[the constellation 'prisoner of the golden headband' is scratching his head in confusion.]
"Yeah, I'm confused too," Lee Jihye admitted with a frown. "What's she doing?"
Right, no one else would know what [Invocation Rite] did, since Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't encountered an incarnation who had it until the 1173rd regression. They had no idea just how broken that stigma could be under the right circumstances.
As the constellation 'Shaman King' looks down at Boksoon with an annoyed look, the old woman chastises him and tells him to come help her this time.
Her Sponsor is 'Shaman King'—the second king of Silla and a shaman, 'Namhae Chachuang'.
The wind stirred up by Boksoon slowly turns into smoke and drifts by a man dressed in elegant robes, wearing an ancient crown upon his head as the background becomes a painting. Slowly, his form turns back into that of the old woman as she continues to dance.
Though a high-ranking constellation, he never personally descends to fight his own battles. Instead, he passed down one of his incredible powers to his incarnations, the [Invocation Rite].
Boksoon's eyes flash open as she sucks in the smoke around her. While she's doing this, Dokja explains that the Stigma essentially turns her into a living
"Shaman King? Is this [Invocation Rite] really that strong?" Lee Hyunsung wondered absently, frowning at the screen. It made sense that he was confused—that didn't seem like a particularly noteworthy modifier, after all.
Kim Dokja nodded, pursing his lips. "She has a unique stigma that allows her to be an extremely versatile ally."
[the constellation 'maritime war god' is nodding sagely.]
To think that someone like this had really started out in Seodaemun prison… the incarnation that Kim Dokja remembered as having this stigma in the novel was someone completely different. Glancing over at Jung Heewon, he couldn't help but wonder if they were in similar circumstances.
How many regressions had Jung Heewon not survived past being abandoned by the Major group at Geumho station? How many regressions had the old lady not survived the prison? After all, without her there to use her knowledge to take charge and gather them up, having sponsors like Jeon Woochi and 'Shaman King' would only go so far.
Yoo Sangah gasped as her eyes widened in shock. "Her stigma allows her to borrow powers from other constellations like that artifact?"
[several constellations are impressed by the stigma 'invocation rite'.]
"So, in that case, she can basically end up doing what you did in the fourth scenario, right?" Jung Heewon asked, leaning forward a bit to look clearly over at Kim Dokja.
"Pretty much," Kim Dokja confirmed. "Of course, such a powerful stigma has a really long cooldown, so she has to use it tactically."
What he wasn't saying is that he wasn't sure she'd have the stigma available again before they ran into the real serpent, which could be a real problem. Of course, he still had the
"Centipede, shall this old lady tell you an ancient tale?" Boksoon interrupts him as she continues to hop in place, cutting him off again when he tries to speak. "Long ago, there was a town. In that town, there lived a maiden, and she was the kind of girl who even fed a toad that barged into her kitchen."
As the smoke still curls around all of them and the story continues, Dokja seems to realise what this tale is about. Following the smoke, a girl drawn with the strokes of an ink brush appears before a large centipede, facing it as a sacrifice.
Throughout the tale, Boksoon's thumps after every hop get louder and her muscles seem to grow in size. Realizing that something's wrong, Yamamoto urgently calls out for his people to stop her while guessing who her sponsor may be.
"But wouldn't you know it, there was an animal who came to save the girl. It was the toad that the girl had fed." As she says the final line, strokes of an ink brush paint up her neck and onto her cheeks, and her eyebrows and hair seem to change art styles as well—seeming more cloudlike than anything resembling hair—as the toad comes to dwell within her.
The constellation that possessed her was the protagonist of the story of the toad who saved the maiden from a centipede, 'The Toad of Ogongwon'.
Shin Yoosung immediately perked up as soon as Lee Boksoon began recounting her folktale. Sitting attentively and hugging Kim Dokja's arm tightly, she glanced up at him and grinned for a moment. "I don't like frogs or toads as much as other animals, but they're way cooler than centipedes."
Lee Gilyoung grabbed onto Kim Dokja's other arm and seemed as though he wanted to protest, but the fact that the centipede was their enemy in this case was enough to make him hesitate. Despite that, it was still obvious that he was grumbling about how bugs were better than Shin Yoosung's 'stupid frogs'.
[constellations who love folktales are eagerly listening to the story of the incarnation 'lee boksoon'.]
[the constellation 'demon-like judge of fire' is praising the kindness of the girl in the story.]
"There's a centipede in the story too?" Lee Seolhwa observed, her eyes growing wide, as Kim Dokja came to the exact same realization.
Ah, so that's what she was going for. Smart.
"Keep them immobilized, Kim Dokja," Yoo Joonghyuk instructed tensely, as though he were speaking to the Kim Dokja on screen and not the one sitting next to him. Swallowing anxiously, Kim Dokja just hoped that his pitiful amount of mana would hold out long enough to not let the protagonist down.
Han Sooyoung let out a whistle, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. "Damn, that granny's a bit more badass than expected."
It was astounding how much someone could change just from having a constellation possessing them, and this was certainly one of the more noticeable transformations. Between the change in her physique, the inkbrush tattoos, and the cloudlike hair, Lee Boksoon looked more like a spirit than a human.
[the constellation 'abyssal black flame dragon' is adamant that dragons are cooler than toads.]
An ink painting of the girl feeding the toad appears alongside the narration before that tiny toad grows larger and turns into a giant translucent mirage as it materializes behind Boksoon to face the Centipede, eager for a meal.
Yamamoto tries to back away, but a barrier begins to form around the area, causing him to urge his men to kill her. Dokja looks around with his eyes, but his hands shake and sweat pours down his face from the effort to keep everyone locked in place.
[Stage Transformation]. The phenomenon that occurs when incarnations of related constellations meet. Constellations with famous fables are powerful, and they become even more so if they are in conditions relevant to said fables.
Leaning just far enough out of her brother's lap, Yoo Mia tugged on Kim Dokja's robe a bit too hard, causing it to slip partly off his shoulder on one side. He couldn't get it to go back just by shrugging, and the other kids were still holding his arms hostage, so he just sighed and turned to see what the girl wanted.
[the constellation 'god of wine and ecstasy' is pleased by the current events.]
[the constellation 'secretive plotter' is looking intently at the incarnation 'kim dokja' with an admiring gaze.]
[the constellation 'demon-like judge of fire' is glaring at the constellations 'god of wine and ecstasy' and 'secretive plotter'.]
Ignoring the indirect messages, he forced a smile to his face as he turned to look at her.
"What is it, Mia-yah?"
"Ahjussi, she's trying to do that transformation thing, right?" Yoo Mia asked seriously, looking unusually eager to be right. When he nodded in confirmation, she brightened up immediately, grinning widely at him for only a second before she realized what she was doing and turned away with reddened cheeks and ears.
Still, the sight of her beaming smile was burned into his mind, and for an instant, Kim Dokja wondered if that was sort of what Yoo Joonghyuk would look like if he was happy. Of course, he banished that thought as soon as it occurred—even when happy, there was no way that their terrifying regressor would ever smile like that. It was too OOC to even consider.
Glancing back up, Kim Dokja noticed that Yoo Joonghyuk was staring at him with a strange look in his eyes, and he anxiously shrunk back out of habit. Was the guy really so annoyed that his sister had chosen to ask Kim Dokja instead of him?
Han Sooyoung cleared her throat loudly, and Kim Dokja looked over at her in confusion for a moment. Still, it was just long enough for another message to appear.
[the constellation 'queen of the darkest spring' is recommending that the incarnation 'kim dokja' fix his robe.]
Lee Jihye was snickering and Jung Heewon shot a teasing grin in his direction, but Kim Dokja just rolled his eyes and managed to extract a hand to fix it. Seriously, what was their problem?
[the constellation 'demon-like judge of fire' is threatening to end the temporary truce.]
Kim Dokja didn't have the time or energy to waste on the constellations' bickering, especially since he wasn't sure why Uriel was suddenly changing her tune again. Right now, seeing how this stage transformation would play out was the most crucial thing.
Boksoon walks over and plucks Yamamoto off the ground by his arms, causing the man to yelp as he finally drops the cage. Her mouth opens widely as the [Azure Fire of the Toad] regains its original strength from [Stage Transformation], and then has its power increased by 300% due to [Shikigami]. In a fabulous beam of fire that she spits from her mouth, everything in its path is completely incinerated.
"The moral of this story is…" Boksoon continues saying to the shocked Japanese incarnations as she drops Yamamoto's charred remains to the ground unceremoniously, "... to not play with fire."
"Oh my god, how strong is that grandma?" Lee Jihye stage whispered, her jaw dropping in awe as she watched Lee Boksoon pick up a grown man with ease.
[the constellation 'prisoner of the golden headband' is tearing out his hair in excitement.]
Lee Hyunsung's eyes widened to a truly baffling degree as he watched the buffs come rolling in to increase the strength of her attack. "Three hundred percent…"
His voice was faint, completely caught off guard, and Kim Dokja honestly felt the same. With a stigma like that, it was crucial that she knew how to use it to its full potential but… goddamn. Kim Dokja had never expected this.
"She's breathing fire," Jung Heewon stated in a deadpan, stunned into disbelief. "I cannot believe that this isn't the weirdest thing we've seen so far."
Right, that dubious honour would probably have to go to Yoo Mia pulling an entire flagpole—concrete included—out of her mouth.
And then the beam of fire absolutely eviscerated a man, and Kim Dokja just sat and stared. Holy shit.
[the constellation 'abyssal black flame dragon' is cackling with glee.]
[many constellations are thrilled by the death of the incarnation 'yamamoto hajime'.]
Lee Gilyoung looked absolutely torn between being glad that they had won, and disappointed that a bug had died. That was pretty par for the course for him, so Kim Dokja wasn't overly concerned. Shin Yoosung, on the other hand, was nervously glancing between Kim Dokja and her—as though she wasn't sure if it would be okay to cheer for someone who was technically the subordinate of someone Kim Dokja despised.
He just ruffled both kids' hair, and hoped that would be enough for the moment. Regardless, he knew that she was smiling and probably looking smug, and that was the last thing he wanted to see right now.
As Boksoon pats the dust and embers off her hands, a rush of notifications come in, alerting everyone to Yamamoto's death and the rewards from it. As Boksoon returns to her normal size, Dokja also is forced to release [Shikigami] due to excessive mana usage. He manages to walk over to her just in time for [Miniaturization] to hit the old woman, which she treats as a minor inconvenience and asks Dokja for a lift. He hands her a piece of cloth to wear as the Japanese incarnations finally snap back to the present and try to attack him.
Despite his obvious exhaustion—demonstrated by the sweat pouring down his face and the tired determination in his eyes—Dokja activates [Way of the Wind] to blow them away from his position and gains a second penalty. Checking his timer, Dokja determines that he must get out of the forested area quickly, since the penalty will activate in five minutes, even though his bookmark will last ten. Before he manages to run, he hears a call from the cage, and Dokja realizes that it's Asuka asking for him to take her as well.
Yoo Sangah sighed in relief, holding a hand to her chest as she did. "Thank goodness you didn't have to attack either, Dokja-ssi."
That was true, and because of that, Lee Boksoon was the only one getting hit with the penalty for it. Still, Kim Dokja was more than aware that he wasn't off the hook just yet.
[a few constellations are disappointed that the incarnation 'kim dokja' didn't shrink too.]
"You just ran out of mana again, didn't you?" Han Sooyoung remarked, raising a brow in Kim Dokja's direction. "If you get out of here and don't start investing in it early, then you'd be a fucking idiot."
Okay, fine. That still didn't change the fact that the other stats were more crucial in the earlier scenarios for someone who didn't have a mana-intensive skill to start with. As far as he could tell, none of his skills were fuelled by mana, other than using his sword's attributes.
"Ahjussi, you should probably start running," Yoo Mia said matter-of-factly, once again looking disappointed in him. Ah yes, that was more like her than that smile from earlier.
Kim Dokja grinned at her. "At least I have a skill perfect for that, right?"
The girl just scoffed. "That's not your skill, ahjussi. You just copied it."
[the constellation 'abyssal black flame dragon' is amused by the words of the incarnation 'yoo mia'.]
Still, despite having [Way of the Wind] bookmarked, only having five minutes to escape with everyone in tow didn't look good, without even taking the fact that he'd be getting attacked the whole time into account.
Upon Asuka Ren's urgent plea to go with them, Lee Seolhwa looked both surprised and relieved. "She's important, so this is a very good thing, isn't it?"
It was, and Kim Dokja was incredibly glad that she had called out like that. It would have been awful if he had forgotten about her in his rush to get away, because there was no guarantee that they wouldn't end up killing her eventually.
[the constellation 'lily blooming in aquarius' is hoping that the incarnation 'kim dokja' will save the incarnation 'asuka ren'.]
Rushing through the forest assisted by [Way of the Wind], shuriken fly past Dokja as he holds his hands under the coat to protect Asuka and Boksoon while the Japanese incarnations yell that he'll be little shortly, telling the others to get revenge for their leader. A shuriken manages to graze his face, and Dokja winces while taking note of the danger of the situation.
Suddenly, he stops, noticing some rustling among the roots on the ground as the trees begin to shake and writhe. 'The shape of the forest is changing..! Is someone using their ability to do this?'
Asuka yells to remind Dokja to be careful as it's becoming night, which makes Dokja remember that no one enters the forests of Peace Land after sunset. As the men continue to chase him, some of the stragglers start to be picked off by the roots and dragged into the ground.
[a few constellations are relieved to see that the incarnation 'asuka ren' was saved.]
Kim Dokja tensed up as he watched himself flee, knowing that this was a race against the clock. If he got miniaturized before getting out of the forest, then they were fucked. Still, no one else knew that, except for maybe Yoo Joonghyuk. There had never been any flashbacks to this scenario from the first few regressions, so there was a chance that he had always left the forest long before night fell.
"Ahjussi, your face!" Shin Yoosung yelped when a shuriken sliced a shallow line across his cheek.
[the constellation 'secretive plotter' is narrowing his eyes in anger.]
[a constellation who values taking care of one's skin is horrified by the blemish to the face of the incarnation 'kim dokja'.]
But then, the forest itself began to change, and Kim Dokja knew that everyone was surprised by that, considering the way many of them gasped.
Jung Heewon narrowed her eyes in thought. "That can't be the old lady again, right? You said something about a cooldown…"
That's right—it wasn't her.
"That's just how the forests of Peace Land are," Kim Dokja stated right as Asuka Ren warned him about the sun setting. "They're incredibly dangerous."
"Be careful, Dokja-ssi," Yoo Sangah told him seriously, but her face paled drastically only a moment later when several of the incarnations chasing them were consumed by the forest itself.
When night falls in the forest area of Peace Land, it turns into a labyrinth, and the forest itself changes into the stomach of a giant monster.
Dokja gets the one minute warning before he turns small as well as the forest cuts off his pursuers with more writhing roots. As Dokja maneuvers his way through the forest to the best of his ability, he remembers that there were no records in TWSA about escaping the forest at night, Asuka points at a tree just ahead of them and tells him to run to the right once he reaches it. Dokja immediately follows her direction.
But… it was written in TWSA…
Boksoon asks if Asuka knows her way around this place, and upon receiving her affirmative response, Boksoon chuckles and guesses that she must have a skill that will help her with that. Asuka's eyes widen before they turn somber, and she says, ".... I do."
"The first person you should seek out in 'Peace Land' is 'Asuka Ren'."
"A giant monster!?" Lee Jihye yelled, looking horrified. "Get out! Ahjussi, you're not lucky enough to avoid getting digested twice!"
Well, ignoring the second half of her statement—and the fact that the first time had been Yoo Joonghyuk's fault in the first place—Kim Dokja was doing his best, okay? It's not like TWSA had a map or anything.
[several constellations are thrilled by the exciting chase.]
[the constellation 'queen of the darkest spring' is hoping that the incarnations will be able to escape.]
Yoo Joonghyuk's gaze darkened upon hearing that there were no records of that, and he looked almost frustrated by it. Kim Dokja genuinely wasn't sure why that would be. After all, it was a good thing that Yoo Joonghyuk had likely never been in the forest at night, and that he had only heard about certain things secondhand.
"We'll be fine," Kim Dokja said confidently, hoping to reassure everyone as best as he could. Of course, he couldn't be completely certain, but they had Asuka Ren with them, and that meant that their chances of getting out unscathed were as good as they were going to get.
"Hyung, how does she know where to go?" Lee Gilyoung asked curiously, looking confused by the fact that Kim Dokja was following Asuka Ren's directions without hesitation.
"Ooh, is it because she got here first so maybe she knows the forest better than you?" Lee Jihye guessed.
[a few constellations are wondering about the knowledge of the incarnation 'asuka ren'.]
Instead of answering right away, Kim Dokja just smiled mysteriously and gestured to the screen, where the woman herself was confirming that she had knowledge or a skill that would help her in this place. When it came to things like this, trusting in what TWSA said was crucial, and Kim Dokja would do it in a heartbeat. They were just incredibly lucky to have stumbled across her so early.
"See? With her on our side, we'll be fine."
[the constellation 'secretive plotter' is curious about the incarnation 'asuka ren'.]