Chapter 100
The ecosystem of the Demonic Realm was extremely diverse.
Swamps appeared frequently, there were lands as dry as deserts, and at times he would encounter treacherous terrain overgrown with vines and thorny bushes like a jungle.
‘Why are there so many damn vines?’
The machete never had a moment’s rest.
Entering the forest, Woojin continuously swung his blade, cutting down the vines that blocked his path.
By his estimate, he had to swing the machete once for every two steps forward. He had been doing this for over an hour already. Annoying. Tedious.
“Kiiiiiik!”
Suddenly, one of the vines bared fangs. Woojin reacted instinctively and swung his blade.
Slash.
The lunging vine was split cleanly in two. As it fell to the ground and writhed violently, he realized it wasn’t a vine at all—but a snake.
A snake with the exact same color and texture as the surrounding vines. Camouflage that blended perfectly into the environment.
‘That disguise was flawless.’
To be honest, he had noticed it a beat too late. Perhaps its metabolism was slow—the vine-snake had seemed completely still, not even breathing.
Venomous snakes can still bite after death, so caution was necessary. Thanks to his dragon scales he wouldn’t be harmed even if bitten, but out of habit, Woojin stomped down and crushed the vine-snake’s head.
‘This region has an unusual number of snake-type demonic beasts.’
The entire area was humid, with large and small lakes scattered throughout. Perhaps because of that, snake and frog demonic beasts appeared frequently.
The Naga clan had likely settled in the east because they favored such geography.
‘…Not my taste.’
The terrain was rough, and there were far too many insects.
Swarms of tiny bugs hovered around his face. Every time he inhaled, he nearly swallowed one. Woojin repeatedly waved his hand to shoo them away.
As he pressed on…
He encountered a massive swamp. Thick and viscous, like flour dough soaked in water. Fragments of bones and skulls from unknown demonic beasts lay scattered throughout the mire.
A scene steeped in silent death.
As a test, Woojin felled a long log and thrust it into the swamp.
Pwoook—
The swamp swallowed the log whole. Woojin’s expression stiffened.
‘…Just how deep is this?’
Impossible to gauge.
A quagmire like this was best bypassed. But the problem was that the swamp was absurdly wide, seemingly stretching across the entire forest.
Perhaps a great river basin had been corrupted by the Demonic Realm and transformed into this vast marsh.
‘If going around is difficult… then I either have to cross it somehow, or turn back the way I came.’
The latter option was unappealing. Turning back would cost too much time.
How could he cross this treacherous terrain?
Woojin stroked his chin as he surveyed the swamp. Before long, he noticed something peculiar.
Large boulders were scattered throughout the marsh. Like reefs jutting above the surface. They could serve as stepping stones.
‘Those rocks… did they form naturally?’
He found it suspicious.
The swamp seemed impossibly deep—so how were these boulders resting atop it? No matter how he looked at it, their presence felt out of place.
‘…Let’s test it.’
As the saying goes—tap even a stone bridge before crossing. Woojin picked up a stone and hurled it at one of the boulders with full force.
Clang!
The stone struck and bounced away. He threw a few more, but the boulder remained firmly in place without the slightest movement.
Seems safe enough to step on.
After building momentum with a short run-up, he leapt. His body arced through the air and landed squarely atop the boulder.
He scanned his surroundings. If anything seemed suspicious, he would immediately leap back to where he had come from.
…But nothing happened.
‘Guess I can keep moving.’
Woojin leapt again, landing on another boulder. A stable landing. After six or seven more jumps, he should reach the other side.
Rumble—
Suddenly, the boulder beneath his feet tilted. It began shaking violently without warning, throwing his balance off as well.
‘What the—?’
A bad feeling. Woojin hurriedly steadied himself and prepared to jump—
Squelch!
The “rock” shifted, and something emerged from below. A purple mass of flesh covered in sticky slime. Four protruding eyeballs waved freely like antennae.
‘A snail-type demonic beast.’
What he had stepped on wasn’t a rock—it was the shell of a giant snail. Like the vine-snake before, it had been disguising itself as part of the environment.
The snail twisted its flexible body to look up at its shell. Four eyes fixed on Woojin.
Screeech—
Its mouth split open. Inside were countless large and small teeth. It thrust its grotesque maw toward him.
In response, Woojin swung his blade toward the creature’s brow.
The snail’s head vanished.
…But not by Woojin’s hand.
Before the blade even touched it, the snail’s head withdrew instantly, retreating into its flesh. His machete cut through empty air.
Pop!
The head shot back out. Jaws snapping open again. Woojin prepared to swing, but something felt off.
He kicked off the shell and leapt away, landing atop another “boulder.”
Gweeeek—!
The snail spewed a stream of sticky slime. Black mucus splattered across the shell he had just left, hardening instantly like concrete.
‘Good thing I dodged.’
If he had been covered in that, his movements would have been severely restricted.
Just as he thought that—
Rumble!
The “boulder” beneath his current footing began shaking violently as well. In unison, every boulder across the swamp started to tremble.
…Every single one of them was a snail demonic beast.
Too far in to turn back now. He needed to reach the other side quickly.
Woojin leapt repeatedly, stepping across the shells of snails awakening from their slumber.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced behind him.
Crunch, squelch—
A swarm of snails crawled across the swamp’s surface.
Given their weight, they should have sunk immediately. Instead, they expelled slime that hardened the swamp’s surface, allowing them to move freely atop it.
‘Fascinating creatures.’
He could use this.
Woojin leapt high into the air. Then, activating his Weight Amplification ability, he drastically increased his body’s mass.
He plummeted downward.
KRAAASH!!
His two feet came down hard, crushing the snail’s shell beneath them.
The snail writhed in agony, spewing torrents of slime instead of foam.
Each time it expelled the mucus, the mire hardened. It was as if the surface of a lake were flash-freezing into solid ice.
A new path formed atop the swamp.
Woojin sprinted across it, cutting down and kicking aside the snails that blocked his way. The sound of cracking shells echoed without pause.
After that frantic dash…
“…Barely made it across.”
Somehow, he had crossed the swamp.
The snails gave up on chasing the intruder and retreated to their territory. Only then did Woojin allow himself to breathe.
‘I’ll need to find another route on the way back.’
That slime ability was extremely troublesome.
He had used it to cross the swamp, so he couldn’t complain too much—but it would be better for both sides not to meet those irritating creatures again.
“…Let’s get out of this damned forest quickly.”
Even if he tried to sit and rest, snakes and insects kept circling nearby, making it impossible to relax properly. It would be better to keep moving and leave the forest altogether.
He quickened his pace.
After roughly half a day of walking, he finally escaped the tiresome forest.
And then he encountered another forest.
He left a forest—only to find another one.
It sounded absurd, but this forest was entirely different in nature from the one he had just crossed.
‘Enormous mushrooms…’
A forest made of gigantic mushrooms. Woojin observed them with curiosity. Each mushroom was as thick and tall as a tree that had lived for centuries.
Glittering particles drifted down like snow. Woojin reached out and caught some in his hand.
‘Spores.’
He rolled the spores between his fingers, then cautiously touched his tongue to them. A sharp sting shot through him—like pressing his tongue to a battery.
‘As expected… poisonous.’
The shimmering particles were beautiful, but they were the spores of toxic mushrooms. A deadly poison meant to kill careless intruders.
Most living creatures would likely detour around this forest.
But the poison posed little problem for Woojin. He possessed resistance strong enough to endure even a dragon’s venom.
‘Should be fine to pass straight through.’
He walked into the mushroom forest.
Perhaps because the air was saturated with toxins, there were no insects here—unlike the previous forest. Woojin found that fact satisfying as he moved forward.
After about an hour…
He sensed movement above. Woojin raised his head to identify the source.
What he saw was—
A squirrel.
‘Hah. Quite cute.’
A creature whose appearance seemed out of place in the Demonic Realm.
But its size was far from cute. Each one was larger than an average adult man. They were gnawing on the skull of a monkey-type demonic beast as if it were a walnut.
The squirrels looked down at him with curious eyes. Each time Woojin advanced, they followed from mushroom to mushroom, tailing him like shadows.
Thump! Thump!!
They kept hopping atop the mushrooms. Each time they landed, the toxic mushrooms released bursts of glittering spores.
Below them, Woojin was showered repeatedly.
“…You damned pests.”
They were clearly trying to kill the intruder with poison spores. But to Woojin, it was merely irritating.
He flicked his hand irritably, brushing the spores from his hair again and again. The squirrels appeared visibly flustered by this reaction.
“Chik? Kiik!”
They exchanged questioning chirps among themselves. Moments later, they began scraping up different varieties of spores and flinging them down.
The colors were dazzling—red, blue, yellow—like lights wrapped around a Christmas tree. Each type of mushroom spore shimmered in its own hue.
‘Quite a spectacle.’
From the looks of it, the mushroom forest and the squirrels shared a symbiotic relationship.
Immune to the poison, the squirrels used the forest as their home, safe from predators—like clownfish hiding among sea anemones.
Every time the squirrels leapt, spores scattered far and wide. Without effort, the mushrooms could spread their seeds across great distances. The vastness of this forest was likely thanks to the squirrels acting like bees.
Compared to the snails he had faced earlier, these creatures were far cuter in behavior…
“…But they’re starting to annoy me.”
Woojin’s body had become a patchwork of colors. With spores piling up on him, he looked like a child had scribbled over him with crayons.
How should he deal with them?
As he pondered—
One peculiar squirrel caught his eye. It had gleaming silver fur. Though smaller than the others, its tail was far more luxuriant and glossy.
A calm silver glow shone from its eyes. Seeing it, Woojin sensed instinctively—
‘That one’s the leader.’
To drive out the unfamiliar intruder, the head of the pack had revealed itself in person.