The Bronze Upgrade
Clawed hands of vengeful spirits punched through Park Cheol-min’s armor and gouged flesh from his body.
“H-hiiiiiik!”
A strangled cry, more like a beast’s death rattle than a human scream, burst from Park Cheol-min’s mouth.
“D-don’t come near me! Stay back! You fucking bitches, I didn’t kill you! Get away!”
The entire party froze at the sight of Park Cheol-min flailing wildly at empty air, his arms lashing like a madman’s as he convulsed.
“Park Cheol-min! Get a grip!”
Cha Seon-hu rushed forward and tried to seize his shoulder.
“Get away!! Don’t touch meee!!”
Park Cheol-min shoved him away roughly and went rolling across the ground.
Then he began clawing at his own face and throat like a lunatic.
Even as his own nails raked his cheeks and neck into a bloody mess, he never stopped.
“Save me! I was wrong! Don’t rip me apart!! Please, don’t take me to hell!”
There was no trace of the dignity an A-class Awaker should have had.
Face-down in the dirt, he pressed his forehead to the ground and began begging frantically.
“Subdue him! Bind him first!”
Sensing that something was deeply wrong, Cha Seon-hu shouted with veins bulging in his neck.
It was the exact moment the others pulled out ropes and rushed in.
“KRAAAAAAAH!!!!!”
A final scream.
In Su-hyeok’s eyes, a pitch-black shadow opened its maw and lunged over Park Cheol-min’s body.
From within some hideous hallucination, the shadow swallowed the man whole, dragging in the flesh of a mind that had already completely shattered.
“Huh...?”
“What... what was that?”
The party members who had been charging forward stopped as if their feet had been nailed to the floor.
The body that had been thrashing and bleeding only a moment ago was now crumbling away into fine black dust, collapsing into the damp cave air.
Not a single drop of blood remained. Not a shred of flesh. It was perfect annihilation.
I have judged a sinner who had awakened.
As reward for the judgment, you have obtained 5,000 Hell Points.
The sweet system message blooming across his retina.
The reward for judging an A-class Awaker was, in sheer numbers, on a completely different scale from the low-rank trash he had hunted until now. It was nothing short of overwhelming.
But before Su-hyeok could even marvel at the massive figure, a flood of golden messages began pouring over his vision one after another.
Regular Customer of the Hell Shop
By earning more than 5,000 Hell Points from a single judgment, you have met the achievement requirements.
The accumulated points and acquisition criteria for the Hell Shop have been met. The shop rank is now increasing.
You are now a Bronze member of the Hell Shop.
Hell Shop Stage 2 has been unlocked, and Bronze-exclusive items are now available.
“H-human... turned into dust.”
“Cha Seon-hu-nim! Are giant spider nests supposed to work like this? Something is seriously wrong here!”
As Park Cheol-min’s body completely vanished into black dust, the reason they had proudly called themselves elite A-class Awaker party members shattered into pieces.
Even the ones who had held their formation calmly in the face of hundreds of giant spiders had begun to spasm like aspen leaves before this unreal, inexplicable death.
“Calm down!”
Cha Seon-hu, the temporary leader, felt as though his own mental state was about to snap.
He was a veteran of the Cheonmyeong Guild who had crossed countless A-class Gates, yet he had never once experienced, nor even heard of, a phenomenon where a person evaporated into dust without leaving a single stain of blood behind.
Still, he instinctively knew they could not linger in this place and quickly assessed the situation.
“We retreat first. We’re heading to the gate exit. Keep your formation! Don’t scatter!”
At Cha Seon-hu’s urgent command, the Awakers began backing away in disarray.
In the midst of that chaos, Su-hyeok, perfectly blended into the darkness, watched their pathetic display with a blank expression and only blinked.
Bronze rank-up?
Su-hyeok’s eyes glinted with interest.
While the panicked A-class Awaker party was in an uproar, he quietly called up the Hell Shop.
The holographic window before him was no longer the grotesque, blood-dripping crimson of before.
It was a refined shop design, framed by heavy, cold bronze trim over a pitch-black background.
Hell Shop
Items
— Reinforcement Stone (Judgment)
Skills
— Pouch of the Dead: Reinforcement (NEW)
— Punishment of Sin: Chain (NEW)
— Reaper's Body: Reinforcement (NEW)
— Echoes of Hell: Reinforcement (NEW)
As he scanned the descriptions of the newly stocked items and skills, a dry laugh escaped Su-hyeok’s lips.
Insane. The scale’s gone up completely.
The item tab still contained only Reinforcement Stone (Judgment), but the Hell Point requirements for the newly added skills were enough to make anyone’s tongue wag.
Pouch of the Dead: Reinforcement
You no longer need to carry the subspace pouch bound to the Reaper.
Required Hell Points: 100,000
Punishment of Sin: Chain
Transfers Punishment of Sin in succession to other sinners within 10 meters of the sinner.
Required Hell Points: 100,000
This is exactly what I needed!
Su-hyeok’s eyes widened.
Until now, every time he judged sinners, he had to pick each target individually, which was a hassle.
But with this skill, one cast could send swarms of roach-like criminal organizations and their clustered filth straight to hell.
He felt the urge to buy it on the spot, but the price tags listed beneath it made the back of his neck prickle.
Reaper's Body: Reinforcement
Your body’s physical capabilities and recovery power are greatly increased by the Reaper’s authority.
However, if the brain is destroyed, you will die.
Required Hell Points: 500,000
My physical ability is already monstrous enough to revive a dead body and heal wounds in an instant—now it can get even stronger?
Echoes of Hell: Reinforcement
You can speak with a soul that has fallen into hell for 20 minutes.
The subject cannot lie in response to the Reaper’s questions.
Required Hell Points: 800,000
What surprised Su-hyeok most as he read the skill descriptions was the wildly inflated Hell Point requirement.
The value of hell’s currency was going completely insane, more so than the rate of inflation ever could.
Just how many Hell Points are required when the Hell Shop goes up another rank?
Still, Su-hyeok soon smiled coldly.
No, if I think about it, maybe that isn’t all that much. If I only had Punishment of Sin: Chain, I could send sinners to hell in one sweep. That would make farming Hell Points a lot easier too.
More than anything else, the most important fact right now was that there were still two A-class sinner Awakers in front of him, both trying to run for their lives.
Five thousand Hell Points each. A full ten thousand points worth of prey is right in front of me—I can’t let this chance slip away.
Gripping the Reaper’s scythe, Su-hyeok silently approached the two men who were backing toward the exit in the midst of utter chaos.
Karmic Return.
He extended the invisible force of hallucination toward both men at once.
But the skill bounced off uselessly.
Tch. Figures. The activation rate drops against Awakers.
Without hesitation, Su-hyeok cast Punishment of Sin.
Punishment of Sin.
This time, it was different.
Fortunately, black energy surged like a snake from beneath the feet of one of the two men.
“K-KRAAAAH!! M-my leg! Ughhh!”
The one struck by Punishment of Sin began foaming at the mouth and thrashing on the floor.
The horrific pain of having the vitality of his flesh forcibly torn away ripped a scream from his throat and split the cave apart.
At that desperate struggle, the Awakers who had been barely holding their formation went white-faced and collapsed in panic.
That leaves one.
Su-hyeok cast Karmic Return and Punishment of Sin once more in rapid succession at the final sinner who was struggling to escape.
Failed to use Punishment of Sin.
Whether because of the Awaker’s magical resistance or not, the consecutive skill activation came to nothing.
“H-hero! Let’s take him to the healer! Hurry! The healer should be here by now!”
The party members, now completely overcome by terror, scrambled into motion.
They hoisted the man writhing in agony on the floor and, half-carrying him by force, began sprinting madly toward the gate exit.
The exit wasn’t far.
Outside, the Awakers’ Association staff and healing Awakers would be waiting.
They think everything will be fine once they get outside?
From within the darkness, Su-hyeok’s eyes sank colder than ice.
He had no intention of granting them any kind of merciful breathing room.
Not that healing would fix him anyway...
As if to prove it, the body of the man struck by Punishment of Sin vanished into black dust.
The man who had been carrying him flinched in terror and dropped to the ground with a thud.
Swish—
From the tip of the Reaper’s scythe in Su-hyeok’s right hand, a dense killing intent dripped down like liquid.
Strike of the Dead.
With a savage swing of the Reaper’s scythe, the formless black force imbued with the power of Punishment of Sin shot forward like a bullet and crashed into the remaining sinner’s back.
Thwack—!
“Ghk! What the hell, shit!”
It was a deadly blow that had once severed even the neck of Cheol-gamen, a B-class Awaker, in a single stroke.
But the defense of an A-class warrior was on another level entirely.
The formless force slammed into the thick armor and carved out a long, deep crack, but in the end it failed to deal a fatal wound and scattered apart.
He was clearly wearing armor with overwhelming durability, one that proved exactly why the name A-class carried weight.
Shocked by the impact tearing through his armor, the man instinctively reached for a flesh shield to keep himself alive.
His gaze fell on Lee Si-hyun, the magic-type dealer who was next to him and just beginning to form a defensive spell.
He grabbed her slender shoulder with a rough hand.
Lee Si-hyun, who had nowhere near the physical power of a warrior, had no time to resist before he yanked her along and mercilessly hurled her in the direction the attack had come from.
“Eek!”
“What do you think you’re doing, Choi Yeong-o!”
Cha Seon-hu shouted with veins standing out in his neck, but Lee Si-hyun had already tumbled back across the dirt in a cloud of dust.
From within the darkness, Su-hyeok could see the sins carved above the man’s head on his retina.
- Betrayal
- Staged murder
- Murder of a comrade
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