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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: The Real Killer! (2)
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That moment! Now!
The chubby guard, who had been lying there like he was dead, suddenly sprang to his feet.
This couldn't be happening. A guy who'd been beaten unconscious, mobbed by five men no less!
And that wasn't all. The guard smashed his fist into the gut of the man standing right in front of him. Dead on. Like he'd seen it with his own eyes, like striking a motionless statue—right in the solar plexus.
Splat! Thwack!
"Guh!"
The complete opposite of what had just happened!
The guy who'd been bragging about his fists let out a ragged groan.
In that instant, the guard grabbed the man's arm and wrenched it with all his might.
Crack!
"Aaaargh!"
The man whose arm had been twisted screamed far more wretchedly than the guard had earlier.
His elbow joint snapped clean off.
"You bastard! This is how you use a fist!"
Splat! Bam!
Where had he hit? What had he struck? It sounded like a hole punched through a wooden plank—no, like shattering a thick board into splinters echoing through the darkness.
One shot, and he's down.
His head exploded!
You could tell just from the sound.
The attacker crumpled without even a scream, his skull shattered to pieces. In the blink of an eye, he'd stepped onto the path to the afterlife.
That chubby guard sure packed some real power.
His blind spot was that he couldn't read the darkness. That's why he'd been so helpless against prisoners used to the shadows. In broad daylight, even with his martial arts crippled, he wouldn't have taken such a one-sided beating.
Now he stood tall. And like a miracle, he began piercing through the darkness with his gaze.
"Wha—! No... no way!"
As one man fell, the guy next to him startled and tried to back away. But the guard was a step faster. He seized another by the collar and yanked him forward.
"M-mercy, please... It wasn't me who hit you earlier, it was that guy..."
"Quit your pathetic excuses!"
Splat!
A stone-hard fist cut through the dark. A bursting thud and a single, agonized shriek rang out together.
Thud! Boom!
This victim seemed pretty hefty.
When he hit the ground, it sounded like a massive tree toppling.
"Oh, you little...!"
Bam! Ack!
One bursting sound. One scream.
Like a miracle—truly a miracle—the guard struck their heads dead on. As precise as if he'd seen them. He sent the wild rabble straight to hell in a heartbeat.
None of his strikes missed. No empty swings. He smashed the crown of their skulls, and they toppled.
This was pitch-black darkness where you couldn't recognize a face shoved right in your own.
Even prisoners accustomed to the shadows could only make out vague shapes—they couldn't read movements precisely.
Yet the guard struck true.
In a flash, three of the five Strength prisoners had left this world behind.
"Huff! Huff! You bastards..."
The guard heaved ragged breaths.
Blood soaked his entire body.
It was still trickling from his head, staining his upper clothes a wet crimson. His right hand throbbed so badly—some bone crushed somewhere—that he couldn't move it.
These Strength prisoners were ones even the warden acknowledged for their raw power. That's why they'd been classed in Volume Six. If Fatty's fists were stone, theirs were too.
Had they landed clean hits, Fatty wouldn't be breathing now.
But the darkness was fatal even for them. They could make out rough outlines but not clearly enough. The dead man had "hit true," but it'd glanced off at an angle.
That's what turned his head into a bloody mess.
The darkness hid it, but his own blood splattered his whole body.
Step.
He took one step forward, then stopped.
"Got it, you rascal!"
The guard let out a bizarre shout that made no sense.
Totally out of left field, utterly unrelated to their dire situation...
But Fatty wasn't alone.
He was clearly muttering to empty air. Like a madman mumbling nonsense. It was so dark you couldn't spot someone right beside you, but surely they'd make some noise if they were there. Yet nothing.
To those used to the dark, he was definitely alone. No one around. But now it was certain. He wasn't alone at all.
He was talking to himself—or rather, holding a conversation.
About one thing only: the chubby guard's movements. Guiding them.
Step. Step.
Fatty advanced slowly.
He bypassed the cell where the Deception prisoners lurked and charged into the open third Deception cell in Thunder Prison.
The third Deception cell was empty.
Seemed like Fatty was methodically sweeping from top to bottom, killing one by one.
Two Strength prisoners still remained. The five Deception prisoners were probably hiding here and there, digging traps.
"Hide... again..."
A murmur drifted from ahead, unintelligible. A whisper, barely audible.
"Win... somehow..."
Something like words, but meaningless. Like a mute mumbling.
The Deception prisoners were plotting their counter.
The surviving Strength duo held their breaths too.
An ominous aura began to rise in the darkness.
Hiss! Whoosh!
Movement ahead.
He tapped the guard's spine with his fist. At the same time, he pressed his index finger hard into the guard's left side.
Coming from the left. Kill it!
The guard hesitated.
He shoved the guard's spine hard.
Now!
"Damn it all!"
The guard swung his fist wildly, as if to say he didn't get it.
Splat! Thwack!
"Aaaargh!"
The approaching figure screamed in agony.
In that brief hesitation, the direction and distance had shifted. So it wasn't a direct hit—just a glancing blow. Still enough to drop the foe.
He heard the scream.
Recalibrated direction and distance.
Swish! Tap!
Left low!
He slid his hand along the spine to point the direction, then commanded the kill.
"You rat bastard!"
The guard bellowed and swung.
This strike landed true.
Thud!
The unknown foe couldn't scream twice. He flailed to dodge the stone fist, but in the end, the crown of his skull caved in with a sickening crunch.
Plink! Tap!
A Deception prisoner who'd joined the Life-Death Trial fell.
His power really is...
He shook his head.
Could anyone strike as if measured with a ruler, just from directions and distances called out in the dark? No way. But Fatty was pulling it off magnificently.
Pulling it off? No, not quite. Not precisely. He was hitting roughly right, but not ruler-straight accurate.
The hits always glanced off.
Aim for dead center crown? Check the corpses—left or right side of the head smashed. Half the skull gone, maybe, but never center crown.
Fatty compensated for the flaw with brute force.
His overwhelming power turned glancing blows into kill shots.
Chubby guard... with that kind of strength, he's useful.
But right now, he faced a grave problem that demanded solving.
Deception prisoners weren't idiots. They knew sneaking up wouldn't work. They knew Fatty wasn't alone. They'd sniffed out that the Fox of Bireung Mountain was right there with him.
So why come at him?
Had to figure that out first.
Poke! Poke!
He pressed the guard's spine and hip bone.
Stay put. Sit.
The guard paused at the Fox of Bireung Mountain's push.
Why stand? Why sit?
The guard's intent came through his hesitant movements—a silent question.
He had plenty to say. But in this darkness, with prisoners inches away, no time for chit-chat.
Squeeze! Press!
He urged the guard on.
Fatty sat reluctantly, back turned, face sullen.
Early on, they'd mobbed him. Despite his monstrous strength, he'd nearly died with his skull cracked. That pain, that terror—still fresh.
No choice but to follow the Fox of Bireung Mountain's lead.
The Fox halted Fatty's movements, then groped the floor to examine the fallen Deception prisoner.
Head, jaw, chest, both hands... from top to bottom. Then he found it gripped in the corpse's hand.
This!
A cord! They'd torn cloth into cords. Tightly bound around the wrist so it wouldn't slip.
He touched the cord lightly.
Taut as could be—hard to believe a dead man held it.
So that's it!
This guy must've lost a bet. Gambled his life and stepped forward, cord wrapped around his wrist.
A cheap trick to trip the guard's legs.
But their scheme went further. Tie the cord to the corpse's wrist, and it had multiple uses. Yank it, and the heavy body drags along, clipping the guard's legs. Pinpoint his position.
The Fox of Bireung Mountain was certain now.
Deception and Strength prisoners had united.
Just like him: Deception brains scheming, Strength muscle executing.
He pierced the darkness.
They pierced it too.
He had a Supreme Power Under Heaven who could shatter skulls with glances.
They had the same—and one extra.
Suddenly, the odds were against them.
"This time, please hear me out."
He whispered into Fatty's ear.
The chubby guard nodded.
He admitted his body wasn't responding like before.
Not easy to accept... He'd only done so after great peril, and fairly quickly at that.
"Then we wait here."
"Wait?"
"The fight hasn't even started in the Killing Gate. Plenty of time left. And the desperate ones aren't us—they are. Four of theirs are down already. In this situation, the first to move loses. So we..."
"Got it."
Fatty muttered like an ant crawling.
They waited. Until they moved first.
The Fox of Bireung Mountain leaned against the wall, pouring all focus into his ears.
Had to read their movements.
Fatty sat beside him, stripping off his clothes. Wiping away the flowing blood.