Chapter 271: Mutated Beasts

Joo Joowon watched as these densely packed little creatures displayed an even more frenzied attraction to light than they had before death, almost throwing themselves one after another into the flames.

The burning trees stood there quietly without making any sound, as if they were completely ordinary trees. Yet, whether it was merely an illusion or not, Joo Joowon developed the feeling that they were all "chewing."

There was clearly no bloody or grotesque scene at the site, but this situation still caused Joo Joowon to feel a chill run through him.

He suddenly felt that choosing to build his territory here might have been a mistake.

Joo Joowon should have realized this much earlier.

When he saw his own destiny and Byeol’s destiny, he should have thought of this. With the destinies they possessed, how could there possibly be no problems wherever they went?

He even believed that, even if he chose a place such as an air-raid shelter, a golf course, or a villa district, where there were few people and it was impossible for there to be many species of living creatures, problems would still arise.

If this had happened before the world possessed mysterious powers, the influence might not have been very great. However, the destructive power of destiny actually grew stronger as the person themselves became more powerful.

He could only trust the judgment from the astrological chart he had calculated.

Joo Joowon looked at the insects that seemed to have completely lost their minds as they threw themselves into the flames. These little creatures had never been particularly intelligent to begin with, and after becoming zombies, they had even less sense.

After thinking for a moment, he quietly followed the flying insects and approached the burning trees, wanting to get a glimpse of what was happening inside the flames. However, the moment he got close, his soul immediately felt a wave of heat, so he retreated without the slightest hesitation.

A soul could only resist a small portion of mental attacks. If a soul that could not sense the material world could actually feel heat, then it meant that these flames definitely had the ability to harm spirit bodies as well.

Therefore, there was no need to take the risk.

...

After some time passed like this, all the mosquitoes, insects, snakes, and ants in the surrounding area disappeared without a trace, as if they had never existed in the first place.

However, the flames inside the trees still showed no signs of stopping. Instead, they seemed to have become larger and brighter after obtaining "fuel."

Even the pitch-black sky, where not a single star or moon could be seen, seemed to have been dyed with a faint orange red color under the illumination of the firelight.

Joo Joowon suddenly heard the sound of running from nearby. Clearly, the relatively larger creatures that had noticed the firelight had finally climbed up the mountain and begun arriving here.

Several beasts with obvious zombie characteristics, along with some strange looking animals, came running over.

The Hwarim Mountain Range also had another name, the Myriad Spirits Mountain Range. This place gave birth to countless rare and precious species.

From ordinary tigers, wolves, and leopards to some rare animals whose names were rarely even heard that had become legends after going extinct in most places, they could all be found here. Even now, scholars could still occasionally discover some new species or new plants. The richness of the species found here could be seen from this alone.

However, no matter how strange the animals looked, none of them had ever looked like this.

A fluffy monster with eyes covering its entire body, a wild boar with its legs growing from its back, snakes that were constantly sticking out their tongues all over their bodies.

Joo Joowon suddenly understood what the so-called mentally induced mutations were all about.

In ancient times, these things would definitely have been treated as monsters and burned to death. Even in modern times, anyone who saw creatures that had mutated into such grotesque forms would find them almost unbearable to look at.

Unlike the brainless mosquitoes and insects, these zombies did not recklessly charge into the sea of flames after approaching. They did not display even the slightest sign of the kind of behavior described by the system, where they would throw themselves toward the light without regard for anything else.

Perhaps they could not yet be considered dark creatures?

Joo Joowon quietly watched from the side.

The eyes of these zombies that had stopped, especially the mutated zombie beasts, could hardly be described as clear or sane. There was neither violent chaos nor vigilance mixed with bloodlust. Instead, there was a kind of dullness that was extremely difficult to describe with words.

It could not exactly be called dullness either. It was more like each of them seemed to be completely immersed in its own world, as if it could no longer sense anything happening around it.

But if they could not sense anything happening around them, they would not have come running here in the first place.

Soon, these mutated creatures began to move.

These mutated animals were not all zombies. Some of them were still living animals. They opened their mouths and released strange, unfamiliar sounds that were completely different from anything they had made before. Their pupils gradually filled with tiny black spots, and they began to howl in a chaotic yet orderly manner.

Perhaps it should no longer have been called howling.

The sounds had a unique rhythm, resembling the voices of a church choir singing together.

Invisible waves spread outward along with their voices. Through Joo Joowon’s heightened perception, it seemed that even the surrounding space had begun to twist and tremble because of them. A sacred yet bizarre atmosphere naturally emerged.

They were "praying." They were "preaching."

Joo Joowon suddenly developed this realization.

This kind of fluctuation was still not enough to affect Joo Joowon, whose Mental Power had already reached 44 points. His Mental Power had been tempered several times, giving him fairly strong resistance against certain specific mental attacks. Therefore, he did not feel uncomfortable at this moment. At most, he was somewhat annoyed as he kept his eyes on the movements of the "fire trees."