MPNS Ch 28

Chapter 28

“Kkieee—!”

The massive Hiohkan flipped its pale underbelly upward, writhing in agony.

Raymon had plunged downward from the air, driving his sword in and slicing down as if using a guillotine, severing about thirty percent of its body in one stroke.

The Hiohkan’s blood was blue — unlike humans, whose red blood cells contain iron, its hemolymph contained copper. It was insect-like in that way.

Indeed, as the Hiohkan was an insect-type magical beast, this was only natural. Its blue blood splattered across Raymon’s face.

Even as he swung his weapon-like shoulders in relentless arcs to hack the monster apart, Raymon looked faintly disgusted at the blood on his cheek.

“Things that are supposedly born from darkness — why do they even have blood? Shouldn’t they just turn into dust when they die?”

The Hiohkan that charged Raymon was about fifteen meters long — a full-grown adult.

Whether the one killed earlier had been their mother or not, the juveniles following behind let out piercing, tearing cries.

Lucien casually swung his whip, slicing the juveniles’ bodies in half, and silently agreed with Raymon’s comment.

Every time they hunted magical beasts, it struck him — contrary to the claim that they were born of Nashiu’s blood and flesh, or “born of darkness,” each species had its own distinct life history.

For all the beasts supposedly descended from the Light Dragon, none had a draconic appearance, nor did they display dragon-like traits.

And they seemed far too much like natural organisms to truly be called “born of darkness.” They were not mythic beings so much as oversized, vicious animals.

After a short while, in the wake of Raymon and Lucien’s rough work, the Hiohkan’s young were dead as well, like their mother, all overturned with pale bellies exposed.

As their blue blood seeped into the forest floor, the grass withered instantly — evidently poisonous.

Even drenched in that toxic blood, Raymon looked unbothered.

High above, Jikari reveled as if in his element, swooping down to grip multiple Yollok in his talons and drop them from the sky to their deaths.

“…What’s with that damn bird? Did you feed it something bad?”

“……”

It wasn’t as if Lucien ever fed it anything to begin with — but he could hardly admit that Jikari’s vigor in the air was thanks to Nikiel’s holy power.

The four commanders might not be friends, but they shared a certain comradeship — a sense of community born from surviving both the accursed madness and the wretched circumstances of their respective families.

That went for Yullan and Raymon as well, despite their mutual dislike.

All of them had long since abandoned any hope of gaining relief through contact with Nikiel.

All four agreed — without ever needing to say it aloud — that Nikiel must never be given power. It was like an unspoken pact.

So he could hardly go around announcing that he had touched Nikiel and discovered some startling holy power.

Nor could he admit that Jikari — who now soared the skies as though madness had never touched him — had shown no desire to leave Nikiel’s arms when nestled there.

All the more so because among the four, Raymon and Yullan despised Nikiel the most, convinced his very soul was rotten.

Thus Lucien simply brushed the Hiohkan’s blood from his whip and pretended not to notice Jikari wheel and cry above with newfound vitality.

Raymon, shading his eyes with one hand pressed to his brow ridge, was watching Jikari’s antics with the look of someone wondering if that damn rooster had eaten something foul.

Feeling a faint prickle of guilt, Lucien smoothly changed the subject.

“More importantly — how do you think they reached the capital?”

“There are two possibilities. One — the Hiohkan dug its way here seeking prey, and the Yollok followed behind, tunneling along its path.”

Yollok were fond of reinforcing the tunnels left by Hiohkan, shaping them into passages leading to underground cities. There, they imitated humans among the vestiges of ancient civilizations — not because they were truly intelligent or rational, but simply out of a fondness for mimicry.

Normally, Yollok did not roam in such small numbers. They lived as larger collectives in a kind of social structure.

From what Jikari had killed, their number was under twenty — meaning these were likely younger, more curious Yollok who had split off from their horde to follow the Hiohkan.

Raymon planted his sword in the ground, resting his hand on the hilt, then propping his chin on the back of that hand, looking disinterested.

While Raymon was perfectly polite and affable in front of outsiders, among the other commanders or those who knew his true self he was chronically grim-faced and curt, like a man with a deep-seated disdain for humanity.

It was not that he disliked the other commanders besides Yullan — this was simply who he was.

Lucien, meanwhile, was hauling the massive Hiohkan corpse to one side, waiting for Raymon’s “other possibility.”

Whether juvenile or adult, a Hiohkan was as large as a defensive wall, but for Lucien this was no great strain. He simply disliked dirtying his clothes, hence his unhurried pace.

When Raymon began, he had said there were two reasons — so the second would come now.

“The other is that an intelligent lifeform has appeared among them. Something able to rally the scattered beasts into standing against humans.”

Raymon’s reasoning was sound.

Magical beasts were not all mindless, insect-brained like the Hiohkan, or as dim-witted as Yollok, which had the intelligence of a young pup.

On very rare occasions, an individual of genuine intelligence emerged among them.

It was not that an entire species possessed intellect — only that, now and again, one would be born in any given monster kind: among the Hiohkan, among the Yollok, even among the Nixie with their ant-like hive minds.

Somehow, the other beasts seemed to know when such a being had appeared, and instantly gathered beneath it, acting as a single unified group.

In such times, they refrained from fighting each other, as though bound by an absolute hereditary command.

When that happened, magical beasts became far more tenacious and bothersome.

Worse, such unity meant severe food shortages: if large beasts refrained from eating the small, the latter’s numbers would explode, leading to starvation for both.

When hunger set in, their predation naturally turned toward human settlements — the foremost reason to be wary of intelligent monsters.

“They may have sent the Hiohkan and Yollok as scouts — perhaps ordered them to go to where the ground tremors are most frequent.”

Lucien silently agreed as Raymon elaborated.

The more people there were, the more the earth would tremble underfoot. To a subterranean beast like the Hiohkan, the sound of footsteps aboveground was everything.

They needed only to tunnel below, open their jaws, and they could snatch a meal with ease.

Thus, if an intelligent lifeform had arisen among the monsters, sending Hiohkan or Yollok as scouts would make perfect sense.

The sky was under Jikari’s protection — able to communicate with all birds, he cast an unbreachable surveillance net overhead.

There were many flying beasts, but none could pass unseen through the countless eyes of the birds.

Invisibility-causing creatures existed, but most crawled on the ground or moved through the trees — to avoid Jikari’s watch, one would have to travel underground.

“We should send out scouts of our own.”

At Lucien’s finger snap, flame ignited. It burst from the tip of his index finger, spilling over the piled Hiohkan carcasses.

The blaze engulfed them instantly. Even here in the heart of the forest, the fire burned only the bodies of the Hiohkan, as if with deliberate focus.

Raymon wrinkled his nose in irritation.

“The stench is awful. Must you burn them here?”

“Where else am I to drag them to burn? And I’ve no wish to soil my clothes carrying them.”

“It stinks like hell.”

Raymon’s handsome features crumpled in a grimace — yet even that only made him look like a brooding beauty.

Lucien ignored him, squinting against the glaring sunlight. With his poor eyesight, he disliked standing outdoors in full midday sun.

That morning, the fledgling had been pecking furiously at his laboratory window again, driving him to the edge of his patience.

Knowing it would go on chirping like a sparrow until it got what it wanted, Lucien had taken the bird outside, walking through the rear gardens.

Talk of “something going on” at the Prince’s Palace had left him unmoved — but when he crossed paths with Nikiel along the way, there had been a moment of dismay.

It felt like meeting the rake he’d long avoided on a narrow bridge.

But Nikiel, whom he hadn’t seen in some time, was… different.

‘He smelled good.’

His expression and eyes were healthy — utterly unlike the perpetually drugged look he’d once had. Some claimed Nikiel’s pale complexion was the height of beauty, but to Lucien it had always been the face of a man steeped in narcotics.