Chapter 207
Episode 67: The Witch Helluram’s Legacy (3)

Dr-r-rk, dor-r-rk…

Round stones rolled as they were nudged and pulled by the monster’s massive paws. It played with them nonchalantly, tapping and dragging with the tips of its claws, occasionally licking its own body—an unmistakably feline behavior.

The only thing setting it apart from a cat was its enormous size and the white leopard-like spots scattered across its jet-black fur.

Of course.

Jin had never heard of a monster that looked like a cat before. Though countless monsters existed in the world, none resembling a cat had ever been documented in scholarly records.

‘You want me to take that down…? It looks more like a spirit than a monster.’

The creature was still unaware of Jin’s presence nearby.

Thanks to that, Jin could observe it calmly for a while and soon realized that the thornbushes in this forest were the monster’s food source.

Crunch, crunch, crunch!

The monster munched on the thornbushes like sugarcane, making a loud noise.

Since settling here, the monster had lived for over a thousand years, feeding on these thornbushes.

When it cleared enough flat ground by eating the bushes, it would play with the rounded stones it had smoothed out—waiting for the thornbushes to grow back. Just like this.

Shak! Ssssh!

With a light swipe of its paw, a rock embedded in the ground popped up.

Before it even hit the ground, the rock had been rounded off, losing its original jagged shape. The monster gazed at the smoothed stone with satisfaction, letting out a small, contented cry.

‘I have to be careful of those claws.’

Jin shook his head, recalling the moment the monster’s claws briefly appeared while shaping the rock. They were sharp and curved like talons, slicing through stone as if it were a radish.

Could he get close without being noticed?

Just as he was about to move, the monster flinched and scanned its surroundings. Jin hadn’t expected to succeed in a surprise attack anyway—the poison in the air was too thick, forcing him to maintain his aura shield on top of the antidote potion.

The faint glow of the aura shield caught the monster’s eye. Its gaze shifted toward Jin.

“Kyaaak!”

The monster let out a piercing scream the moment their eyes met. It was deafening, but compared to the roars of the Underworld nobles, it was bearable.

Lightning gathered in Sigmund’s blade. The Thunder Slash was an excellent weapon even against large monsters.

‘I wonder how strong this thing really is… hmm?’

Suddenly, the monster turned and bolted deeper into the forest. It was so fast that Jin just stood there dumbfounded, staring at the spot where it had vanished.

‘Running away? That bulky beast is scared of me?’

He felt absurd even before the fight began.

‘No, it must have already encountered the Black Knights once. Maybe it’s terrified of humans now? The Black Knights probably subdued it without killing it and then left the forest.’

For some reason, Jin felt a pang of sympathy. It seemed the monster had been living peacefully alone in this forest, and here he was, barging in to play the role of the monster slayer.

‘…Anyway, I’ll chase after it.’

After all, defeating the monster was a test set by his father and Vanessa. He couldn’t back down just because he felt sorry for it.

But the sympathy vanished the moment he started the pursuit.

Crkzzzt, bang!

As Jin entered the deeper forest, a massive paw swung at him. The monster had been cleverly hiding among the thornbushes with its huge frame.

The paw smashed through the thornbushes like weeds, crashing down on Jin. He barely managed to block it with Sigmund, but his body was still thrown back.

Whoosh! Another paw came flying at the airborne Jin.

“Ugh!”

Unable to block with his sword, he struck the paw with lightning. The electric shock repelled the attack, but Jin was falling toward the thorn-filled ground.

Just before hitting the ground, he unleashed a burst of sword energy in all directions. Still, the thorns were too many, and his body was pierced and scratched. Thanks to Multa’s rune and his Black Light Armor, he avoided fatal injuries.

And the antidote potion kept him alive. Without it, the poison saturating the forest combined with the thornbush’s venom would have turned him into a corpse instantly.

He’d been thoroughly beaten from the start.

Jin stood up, letting out a deep sigh. Blood flowed from torn cuts all over his arms and legs, and his coat was in tatters.

Poison seeped relentlessly into his wounds, making his whole body feel like it was burning. The antidote didn’t erase the pain.

The monster didn’t attack again but leisurely disappeared deeper into the forest.

‘Right… I was crazy for a moment. Feeling sorry for a monster and thinking I was the bad guy. It must have already planned how to kill me the moment it saw me.’

The monster hadn’t fled out of fear. It was simply choosing a more efficient and safer way to deal with Jin, who hadn’t yet gauged its strength.

Meanwhile, Jin had been fooled by the monster’s familiar feline appearance and let his guard down.

No one had seen the pitiful sight of him being ambushed, thrown around, and bloodied while chasing the monster blindly, but he couldn’t forgive himself.

The white spots on its black fur reminded him of the giant butterfly Runcandel, and for some reason, he hadn’t wanted to hurt it. But that was no excuse.

‘I’ll deal with it properly.’

Grinding his teeth, Jin summoned his magic power.

He planned to summon Tess first and burn down this cursed thornbush forest. No matter how much it tried to run, the forest and trees were highly flammable.

But even after performing the summoning ritual to open the flame realm, the portal wouldn’t open. No matter how many times he tried, nothing changed.

‘…Hmph, what a mess. It doesn’t seem to be the poison, and my magic power is sufficient. Could this place be part of the Dead World like Laprarosa?’

In the Dead World, Tess couldn’t be summoned. Jin had learned this while training with the Underworld nobles in Laprarosa.

He quickly concluded that this forest was similar to Laprarosa.

Still, not having Tess didn’t mean he couldn’t burn the forest. Soon, a new crimson flame gathered in Jin’s left hand.

The Flame Orb.

A sphere of fire infused with seventh-star magic flew toward the dark thornbush forest. Upon contact, it spread like a net, instantly incinerating the forest’s edge where the monster had fled.

Then, Jin cast wave and wind spells in quick succession. He remembered burning forests like this when rescuing Mesa during his student days.

But the magic power he wielded now was incomparable. Even though the spells were the same, the wind carried a different force, and the fire engulfing the thornbushes was a seventh-star Flame Orb.

The forest quickly became a sea of flames. Still unsatisfied, Jin passed through the burning bushes and prepared another Flame Orb.

Surprisingly, the poison in the air didn’t burn away at all. Instead, the deadly toxins from the thornbushes mixed into the air, making it even harder to breathe.

It might hinder the fight, but Jin judged that if even he struggled with the poison despite the antidote, the monster would have an even harder time.

“Come out now, or I’ll burn this entire forest down!”

Whether the monster understood or not, Jin shouted in a booming voice filled with energy.

He threw three Flame Orbs in total.

[Kiiing…]

Finally, the monster surrendered. It let out a subdued, frightened cry as it trudged out of the flames.

‘Hah, it really is a strange creature. It looks like it’s telling me not to do this.’

Seeing its two ears droop and its eyes squint sadly stirred Jin’s guilt again.

The burning thornbushes were the monster’s home and only food source. Jin instinctively understood this as he faced the monster wailing amid the burning forest.

But he wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. If the monster let its guard down again, it would either leap to bite his throat or use some trick.

“Don’t pretend to be pitiful.”

The moment Jin said that, the monster’s eyes changed.

No use.

That was the clear message in its gaze. At the same time, Jin felt magic radiating from the monster’s amber eyes.

‘Magic!?’

It was a magic eye.

Jin hadn’t considered that the monster could use magic, so he couldn’t avoid the magic-infused amber gaze.

Among the old dark magic branches, many spells targeted the mind, driving victims insane. The monster’s spell was one of those, and Jin was already hallucinating.

It started with visions of his body being slashed by countless daggers.

Then, it showed the darkest moments of his past life. Within a single second, dozens of hallucinations invaded Jin’s mind.

The monster grinned wickedly as it watched Jin’s dazed eyes. Lost in the illusions, Jin couldn’t see the monster’s hateful smile.

Now, the monster only had to approach the trembling Jin, tear him apart mercilessly, extinguish the flames burning its home, and then quietly watch its corpse rot in the poisonous forest.

[Myaaah…!]

The monster let out a low, gloomy wail as it took a step forward.

But in the next moment, it couldn’t help but tilt its head in confusion.

“I really hate illusions.”

Something utterly incomprehensible had just happened to the monster.

Jin, who had been fully exposed to the monster’s demonic eye just moments ago, had somehow regained his senses. Now, his eyes blazed sharply with a deadly, fierce light.

The three mirages he’d faced in the Great Desert.

The faith he had forged through overcoming them, and through becoming a brother of the Meiwang clan in Laprarosa. What shaped Jin wasn’t talent—it was an unbreakable will.

This was the Jin who had endured even the third mirage, the desert where Temar Runkandel once stood, and swung his sword through it all. No clumsy mental magic from the monster could affect him.

He shattered the monster’s illusion with sheer force of will. For him, it was as easy as breathing.

“One second. I should’ve ended this when I was trapped in your illusion. And you… you seem to understand human speech, don’t you? Isn’t that right?”

This time, Jin smiled. The monster, frozen in place, bristled its fur and darted its eyes around.

Thud, thud-thud…!

Flaming thornbushes collapsed all around. From within the blaze, Sigmund once again radiated a blue light.

The Three Swords of the Meiwang Sword Spirit.

Judgment.

Without hesitation, Jin chose that sword.

“But I can’t understand what monsters say. So no matter what you shout, it won’t get through. Just shut up and swing your claws.”