The S+ Class Omega Takes Over Again [BL]-Chapter 46: I come with an offering

Breathing hard with his mouth closed, Cheon Areum lay down on his side on the couch, curling in on himself as his black wings covered him. He was at his lowest point in energy. Any lower, and he would be forced to use an energy booster. Despite having assassinated every person in this small city himself—careful, precise, conserving as much power as he could—his body was still draining faster than it could replenish. It was taking more than it was producing. Cheon Areum closed his eyes, focusing on steady breaths, letting the darkness settle. He just needed a little time.

"..."

He had only two minutes to himself before the new awakener finished tearing through every card and swallowing the essences. They would give him energy—eventually—but containing that many essences in a core took time. Far more time than it had taken this man. If Cheon Areum had done it himself, he’d still be dealing with the backlash. Before getting off the couch, Cheon Areum took out an energy booster from his inventory, out of the only three ones he had on him, and injected it into his arm, discarding the used injector on the couch. He got back on his feet.

He dissolved the cage around the new awakener with a hand and set him free from his control while still keeping his energy on him in case he wanted to try a backstab too. The instant he freed the man’s mouth, he yelled at him. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Fuck! What is this—some kind of torture camp? I’d rather kill the monsters myself!"

"Then get up and do your part, you piece of shit."

Cheon Areum shot back without hesitation and kicked his legs, gaining a sharp glare from the man.

"What, you want a rematch? You have the energy of an S-Class at best right now. If you want to die, then do it out of my sight."

The man didn’t answer. He simply pushed himself off the floor, dusted off his shoulders, and straightened to his full height, standing taller than him, unfazed by most of it. An S-Class awakener was definitely harder to crush mentally, but even so, recovery this quick was a bit unusual.

I might just have a nutcase on my hands.

The man stretched his limbs casually, rolling his shoulders as if he hadn’t just been restrained and forced through hell. A languid smile curved his lips as he turned toward Cheon Areum, eyes half-lidded and far too relaxed for someone in his position.

"Where do you want to take me?"

"Just follow me. We have to take care of the boss before we can get out of here."

Not one to show his weakness in front of others, Cheon Areum nonchalantly spoke and walked out of the suite, ignoring the headache coming on as the new awakener followed him. Taking the elevator down to the lobby, they passed through corpses after corpses inside the hotel and outside. Outside, they were laid out along the streets like discarded fish on stalls, motionless, eyes left open and staring blankly as Cheon Areum and the man passed by.

"Do you have a fetish for killing and torturing people?"

"I should be asking you that..."

Cheon Areum didn’t slow his pace. He kept moving forward, his face stripped of any visible emotion as he passed the corpses of the people he had to kill individually by his own hands. They were monsters. At least, that was what he told himself. Creatures wearing human skin. And yet, the difference was thin—almost nonexistent. To kill them, he had still needed to treat them as real people. Their reactions had been the same too: fear, pain, resistance. Nothing about them resembled the mindless monsters he was used to facing. That was exactly why Yoon Seoyul had always stopped him from doing things like this. It never left anything good behind.

He didn’t want to admit it, but there was definitely a side to him that did enjoy the massacre. It was stress-relieving, as if he was squeezing a stress ball constantly, but that side was what had come to reside with him after his reawakening. It was only a small part of him, easily shadowed by Cheon Areum, but if Cheon Areum lost himself, that shadow naturally took over him.

The city was quite small, and it was half-surrounded by mountains. Cheon Areum stopped at the base of one of the tallest peaks and scanned the terrain, eyes narrowing as he searched for a way up.

"If I had stabbed you in the stomach, how long would you have before you died? I’m not one to take pleasure in watching others suffer really. I will end it sooner for you."

"What’s the fun in that? You should make me kneel at your feet first. You have no idea how much more entertaining that is than ending it with a single, boring strike."

Cheon Areum answered the man behind him as he found some ruined stairs to take, although he could have flown to the peak in seconds—but the living lump of human meat behind him couldn’t, and he needed to take this to the peak with him too. The man narrowed his eyes, thoughtful now, as if weighing whether to follow the path Cheon Areum had chosen.

Cheon Areum was showing him, but really he wanted to have chances. If this new awakener had killed him in a single sweep without any unnecessary stuff, Cheon Areum wouldn’t have had any chances to come on top. But if he chose to make him suffer and tried to make him kneel at his feet, this new awakener would be giving him so many opportunities to overtake him at any time.

"Do you want to be dragged on the stairs too?"

"Not really. I can walk on my own."

Cheon Areum took the lead, climbing the ruined steps as the man followed behind him. For the next half hour, the only sounds were their footsteps against stone and the distant wind threading through the mountains. But realizing he was missing something, Cheon Areum spoke up, breaking the silence.

"What’s your name? Give me a fake one, I don’t care. Or if you like being called a piece of shit, that works too—it suits you."

"Kihyun..."

The man muttered.

"Kihyun, as in... good-hearted?"

Cheon Areum tilted his head, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah."

Cheon Areum frowned, accepting it anyway. Who was he to judge someone by their name? Maybe Kihyun’s parents had picked it without knowing that one day he’d execute a villain’s plan—or whatever mess he had gotten himself tangled in. Names didn’t define people, but Cheon Areum kept his eyes on the actions, not the labels.

Reaching the peak of the mountain after a rigorous hike, they came to a summit opened into a rough, circular plateau, and for some inexplicable reason, bones littered the ground, scattered like toys that hadn’t been tidied after use. On the far side, the mountain dropped sharply into a dark abyss, its bottom swallowed by shadow. Cheon Areum leaned slightly, peering over the edge, and gave a small, approving nod.

"Planning to jump in there?"

Kihyun asked, standing beside him.

"Yes."

Cheon Areum’s reply was curt. In the next instant, his energy snaked around Kihyun’s ankle, yanking him off balance. Before the man could even react, Cheon Areum delivered a precise kick, sending him tumbling into the yawning black void below.

"Here’s your offering. Do whatever you want with him."

Before ending the lives of the people in the city, he had asked them about the boss, which was nowhere to be seen, and many of the people there had told him that only an offering of a person here would make the boss reveal itself. Cheon Areum waited patiently. Eventually, faint sounds of bells rang in the distance, carried up from below. Cheon Areum’s eyes tracked the source, and his gaze fell on the spot where Kihyun had plummeted—a perfect offering, already drawing the attention of whatever lay in the depths.

From the dark abyss, a horde of muscular creatures were climbing their way up the mountain. Their heads were fish-like, their scales glistening wet in the dim moonlight, and each movement set the bells around their necks jingling in a discordant symphony. They were frantically coming to the peak, their bodies convulsing slightly.

Noticing something was off—the creatures didn’t seem intent on attacking him—Cheon Areum unfurled his wings and dove into the abyss, heading straight for Kihyun. The fall was swift, slicing through the air until he finally landed dryly above a vast, cyan-hued pool. There was no ground in sight—only water stretching endlessly in every direction. Bubbles churned at the surface, rippling outward from the spot where Kihyun had plunged in.

Kihyun appeared to be struggling deep beneath the cyan waters, his movements sending ripples across the surface. Slowly, dark streaks of blood began rising, staining the water in creeping rivulets, and on the side, many of the fish-headed bodies were still fleeing the site by climbing up the straight mountain wall.