Mistaken for a Geniu Chapter 27 : Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Terror (3)

“Tsk, it was almost done.”

The voice that erupted from the child’s mouth was not that of a child.

In an instant, the tone twisted into the greasy and heavy voice of a middle-aged man.

The form was the sa.

The clear eyes distorted into black, the height shot up, and veins popped out from the once frail limbs.

The skin gradually dried up, and the face transford into that of a middle-aged man.

The neatly parted hair and the well-grood beard stood out.

Soon, the disguised child’s form completely crumbled, as if shedding a thick costu.

The Black Mage of Deception, Balzac.

Because it was what he had been doing since the mont he was born, his act was never caught.

As always, his thod was to steal the hearts of others with a fabricated face feigning sincerity, dig into their weaknesses, and bring everything crashing down.

It was the sa this ti.

He needed a stage that would give the audience the most dramatic emotion.

So what kind of subject would be appropriate?

Familial love, and pity.

That was the key.

So he deliberately chose the father and son.

The father who cried out his son’s na even while unconscious, and the child who was shaken by the loss of his father.

The tragic situation woven from the two of them caused sufficient confusion and pity in everyone in this space.

Especially for those with sensitive senses and a strong sense of responsibility, like Seol Hayun, it beca a fatal weakness.

And he had stabbed at that weakness.

He had created an opening and approached Seol Hayun perfectly.

To be precise, he had made Seol Hayun approach him on her own.

She had approached Balzac without any suspicion.

Close enough to touch if he just stretched out his hand.

If the Magi dwelling at his fingertips touched her, everything would be over.

Seol Hayun would have fallen unconscious and into Balzac’s hands, and after that, he could have turned everyone left into useful corpses.

He had co to that mont, right before touching Seol Hayun.

However, everything went wrong at the last minute.

“……That kid.”

Balzac glared at the boy standing there with an indifferent expression.

‘Ryu Jinwoo,’ was it?

When he was first kicked, he had intended to just continue the act.

But when Ryu Jinwoo’s sword aid for his neck without any hesitation and began to dig into his flesh, he realized.

The kid hadn’t just noticed a sign.

He was sure.

As if he knew everything.

‘Damn bastard.’

That was what was unpleasant.

A feeling that he had missed sothing.

Until now, he had thoroughly toyed with every opponent he had t, but in front of this kid, he didn't feel like he was in the dominant position at all.

‘How in the world did he see through ?’

Black hair, ordinary clothes.

And yet, the blue eyes staring as if to pierce through Balzac himself.

There was sothing. About that boy.

An inexplicable chill ran down Balzac’s spine.

***

“Tsk, it was almost done.”

Balzac muttered lowly.

Those words were true.

If I hadn’t intervened, Seol Hayun would have been caught in his hands.

After that, she would have been directly touched by the Magi he had prepared, her body paralyzed, and she would have beco a hostage.

Seol Hayun, being Ju Yeonhwa’s granddaughter, was of imnse value on her own.

From the mont he secured her, Balzac would slaughter everyone left here.

He would commit all those scenes while Seol Hayun watched.

That was the originally planned developnt.

Seol Hayun would have returned safely through a hostage exchange.

However, the Mystery Hall incident would have left her with irreversible trauma.

And at the ti of her promotion to the second year, the mont she was directly exposed to ‘Magi’ again.

The trauma would mix with the Magi, and a collapse would occur.

She would live like a ti bomb and explode at the point of becoming a second-year.

The mont Seol Hayun collapses, she goes beyond simply rampaging and running wild, and completely devastates her surroundings.

A flow that I want to avoid the most.

That is why I am more relieved than anyone else here at this mont.

Balzac took a step back from .

Slowly, creating distance.

He openly exuded a sense of caution.

“You have good instincts.”

He said lowly, his lips twitching.

“No one has ever seen through my disguise until now.”

It was a tone that feigned so composure, but the anger and bewildernt mixed at the back of his throat were not hidden.

“I don’t think it was that great.”

When I retorted lightly, Balzac’s brow furrowed slightly.

“That arrogant attitude, I really don’t like it.”

He narrowed his eyes and adjusted the distance once more.

A mont of silence passed, and he spoke lowly.

“Nothing changes just because you know my identity. This place is still sealed off. You’re no different from rats in a trap.”

The Magi contained in Balzac’s fingertips slowly shimred.

“The order has just changed. I will kill you and take Seol Hayun.”

With those words, he threw his body backward.

His black robe fluttered, and sothing scattered in all directions.

Thududud-

Red lumps poured onto the cold floor.

Their identity was none other than pieces of flesh.

The sticky and bumpy pieces of flesh wriggled and crawled on the floor.

Swish- swoosh-

At so point, they began to tangle and entwine with each other.

They mixed, twisted, and grew in volu, creating a certain shape.

“……”

A sight that everyone could only watch, captivated.

As the result was gradually completed, horrified remarks erupted from here and there.

“Is that a person?”

“Horrible……”

The pieces of flesh had clumped together to create the twisted form of a human.

The flesh humans that Balzac creates.

Balzac collects ‘corpses.’

A thod of splitting and clumping the flesh of corpses into a single mass, and then taking it out and using it at the desired ti.

From the lumps of flesh he had scattered, nurous undead began to be born.

But the interesting thing was that the identity of the Balzac I was looking at was none other than the master of the undead.

In other words, Balzac was a being from the demon world, and the human form he had taken was just sothing made from a corpse.

What was clear was that the main body was sowhere in that bastard’s body.

And right now, not only would it be difficult for

to find it, but even if I did, it would be impossible to destroy it.

Then isn't this an incredibly desperate situation?

Not really.

In the first place, Balzac was a weak being even in the demon world, and he was only persistent until a skill to destroy beings from the demon world appeared. If you knew how to deal with him, he wasn't that threatening of a being.

Thanks to that, if I just followed the plan, I would be able to get out of this situation without any major problems.

The bastard continued to scatter flesh, and they gradually began to take shape.

The first to appear was a form relatively close to a human.

However, its skin was peeled off, and its muscles and tendons were exposed.

Its bones also protruded at strange angles.

The empty pupils stared blankly into the air, but when Balzac gestured, it turned its head and looked at .

After that, a beast-type entity that crawled, dragging its limp front paws on the ground, and even special entities with sharp bone needles embedded in their arms like awls instead of hands appeared.

Finally, with a tallic sound that made the floor rumble, a huge being raised its head.

An undead with its skin covered in black armor.

“That’s……?”

Seol Hayun, who had taken a seat next to

at so point, reacted first.

Her eyes widened, and she looked at

and quietly gestured with her eyes.

The being that had appeared last was the grotesque being we had just been fighting, similar to the one that had attacked us before Balzac’s identity was revealed.

“It’s your future. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Balzac sneered, letting out a bitter smile.

At so point, the flesh humans had surrounded him. As if guarding an important person.

At a rough glance, dozens of undead had been created.

With a single gesture, he had created monsters comparable to a single platoon.

The silence created by the brief confrontation was fleeting, and when Balzac gestured, his army began to move.

***

“Gaaaaah!”

“Don’t co! Don’t co! You bastard!”

Screams erupted from here and there.

Seol Hayun bit her lip and gasped for breath.

She successively unleashed her spells, sensing the movents of the undead that popped out from behind her, from next to her ear, and from outside her vision.

[Flower of Flas: Falling Flower]

A flashing red fla poured onto the heads of the undead that surrounded her.

At that mont, a scream was heard from behind her.

When she turned her head, she saw the sight of an undead snatching a citizen’s leg.

There was no ti to delay.

Seol Hayun once again focused her magic power at her fingertips.

Flas sparked on the body of the undead that her magic power-infused fingertips pointed to.

Guh! Gweeeek!

The undead, with its body on fire, staggered and fell with a strange sound.

Fortunately, the woman was unhard.

However, this was just a small act of resistance in a chaotic ss that seed to have no end.

“……There are too many.”

The words she had intended to swallow ca out of her mouth without her realizing it and lingered emptily in the air.

Just in her imdiate vicinity, there were at least a dozen undead.

So of them were already charging at the citizens.

They each resisted with self-defense weapons or magitools.

But most were either too terrified to move properly or were caught and then covered by the undead, trembling and letting out screams of pain.

“Seol Hayun! Don’t lose focus!”

Ryu Jinwoo’s voice echoed at that mont.

She turned her body reflexively.

One was already right in front of her.

[Flower of Flas: Proliferation]

Kwang!

With an explosion, fla vines burst out from the floor and wrapped around the undead.

Following that, Ryu Jinwoo’s sword accurately cut the neck of the captured undead.

Behind the swift sword strike, the flesh split along the faint line that had ford on the neck, and the head fell to the floor with a thud.

A clean combination, their teamwork was not off by a single inch.

A gaze exchanged in a brief mont, a movent that followed.

It was closer to an instinctive combination for survival than a simple cooperation.

But no matter how much they supported each other, no matter how much they cut and burned, there was no end to it.

‘If I had my way, I’d want to burn this entire area, but…….’

The undead were certainly weak to flas.

But now, with enemies and citizens mixed together, she couldn't use it carelessly.

And above all.

Thuuump-!

The armored, large-bodied entity continued to rampage violently, putting pressure on them.

The tanker-type entity they had fought before.

An opponent that was overwhelming enough on its own.

And now, that monster was rampaging, mixed with nurous undead.

‘Can we hold out?’

Anxiety crept into a corner of Seol Hayun’s heart.

On the other hand, Balzac still looked relaxed.

Despite having summoned so many puppets, he didn't seem overwheld at all.

Above all, he was protecting himself perfectly.

Not only the undead that surrounded him as a at shield, but also the dense Magi that lingered around Balzac.

He wasn’t giving them a single opening.

“Krrruuuh!”

At that mont, a standard-type undead charged at Seol Hayun.

With its face stripped of flesh and its arms shaking, drooling.

Fwoosh-

A red fla flared up and covered the beast’s face.

Pshk-!

The next mont, a dagger-like presence flew in from the left.

“Kuh……”

A bone spear was lodged long in the back of her hand.

She had twisted her shoulder to dodge it, but the blade grazed her, and blood seeped from her cheek.

She imdiately tried to counterattack.

But she couldn't help but lose her center.

The mont she took a step back, having lost her balance.

Whooong-!

A huge shadow lood from above.

The tanker-type entity.

A huge body floating in the air.

Its massive arm rushed at her nacingly.

‘I can't dodge it.’

The mont she realized that, her body was pushed hard.

“Huh?”

Soone’s hand had pushed her back.

Kwaaaang-!

A huge roar echoed, and flesh and dirt flew.

Dust and heat were violently spewed out.

Gradually, as the dust cloud slowly cleared, the scene began to be revealed.

The spot that the huge fist had crushed was hollowed out as if it had been hit by a bomb.

And in it, soone was lying down.

“……Ryu Jinwoo?”

Seol Hayun muttered in a trembling voice.