Chapter 135: Core (2)

“Marco!”

Woojin shouted as he ran and Marco reached out toward Meterul. However, Meterul remembered Marco’s power and he also reached out. Tentacle waved while destroying through the ground and Woojin slashed it with his sword. Marco’s curse had taken effect. Sun Wukong was also cutting the tentacles and Miho dodged them while closing. Meterul then stomped on the ground and monsters rose up from the surface.

Woojin frowned and swung his sword, cutting the monsters into pieces. Bihyung sent out his Dokkebi Fire to burn them down. Marco’s power was at least slowing Meterul down — it was just enough so that Woojin and the others could handle it. However, there were just too many tentacles to deal with. Sun Wukong spat, “I don’t like wasting time.”

He then took a step forward and enlarged his Ruyi Bang. It destroyed the tentacles in its way and reached out toward Meterul.

Putting his hands out, Meterul said, “This one was heavy.”

Meterul was also able to hold out against it.

“I ate a lot this time.”

He had eaten about twenty people after they got here. They didn’t know how many more people he had eaten while they were looking for him, and Woojin decided to not give him any more time. As Meterul was holding Ruyi Bang off, Woojin got up and swung his sword. Meterul pushed the staff away and dodged Woojin’s sword. Meterul’s arm then turned to a sharp tentacle, attacking Woojin. After throwing himself backward to dodge it, Woojin countered the sharp tentacle with his fist. It was destroyed instantly; the Fist of Giant destroyed the entire area. Meterul couldn’t dodge it and he raised his arm up to defend.

It was the best attack skill Woojin had. Meterul was thrown to the back and struck down into the ground. Woojin then threw his fist again and pummeled Meterul. He then brought his fist back and summoned Gáe Bulg to stab Meterul’s heart.

Meterul was almost dead but he looked up to Woojin with a relaxed expression.

“Is this still not enough?”

“Of course it isn’t.”

Before Woojin could answer, he heard screams from all sides. He turned and saw people disappearing. The tentacles that came out of Meterul’s back dug through the ground and was eating the people. Woojin twisted Gáe Bulg and Meterul shuddered. Even if his body was created with tentacles, there was no way he could take such damage. Sun Wukong then slammed Ruyi Bang down on Meterul’s head. The head shattered and Woojin pulled the body off from the ground. The tentacles were connected deep into the ground. From their experience, they shouldn’t think of Meterul as a human.

“Singu, smell him!”

Singu sniffed and frowned.

“Dammit!”

Singu jumped forward, but a tentacle shot out, penetrating through his heart. His body then was sucked in and the tentacle changed its shape back to a woman.

“This is new.”

As Meterul jumped back to dodge Sun Wukong’s staff, he smiled, “Avatar… it’s tastier.”

Woojin glared at him. It was apparent that he had gotten much more powerful just by eating Singu.

“Marco.”

Woojin whispered and Marco used his power again. Meterul was slowed down, and Sun Wukong charged in. Ruyi Bang swept out but Meterul brought up both hands to block it. However, Ruyi Bang didn’t directly strike Meterul. When Meterul realized it and looked up, Sun Wukong kicked him up into the air. As Woojin jumped up at him, Miho zoomed by. Meterul’s body turned in the air and he swung his tentacle. A powerful tentacle penetrated Miho’s body.

“NO!”

Woojin shouted, but Miho did not even bleed; instead, she shot past the tentacle. Miho then reached out and her hand shot through Meterul’s stomach without resistance. Meterul didn’t seem to know what had happened, but Miho kicked him back and pulled her hand out.

“Ugh!”

Meterul spat blood and dropped to the ground while Miho flew back down to Woojin. She panted, “I got it.”

Woojin saw Meterul’s body crumbling to dust. Woojin turned back to Miho and she had a small orb in her hand. It was beating like a heart.

“It’s the core.”

“How did you know?”

“I felt it when I ran past him. We need to destroy this.”

Woojin then took the orb in his hand and crushed it by enlarging his hand. It felt like he could hear a scream. It seemed like Sun Wukong’s attack had destroyed the core the first time they killed Meterul. Woojin turned to Miho.

“Don’t pass through Meterul again. That was reckless.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t just stand there and watch.”

Woojin sighed, “Look after yourself. We still have two more to go.”

Woojin then turned and Sun Wukong came up to him.

“They share memories. They now know that they can become much more powerful by eating Avatars. They will go after Avatars now.”

“Yeah. So, how was he?”

Sun Wukong then glanced at Marco after hearing the question.

“If it wasn’t for the curse, it would have been dangerous. He grew really fast in such a short amount of time.”

Sun Wukong was one of the strongest Avatars, but even he couldn’t attack Meterul. If Meterul were to grow in power, there was a chance that Sun Wukong would not be enough.

“We’ll have to find him fast.”

“We now know we can trace him by his scent.”

“Only if Singu didn’t die.”

“Yeah.”

Bihyung glanced around at the club and said, “I’ll clean up this place, so you go back first. We should go to Japan ourselves.”

“Yeah. But we’ll have to stop by Jeju so Doctor Ahn can study this core.”

The crushed core didn’t emit anything but there was a way for it to still give some clues. The team then moved down to Jeju Island with a jet and visited Doctor Ahn.

Doctor Ahn received the core and said, “We don’t have any modern weapons that’ll work against the body.”

“Did Smith say that too?”

“Yeah. He’s studying everything, but none of the weapons work. We should study poisons.”

“Okay. And we need to track his core to kill him.”

“I’m not sure if there is a way to trace it from within the body. We couldn’t look through it no matter what we tried, but maybe it will give us a way to detect his location at least.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll do my best so I can go back to my research. So, where are you going now?”

“I’m going to Japan.”

“Okay. I’ll get ready.”

Woojin then boarded a plane to Japan. Bihyung, Sun Wukong, Miho, and Marco were also with him. When they arrived at Kagoshima, there were people waiting for them.

It was Omikami, Shinatsu, and a man with a long face.

“I was waiting for you.”

“Let’s hope we are not too late and let’s look for him right now. Do you have someone who can track scents?”

Omikami looked at the man and introduced him. “This is Komainu. He can smell it.”

Woojin then gave a piece of Meterul’s tentacle to Komainu and he sniffed it.

“I’ve memorized it. Let’s go find him.”

Woojin turned to Omikami and she explained, “We can only find him when we are within a one-kilometer radius.”

“This won’t be easy.”

Singu was able to track him down easily, but it seemed like Komainu’s power wasn’t going to be that helpful.