduced by 50% for 1 minute.]
What was this feeling?! The Demonic Spirit felt its body grow limp, as if it were struggling underwater. And it saw it. The deep abyss contained within the black shadow stretching behind Suho.
"Who, who are you? Why do you carry such a deep aura of death?"
The Demonic Spirit felt itself shiver in fear before Suho. It wasn't just because of the Bloodlust skill. As a spiritual being, the Demonic Spirit felt as if it could be swallowed at any moment, by the endless abyss always accompanying Suho.
"...Alright, alright." Finally, the Demonic Spirit, overwhelmed by fear, succumbed to Suho's demand. At that moment.
*Fwaaaaah-!
The illusion that had enveloped the convenience store vanished. And the true state of the village, hidden beneath the illusion, was revealed.
"Ugh. What the hell is this?" Kang Taeshik, who had been grappling with the undead outside, grimaced.
Suddenly, a sickening stench of blood assaulted his nose, and an unbelievably gruesome scene unfolded before his eyes. Countless corpses lay scattered in front of the convenience store, drenched in blood. The once peaceful and quiet Yamri Village... was now a scene of utter devastation. A horrific massacre had taken place here even before they arrived!
"Were we under an illusion? I didn't hear anything about a villain with this kind of skill among the escapees." At Kang Taeshik's words, Suho glared at the Demonic Spirit with a ferocious expression, grinding his teeth.
"Tell me everything. What happened here."
"Th-that's... Aaaaagh!" The Demonic Spirit was about to respond when it suddenly started screaming.