Chapter 105: Great Loss

A yellow light shone out from Yang Mo’s nose, mouth and ears and gathered itself into a monster. This monster was very large, had a few dozen human arms and its mouth occupied most of its head. It looked very grotesque indeed.

“Get out!” Su Jin held up his Demon Lord’s Longbow. He was filled with rage but he knew that he wasn’t capable of killing Gluttony himself.

But Gluttony seemed to realize that Su Jin was dangerous, so once it spotted the Demon Lord’s Longbow in Su Jin’s hands, it turned into nothing but yellow sparkles and disappeared, refusing to even fight Su Jin.

Su Jin proceeded to dig a hole in the sand to bury Yang Mo, but he was afraid that if he didn’t dig a hole that was deep enough, the strong winds in this place would blow Yang Mo’s body out of the sand.

But it was impossible to dig a hole in the desert. Every time he dug a hole, the wind would blow sand in again almost instantly and fill it up again.

Su Jin was still crying as he continued to dig and got more and more frustrated. He eventually took his Demon Lord’s Longbow and shot the Roar of the Demon Lord straight into the sand.

A huge hole appeared in the sand immediately. Su Jin cut some of Yang Mo’s hair as a keepsake1. Yang Mo was one of his team mates but had lost his life here. The only thing he had to remember Yang Mo by was these strands of hair.

After he placed Yang Mo’s body in the hole, he filled it again with sand. This was Yang Mo’s grave and he might never get the chance to pay his respects here again, but Su Jin promised never to forget him.

Su Jin’s heart ached terribly, but he knew he had to carry on. He had to find the rest of his team mates. What happened to Yang Mo could very well happen to them too.

About half a day later, he sensed his psychokinesis on another team mate. He immediately ran towards where it was coming from, only to find that the other person was also running at top speed.

Su Jin quickly found his target. It was Ning Meng. She was running like crazy through the desert and a team member of Shadow of Thor was running after her.

“Does this guy have a mission to kill her? Or?” Su Jin ran over to meet with Ning Meng, but once he came closer, she ran in the other direction as if she hadn’t seen him at all.

“Ning Meng!” Su Jin called out to her.

She suddenly stopped running, then started running again almost immediately after that as she muttered to herself, “No, it can’t be. It’s not Boss. It must be that Original Sin. It’s trying to use the Boss’ voice to trick me into stopping!”

Su Jin blinked in surprise and turned to look at the Shadow of Thor team member running towards him. The moment Su Jin saw his face, Su Jin knew what must have happened. The team member was possessed by one of the Original Sins and was now pouncing towards Su Jin.

Su Jin immediately threw Rumor out to attack the other man and held the Boning Knife in his hand. He wanted to drive out the Original Sin inside this man’s body, but first, he needed to know which one was inside him.

Just like how a court judge could rule that the accused was not guilty, Su Jin could banish these Original Sins too. But he had to know what the accused was guilty of first. His psychokinesis couldn’t do anything if it didn’t know what it was driving out.

The team member was also attacking very aggressively and didn’t seem to care about how badly injured he was getting. He was bent on killing Su Jin even if he perished in the process.

Rumor moved like a fish in the water as Su Jin used his psychokinesis to control it, but unfortunately, it wasn’t a very powerful weapon and could not cause a lot of damage with each hit. Unless Rumor cut through a vital part of the body, it was very hard for Su Jin to kill his opponent quickly.

Su Jin decided to leave Ning Meng alone for the time being since he had managed to block the Original Sin from attacking her. Ning Meng was out of trouble for the time being, so it was more important to deal with this possessed team member first.

“What a strong body! I want it! I want it!!” muttered the possessed team member repeatedly as he attacked Su Jin and looked at Su Jin enviously.

This team member’s attacks were very aggressive and his own body was also very wrong, so his attacks were even more powerful than the Moon in the Blue Skies’ team member who had been possessed by Greed.

Su Jin continued to fight the other man in the middle of the desert but neither was able to kill the other. And as time went on, Su Jin was pretty sure that this man was going to die even if he drove the Original Sin inside him out.

The other party had ignored any injuries to his body as he fought and there were several wounds that were definitely fatal to an ordinary human. Once this Original Sin left this man’s body, the man would die instantly from his injuries. There was no other possibility.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have a choice!” Su Jin sighed. He suddenly widened his eyes and Rumor, which was previously gliding through the air like a fish swimming in a pond, suddenly attacked its target at an even higher frequency and intensity, quickly puncturing thousands of holes in its target’s skin.

Rumor could not cause a lot of damage on its own, but Su Jin could spend a lot of Psychokinetic Spirit Power to make it launch an attack that was equivalent to sending out a few hundred Rumors over a short period of time.

The weapon couldn’t really clone itself, but what it did was to bounce off the target instead of returning to the owner’s hand after each attack, allowing it to make multiple attacks in a short period of time, which made it seem as though there were a few hundred Rumors attacking simultaneously.

After being attacked so intensely, the man couldn’t move anymore. But he continued to look at Su Jin and muttered, “What an amazing weapon to have! I’m so envious! I want it!”

“That golden armor looks really good too! If only it were mine!”

“That knife looks amazing too! I’m sure it’s really sharp! I really want that too! Why isn’t it mine?”

His repeated ramblings made it clear to Su Jin that this man was definitely possessed by Jealousy. Only Jealousy would keep wanting everything that others had and believe that these things were better than his own.

Su Jin didn’t want to waste any more time and chopped his opponent’s head off in one fell swoop. If he tried to drive the Original Sin out, it would revert to its original form and attack him, which might be even harder to deal with. So, he decided that it was easier to chop off the man’s head with his Boning Knife and scare Jealousy away.

“I’m really sorry I have to do this to you, but I think it will actually be more of a relief to you,” said Su Jin with a sigh.

Once he was done dealing with Jealousy, he ran after Ning Meng again. When he stood in her way, she pulled Black Fire out and started shooting at him.

Su Jin started running immediately. The last thing he expected was for Ning Meng to use the weapon he had lent her to attack him in return. What was going on?!

“Ning Meng, it’s me! Su Jin!” yelled Su Jin as he kept moving. If he stopped for even just one moment, bullets would start raining on him again.

“You’re lying! I won’t be fooled by you!” yelled Ning Meng nervously.

Su Jin noticed that there was something very wrong with Ning Meng. Besides the wounds on her body, he noticed that her eyes were shut tightly and blood was flowing from her eye sockets.

“You’re hurt?” Su Jin decided to use his psychokinesis to overwhelm Ning Meng’s consciousness, making her feel dizzy without hurting her.

Ning Meng felt her head spin before realizing that someone had caught hold of her hands. She was terrified and tried to push Su Jin away, to find that she simply couldn’t find the strength to do so.

“It’s okay, Ning Meng, it’s okay, it’s really me. I’ve already dealt with Jealousy and it’s gone. Look, if I were really possessed by that Original Sin, I would kill you right now instead of taking time to talk to you and convince you otherwise.”

“B-boss? Is it really you?” Ning Meng realized that Su Jin made sense and she immediately calmed back down.

“It is me. Now, tell me what happened to your eyes,” said Su Jin.

Ning Meng shook her head sadly and tried to stay strong as she explained, “I was ambushed and my eyeballs were both destroyed, so I can’t see anything now. But it’s alright, I exchanged my points for something in a previous Challenge that can help me to move about based on just my sense of hearing and smell.”

Su Jin nodded in response. This ability might have been pretty useless anywhere else, but it was perfect for this Challenge. Besides, there was nothing else but sand here, so she didn’t have to worry about running into anything2. She just had to duck and hide if someone was running after her. But even so, Su Jin was really impressed that Ning Meng had made it this far by relying on just her sense of hearing and smell.

“Boss, did you run into anybody else? You’ve got to be careful! Anybody could be possessed by one of the Original Sins!” said Ning Meng.

Su Jin nodded and he said in a quiet and dejected voice, “Ning Meng, Yang Mo…Yang Mo’s dead.”

Ning Meng started trembling and she flailed about in shock. Su Jin held onto her hands firmly and said, “Don’t be afraid! I’ll protect you and I’ll make sure that nothing happens to you!”

His words were very comforting to Ning Meng, so she nodded and calmed down again as she said sadly, “Yang Mo…was a really nice person.”

“I agree, he definitely was. But unfortunately, whether you’re nice or not doesn’t have any effect on your chances of surviving a Challenge,” said Su Jin with a sad sigh. He turned and said to her, “Let me carry you on my back? It will take you a long time to move about in your current state.”

Ning Meng agreed and knew that Su Jin wouldn’t have any trouble carrying her since he was so strong, so she climbed onto his back obediently.

“Oh, but Boss! What if an Original Sin decides to possess one of us?!” asked Ning Meng frantically when she realized that this might happen.

Su Jin consoled her, “Don’t worry, I think I’ve found a pattern to the way the Original Sins choose who to possess, so both of us will be just fine.”

Ning Meng didn’t ask any other questions since Su Jin was confident that her worries were unfounded. All the members of Team Boning Knife trusted Su Jin wholeheartedly, even Ning Meng, despite being the newest to join the group.

As Su Jin walked with Ning Meng on his back, he continued trying to pick up any signals from his other team members. Ning Meng was working hard to – she was still thinking about the introduction to the Challenge that was taken from Dante’s Divine Comedy.

“Oh! I remember now! I remember the back half of the poem!” Ning Meng suddenly sat up and patted Su Jin’s shoulders excitedly.

“Oh? Tell me what it says!” Su Jin was very interested to hear about this poem, since the Handbook only used half of it. The other half could very well be the key to whether they could survive this Challenge or not.