ALL NOVEL Chapter 257
Chapter 257. Full-scale Battle (6)
Yoo Ji-han lowered his posture in front of Yoon Do-ha, who was lying half-heartedly.
Right after Desa had turned himself into a puppet.
Yoon Do-ha’s eyes, which had been weakly lying down, were now precisely staring at his face.
“I knew it… You came.”
“Are you back to your senses?”
“I guess so.”
Yoon Do-ha opened his eyes and rolled them around to see how much he could move his body.
“It’s a sensation I’ve never felt in my life.”
“Can’t you move?”
“Yeah. I feel really gross.”
But the only thing he could move was his face above the neck.
No matter how much strength he tried to muster, his upper and lower body wouldn’t budge an inch.
“Magic Discoloration Syndrome…!”
Meanwhile, Kim Si-hu was touching Yoon Do-ha’s arm and shoulder, which had turned black.
This was proof that Yoon Do-ha was afflicted with Magic Discoloration Syndrome.
‘He’s conscious even after being afflicted by that illness?’
A human maintaining consciousness while suffering from Magic Discoloration Syndrome was beyond common sense, and Yoo Ji-han was astonished at this extraordinary ability.
What incredible mental strength this was.
“How’s that kid doing?”
“He’s asleep.”
“Make sure to take good care of him.”
Yoon Do-ha looked at the young dwarf clinging to Kim Si-hu with worried eyes.
He was the dwarf who had caused Yoon Do-ha to fall into Desa’s hands.
In fact, he was also the key reason this whole mess had occurred.
Yet, he wanted to protect the person he owed a debt to until the end.
“That bastard took my power.”
Having regained consciousness, Yoon Do-ha didn’t know the exact details of how Yoo Ji-han and company had made it this far.
But there was one thing he knew better than anyone else.
That Desa, with his greedy eyes, had ultimately obtained his power.
“Is that even possible?”
Magic fundamentally belongs to a single living being.
Unless it’s an extremely rare case like a contract between a spirit and a human.
No being can accept another’s magic into their body without side effects.
“If he had innate abilities and took great risks, it might have been possible.”
“Was he planning this from the beginning…?”
Desa’s skills specialized in crafting and controlling puppets.
Considering he had tattooed the patterns used for puppet-making on his own body ahead of time.
It seemed he had anticipated that things would develop into this situation from the start.
“Um, Do-ha.”
“Is Jae-kyung safe?”
“Yeah, I saved her.”
The last command Yoon Do-ha had given.
It was Mumu who had perfectly carried out the protection of Park Jae-kyung.
“Ji-han, did Mumu enter into a contract with you?”
“Yes. But don’t worry too much. It’s a temporary contract.”
“I’m not blaming you. I actually want to commend you.”
Yoon Do-ha recognized that Yoo Ji-han had entered a contract with Mumu.
Yoo Ji-han, who had contracts with two spirits, wore a very intrigued expression.
“If I weren’t in this situation, I would have enthusiastically proposed research….”
“This isn’t the time for that.”
“I know. We’re trying to chase that bastard.”
Desa’s body was filled with none other than Yoon Do-ha’s own magic.
Desa had transformed into a being akin to Yoon Do-ha’s avatar.
Therefore, in this moment, there was no one who understood him better than Yoon Do-ha.
“Touch my hair.”
“…?”
Yoo Ji-han cautiously touched Yoon Do-ha’s bangs.
Then, he felt a peculiar flow of magic through the thin strands of hair.
The magic was incredibly delicate and intense, almost unbelievable for something showcased through mere hair.
“What is this?”
“Follow that with Mumu’s magic exactly.”
“Excuse me?”
“There’s no need to grasp it with your head. I’ve already done the calculations.”
Yoo Ji-han, with a slightly puzzled look, followed Yoon Do-ha’s request.
Perhaps due to his anxious feelings of wanting to catch Desa, after a few tries and errors,
A new magic unfolded before his eyes.
[Wave of Ground]
Gul-lung!
The once-flat ground undulated like rough waves,
Pushing the three bodies that were there forward.
Kim Si-hu quickly looked at the wall approaching him and exclaimed,
“Whoa? We’re going to crash!!”
“We won’t crash.”
However, the wall blocking their path swung open wide, creating enough space to accommodate them.
Afterwards, the same situation repeatedly unfolded, and everyone’s bodies advanced frighteningly fast.
At that moment, Yoon Do-ha said,
“I’ll give you a brief lecture while we move.”
“Excuse me?”
“The one who took my magic. I can’t know him better than you.”
Yoon Do-ha flashed a cunning grin as he indicated he would teach them how to hunt Desa.
*
From her high vantage point, Min Yu-ri once again felt a slight tremor from the ground.
However, unlike when other puppets had appeared, her expression quickly hardened as the intensity of the tremor only grew.
“Let’s go down!”
“Chirp chirp!”
Eventually, she secured the bow fixed to the ground and jumped down with Chilla.
She got onto Chilla’s back, who was sliding down the slanted wall with a shield beneath her.
“Chirp? Master! What’s that?”
Chilla, riding on the shield-sled, was looking at a large hole in the ground.
Soon the diameter of the hole grew larger, and a human with Yoon Do-ha’s face popped out.
Pwoosh!
The moment Min Yu-ri spotted Yoon Do-ha, she quickly raised her bow and fired a magic arrow without hesitation.
However, the arrow missed its target and crashed into a sudden column of dirt that shot up.
“Kuhak! Found you.”
“……!”
The fake Yoon Do-ha, who had never spoken until now, began to speak.
Coincidentally, the direction he was facing was towards the shelter where the rulers were hiding.
Feeling an ominous presence, Min Yu-ri aimed her bow, and his palm reached out towards her.
Boom!
“Yaaah!”
“Chirp—!!”
With a shock as if a bomb had exploded underground, Chilla and Min Yu-ri’s bodies shot high into the sky.
Min Yu-ri struggled to cling to Chilla’s fur, doing her best not to fall.
“Who are you again?”
Lee Mi-a, who had rushed over to help, aimed a kick at the fake Yoon Do-ha, attempting to attack him again.
But her kick was easily blocked, and she realized that this opponent had a different aura than the puppets who showed the same movements every time.
It was because he had an exceedingly lively expression, unlike the very static puppets.
“Could it be… Are you Desa?”
“Oh! You recognize me?”
“Die!”
“What a rude lady.”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Lee Mi-a’s solid fists struck the earthen wall protecting Desa.
With every hit, violent sounds erupted, and shards of dirt were flung out.
But not a single effective blow landed.
“Ugh!”
Instead, sharp grains of earth attempted to dig into Lee Mi-a’s fists.
“I’m going to show you something very entertaining.”
[Ground Cannon]
Kwahkwahkwah!
Countless grains of earth rose from the ground, forming the shape of a massive cannon.
This was magic that Desa had been preparing even before revealing his form above the earth.
“No…!”
As massive amounts of yellow magic gathered into the cannon’s barrel, Lee Mi-a’s expression changed dramatically.
The direction the cannon was going to fire was where the rulers had gathered in the shelter.
If such an attack landed, the shelter would surely be annihilated in its entirety.
Even if the commanders were waiting next to the rulers of Maz, they were too close to figure out a countermeasure.
“Stop it immediately!”
“Bwahahaha!”
Boooom——!
A concentrated magical cannonball shot out from the cannon.
Seeing the yellow magic, Lee Mi-a rushed forward in horror but couldn’t catch up to the cannonball.
At that moment, Min Yu-ri’s magic arrow appeared in the trajectory path of the cannonball.
[Shape Change – Jelly]
The tiny arrow instantly transformed into a large jelly.
It was a mass that preserved the soft and bouncy texture of jelly.
Boing!
The magic-infused cannonball collided with the jelly, but thanks to the jelly absorbing the shock, the cannonball did not explode.
And the cannonball, its trajectory severely twisted, sailed past the shelter building.
Kwah——!
The cannonball dropped to the ground, creating a huge noise as it exploded.
The enormous vibrations and the hole that formed made everyone watching realize its power.
“She managed to deflect that…!”
Desa growled as he looked at Min Yu-ri holding the bow.
As he nodded slightly, mounds of dirt sprang up from the ground to target Min Yu-ri.
Min Yu-ri bent her upper body back to evade the attack.
But what Desa was aiming at wasn’t her—it was her bow.
‘Not falling!’
As the bow got stuck in the earth and wouldn’t fall, she bit her lip and pulled the necklace that Yoo Ji-han had gifted her.
The blade-shaped decoration that slipped from the chain of the necklace immediately changed to a size that fit her hand.
‘One more time!’
And just as Desa was trying to reload the cannon while avoiding the incessant attacks from Lee Mi-a,
Swoosh!
Yoo Ji-han and Kim Si-hu, who had followed behind Desa, suddenly surfaced from below the ground.
Among them, Kim Si-hu held a staff and muttered an unknown incantation.
[Promise of the Giant]
A huge oval formed in the air, and a giant’s finger emerged from it.
This was magic that even Desa, now filled with confidence from obtaining Yoon Do-ha’s power, could not underestimate.
Swoosh!
The giant’s finger that landed on the ground crushed the cannon that had fired the [Ground Cannon].
The cannon, utterly distorted in shape, dispersed its magic around and ultimately disappeared.
Then, with eyes narrowed sharply, Kim Si-hu aimed to attack Desa with the giant.
[Insufficient.]
“Ugh!”
Along with the bizarre voice, the giant’s finger vanished into the oval.
Kim Si-hu, seemingly overwhelmed, knelt on the ground with a pained expression.
‘I’ll kill you!’
Seeing an opening, Desa intended to strike before Kim Si-hu could use magic again.
The most threatening presence on this battlefield was undeniably Kim Si-hu controlling the giant.
“Mumu!”
Boom!
But Yoo Ji-han, using Mumu, calmed the quake of the ground.
Desa, with a distorted expression, exerted all his effort to control the ground near Kim Si-hu.
“That bastard…!”
“Um-mum…!”
Boom! Boom!
Boom! Boom!
A fierce struggle for control of the ground ensued between Mumu and Desa.
As a result, the ground split into various paths, only to stick together again repeatedly.
Thanks to Yoon Do-ha having regained consciousness, Mumu seemed to be gaining more power than before.
‘The puppets are coming.’
At that moment, Yoo Ji-han spotted the Thread of Truth getting closer.
The other puppets were slowly drawing nearer to the shelter.
“Lee Mi-a! Block the puppets with Yu-ri!”
“Got it.”
Lee Mi-a took Min Yu-ri with her and moved away towards the puppets.
It was because the numbers were far too daunting to handle with just the nearby knights of the shelter.
‘Now is the chance!’
With the two heroes gone, Desa’s eyes gleamed.
Having given up even on killing the panting Kim Si-hu, he focused on the original goal: the shelter.
If he could succeed in killing the rulers gathered there and the ones being protected by Watanabe, he could easily topple Maz’s entire command system.
‘With a single gesture, I could wipe out the rulers…!’
After Maz came Kabuum, and after Kabuum came Leron.
Once the Three Major Forces were down, he would bestow a humiliating death upon the Leron royal family that had ignored him.
The power to achieve this overflowed within Desa’s body.
“But why are you getting in my way—!!”
The man blocking him until the very end.
The one pointing a sword at him was none other than Yoo Ji-han.
Desa found this more irritating than anything else in this world.