Return of the Shattered Constellation

Yang Shin-Hae and the other two demonic Players seemed genuinely glad to meet the two instructors; they were very familiar with the pair, who were the first of the White Tiger Clan’s hounds sent to ambush and kill the three during the collapse of the Highoff Clan’s head office. The three demons had not expected to run into those very hounds in the Dungeon!

Just as Gi-Pyo said, the ‘gift bundle’ was so large, they could not stop laughing.

“How did you…!” the two instructors exclaimed, briefly frozen in shock.

The ‘Flail Devil’ Yang Shin-Hae, the ‘Sawblade Teeth’ Park Gi-Pyo, and the ‘Red Target’ Bae Woo-Gyeong—they had once been the highest-ranking Players in the Highoff Clan. If such people had entered the White Tiger Clan’s private property, that meant there was a hole in the Clan’s security.

The problem was that the three demonic Players had chosen this specific Dungeon out of all the other Dungeons that the White Tiger Clan owned. That meant they had to have ferreted out the Clan’s secret research facility.

“Hehe, what do you mean ‘how’? Of course, we proudly crawled our way into this Dungeon,” Shin-Hae replied. He took off a bracelet around his wrist, smiling slyly. Then, a pair of iron chains extended down from his sleeves link by link, hitting the ground loudly.

Thud!

At the end of each chain was a giant iron weight, larger than a human head. Shin-Hae’s weapons resembled the ancient Chinese weapon known as a meteor hammer. However, the weights on the end were also covered in spikes, which meant they could be considered flails.

“Anyway, it looks like we have a lot to talk about,” Shin-Hae said, grabbing the middle of one chain and starting to spin it around. Driven by centrifugal force, the iron flail head whirled around with a horrible sound that seemed as if it could split the air itself.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

He truly lived up to the title of ‘Flail Devil’.

Gulp!

The two instructors felt tense as they looked at Shin-Hae and the other demonic Players. Gi-Pyo, who was famous for being cruel as Shin-Hae, had also drawn his weapon, a sword that resembled a giant sawblade. If the two instructors fought with the three, the result would be obvious. Thus, they easily came to a decision.

Paaah―!

The faster instructor leaped backward and began to run, planning to notify the facility about the three demonic Players’ appearance and call for backup as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the other instructor leaped toward Shin-Hae.

According to the White Tiger Clan’s emergency manual, one instructor had to buy time for their other colleague to escape and arrive at headquarters. However, the remaining instructor was unable to reach Shin-Hae, as Gi-Pyo tried to cut him in half at the waist.

“Hup!” The instructor gasped, quickly deflecting Gi-Pyo’s attack.

Clang!

Gi-Pyo’s strike was so powerful that it made the instructor’s sword shake, to the point that his hands felt as if they would fall off at any moment. Meanwhile, Gi-Pyo smiled at the instructor and remarked, “Come on, you can’t be surprised already! We’re just getting started.”

Grrrr―!

The Sword Breaker, Gi-Pyo’s favorite weapon, was a sharp sword with a saw-toothed edge. Each time it clashed with the instructor’s blade, the heat and friction created a shower of sparks and a horrible sound that resembled that of a saw cutting through a log.

The instructor could not help but be intimidated whenever he crossed blades with Gi-Pyo. As expected of a demon, Gi-Pyo seemed extremely satisfied to see his opponent’s reaction. The more metallic screeches filled the air, the louder his cruel laughter became.

Clang! Clash, clang!

Meanwhile, as Gi-Pyo exchanged attacks with the instructor whose task it was to stay behind…

“Hmm? Where are you going?!” Shin-Hae called out, throwing his flail toward the escaping instructor with great strength. Propelled by the strong centrifugal force of the spinning chain, the iron weight flew high into the air, crashing down toward the instructor’s head like a bird of prey swooping down on its next meal.

The fleeing instructor quickly turned around, swinging his sword at the iron weight.

Bwoong!

Crack, shatter!

The instructor managed to deflect Shin-Hae’s meteor hammer to one side with great difficulty, but the flail head had landed with such force that it shattered both his sword and his arm. As sword fragments scattered across the ground, spraying sparks like a firework, the instructor tried to hold himself together despite his broken arm. However…

“Oh, you’re good! Now, take this!” Shin-Hae yelled. Seemingly not done yet, he then threw the other meteor hammer in his left hand at the instructor. The other half of the pair of meteor hammers struck the instructor’s torso like a shooting star crossing the night sky.

“Urgh!” the instructor groaned.

His weapon had been smashed to pieces, leaving him unable to stop Shin-Hae’s second attack. Several of his ribs broke from the impact, sending him rolling a great distance across the ground. The shock of the blow had ruptured his intestines, and it seemed as if bone fragments had punctured his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. He tried to resist, but he was ultimately helpless as Shin-Hae’s right meteor hammer, which he had previously deflected, crashed down on his head once again.

Rattle, rattle!

Smash―!

The collapsed instructor was unable to counterattack as the meteor hammer crushed his face, splitting his skull like a watermelon. Bits of flesh and pulverized brains sprayed through the air.

“Hahaha! He’s too weak! How can he be this weak?!” Shin-Hae exclaimed, laughing like a lunatic.

Shooting Shin-Hae a look, Gi-Pyo angrily shouted, “Be careful, you bastard! You shouldn’t kill off an important clue like that!”

“Why are you worried? You’ve got another one over there, right?” Shin-Hae retorted, still laughing as he gestured with his chin.

“Fuck! You’re making things harder for me!” Gi-Pyo grumbled with a frown.

Although he had a strong urge to spill blood, he had been desperately holding back that urge in order to search for clues. Shin-Hae, on the other hand, seemed to have no such priorities. Regardless, he knew Shin-Hae would never listen no matter how angry he got. Thus, he calmed himself down, deciding to subdue the remaining instructor first.

Clang, clash, clang!contemporary romance

In a flash, his blade clashed with the instructor’s sword countless times.

* * *

“What are you planning to do with us?” Chang-Sun asked.

“Although I don’t actually want to do this… I have no choice right now. I’m sorry, but you have to die.” Woo-Gyeong, the demonic Player who had not fought against the instructors, said as he approached Chang-Sun and Baek Gyeo-Ul.

Unlike the two instructors, who had looked vigorous, Chang-Sun and Gyeo-Ul were visibly tired. Thus, Woo-Gyeong, the weakest and most timid of the three ‘demons’, had chosen to approach them. Although Gyeo-Ul stepped up to protect the tired Chang-Sun, his clear signs of fatigue made him less intimidating than Woo-Gyeong, who was practically radiating demonic energy.

“Well, I don’t plan on dying here, you know?” Chang-Sun replied, quietly opening his eyes and staring at Woo-Gyeong after calming his boiling mana.

Although Gyeo-Ul turned to look at Chang-Sun, silently asking whether he was alright, Chang-Sun fixed his gaze on Woo-Gyeong with a smirk.

Woo-Gyeong thought Chang-Sun was simply bluffing for the last time in his life. It was a reasonable assumption, as he had sensed the instability in Chang-Sun’s energy; that suggested Chang-Sun would soon collapse from exhaustion if he overexerted himself. The countless murders Woo-Gyeong had committed gave him a keen sense for such things; he thought there was no way he could be wrong. Even though he was timid, he was still a ‘demon’.

“Well, regardless, please die now,” Woo-Gyeong said, pulling a giant ax from behind his back. It was a massive battle-ax, far larger than one meant for chopping wood; its blade was an unsettling shade of red, and it was difficult to tell whether the gore that coated it came from humans or animals.

Gripping his long spear tightly, Gyeo-Ul also prepared to fight.

“I’ll think about it if you can avoid that,” Chang-Sun said as he pointed at the sky behind Gyeo-Ul, sending a shiver down Woo-Gyeong’s spine.

The bright sunlight that had just been shining across the ground had disappeared, covered by shade as if a large cloud were passing through. However, the air was starting to feel unusually hot, too much for it to be a mere cloud.

‘Didn’t it feel like this just a little while ago…?’ Woo-Gyeong thought as he quickly looked up. “Wait…!” he cried.

When they heard Woo-Gyeong’s shout, Shin-Hae and Gi-Pyo glanced at him before instinctively looking up at the sky. What they saw made them freeze.

[The boss monster ‘Jigwi’ has appeared!]

Kieehh!

The new Jigwi let out an eerie shriek and quickly flew toward them. At first, it was so far away that it resembled a dot on the horizon, but it flew so quickly that it soon loomed overhead, looking one and a half times larger than the previous Jigwi.

“It seems they just happened to have recently had a baby. Well, I was curious as to how the female Jigwi would react after finding out about her mate’s death. Well, try your best to avoid her,” Chang-Sun remarked, still smirking.

Jigwis were boss monsters. Due to territory disputes, boss monsters usually lived alone, not in groups; however, there was a certain time in which they broke their habits—mating season.

Among birds, the female bird would incubate the egg, while her partner, the male bird, would seek out food for both of them. If a baby bird were to hatch, the male bird would have to find more food, as baby birds were always hungry.

The same thing applied to Jigwis. Although Jigwis were technically clusters of spirits, they were still living birds. Thus, while a female Jigwi tended to its egg, the male Jigwi would look for food. That was why the Jigwis in the Dungeon had left their beloved nest and begun gathering an abnormally large amount of food.

Chang-Sun had killed the male Jigwi. In order to hunt it down while it was wandering in search of food, he had set several traps, baiting them with monster corpses full of Ice Toxin. Then, he had successfully strengthened the [Fire of the Eight Trigrams Brazier] by stealing all its Eon Fire with [Soul Exploitation].

Now, the female Jigwi had noticed her mate was in danger, and flown over from far away! In that time, the male Jigwi had died, but she saw several people who looked like her mate’s killers in the era. Thus, the decision she had to make was simple.

Kieeeh!

[The Jigwi fires bolts of lightning!]

[A storm is raging.]

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

With a single powerful flap of the Jigwi’s wings, the air trembled, and powerful gusts of wind swept across the ground. Battered by the strong winds, the Players present could barely remain standing; nearby trees were uprooted, and boulders were sent flying.

Rumble, boom!

Rumble―!

That was not all, however. Accompanying the wind was a storm of lightning bolts and a rain of fireballs larger than a human body. The storm was so difficult to survive that the demonic Players and the surviving instructor were forced to stop fighting and work together.

Woo-Gyeong was no exception. He was forced to stop pursuing Chang-Sun and Gyeo-Ul, quickly swinging his battle-ax upward to destroy a falling fireball.

“Urgh…!” he groaned as the fire clung to his clothes wherever it landed, forcing him to spend a lot of time extinguishing it.

The heat and intensity of the Jigwi’s Eon Fire was truly terrifying. She was the flying embodiment of a disaster, able to collapse mountains and overturn the earth. That was the true power of a Jigwi.

The only reason Chang-Sun had been able to hunt a Jigwi was that he had ambushed it using properties that countered it. If he had resorted to normal methods, it would have been impossible for him to even approach the Jigwi.

However, the female Jigwi was furious, making her even more difficult to hunt than she would otherwise have been. As if to demonstrate why she was larger than her dead mate, she spared no effort in her attempts to kill the three demonic Players and the instructor.

“Shit!”

“What’s happening…?!”

“Meteor hammer! Throw your meteor hammer over there first! Tear your scroll too!”

Boom, boom, boom!

Rumble―!

The four Players who had previously been at each other’s throats joined forces and fought the Jigwi with everything they had, as the monster spread chaos across the sky and the ground alike.

At some point, however, Chang-Sun and Gyeo-Ul seemed to have vanished from the area.

* * *

“Shin-Hae! Dodge!”

“Arrggh!”

“Fuck! You stupid bastard, how could you get killed by it?!”

The mountain was in ruins, practically reduced to a flat plain. Scorch marks indicated where fireballs had fallen, and plumes of smoke and ash billowed up from the ground wherever fires had swept through.

The three demonic Players and the instructor, forced to run for their lives, had sustained so much damage that they felt as if they were about to die.

Just then, Shin-Hae had failed to prevent a fireball from landing on him, and was killed instantly. Gi-Pyo was clinging to life by a thread, but he had collapsed onto the ground after his right arm was incinerated by a fireball. Woo-Gyeong and the White Tiger Clan instructor were in relatively better condition, but they were far from fine, as their mana was depleted.

Kieeeh!

Of course, the Jigwi’s condition was no better. Even though she had an advantage at a distance, her opponents were far from being ordinary Players. The fight had shrunk her body to half of its original size and left one wing in tatters; she flew unsteadily through the air, as if she would fall at any moment. Perhaps the best term to describe the battle was ‘mutually assured destruction’.

‘…Huh!’ Gyeo-Ul silently gasped from afar as he watched the four Players.

He had despaired when he first saw the female Jigwi. However, after Chang-Sun advised him to use [Shadow Steps] to escape, he had been able to retreat to safety, albeit with great difficulty. Thus, Gyeo-Ul’s mind was full of questions as he watched Chang-Sun, who was meditating once again to focus on controlling his mana.

‘Who on earth is this guy?’ Gyeo-Ul thought, staring at Chang-Sun.

When he first met Chang-Sun, he had found the man suspicious in every way. However, the suspicion he initially felt had given way to a sense of intrigue toward a mystery: How could Chang-Sun have predicted that the female Jigwi would appear at that precise moment?

From the two Jigwis to everyone who had taken an interest in them, all those involved had been mere pawns on Chang-Sun’s chessboard. He controlled every variable; if one worked against him, he simply forced it to work in his favor instead. Gyeo-Ul had heard that Chang-Sun’s nickname was something like ‘Tyrant’. Although he was unsure where the term had come from, he thought there could be no more suitable nickname for Chang-Sun.

Just then, Chang-Sun opened his eyes again and grabbed [Tiamat’s Snaggletooth], his gaze sharp.

“Where are you going, sir…?” Gyeo-Ul quietly asked.

“What do you mean, where? I’m going to get another Jewel Eye,” Chang-Sun said casually.

Gyeo-Ul was dumbstruck to hear that Chang-Sun would kill the remaining Jigwi, even after successfully eliminating one. Chang-Sun’s greed was truly so endless that Gyeo-Ul felt as if it would swallow him up whole.

“However, your physical condition…!” Gyeo-Ul protested, trying to stop him.

“I’m feeling a lot better, and I’ve also replenished my stamina,” Chang-Sun explained.

Just as he said, he seemed to be breathing more calmly. He had been meditating not only to calm his mana, but also to eliminate his fatigue.

Regardless, Gyeo-Ul firmly insisted, “It is still dangerous.”

No matter how much power the Jigwi had used up, she would not be easy to fight alone. Chang-Sun would surely be eaten if he tried.

As Gyeo-Ul tried to stop Chang-Sun, Chang-Sun met his serious gaze with an odd expression. It was the first time he had shown any emotions around Gyeo-Ul; strangely, however, the look in his eyes felt like that of a father showing pride in his son.

“Don’t worry,” Chang-Sun said, his expression quickly fading as he passed by Gyeo-Ul—no, he actually had a faint smile that could only be noticed with close observation. The smile was different from the smirk he usually showed his enemies; this time, he appeared to be enjoying himself.

“I have a plan,” he continued as he pulled out the [Jigwi’s Right Jewel Eye]. The shining red Jewel Eye looked like a real jewel, leaving a beautiful yet grotesque impression.

Just like that, Chang-Sun shoved the Jewel Eye in his mouth like a hard candy, before swallowing it whole as if he were taking a vitamin pill.

At that moment…

Paaah―!

Kieeeh!

A tornado of fire, much fiercer and gloomier than when Chang-Sun had first absorbed it from the Jigwi, burst out of his body.

The Jigwi’s neidan, otherwise referred to as its core, was an important component that had just been added to the [Fire of the Eight Trigrams Brazier] that resided in Chang-Sun’s Integrated Magic Circuit. His Magic stat significantly increased once more, and the fundamental properties of the [Fire of the Eight Trigrams Brazier] changed completely. Its flames now blazed black and red; bizarre, echoing ghostly wail arose from the fire, as if thousands of spirits had been condensed into it.

If a Jigwi, a cluster of spirits made of fire, were to take the form of a human rather than a bird… It would look just like the current Chang-Sun.

“Is there a need to consume a Jewel Eye even after I absorb all the Jigwi’s fire?” Chang-Sun asked.

“There is,” Second Elder replied with a nod.

“Why? I’ll have strengthened the fire as much as possible, and it would be more efficient to turn the Jeweleye into an artifact or something,” Chang-Sun replied, not understanding.

“It’s still better to eat it. That way, rather than just ‘adding attributes’ to the fire, you can also ‘change its foundations’,” Second Elder explained.

After coming up with a complete plan to hunt a Jigwi in the Underworld, Chang-Sun had asked Second Elder about consuming its Jewel Eye, and he had been told that doing so would transform the Eight Trigrams Brazier’s properties, allowing it to contain true Eon Fire.

That was not the only advantage, however.

“Ah, one more thing,” Second Elder added, raising a finger.

“…?” Chang-Sun tilted his head.

“If you eat the Jewel Eye, you can become a Jigwi,” Second Elder concluded with a grin.

“…!” Chang-Sun’s eyes shone.

[The destruction and ghost attributes have been added to the ‘Fire of the Eight Trigrams Brazier’.]

[The fire’s properties are changing.]

[All the attributes have been merged, causing a transformation.]

[The doom attribute has been created!]

[The ‘Fire of the Eight Trigrams Brazier’ has turned into the “Eon Fire of the Eight Trigrams Brazier’.]

With Chang-Sun at its center, the tornado of fire suddenly began to change directions, gathering in one place.

[You have become a Jigwi!]

[Strength has increased by 2.]

[Agility has increased by 4.]

…

[You now understand the characteristics of the Jigwi.]

[You have learned to control spirits and Eon Fire.]

[You have learned ‘Wraith Form[1]’.]

[You have learned ‘Poltergeist’.]

[You have learned ‘Pyrokinesis’.]

…

[You can now use ‘Single Eon Fire’!]

[Single Eon Fire], a fire that was reputed to be able to destroy the world if its wielder desired it, rose up in the shape of wings. Wings made of black and red flames, the symbol of the Jigwi, sprouted from Chang-Sun’s back and flapped vigorously.

Paaaah!

In order to perfectly play both sides and monopolize all the Jewel Eyes, Chang-Sun once again leaped onto the battlefield, soaring through the air in a surge of embers that fell to the ground like feathers. The embers flared brilliantly before fizzling out.

1. The author made a reference to Reaper from the game Overwatch when naming this skill. ☜

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