Chapter 120
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 119
Chapter Title: The Living Castle's Assault
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The survival game to determine the last one standing came with restrictions that gradually narrowed the players' range of action.
A phenomenon colloquially known as the force field—a way to herd the mice.
If a version backed by raw physical force were unleashed in reality, would it feel something like this?
It was a sight so unbelievable it made you doubt your own eyes.
Du-du-du-du-du-du!!
Jin drew in a massive gasp.
No way! Why the hell is a perfectly fine castle collapsing?!
And at an insane speed, no less.
It barreled forward like a tsunami, sweeping away everything in its path. On second look, it wasn't just demolishing things.
Chwa-ra-ra-ra-rak───!!
The shattered remnants of the crumbling landscape began reassembling as if by magic.
Shards of debris clung to each other,
and the clamor of clashing metal filled the air.
Beyond this scene reminiscent of steel alchemy emerged a tangle of large and small cannons fused with the ground.
Ku-gu-gu-gung···!
The densely packed battery of guns turned toward them.
Black, round muzzles evoking the pits of hell.
They all spat fire at once.
Kwaaang──!!
Flames erupted, and explosive pressure burst outward in every direction.
A indiscriminate barrage that spared neither friend nor foe.
And Jin's group weren't the only ones caught in it.
The metal human who had introduced himself as Apophis also vanished into the inferno.
Right after.
Someone burst out of the thick smoke.
"What the hell!"
A face charred pitch-black like coal.
It was Jin.
He had wrapped his body in a curtain of self-generated lightning.
Zahard Style.
Thunder Shield.
A shield literally forged from lightning—
Not just this time, but also when he'd taken a high-explosive grenade to the chest or when his parachute had deployed too late, it was the grateful technique that had saved Jin's life (sparing him instant death).
There had been good reason to deploy it instinctively the moment the barrage hit.
Thanks to it, Jin had avoided serious injury.
"You crazy Pepsi Man···!"
As he muttered about an old hero that would leave modern kids baffled—"What's that?"—and scanned left and right for the vanished Apophis, something sliced through the air.
Whoosh!!
A sound like wind being cleaved, and something shot high through the smoke.
A pair of wings tracing figure-eights in midair.
With a light flap, the acrid gray clouds scattered in an instant.
"A living castle, huh. This is fun!"
Miles grinned.
Aside from the wings unfurled from his shoulder blades, he still retained a human form.
The next moment.
With a grinding screech, the tilted barrels roared.
But Miles didn't dodge.
Instead, he plunged straight into the barrage.
The destructive wingbeats that had crossed Apophis's airspace earlier were now recreated inside the castle.
Pang──!!
With a sonic boom, he took the shelling bare-bodied and plummeted to the ground like a meteor.
Kwaaaaang!!!
The impact and explosion made the earth heave.
With the rare exception of someone like Gaia's 'Hakan,' no being within the same hierarchy could match a beastman's physical prowess.
The more they shed their skin, the less their inner image solidified, and the more their outward violence intensified.
It was a mad charge only possible for such a beastman—a monster who had stepped into his third world.
Suuuuu—
A massive meteor pit from the crushed cannon cluster, still belching dying heat from its muzzles.
Miles rose from its center.
The superhuman who had annihilated an entire battery in seconds flashed a feral smile.
At that moment.
Kwang!
Jin was smashing another golem's skull with his fist.
It had risen from the first blast epicenter, and by sheer bad luck, right under Jin's feet, so their bodies had tangled naturally.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
The golem's cranium began crumbling under his full-force combo.
Inside its fractured head, Jin spotted something gleaming.
The core, or nucleus, as it was called.
Without hesitation, his knife-hand strike pulverized it.
Simultaneously, the golem collapsed limply.
As its massive bulk hit the ground and kicked up dust like a tidal wave,
Jin spat dust-mixed saliva and scanned his surroundings.
Ku-rung-rung──!!
The space began reassembling once more.
This time, into a labyrinth.
With heavy tremors, enormous walls erupted from the floor, intertwining in a complex grid.
Soon, from the passages reaching the ceiling, all sorts of traps flew out at intervals, accompanied by metallic clangs.
Thwung!
Jin ducked to evade an iron spear launched by tremendous tension.
This really feels alive.
It was literal.
The dwarf king's castle was freely morphing its form like an amorphous lifeform right now.
While, of course, blithely ignoring the laws of physics.
Ridiculous.
For Jin, who had weathered every storm and now even mastered aerial combat, this was a first.
Even Studio Ghibli's Howl would probably rate this moving castle higher than his own.
-He entertained such delusions while charging to break through the enemies before him.
Pathfinding? No chance.
In a space where walls shifted every second, traps rained down, and dwarf machines swarmed, what pathfinding?
So Jin rampaged wildly.
Whatever blocked him, he bulldozed through with his body!
If he was trapped in a monster's gut right now, his mindset was to give it indigestion and kill it.
"Come oooout!!"
He snatched the head of a dwarf warrior (appearing without any logic) swinging an axe and scraped it along the wall as he charged.
Like grinding metal with a grinder, sparks flew amid melting flesh, half its face gone,
when—
Thwung—! A cannon shot grazed Jin's ear.
Sound play was basic for superhumans.
The instant he heard it, he thickened the lightning wrapped around him.
Bam! An explosion.
His body slid from the unprocessed shock, then suddenly dropped through the floor.
"···?!"
Below his feet, dense iron spikes gleamed sharply to welcome him.
But faster, Jin thrust his right hand up, gripped his jaw, and propelled his entire body upward with arm strength alone.
That was close.
A classic trap, but it still sent chills down his spine.
Jin immediately unleashed his lightning and hurled a thunder spear at the ceiling in irritation.
Kwaaaang!!
Roaring crash of collapsing debris.
The change came next.
The falling fragments suddenly morphed into terracotta figures of every shape and color.
Goblins, orcs, trolls, and more.
All races unseen in this era rained down from the sky onto Jin.
What the hell is this now?
Despite his bewildered expression, Jin had already aimed skyward.
Speed surpassing the gunslingers who ruled the Wild West.
Quick Draw was essentially sword drawing with a gun.
Spot, react, pull the trigger.
The whole process in a flash.
Needless to say, beyond human reflexes.
Taang! Taang! Taang!
The terracotta heads exploded in an instant.
Their teeth and claws never reached Jin.
They plummeted to the ground and scattered back into fragments.
Right after.
Jin holstered Gravis, shaking out his numb wrist.
Who called it a monster gun? After a burst, dirt had piled up around his shoe sole.
His feet had carved trenches from the recoil.
But that's what made it an artifact.
Right?
He patted the Gravis at his waist appreciatively and hurried onward.
Even amid this, distant explosions echoed nonstop—undoubtedly Miles rampaging.
Jin paid it no mind.
He'd handle himself.
Never been the type to need help anyway.
With that thought, at the fork ahead, he arbitrarily chose right.
Reason? None.
Just wherever his feet took him.
Naturally entering a new path, a sudden hypothesis crossed Jin's mind.
No way this is a dungeon too?
Memories surfaced of wandering vampire-lord-sealed underground passages for days.
Back then, the darkness hadn't lifted until he broke the spell. Probably?
If this castle was like that underground?!
As Jin pondered,
Thud-thud.
Step-step.
Two sets of footsteps with different weights echoed from around the left corner.
"Where the hell is this place··· Gah!"
Bagmar rounded the corner, spotted Jin, flinched in surprise, and ducked behind Croy.
"You Jin?!"
"You Bagmar?"
Both instinctively doubted the other first.
Their suspicious gazes crossed in midair.
"It is." "Yeah."
They nodded simultaneously, finally reuniting.
"You survived, huh?"
"Croy's an evasion-specialized model."
Bagmar patted Croy's back proudly.
Though due to height difference,
it landed suspiciously close to her rear.
"Let's move. This way okay?"
"Sure."
Bagmar meekly followed Jin.
To him, it looked like backtracking, but with the castle constantly reshaping, "the way back" meant nothing.
"Mental holding up?"
"Manageable now. Was terrifying earlier."
"Good."
As Jin replied, he extended his right arm diagonally.
Bagmar, blocked by the large hand, tilted his head quizzically—
Papapa-papak!!
Steel balls whizzed past his nose, honeycombing the opposite wall.
Followed by the voice.
"So that guy really Apophis? He called himself the dwarf god."
"···."
Bagmar stared at Jin's back as he strode ahead, then hurried to catch up.
"First time meeting him too. But yeah, it is."
"Gut feeling?"
"···Hard to explain. But the moment I saw him, I knew I was part of him."
"Part of him? What does that mean?"
"No idea. But he's definitely my creator."
Jin shrugged at the answer, adding warily while scanning around,
"Apophis··· In this space, he's no different from a god."
Endless cycles of destruction and creation.
His eyes narrowed as he watched the inscrutable spectacle.
"Know where the engine room is?"
"Engine?"
"The power source letting Apophis float."
"···The anti-gravity engine runs from the castle's core."
"Remember the location?"
Bagmar's mechanical eyes whirred in their sockets at Jin's question.
"···Just that it's below here."
"Good."
"What's good about it?"
Jin didn't answer.
He slammed both knees to the floor, straightened his back—
Soon, destructive lightning crackled in his clasped fists.
Pajijijik!!!
Compressed self-lightning snarled like a beast in his locked grip.
Bagmar's eyes widened seeing arms swing back over his head.
Right after.
"Hup···!"
Jin inhaled deeply and slammed his upper body and arms down.
The fist arced steeply and collided with the floor amid thunderous roars.
Kwaaang!!
Full-power hammerfist shook the ground.
But not enough.
Arm reared back again.
The follow-up exploded with elastic force, striking the exact same spot.
Three, four, five times···
As Jin repeated the motion like pounding rice cake, Bagmar urgently added atop the quaking earth,
"Jin? We gotta hurry!"
The dwarf's eyes darted anxiously front and back.
Ku-gu-gu-gu-gu!!!
At that moment, massive walls at opposite ends scraped ceiling and floor as they closed in.
"···Jin?"
The rectangular space shrank rapidly.
Urgency thickened in Bagmar's voice.
"Jin!"
Then.
"Raaaaagh!!!"
With a bellow, Jin's fist—already swung dozens of times—slammed down again.
Kwaaaaaang!!
A colossal roar erupted.
The world bleached white for an instant.
Finally.
The floor collapsed.
As Jin fell, feeling the emptiness beneath, the clapping walls above unleashed a massive shockwave.
"Gaaaaah!!"
Croy snatched the falling Bagmar midair.
Unlike the machine slowing by clawing the wall, Jin's gaze fixed below.
Underground chamber.
Amid tangled mechanisms, figures battled fiercely.
Right then, a shout burst out.
"Q—!"
Before Jin could call, the adjutant spotted the falling him.
Without panic, he controlled gravity, letting Jin land stably before kicking off the floor.
Kwang!
At the end of his charge.
The Colonel and Apophis traded blows at tremendous velocity.
"···!"
The Colonel sensed Jin approaching from behind.
No two beings generated self-lightning that prickled the skin, so his hand extended naturally backward.
Whoooosh!!
Wind left his fingertips and cloaked Jin's body.
His frame accelerated further.
Swiftness blurred the edges of his vision.
Next instant.
With a sonic boom, Jin leaped, yanking his fist back hard and smashing it into Apophis's face.
Groooar!!
Shockwaves burst repeatedly from the fist's tip amid thunder.
Apophis flew back, crashing into the wall.
Screeech!!
Jin braked with his heel.
Then, turning to the lawbringers, he flashed a cool smile.
"Not the face-collecting me from back then. This is it."
Jin, evolved several levels beyond his Mute Town days.
Facing forward again, confident words flowed from his lips.
"No idea what it is. But let's finish this together."