Hell's Handbook

Chapter 181: Another Gamble, Another Fight

The entire carriage fell silent. Chu Yi had become nothing but ash within the confines of the tortoise shell arena, leaving nothing but the Boning Knife from Su Jin on the floor.

Su Jin was too stunned for words, and so was the rest of his team. Nobody expected something like that to happen at all. Chu Yi had won, but Ennui had gone back on his word and turned Chu Yi to dust.

Su Jin’s face reddened as a rage boiled within him. He tried his best to remain rational. Should he avenge Chu Yi by engaging in battle with this demigod? He could do that, but that might cost him the lives of more teammates or even all their lives.

But how could he just let this go like that? That would be letting Chu Yi down as well. Su Jin’s body trembled slightly as he fought the inner turmoil in his heart. If he was here by himself, he would have attacked the demigod by now.

The demigod let out a disdainful sneer when he saw how Su Jin was trembling all over. A mortal was merely a mortal after all. So what if Su Jin said he was a representative of a real god? He had no chance of even retaliating when faced with such a powerful being.

“Disgusting little worms. I can’t believe I had to do this myself.” He wiped his fat and oily hands with a look of disgust, as though Chu Yi had dirtied his hands.

“How dare you!” Kano Mai finally snapped and retrieved her Soul Whisperer from her Handbook. Her entire body was emanating fury and grief as she aimed the gun at the demigod.

The demigod was more than happy to see her do this. If Kano Mai actually tried to shoot him, that would give him a legitimate reason to fight back and take her for himself.

“Mai, stop!” Su Jin suddenly grabbed hold of the Soul Whisperer and he shook his head at Kano Mai with clenched teeth.

“Jin, he… he… he killed Chu Yi.” Tears streamed down Kano Mai’s face as she wailed, “And Chu Yi… because of me, Chu Yi…”

Su Jin’s heart ached because of Chu Yi as well as how broken Kano Mai was. He pulled an arm around her shoulder gently and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’m here, I’m here.”

Kano Mai buried her face in his chest as she sobbed. Her tears refused to stop flowing and his clothes were wet almost immediately.

Both Situ Jin and Wu Chen had grim looks on their faces. They knew that this Challenge was going to be very dangerous right from the start, but if the passengers in the carriages could kill them at their whim and fancy, then there was no way they could get through this Challenge at all. There was no hope of surviving this Challenge.

The team members of Team High Mountain had grim looks on their faces as well. If members of a team as formidable as Team Boning Knife were at such a loss and that pig-headed demigod was so powerful, then they were doomed. Never mind the demigod: they were certain that figurine the demigod had used to fight Chu Yi was enough to annihilate the entire team.

The demigod was disappointed to see Su Jin stop Kano Mai from trying to attack him. If these mortals did not initiate any attack on him, it was going to be hard to snatch this girl away in front of so many other gods. This made Ennui rather frustrated. If he hadn’t suggested a battle earlier, then he could have just snatched her away and nothing much would have happened, actually.

But now, he had lost the bet. So, if he tried to snatch her away despite losing, the other gods watching would have a bad impression of him and one of them might even step forward to help these pathetic mortals.

Su Jin turned around to face the demigod. He glared at Ennui and said frostily, “Let’s go for another round. Are you in?”

Ennui was surprised for a moment. He thought that these humans would scamper off immediately. He didn’t expect them to still have the courage to challenge him like this.

He laughed maniacally. “HAHA! You want another round? Sure! What are the stakes this time?” He rubbed his palms together.

Su Jin took a deep breath and said, “You lost the last bet,” then stuck his hand out.

Ennui blinked in confusion for a while, then realized that Su Jin was demanding his prize from him. He was annoyed by this action, but in order to move onto the next round, he had no choice but to throw the pig-headed figurine to Su Jin.

Su Jin caught the figurine and said in a deep voice, “This time… the prize will still be her.” He pointed at Kano Mai. Kano Mai did not protest and even nodded at him with a trusting look on her face.

Ennui became wildly excited. The only thing he wanted from Su Jin was precisely Kano Mai. The powers she possessed were very similar to his, so if he could get her, then he might be able to ascend beyond demigod status and become a real god like the Goddess of the Harvest.

“Excellent.” Ennui nodded in agreement. This time, he took out a black crystal and said to Su Jin, “This is a Magic Energy Source Crystal and it’s a rare thing even among real gods. It can increase the power of a god. If you win, you can have it.”

The moment he took out that crystal, every passenger in the carriage sat up. That was something that was extremely treasured by even the real gods. They didn’t expect Ennui to actually offer something like this in a fight. Then again, it made sense. Ennui was probably afraid that Su Jin might go back on his word.

“This time, I’ll fight you myself. I’ll allow you to attack me first and if I die, then I lose. But after that, I’ll attack you and if you die, you lose!” Su Jin was really going all out this time and was actually putting his own life on the line. At the same time, he was also implying that he wanted to kill Ennui.

Ennui was surprised, but he immediately began to laugh maniacally again. “Haha! Sure, sure! You’re really bold to challenge a deity, huh! That’s a deal!” Ennui jumped onto the tortoise shell and waited for Su Jin.

A look of panic flashed in Kano Mai’s eyes, but she calmed down again after she saw the look in Su Jin’s eyes. Her team leader had never disappointed her before.

Su Jin leaped onto the tortoise shell as well and picked up his Boning Knife. The fury in his eyes intensified and he said to Ennui, “You can go first!”

Ennui nodded even as he laughed at Su Jin for being foolish. After all, Su Jin was a mere mortal. Even if he were the representative of a real god, the difference in their powers was too great. Surviving an attack from a demigod sounded simply ridiculous to Ennui. How could a weak little mouse hold up against the attack of a Transformer?

Situ Jin and Wu Chen looked equally horrified. They knew that Su Jin was formidable, but to challenge a demigod that could turn Chu Yi into dust with the snap of his fingers definitely sounded like a stupid idea. Had Chu Yi’s death made Su Jin lose all rationality?

Su Jin slapped a hand on his Handbook and put on both the Protection of the Gods and his Gold Armor. Both of these items could protect his body against an attack. They couldn’t do much, but it was better than nothing.

“Little minion, I hope you succeed… in reincarnating as a human in your next life,” cackled Ennui as he suddenly raised a fist. A black mist solidified into a fist above his own. Ennui was smaller than life inside the tortoise shell arena, but this move still made everyone’s hearts palpitate in fear, because it looked like this punch would probably be able to wipe out anything within the arena.

“Our team leader is doomed.” That was Situ Jin’s first thought. This was a power that was way above what an owner could withstand. If Su Jin allowed himself to move around, he might be able to dodge it. But if he was going to just stand there and allow the attack to descend on him, then he was dead meat.

“Stellar Streams Heavy Armor! Protection of the Gods!” shouted Su Jin. A colorful glow surrounded his body and seemed to fossilize him as he became as stiff as wood.

BOOM! That fist made of black mist came down hard on the colorful glow. The Protection of the Gods could protect Su Jin from an attack that was made from something that existed on Earth, but Ennui’s attack didn’t seem to be made from anything that already existed, so it went right through the colorful glow and hit Su Jin directly.

Everyone from the two teams watched on in horror as their eyes widened. They were all certain that Su Jin wasn’t going to survive this.

The punch had stirred up a huge amount of dust, so it took a while for the dust to settle back down again. After the dust settled, everyone saw that Su Jin’s outermost layer of skin had nearly disappeared and large parts of his exposed flesh had been burned as well. But the thing that made everyone’s hair stand on end in utter disbelief was the fact that Su Jin was actually still alive.

“What the…” Ennui stared in shock at the human in front of him. He had put in everything he had into that punch, yet it hadn’t been enough to smite a mere mortal.

“That’s why he’s called Ennui, eh? He truly lives up to his name!”

“What a joke! He can’t even kill a mortal?”

“Goodness gracious! Has the power of his worshippers dwindled this much?”

None of the passengers onboard had opened their mouths, but the members of both Team Boning Knife and Team High Mountain could hear mocking voices that were disdainful of Ennui and felt that Ennui had embarrassed himself.

Su Jin was on the verge of collapsing actually. That blow from Ennui had been very powerful, and being able to survive it was indeed a miracle in itself. Thankfully, he had received that bottle of wine from the boss of Hell’s Bar and he had almost finished drinking it all himself. His physical body was now even stronger than after he had consumed the High Level Body Strengthening Elixir. He had also used the Stellar Streams Heavy Armor to further fortify himself, which brought his resilience to an even higher level than humanly possible.

Even so, he had survived that blow by a stroke of luck. He initially thought that the Protection of the Gods would have helped to cushion a bit of the impact, but to his dismay, Ennui’s punch was made from something that could go through his defenses, so the Protection of the Gods was useless. He had no choice but to use his own body to hold up against the punch. This punch shattered his Gold Armor completely, leaving no trace of it behind.

He stuffed a few leaves from the Tree of Life into his mouth and his body began to recover rapidly. But his injuries were way too severe, so unless he could return to his Hell Domain right now, waiting for his body to recover fully was going to take too long. Eating these leaves was only enough to help him regain the ability to move.

“It’s my turn,” said Su Jin frostily.

Ennui stared at Su Jin disdainfully. He had to admit that Su Jin was better at defending himself than he had expected, but he didn’t think Su Jin could do anything that could hurt him since Su Jin was so badly injured. In fact, even if Su Jin weren’t injured, Ennui was sure that Su Jin would have no way of causing a deity like himself any harm.

Su Jin retrieved the Demon Lord’s Longbow from his Handbook. Sparkles formed an arrow and he aimed it at Ennui.

Ennui shuddered as he stared at Su Jin in disbelief and yelled frantically, “That’s… that’s a weapon made by a god! How?! How could you have something like that?!” Ennui turned and tried to escape.