LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 72
“The big kid next door is getting married, while the bachelor behind is heading to hang himself.”
The evil spirit sang a song, shoving its hand down its throat. Then, it pulled out a tongue so long it reached the floor, winding it around its neck and danced merrily.
Suddenly, it stretched its mouth wide open, tearing it apart as it shouted.
“Alright, let’s go hang ourselves!”
With that sound, countless tongues erupted like tentacles. Like an anemone extending its tentacles, the tongues grew longer and spread in all directions, targeting the necks of the countless diviners who stared at it in silence as if forming a siege.
“Disgusting! Damn it!”
Seeing the tongues flying towards them, the diviners began to unleash their special abilities using the cards in their hands. Those holding cards depicting swords drew them as if they were warriors using swordsmanship, while those with cards featuring staffs utilized spears sprouting from the ground and air to pierce the tongues.
The diviners maintained an exceedingly defensive posture, as if hunting a pack, keeping their distance from the evil spirit while only focusing on intercepting and piercing the incoming tongues. After numerous attacks, as dozens of the evil spirit’s tongues were skewered like pieces of meat, one diviner stepped forward.
In that diviner’s hand was a card depicting a vampire lady, her languorous expression and the blood dripping from her mouth indicating she was done with her meal. The vampire lady leaned back in her chair, resting her chin on one hand while the other held a sword that was dripping with what appeared to be the blood of something she may have slaughtered.
It was the Minor Arcana’s Queen of Swords.
“Oh, how gruesome.”
He gazed, horrified, at the evil spirit pulling countless tongues while barely holding on to its loose head, and from the card, he drew forth a sword made of blood.
The blood-made sword, as soon as it was wielded, coursed through the diviner’s veins, enhancing his body. Perhaps because the diviner was behaving in a feminine manner, powers only applicable when held by women were activated.
Authority and intimidation born from magic resided in the sword.
Thanks to the magical symbol, the sword, now reinforced, became hard and sharp, unbelievable for being made of blood.
After confirming the blood’s essence flowing along the blade, the diviner plunged the blood-made sword straight into the evil spirit.
The sword, stabbed at an angle, pierced through the evil spirit’s solar plexus and dangling head, and as the evil spirit impaled on the sword realized its body was caught, it flailed ineffectually before grinning.
“Well, well. Alive I hang from a noose, dead I dangle from a sword.”
Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!
The evil spirit laughed lopsidedly, as if about to burst apart with laughter, and then disintegrated like that.
With a sound as if paint was smudging, it spilled out messily onto the ground.
The remnants that had fallen were emitting a horrific stench, as if they had been scavenged from a junkyard, and for some reason, had a sticky nature.
“Geez, couldn’t even die gracefully.”
“Still, surprisingly we did it! It’s weird that such a disgusting evil spirit was dispatched so easily.”
“Oh, come on. No matter how strong it seems, there are many of us against one evil spirit—what could it do? It lasted this long against us, which is remarkable. Plus, it didn’t disappear so easily. What would have happened if we were just ordinary diviners? Ho ho.”
As he celebrated their victory, he eyed the remains left by the evil spirit, feeling a tinge of unease at how easily they had triumphed.
“By the way, this stench is overwhelming. With insects as the medium, is this the usual smell?”
“That can’t be! The medium of necromancy… Wait a second. Damn it.”
The diviner with a rough tongue approached the remains, sniffed, and spat out curses.
“This isn’t the stench from the medium!”
“Eww, the smell of evil?”
The smell of evil.
A smell produced by ghosts.
A ghost drowned in water emits the stench of fish.
A ghost stabbed by a sword emits the smell of blood.
A ghost that died in a guesthouse emits the smell of decay.
A ghost burnt to death emits the smell of cooked flesh and char.
And, a ghost that hanged itself is said to smell of excrement.
The remnants left after the evil spirit vanished were emanating a pungent stench of waste, an intensely strong odor that pierced the nose.
Moreover, while a ghost’s form is seen through the eyes, the scent of a ghost is felt with the soul.
All souls within the area of influence could distinctly sense this foul smell.
“Oh no, damn it. This will attract swarms of ghosts, won’t it?”
As he recognized the stench’s true nature, he kept cursing and went to the makeshift kitchen in the tent to grab some salt. Meanwhile, the diviners moved in harmony, blocking the tent’s entrance with mirrors.
Just as he was about to sprinkle the salt…
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A rough knocking came from the mirrors as a voice shouted.
“I’m here for a reading!”
“Open the door, please!”
“I know everything inside there.”
“You’re open for business now, right?”
“Just open the door!”
Amidst the earnest voices of several people, the mirrors set up as walls began to shake.
But the diviners kept their lips tightly sealed, merely sprinkling salt over the mirrors.
“Hey! There are customers here!”
“You fortune-teller! You’re not opening the door for someone who’s come for a reading?”
“Come greet the guests! Open it, open it!”
“I know everything in there; why isn’t anyone coming out?”
“Please open the door! Please open the door!”
Bang—!
Bang! Bang!
As the diviners sprinkled salt, the voices grew more agitated, almost frantic, and the banging on the mirrors intensified in response. The mirrors, standing in as walls, shook violently, about to topple at any moment.
“Is anyone there? Anyone at all?”
“Oh geez, do you think just because I know what’s in there, I’d leave if you don’t open up?”
“Oh my, did you lock it up tightly? Run your business already!”
“Is it so hard to acknowledge someone pleading this earnestly?”
“Please open the door! At least poke your head out! You need to show some sincerity! That’s what people do!”
“Is there anyone there? Anyone at all? No one?”
“Is there anyone there? Anyone?”
Bang—!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Answer me!”
“If not, say so!”
“Is there someone? Or not?!”
“I know everything inside, so why are you shutting your mouths and refusing to answer? Oh my, do you think I’m just going to walk away like this?”
“Will you please open the door?”
“Will you please open the door?”
Then, with a voice heightened by rage, the banging resonated once more.
clink!
The mirrors that had been set up shattered into pieces, and the tent’s entrance swung wide open.
In the ragged opening, there stood the evil spirit, dripping filthy blood from every hole in its body, smiling upside-down.
“Looks like there is someone here?”
Behind it, another evil spirit with a thin, elongated body resembling a maggot grinned as well.
“Hey there, fortune-teller. Please tell me my fortune.”
And once they started speaking, more evil spirits behind them poured in like a swarm, sticking their heads through the tent’s entrance and calling out one by one.
“Please move aside the salt!”
“Will you please let us in?”
“Just tell us we can come in!”
“You are open for business now, right? You are open for business, right?”
“They should be welcoming customers while being in business!”
In that hellish scene, the diviner ground his teeth.
“Ha. It seems like each and every one of their tricks is soaked in evil?”
“Disgustingly persistent, huh?”
He sighed as he looked at the salt darkening in color.
“It seems like my business prospects have gone up in smoke.”
* * *
Jinseong was enveloped in insects like a curtain.
“Om Amogha Vairocana Mahamudra Mani Padma Jwala Pravartaya Hum.”
He shaped the worms in a round mound as if piling dirt for a tomb, using mold and parasites as threads to create curtains that resembled a military tent. In the dim light of that insect-laden curtain, Jinseong sat cross-legged, continuously chanting his mantra, his eyes blazing with fire, piercing through the happenings occurring far off in the tent.
From his eyes, tiny pillars of fire shot out and disappeared, resembling prominences bursting from the sun.
Whenever the prominences erupted, some of the insects fluttering around would die and turn to ashes, which rotted and flew toward the tent on the wind.
The ashes swirled upwards, diving into the bodies of the evil spirits that had wormed their way into the tent, causing those spirits to fly into a frenzy, ignoring their own safety, charging towards the diviners.
However, the diviners continuously repelled the invading spirits with the cards they held, and this continued until dawn broke.
“Tch.”
As dawn arrived, the evil spirits outside began to disintegrate in the light, while those inside the tent evaporated even faster, reflecting in the mirrors amplified by the sunlight.
However, consumed with the ashes now clingy on their bodies, the enraged evil spirits, unlike their usual selves, continued to rush for the tent, charging towards the diviners like moths drawn to flame. And much like the tragic end experienced by moths, all the evil spirits met their demise.
As the last of the evil spirits vanished, the diviner let out a deep sigh, lowered a full-length mirror to the ground, and dove toward it as if taking a plunge into a pond.
Thus, the diviner concealed himself within the mirror.
Clink!
As he hidden himself, cracks formed in every mirror inside the tent, and they shattered into pieces like someone had set fire to them.
The flames roared, devouring the tent and everything within it in an instant, leaving only sparkling shards of the mirrors as ashes.
The mirror fragments, gleaming and reflecting the sunlight without a trace of soot despite the fierce flames, formed a shape.
That shape resembled a clenched fist, with something protruding that resembled a middle finger, inscribed with words on the back of the hand.
“Fuck you.”