Ch.132132. Ways of Mourning

The young man leisurely strolled through Hanyang’s night on his donkey.

Like a king of ghosts, he passed majestically among the spirits.

“Release me!!”

“I curse you! Let me sleep, I say!”

“I thought it would go up! I thought it would rebound this time!”

Though the ghosts’ words were far from blessings for a king, the young man had absolute faith in his dominion over them.

Suddenly, the AI called “Descartes” in the young man’s hand warned him.

[Warning. Hostile entity detected 400M ahead, targeting you.]

“I was wondering when they’d come. So it’s now.”

The young man stopped his donkey and waited for the ‘hostile’ being.

Eventually, Amon and Sonia appeared through the ghosts.

The two emerged parting the ghosts like Moses’ miracle, emitting Divine Power so intense it made one’s eyes sting just to look at them.

Upon making eye contact with the demon, Amon immediately asked:

“Your AI friend seems to lack a body to transfer to. Is there some issue?”

[Physical bodies are meaningless terminals to me.]

“So you say.”

The AI answered instead of the young man, who simply shrugged nonchalantly.

Apparently satisfied with that response, Amon nodded and—

Whoosh!

Without warning, he threw his sword.

“Eek!”

The young man dodged the attack with casual grace.

“What, no conversation or anything before attacking?”

“We’re not exactly on friendly chatting terms. Besides, I have nothing to ask.”

“About your purpose…”

“You Goetia have only one purpose. You can’t stand the world my mother created. So you want to cause chaos. Am I wrong?”

Being the truth, the young man couldn’t refute it.

While continuing to dodge Amon’s relentless attacks, the young man finally sighed deeply and began to counterattack.

His attack method was simple.

The ghosts filling the surrounding area were both his soldiers and weapons.

“Sigh… Hanyang has too few souls to summon…”

“What nonsense.”

Amon clicked his tongue, watching the endless supply of water ghosts from the Han River.

In terms of scale, this was the largest demon he had encountered in the past two years.

But Amon had a reliable companion to fill in the firepower gap.

Rat-tat-tat!

Sonia, unmatched in firepower battles though also formidable in small skirmishes, single-handedly engaged the ghosts.

Normally, facing such numbers would deplete either ammunition or Divine Power first, but…

“Sonia, how many shots do you have left?”

“I can go for another 20 minutes.”

With her dimensional pocket and Divine Power recovery elixirs combined, her bombardment seemed endless.

Thanks to this, the battle was arguably more Sonia’s stage than Amon’s.

“I’ll leave the demon to you.”

Amon nodded.

While she handled the ghosts, Amon focused on his duel with the demon.

The young man engaged Amon reluctantly, showing discomfort.

“Direct combat isn’t really my style.”

Despite his words, once in battle, this proved untrue.

Unlike the old man they’d met before who had replaced his entire body with machinery, the young man displayed durability and strength beyond human limits.

“Gene modification?”

No.

He showed no animal characteristics typical of genetic modification procedures.

Amon continued trying to identify the source of his familiar feeling about the young man.

When the young man countered a technique he should never have seen before, Amon realized the source of his déjà vu.

“Spirit possession.”

The technique Amon used wasn’t something one could counter upon first encounter.

He threw his sword first, and while it blocked the view, pulled the trigger of a crossbow from behind it.

It was a surprise attack using the prejudice that Amon only wielded swords, combined with a crossbow—a weapon difficult to predict in this world.

Yet the young man easily countered it.

He dodged as if he knew an arrow would fly from behind the sword.

Seeing this, Amon became certain.

“You’ve possessed the spirits of the warriors I’ve killed.”

This meant he instantly accumulated the experience of countless warriors.

Particularly against Amon, this was extremely effective as he had the experiences of those who had faced him.

The bonus was physical abilities increased beyond logical explanation due to the possessing ghosts.

At Amon’s deduction, the young man smiled meaningfully and swung his hwando sword.

Though Western in appearance, his swordsmanship was definitely that of a warrior who had originally used a hwando.

Amon dodged the strike, growing more confident in his theory.

Amon and Sonia continued their battle against the young man.

Sonia against his ghost army, Amon against the young man himself.

During this, Amon once again tilted his head at a strange feeling tickling the back of his mind.

He realized the source of this dissonance was the forgotten AI when he noticed his sword moving further away from the young man.

[With enough time, I can do this even though you have no terminal in your body to limit you.]

The AI mocked Amon as he flailed at empty air.

It was an ability to manipulate perception, senses, and even thought.

Coincidentally, Amon and Sonia had no mechanical bodies for the AI to access, yet it had found a way to deceive their senses.

“How did you do it?”

[Every city has billboards installed. By calculating the light intensity and angles produced by these billboards, creating hallucinations isn’t impossible.]

As expected of a super AI, it was creating mirages using the city’s smog and billboards.

The AI explained that by cleverly using speakers, car horns, and other sources, it could even deceive hearing.

Seeing the AI’s feat, the demonic young man clicked his tongue in admiration.

“If you’re this good, how amazing must your original have been?”

[My original had the power to force fantasy into reality. I, who can only deceive senses, am a far more ephemeral existence in comparison.]

“Constantly putting yourself down isn’t a good habit either, Mr. Descartes.”

The two beings conversed leisurely.

Having completely dominated Amon’s senses, they were confident in their victory.

“Shall we end this tiresome feud now?”

The young man approached Amon, who was still trapped in the AI’s illusion.

“Agares requested we capture you if possible, but I’m afraid I can’t help myself. Sorry, Mr. Amon.”

The young man approached Amon from behind, reaching out his right hand to strike at his heart.

Slash.

“Got you.”

Seeing Amon smile as he cut off the outstretched right hand, both the young man and the AI were simultaneously filled with shock.

“Impossible! How?!”

“Who knows.”

Before coming to them, Amon had already confirmed the identities of both beings.

First, he was certain the demon was “Gamigin” based on the high proportion of water ghosts.

And from the testimony about limited thinking, he confirmed the AI was Descartes.

‘These guys are easier to deduce than the others.’

While other demons and AIs had abilities that weren’t obvious, these two had distinctively unique powers.

Gamigin’s ability to control water ghosts was unique among the 72 demons in Punk City, and Descartes’ ability to manipulate thought and prejudice left clear traces due to the strong sense of dissonance it created.

‘Knowing you’re Gamigin and Descartes, did you think I’d come without any preparation?’

Amon swung his sword at the two beings, feeling the red threads connected to his limbs.

Gamigin, having lost his right arm, tried to respond in his bewilderment but couldn’t properly counter the unfamiliar movements.

Descartes within Gamigin also attempted to deceive Amon’s senses, but Amon’s sword, undeceived, aimed for Gamigin’s life.

Far from them, Kathy, controlling Amon with red threads, felt slight pity for them.

‘Who could have predicted such a strategy?’

When Amon first proposed tying red threads to his body and letting Kathy control him, even she was surprised.

She had never done it before and questioned if it was possible.

But she immediately agreed. She had resolved to trust herself and her friends rather than precognition.

So she controlled Amon.

Since it was Kathy moving, not Amon, Gamigin, who had studied information about Amon, couldn’t possibly respond effectively.

And no matter how hard Descartes tried to deceive Amon’s senses, it was meaningless since Kathy was controlling him.

The situation might have become more complicated if Gamigin used precognition, a specialty of demons…

– “Anyway, Gamigin is a loser among demons with no precognition, so don’t worry.”

The plan had accounted for even that.

Even if he had precognition, they could deceive it with her red threads, so their fate was essentially sealed.

Eventually, Amon cut off Gamigin’s remaining left arm as well.

Having lost both arms, the demon had no means left to resist Amon.

“Sonia. Good work. You can spread your wings now.”

Judging Gamigin sufficiently neutralized, Amon permitted Sonia to use her full power.

– “We can’t risk destroying each other because of that Descartes AI.”

Before entering battle, Amon had prevented Sonia from using her full power.

He was wary that Sonia might attack him due to the AI’s illusions, like some reaper who likes standing in the sky.

– “Even I would barely withstand a full-power hit from Sonia.”

While bullets might just leave bruises, the beam she fires with wings spread would not end well even for Amon.

But now it didn’t matter.

Gamigin had lost both arms and was completely neutralized, and Descartes without Gamigin was just an eloquent phone assistant.

Sonia immediately spread her wings and exorcised all the surrounding ghosts at once.

While she performed large-scale purification with her area attack, Amon subdued the armless Gamigin and seized the AI.

“Looks like this will end as anticlimactically as you always say. How does it feel?”

[I am but a shadow of the original, an ephemeral existence destined to disappear like this. You too…]

“Ugh. This is why I hate nihilists.”

Amon grumbled as he uploaded a deletion program to the AI.

While Descartes was disappearing, Amon turned his attention to Gamigin.

“Before you go, let me ask one thing.”

“Isn’t that contradictory? Why would someone who’s leaving answer you?”

“What are the Outers who contacted you at the world’s boundary doing in Goetia?”

“Are you not listening to me?”

“You don’t have to answer. Kathy.”

“Yes.”

They had an excellent interrogator who could force answers unilaterally.

She wrapped her thread around Gamigin’s ankle and repeated Amon’s question.

From there, they were able to extract some information.

“The Outer isn’t with Gamigin now. The Outer who contacted Gamigin was handed over to someone else.”

“Did you find out who?”

She gestured toward Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Amon recalled leaving the siblings to handle the opponent there.

“You two clean up here. I’ll go ahead.”

Amon left them to handle the aftermath of the demon and AI, and began roof-hopping.

Watching Amon disappear instantly across rooftops like a ninja, Sonia shrugged.

“Kathy, was this the scene you mentioned yesterday?”

“Yes. But will it be okay?”

“What?”

“I mean, won’t you get jealous later or something?”

“Oh, that.”

Sonia smiled.

“I’m always his first anyway.”

Faced with her remarkable confidence, Kathy could only respond with a bitter smile.