An hour later, Han-eol climbed to the middle of a cliff and laid himself down in a crevice in the rock.
The sun had gone down before he knew it, and everything around him was pitch dark.
For fear of becoming a target for demon beasts, Han-eol did not even light a fire.
He made do with dry combat rations for his meal.
Naturally, Han-eol skipped brushing his teeth as well.
The rock crevice in the cliff was a mere 40 centimeters wide. Lying in that crevice, Han-eol quietly steadied his breathing.
Ever since his awakening had brought his Vitality to 24, Han-eol had been able to hold out for over a month without sleeping at all.
Even so, he did need to lie down briefly like this and bring his condition back up.
Han-eol looked up at the Highland's night sky and turned his brain over.
‘Normally, doesn't a successful guided transfer drop you within 100 kilometers of the target point? I feel like I've covered well over 100 kilometers today, so how much is left?’
As he worried at this, a little anxiety settled into Han-eol's heart.
Han-eol shook his head and threw off the fear.
‘I didn't meet a single demon beast the whole time I was moving today. This isn't the Seventh Continent, it's around the Eighth Continent base camp. Shinseong Group must have subjugated every demon beast in this area already. So I can relax.’
This, it seems, was the seed of disaster.
The moment Han-eol repeated to himself that he could relax, a black shadow fell over his head.
Being night, the shadow was not even properly visible.
All that brushed past Han-eol's eyes was the sight of a huge demon beast descending like a thunderbolt from a dizzying height and falling upon him.
‘Ghk?’
On reflex, Han-eol rolled sideways and dropped straight off the cliff.
An Agility of 108 let him move like a mountain goat.
Han-eol tapped the sheer cliff face with his toes and came straight down to the foot of the cliff, tracing a slanted diagonal.
The flying demon beast that had pounced on him left sharp claw marks on the innocent cliff, then rose again and wheeled once in a wide circle through the air.
By then Han-eol had already landed and was fleeing in a zigzag.
SCREEEE—.
The flying demon beast spat a piercing cry into the air.
The instant he heard that cry, Han-eol ran like a madman toward another rock crevice visible in the distance.
‘Take cover there first, then watch for an opening and rip the demon beast's soul out.’
It was as Han-eol was forming his own plan.
KAK!
Another demon beast appeared like lightning right beside him, snapped its wings, over four meters across, shut, drove in like a wedge, and slammed straight into Han-eol.
As it turned out, these flying demon beasts were a pair.
Their hunting method was for the female to drive the prey, while the male, lying in ambush beforehand, appeared suddenly along its path and pounced.
BAM!
“Kuh.”
As though struck by a heavy dump truck, Han-eol flew a full several dozen meters and rolled, and rolled, and rolled.
The A-grade vest blocked the flying demon beast's body charge, at least.
Then the three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast's Flayed Skin did its part.
Even so, five or six of Han-eol's bones snapped in an instant.
“Guh, ngghh.”
Nearly 80 meters away, Han-eol barely managed to raise himself.
His lungs must have torn; he could hardly breathe. Amid pain like his whole body being crushed, bright red blood spattered down.
Han-eol could not tell whether the blood was coming from his nose or pouring out of his mouth.
‘I have to run.’
In the midst of it, only the thought that he had to escape gripped him.
On his first Highland expedition, Han-eol had taken down six of the Snow Wolf tribe.
On his second and third expeditions, he had blazed his way to felling members of the Girit tribe.
In all three of those fights, he had come away with his life because the demon beasts had made light of him and given him an opening.
But Han-eol had gotten drunk on those paltry victories and grown conceited.
Perhaps killing a demon beast of the Seventh Continent, and a supremely powerful one that had come down a grade from the Sixth at that, had fed his arrogance. Without his knowing it, an absurd complacency had sprouted in his head: ‘The Eighth Continent is nothing.’
Resting in a cliff crevice would be safe?
Resting a little and managing his condition would be better than moving all night?
Looking back, it was worthless bullshit.
Han-eol should have run and run for the base camp, no matter what. He should never have rested along the way, never let his guard down, and should have given everything as though his life hung on it.
Han-eol bitterly regretted not having done so.
But he could not sink into despair and give up his life now. Han-eol did everything he could to find some way to survive.
Han-eol forced open his swollen, scabbed eyelids. Then he strained to catch sight of the flying demon beasts' souls somehow.
‘Damn it.’
It was impossible.
SWISH— SWISH— SWISH— SWISH—.
The two beasts crossed past one another at a speed his dynamic vision could not possibly track, drawing closer and closer to Han-eol.
No matter how Han-eol rolled his eyes about, he could not see their souls.
‘Shoring up Defense Power alone isn't going to do it. Not just demon beasts that attack from a distance. Fast ones are natural predators to me too.’
Han-eol bit down hard on his lower lip.
If he was still breathing at all, it was thanks to the Defense Power of the A-grade combat vest and the Flayed Skin.
But if he allowed the beasts even a few more attacks like this, his defenses would collapse in the end.
While Han-eol failed to find a way out, the two flying demon beasts crossed faster and faster and closed in right in front of his nose.
In the end, without ever properly catching their souls, Han-eol had no choice but to swing the full-color hand at random.
‘Please, get lucky and catch one.’
In the end, Han-eol leaned on luck.
And all the while, this situation, staking his own precious life on nothing but luck, frustrated him to the point of madness.
Just then the female tore a long gash down Han-eol's right arm with its sharp talons.
“Gah.”
Han-eol leapt.
Fortunately, thanks to the Flayed Skin, he was spared losing the arm. Instead his right arm took damage severe enough that even putting strength into it was difficult.
This time the male raked Han-eol's left shoulder.
Han-eol tumbled roughly across the ground.
Even in the middle of it, Han-eol swung the full-color hand again.
But it failed again.
Unable to see the beasts' souls, his attacks would not go as he wished.
KYAAK, KAK.
The two beasts were circling him now, crying out as though toying with him.
Han-eol dropped to his knees on the ground and burst with rage.
‘Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.’
Han-eol hated this helplessness. He resented having his safety threatened.
Right then the male charged like lightning and rammed Han-eol's chest.
‘No.’
An instant before the beast struck him, Han-eol reflexively crossed both arms into an X.
He meant to protect his chest by any means.
Fortunately, Han-eol managed to shield his chest with his arms before the blow landed.
That was thanks to Pyros' Ring.
Of course, the damage he took was not light. The male's hard skull broke both his forearms with a crunch instead of his chest.
“Kuhuk.”
Spraying blood, Han-eol flew a full 30 meters backward. Then he lay sprawled flat on the ground, vomiting black blood over and over.
The female spread its wings wide, glided in, and drove its sharp talons into Han-eol's chest.
“Kek.”
Han-eol sprayed blood again.
KYAAAAK—.
The female raised its head as though proclaiming victory, gave a long cry, and moved to drive its hook-shaped beak into Han-eol's face.
In that split second with death right before him, Han-eol got his first detailed look at what the beast looked like.
A bulging skull specialized for headbutt attacks.
A beak curving roundly downward.
A head shaped like an owl's.
Chest feathers puffed up like a rooster's.
But bizarrely, this flying demon beast had two heads.
‘A Twin-Headed Bird…….’
Han-eol called up the demon beast encyclopedia he had studied during training.
The Twin-Headed Bird was a demon beast found from time to time on the Eighth Continent. Its speed made it troublesome to face, but its risk level was lower than the Snow Wolf tribe's.
‘I killed a Girit and broke a Snow Wolf, and here I am suffering at the hands of a mere Twin-Headed Bird.’
Han-eol was appalled.
In truth, Han-eol's supernatural ability held a cheat-like power that could kill even a transcendent-class demon beast in a single stroke.
In other words, Han-eol was an ability-holder with an extremely high ceiling.
But his stats apart from the ability were on the low side, so there was every chance of losing even to a weak demon beast.
So Han-eol occupied a peculiar position: an ability-holder with an extremely high ceiling and a considerably low floor, one who could fell the strong with ease yet be routed by the weak just as readily.
‘Heh heh heh heh heh.’
Han-eol laughed at himself.
The laugh burst out because of déjà vu.
On his first Highland expedition, Han-eol had been trampled under the paw of the Snow Wolf leader and had ended up in exactly this state.
On his second Highland expedition too, Han-eol had been helpless before the male Girit's ranged attacks, rolling about miserably and looking up at his opponent just like this.
And on his third Highland expedition, Han-eol had been seized by the collar by the female Girit and had found himself in a similar situation.
And all three times, Han-eol had won a reversal from this very posture.
The moment after a demon beast had completely subdued him, while it pondered, ‘how shall I tear this feeble human apart?’ — that was Han-eol's chance.
A chance to look straight into the enemy's soul and rip it out.
A chance to kill the demon beast instantly.
This time too, only after being driven to the brink of death did Han-eol finally seize that chance.
‘Heh heh heh.’
When Han-eol grinned wide, baring blood-stained teeth, the female Twin-Headed Bird tilted its head.
In that instant, the creature's soul unfolded in Han-eol's vision like a drawing on a two-dimensional sheet of paper. That drawing was as follows.
‘Tch.’
Han-eol clicked his tongue without meaning to.
That was because the Twin-Headed Bird's soul was of a disappointingly low order.
For these beasts of the winged-creature line, the fortress housing the soul was a mere single layer, and their weapons for attacking enemies were simple as well.
‘They're clearly beneath even the Girit tribe or the Snow Wolf tribe. And yet I'm helpless against demon beasts this low-grade?’
Han-eol lamented inwardly. His shoulders, puffed high ever since he had broken the three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast, slid quietly back into place.
And in that moment, the full-color hand, having left the higher dimension and come down once more into the lower one, plucked the female Twin-Headed Bird's soul out with ease.
KAK!
With a single shriek, the female Twin-Headed Bird toppled onto Han-eol's body.
Instant death.
No long-winded flourishes were needed. The two syllables of ‘instant death’ were enough to express the present situation.
KYAAK? KYA-KAK?
When the female suddenly toppled, the male Twin-Headed Bird beat its wings, flap, flap. Startled, the male flew over in haste and checked on the female first.
KAK!
That male too had its soul plucked out by Han-eol's full-color fingers and died instantly.
With the pair of demon beasts both down, Han-eol staggered to his feet.
“Ngghh. Gah.”
Han-eol shoved the heavy corpse of the female Twin-Headed Bird with all his strength to make a bit of room, then twisted his body sideways and barely squeezed out.
Having won his freedom, Han-eol took two space-contraction vacuum packs from his backpack and compressed the pair of Twin-Headed Bird corpses into them.
Han-eol did not bother extracting the beasts' demon spirit stones separately.
Both Twin-Headed Birds carried nothing more than a demon spirit stone half the size of a little finger in the chest.
To Han-eol, who had harvested the lustrous demon spirit stones of beasts like the Snow Wolf and the Girit, stones of this size were not enough to register in his stomach.
Han-eol did not even drink a recovery potion.
‘Wounds like these will close up on their own, given time.’
Half of it was the wish to save his precious potions.
‘An idiot who got beaten by a demon beast like a Twin-Headed Bird. How dare he waste an A-grade potion? I need to hurt a little. That's how I'll stop being careless and come to my senses.’
The other half was self-reproach.
As though punishing himself, Han-eol endured the pain raw.