Weapon-Eating Bastard [EN]: Chapter 263

Weapon-Eating Bastard – Episode 263

Seeing Kim Bo-sung and the Cheonggungdae warriors’ conditions, I amplified my voice with mana and shouted loudly.

“Soongmoo! Heads up!”

I never imagined I’d be doing something so conspicuous in this unexplored zone, where even concealing our presence was a challenge, but I needed to get everyone’s attention.

“Anyone who has come into contact with the black energy, report to me immediately! If you can’t move, have a comrade support you and bring you here!”

As soon as I finished speaking…

“D-Doryeon… Keueugh…!”

Kim Bo-sung, who always looked at me with admiration, suddenly twisted grotesquely and collapsed.

“Kuaaaa….”

“Eueueueu….”

It wasn’t just him.

Among the Soongmoo warriors, those who had been exposed to the energy emitted by Longinus, the main weapon, began to writhe like they were possessed.

I pinned Kim Bo-sung, who was convulsing, to the ground and immediately began extracting the Black ki [a type of dark energy].

‘Focus. I’ve done it once; it shouldn’t be too difficult the second time. I won’t stand by and watch the main family’s warriors turn into those monsters.’

I extended the Black ki, infused with the purifying power of the Soongjeong Choi family, and pushed it into Kim Bo-sung’s body.

“Kim Bo-sung, this might hurt. Grit your teeth.”

“Eu, eueuk! Do, Doryeon-nim…!”

I used mana to bind Kim Bo-sung’s convulsing limbs and infiltrated his body with Black ki.

The Black ki wasn’t just energy; it burrowed into Kim Bo-sung’s body like a living parasite.

“……!”

Kim Bo-sung twisted in discomfort from the foreign sensation.

I suppressed his movements and enveloped his entire mana circuit with Black ki.

‘It’s trying to take root. If it merges completely, will the corruption begin?’

The moment my Black ki touched it, the dark energy vanished, absorbed into my own ki.

Fortunately, removing the contamination didn’t take long.

I could hear warriors calling me, bringing those who were convulsing.

“Lee Chul Gongja-nim [Young Master Lee Chul]! Over here! Someone’s been affected!”

“Bring them here quickly!”

I immediately moved away from Kim Bo-sung and approached the next afflicted warrior.
A man with black hair and yellow eyes.

For a moment, I tensed, thinking the contamination had progressed too far, but he was simply from a branch family who had inherited the Soongmoo family’s blood.

I immediately pushed in Black ki, my eyes wide.

‘…Is it harder to extract the energy from those who share the Soongmoo bloodline?’

Sweat beaded on my forehead as I extracted the black energy from the branch family warrior, and I exhaled sharply.

It was twice as difficult as extracting it from those without the bloodline.

Now I was certain.

The main family’s bloodline must avoid contact with that energy as much as possible.

“Kkeuaaaa….”

“Hold on. It’s almost over.”

After extracting the last bit of Black ki from the remaining person, I took a deep breath.

I looked around to see if anyone else was approaching, but no one else was coming.

Not many people were contaminated, and few had come into significant contact in the first place.

“Kim Bo-sung, are you okay?”

“I… I’m fine. I’ve shown you an unsightly side, Doryeon-nim.”

Kim Bo-sung staggered and sat down, bowing his head.

During the convulsions, he had unknowingly kicked and punched me.

“Lie down. It’s alright. You couldn’t help it.”

“Still, thank you.”

“Thank… you. Youngest Doryeon-nim.”

“I am indebted to you for saving my life.”

As Kim Bo-sung bowed, the warriors I had saved began to rise, even against their will, and bowed to me.

‘A life-saving grace. I must repay it someday.’

‘I unknowingly committed the rudeness of reaching out to Doryeon-nim… and he doesn’t even mind.’

‘I don’t know what it was, but if Doryeon-nim hadn’t been here, we would have been in big trouble.’

Focusing on treatment, I inevitably got dirt on my clothes and was hit by the warriors’ flailing limbs.

However, I didn’t care and focused only on treatment.

Considering my position as a direct descendant treating Soongmoo warriors, it was an unusual situation.

Of course, I didn’t feel any pain from their blows, so I didn’t care, but from the perspective of the general warriors, it was a significant act of grace.

‘Hoo… Thanks to Head Butler Choi.’

I felt my stamina draining, but I was relieved that I had prevented the warriors from being contaminated with my own power.

If it weren’t for the Choi family’s power, or if Head Butler Choi hadn’t trusted me and left me my mother’s inheritance… I would have witnessed a tragedy.

“Hey, kid. What did you do?”

The Mountain God, who had been watching from the side, approached me with a bewildered look.

To him, it looked like I had simply touched them, and the wriggling, ominous energy had disappeared.

“I treated them.”

“How? I don’t think I could have done it either.”

“I received power from Head Butler Choi.”

“Head Butler Choi? Why are you bringing him up?”

The Mountain God tilted his head, then was startled.

“You don’t mean….”

“You probably guessed right.”

The Mountain God knew, even if only partially, about my maternal bloodline and the primordial monster.

And he seemed to know Head Butler Choi’s true identity as well.

Just from the fact that I had received the power from Head Butler Choi, the Mountain God seemed to understand the implications.

“……The heavens couldn’t read that guy’s energy. He finally left.”

The Mountain God wiped his nose.

“So tell me roughly. What was that energy? You seem to know quite a bit, considering you said you didn’t know?”

“It’s like a poison that contaminates the body and soul upon contact.”

“Poison?”

“Yes, but a little different.”

“Poison? Poison, huh… It felt like you were offering sacrifices to summon something when I looked at it….”

The Mountain God frowned and pondered.

But I didn’t have time to wait for him.

“Then I’ll get going. There seems to be a change in the Aerial Fortress.”

I stood up.

I sensed a strange shift from the Aerial Fortress, which had been silent.

Before returning to the base camp, I needed to get my story straight.

I turned and walked towards my eldest brother.

I saw him in the distance.

The moment I tried to approach, I questioned what I was seeing.

“……!”

Swish, swish!

My eldest brother was rolling up his sleeves, staring intently at his forearm.

There was black energy on it.

He was of direct lineage, and a considerable amount of time had passed since he’d been exposed, yet there was no change in his body.

And in an instant, the energy clinging to him like a leech lost its power and scattered like ashes in the wind.

Even as the black energy dissipated, my eldest brother stared blankly at his arm.

“……Eldest brother?”

I couldn’t explain it.

I felt something strange, a sense of unease.

I stopped and called out to him.

“…….”

My eldest brother slowly turned his head towards me.

“Hmm, maknae [youngest sibling]. What’s wrong?”

The fleeting sense of unease vanished, and there was my eldest brother, the same as always.

“You called people so urgently… Hmm? Why are you suddenly using the Evil Eye?”

I activated the Evil Eye and looked at my eldest brother.

Nothing was detected.

If there was a corrupted part or foreign energy, it would have been revealed.

“……What did you just do?”

“What do you mean?”

“That energy.”

“Hmm. I don’t know either. Suddenly, I felt a pain, and when I wished it would go away, it did.”

My eldest brother looked a little embarrassed.

‘Did he use the Mind Sword? No, I don’t even know if you can cut this energy with the Mind Sword. If you use mana strongly, you can shake it off… No way. It will only get bigger. What did you do?’

I recalled the unfamiliar look in my eldest brother’s eyes.

That subtle gaze that reminded me of my father or Lee Gun-sung when I was a child.

“Eldest brother, may I examine your mana circuit for a moment?”

“Oh, you rascal. Worry about yourself before worrying about your brother. Weren’t you and the second one the closest to that energy?”

“My second sister and I are fine. Excuse me.”

I abruptly grabbed my eldest brother’s wrist and channeled mana into it.

It was a somewhat rude act, but my eldest brother accepted it without complaint.

‘…Clean.’

A ridiculously powerful mana circuit without a single impurity.

The amount of mana, purity, nature, and both mana origins were all beyond normal, in perfect condition.

There was no foreign energy.

My eldest brother’s body was perfectly normal.

“So, how is it?”

“It’s fine.”

“I told you.”

“…….”

I stared at my eldest brother for a moment.

‘Isn’t the Choi family’s power the only thing that can purify Black ki? It didn’t even feel like it was purified, but….’

There’s no feeling that he’s hiding something.

I narrowed my eyes and released his wrist.

And, at that moment.

Woo-woo-woo-woong!

My eldest brother and I, no, everyone in this place, turned their heads simultaneously.

Towards the Aerial Fortress.

From the Aerial Fortress, which was removing a transparent barrier as if peeling off layers of veils, a ‘sound’ was heard.

-Children of this land, burdened with destiny….

A voice that sounded like a child, like an adult, like a human, like a monster….

Such an elusive voice.

No, rather than a voice, it was like telepathy, where the meaning itself was conveyed into the head, emanating from the Aerial Fortress.

‘The Aerial Fortress’s telepathic wave.’

I immediately understood what was happening.

The Aerial Fortress, which had been constantly silent, was conveying its will to humans.

-To realize what has disappeared, you must pass through the narrow gate.

-There are a total of seven bridges.

-Those who cross cannot turn back.

-All living beings will be able to cross the bridge.

-Now that the promised door has opened, come in and prove your worth as the owner.

-Only one who has achieved everything will obtain everything….

As the message was directly conveyed into their minds, the Soongmoo warriors looked at each other in confusion.

“Maknae.”

“I heard it too. It came from the Aerial Fortress.”

“……There’s no time to return to the base. I need to gather the brothers right now.”

“Yes, there’s no time to inform the family and decide. We have to decide here.”

The Aerial Fortress, with its opaque barrier being peeled off, was visible.

The barriers that had been peeled off, overlapping one another, soon reached the ground, creating something with a faint rainbow color.

That was the bridge.

I didn’t even count all seven, but instinctively, I knew it was the bridge the Aerial Fortress was talking about.

‘To enter the Aerial Fortress, you have to step on that bridge. And that means there’s some kind of test when you go in.’

The meaning of the other contents wasn’t clear, but I knew there was no time to spare.

And the word ‘seven’.

It didn’t mean that only seven people could cross.

However, I knew that the bridge wouldn’t be maintained indefinitely.

‘The number of people who can cross is limited.’

That’s why the number of bridges is fixed.

‘But I don’t understand.’

I frowned.

In the few records related to the Aerial Fortress in history books, there was no mention of such strange tests or contact methods.

It was only known that they contacted civilizations, shared and exchanged objects and technologies that defied explanation, and left leisurely.

Moreover, the phrase spoken at the end was bothering me.

‘Even in my past life… the Aerial Fortress has never acted like this.’

Something has changed.

“Oppa!”

“Maknae!”

“Hey, kid! Did you hear it too!”

The Mountain God, my brothers including my second sister, and the lords of each warrior squad came from all directions.

“There’s no time for a long meeting. I want everyone to focus.”

The eldest brother spoke quickly.

There was no need to grasp the situation or interpret the telepathic wave.

The Aerial Fortress’s message was directly injected into the mind.

Even without interpreting the words, everyone would have the same understanding.

“In history, the Aerial Fortress has never contacted us in this way. And as you all have noticed, I think it is necessary to go to the Aerial Fortress and cross the bridge right now.”

“I understand. So let’s head over there right now.”

The second sister said urgently.

But I shook my head.

“We can’t.”

“What? Why?”

“We don’t know what will happen inside or how long it will take. Since those here are the elite forces of the main family, not everyone can go.”

Currently, the family is protected by the basic escort units, the sixth sister, and the seventh brother.

The eldest brother, second sister, fourth and fifth twin brothers, Lee Seo-hyun, and I are here.

Including the warriors under them, the important warrior squads, and some of the Death God Squad and Spirit Sword Unit, which are the most important forces of the main family, are present.

It means that we don’t know what will happen if all the troops cross the bridge.

“We have to decide right now. Who will cross the bridge and enter the Aerial Fortress.”

The eldest brother said in a firm tone.

I intuitively knew that those words were directed at my second sister and me.

The eldest brother, second sister, and I.

All three of the family’s top powerhouses who can use the Mind Sword are here.

At least one of these three must remain.

“There’s no time. Let’s decide right now. Who will stay?”

With the eldest brother’s words, everyone’s gazes became entangled in confusion.