Chapter 143: Star-Forsaken Land (5)

A sticky tongue slithered across his cheek.

Slurp.

Mika’s hand crept downward, groping Kwon Oh-Jin’s butt.

Unimpressed, Kwon Oh-Jin finally said, “... get hurt.”

“

Hehe

, you won’t get hurt as long as you listen to me.”

“No, not me. You’re gonna get hurt.”

Mika furrowed her brow as if he were spouting nonsense. “What?”

Suddenly, she felt a hand grip her shoulder from behind. “What, Shiranui? Are you jealous?”

Assuming it was Shiranui, Mika slyly chuckled and turned her head only to find Song Ha-Eun, whose expression had twisted into something monstrous.

“

Huh?

”

Mika’s eyes darted around, searching for Shiranui. He had fallen to the ground in the distance, foam bubbling from his mouth as he clutched his legs.

“W-What the hell?”

Sensing danger, Mika instinctively took a few steps back. Before she could move any further, Song Ha-Eun grabbed her by the collar and yanked her in.

𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

“You motherfucking bitch.”

Her eyes shone with pure menace as she tightly grabbed the skull-shaped piercing embedded in Mika’s tongue.

“The hell do you think you’re doing, licking what’s mine?”

Swoosh!

The piercing tore through Mika’s tongue and fell on the ground.

“Eeehhhh!”

Blood gushed from Mika’s tongue. She clutched her mouth, screaming in agony.

“Y-You crazy bitch!” Mika shouted, her Seahorse Stigma flaring up with a black light. The seven strokes inscribed on her chest pulsed violently with dark energy.

The water dagger in her hand warped and twisted into a floating sphere. It then spun wildly in her palm, scattering water in all directions and creating a sticky, clinging humidity.

A damp mist spread through the air like the heavy moisture lingering at dawn after a heavy downpour. However, this thick mist caused more than a little discomfort.

“

Urgh!

”

“I can’t move!”

The Kuroushi members, who were locked in fierce battle against the Black Star Society members, cried in alarm.

The suffocating mist stretched across dozens of meters, wrapping around everything like a deep, inescapable pool of water.

“Yuh hare... houchhh me...?” Mika slurred as she gripped the swirling sphere in her palm. The sphere burst like a water balloon and exploded into dozens of blades.

“Hie!”

She thrust her hand toward Song Ha-Eun. The mist-cloaked water blades rained down on Song Ha-Eun, who had been immobilized.

“Cut the crap.” Song Ha-Eun chuckled dryly as she pulled out a cigarette from her pocket and placed it between her lips.

She inhaled deeply. Without even using a lighter, the tip of the cigarette burned red-hot.

“Haa...”

Exhaling a cloud of smoke, she flicked the cigarette.

“Burn.”

Whoosh!

The tiny ember at the tip roared to life, rapidly expanding into a blaze that consumed everything around it. The dense mist vanished, and the dozens of water blades flying toward Song Ha-Eun like bullets were also instantly swallowed, disappearing without a trace.

Mika, who had been glaring at Song Ha-Eun, gaped in disbelief.

“

Huh?

W-What the hell?”

The Seahorse Stigma didn’t conjure ordinary water. Its properties were entirely different, which also made it harder than steel. It didn’t boil when exposed to fire or freeze in subzero temperatures. Nevertheless, a cigarette’s flame had somehow completely devoured it.

“What the hell do you think, you bitch?” Song Ha-Eun smirked as she raised her fists into a classic boxing stance, bouncing lightly on her feet before launching forward. “Time for your ass-whooping.”

In the blink of an eye, she closed the distance to Mika.

Thwack! Whack! Smack!

The first punch struck Mika square in the solar plexus, and the next two landed lightning-fast just below her belly button.

“Gaaahk!”

Mika clutched her stomach and bent down, but Song Ha-Eun sent a devastating uppercut straight to her philtrum.

Mika’s bones audibly crunched and broke as she shot up into the air, seemingly having just jumped. She had been reduced to a bloodied mess.

“Hup!”

With a shout, Song Ha-Eun spun on her left foot and landed a flawless spinning back kick straight into Mika’s stomach. Mika shot back over ten meters before she crashed. Her eyes rolled back, completely unconscious.

“

Tsk

. Acting all high and mighty for nothing.”

Song Ha-Eun spat on the ground and turned to Kwon Oh-Jin. “And you, you little brat. Why the hell were you just standing there watching?

Huh

?”

“I was just observing what exactly the Seahorse Stigma could do.”

“

Hmph.

Real smooth excuse.”

She scowled and stepped closer to roughly wipe his cheek with her sleeve as if cleaning off a stain.

“I panicked for a second, but it turns out I was worried for nothing!” Sakaki let out a booming laugh and gave Song Ha-Eun a thumbs-up. “I always thought of you as just the Thunder Wolf’s lover, but you’re seriously strong!”

“

Hehe

. Right now, my rank is even higher than Oh-Jin’s.”

Sakaki's eyes widened in surprise. “Really? Thunder Wolf, you’re... a six-star, right?”

“I’m a seven-star,” Kwon Oh-Jin replied.

“Oh. Then that means... you're an eight-star?” Sakaki asked Song Ha-Eun. Sakaki himself was an eight-star Awakener, but with so few of them in Japan, it never crossed his mind that she could be one too.

“

Nah

. One step higher,” she said, straightening her shoulders.

“Nine-star...? T-That makes you a high-ranking Awakener, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“I-I never thought I’d meet another high-ranking Awakener besides the Elder!” Sakaki broke out into laughter. “I guess there’s more to be thankful for than receiving the Thunder Wolf’s help!”

Feeling the weight of the awestruck stares around her, she awkwardly cleared her throat and looked away. “

A-Ahem

. Please, you're overreacting.”

High-ranking Awakeners naturally attracted attention wherever they went, but the eyes of those around her practically sparkled with admiration. After all, not a single one existed in Japan.

In gaming terms, it was like suddenly dropping a diamond-tier player into a match filled with nothing but low-rank bronze and silver players.

Seeing Mika fall so effortlessly, the remaining Black Star Society members turned pale. They lowered their weapons, having lost the will to fight.

“N-No way.”

“Ms. Mika is...”

Seizing the opportunity, the Kuroushi members surged forward and swiftly subdued them.

Kwon Oh-Jin surveyed the now-settled battlefield. “Well, now that we’ve wrapped things up, let’s head deeper inside the hospital.”

He had to find out exactly what these people had been doing with the kidnapped Awakeners.

“Understood. Boys! Keep a close eye on these bastards so they don’t run away! We’ll interrogate them later!”

“Yes! Oyabun!”

“Oh, and bring the Yume Hanashi as well.”

“Understood!”

Yume Hanashi?

Kwon Oh-Jin cocked his head.

Kuroushi was the same... Do proper nouns not get translated?

Watching the members rush off, he turned to Sakaki and asked, “What is a Yume Hanashi?”

“Ah... well.

Hmm

.”

Sakaki hesitated for once, trailing off instead of giving a clear answer.

After a brief pause, he sighed deeply. “It’s an Astral Relic that makes the target drowsy and puts them in a hypnotic state. The effect is extremely short-lived. Once used, the target becomes immune to it in the future. It’s not exactly a reliable tool for extracting full confessions, but at least it helps us determine whether the information is true or not.”

Sakaki clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. “It’s not an item that a real man should use, so I don’t particularly like it. But when it comes to interrogating bastards like these, there’s nothing better for filtering out their lies.”

An Astral Relic with a mad effect actually exist?

“Well then, we can handle the interrogation later. Let’s head inside first,” Sakaki said.

“Alright.”

The other Kuroushi members stayed outside on standby while Kwon Oh-Jin, Song Ha-Eun, Sakaki, and Koshiro entered the building.

Song Ha-Eun glanced around the abandoned hospital. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much here.”

The only signs of life were the traces left behind by the Black Star Society members who had been hiding out here. Nothing explained why they had been kidnapping Awakeners.

“Hold on a sec.” Kwon Oh-Jin closed his eyes and activated Vega’s Hunting Dog. A faint lightning spread from him, sweeping across the entire building. “There’s a basement.”

“A basement?” Sakaki said.

“Yes.”

Kwon Oh-Jin walked toward the stairs leading downstairs. As they went down the steps, they soon came face to face with a tightly shut door.

“This door’s in perfect condition. Everything else around here is rusted to hell,” Song Ha-Eun commented.

“They must’ve installed a new one,” Kwon Oh-Jin said, inspecting the lock mechanism.

Rather than a modern security system that used fingerprint or retinal scanners, the door was sealed with an Astral-Relic-based lock, making it impossible to tell what kind of authentication was required to open it.

“Oyabun. Should I bring one of the captives?” Koshiro asked.

“There’s no need for that,” Sakaki replied with a smirk and stepped forward. “Stand back!”

The muscles in his right arm bulged to an unnatural size, and a powerful force condensed around his clenched fist.

Boom!

With a single punch, he obliterated the basement door and a chunk of the wall, revealing what was behind the door.

“What the hell... is this?” Kwon Oh-Jin said.

The room looked like something straight out of a mad scientist’s laboratory, packed with mechanical devices and lined with massive cylindrical tanks filled with clear liquid.

“T-These bastards... They’re not trying to make some kind of chimera out of monsters, are they?” Song Ha-Eun asked, her expression twisting at the mere thought.

Kwon Oh-Jin narrowed his eyes as he scanned the tanks. “Doesn't seem like it. All these tanks are empty.”

And if they were creating chimeras to use as weapons, it didn’t make sense that none had appeared in the previous battle.

“That makes sense. Then what the hell were they doing with—?”

“Wait, Ha-Eun.”

Kwon Oh-Jin cut her off and turned toward the corner of the basement. A door labeled “Control Room” creaked open, and a young man cautiously stepped out. He looked dangerously thin, like he hadn’t eaten in days. His white lab coat sagged strangely where his left arm should have been.

The young man’s eyes widened upon seeing them. “You... who are you?”

His gaze darted frantically around the room. “T-The two of them... Where did they go? N-No, wait.” His panicked eyes suddenly locked onto Sakaki. Running toward them, he frantically shouted, “S-Sakaki Ryo! Y-You’re really Sakaki Ryo?!”

Sakaki casually raised his hand. An invisible force slammed into the young man, sending him flying back into the wall.

Wham!

“

Kugh!

”

“Who are you?” Sakaki asked.

“

Haa... haa...

You’re... Sakaki Ryo, right?”

“That’s right.”

The young man on the floor suddenly burst into tears.

“

Huuu... hic... huuuuhhh!

Thank God... Thank God... F-Finally...

hic

!”

“What’s going on?” Sakaki said, confused.

“I have no idea,” Song Ha-Eun replied.

Song Ha-Eun and Sakaki exchanged puzzled looks, staring at the sobbing wreck of a man before them.

The young man wiped his tears and slowly pushed himself up.

“M-My name is Sakai Yuji.”

With a trembling voice, he explained how the Black Star Society had captured and forced him to take part in unspeakable work.

“Unspeakable work? Like what?” Song Ha-Eun asked.

“That’s...”

Yuji’s face went deathly pale. He clenched his eyes shut. “T-They were making me turn Awakeners into nutrients.”

“Nutrients?”

The word ominously rang out through the basement. Sakaki and Song Ha-Eun’s faces darkened.

“They submerged the kidnapped Awakeners in a special liquid created using the power of the Seahorse Stigma and... d-dissolved them.”

“What?”

Song Ha-Eun, Sakaki, and the others stared at him in stunned horror.

Liquefying people and breaking them down to be used as nutrients... Just imagining it was enough to make them feel sick.

“You son of a—!” Sakaki furiously roared, grabbing Yuji by the collar and holding him up in the air. “You bastards kidnapped my people and did that to them!”

His rage exploded and shook the entire basement like an earthquake.

Rumble!

Kwon Oh-Jin stepped forward. “Calm down, Mr. Sakaki.”

“How the hell do you expect me to stay calm in this situation?!”

“Then are you planning to bring this whole place down?”

After a brief hesitation, Sakaki clicked his tongue. He then bit his lip and put Yuji down.

“

Kugh! Kugh!

”

Yuji collapsed onto the floor and pressed his forehead to the ground.

Trembling, he sobbed and repeatedly apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry...”

Kwon Oh-Jin crouched in front of him. “You were captured and forced into doing this?”

“Y-Yes, that’s right.”

“And why should we believe you?”

“That’s...” Yuji trailed off with a bitter expression. With his head hanging low, he continued, “I understand if you don’t believe me, and... even if I was forced to do it, that doesn’t erase my crimes.”

He bit his lip. His eyes filled with melancholy.

“You can kill me here and now. No, please kill me.” Tears slipped down his cheeks. “But... before you do... I just have one request.”

On his knees, he slammed his forehead against the ground.

“Please... Please kill Kurosaki Sosuke... That monster... That human-masked demon...”

Tears pooled beneath him, soaking into the ground.