Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: “Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
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“Oh man... this sucks.”
My head feels like it’s about to split open. If I had to describe it, it’s like every hangover a person could experience in a lifetime got dumped on me all at once.
“Urrrgh! K’haarrrr!”
“R’haarrrr! Wzur-y’iin!”
No time to stop yet. The dancers mutter in that bizarre language. They’re cracked and scorched here and there, but there’s still plenty of them with fight left... Let’s see... nine?
“What the hell are you saying? Speak Korean, you damn freaks.”
A couple of them are twitching awkwardly, but I don’t need to worry about those.
I slowly massaged my stiff neck, which barely wanted to move, as I thought about the necessary actions, the declarations I had to make, and the targets I needed to watch.
“My condition’s already at rock bottom... After this, I’m seriously crashing for a week straight.”
The nine dancers form up toward me in unison. Their numbers are down, but their movements are still perfectly synchronized. They twist their legs and bow their heads toward me. It reminds me of ballet moves. Then the turns, and the kicks.
If I knew ballet terms, I could name what they’re doing, but raising my intelligence doesn’t magically teach me things I never knew before. Next comes the leaps. If I keep spectating, I’m dead.
I slammed my skateboard to the ground and triggered a few spells.
[Cat’s Grace]
[Invisible Hand]
[Leap]
I wasn’t spacing out for nothing. With my focus recovered, the traits I’d paused started working normally again, letting me chain spells without gestures or incantations.
The moment I dodged, the dancers’ routine shifted from ballet to sword dance. Twin blades gleaming in each hand. The sword dance for their king had begun. A dance of death to eliminate the king’s enemies.
“I’m a wizard, damn it!”
The ghoul sorcerer last time was the same—why do they keep forcing close combat on me? If my hierarchy were even one rank higher, I could pull out something easier, but right now, putting distance between us is the answer.
The skateboard, empowered by magic, gleamed as it launched me to a height impossible for my normal body. But the golden dancers pursued. Ten sinister blade flashes. Yellow silk rippling like clouds.
Their weapons aren’t just swords. Rocks brushed by the rippling yellow silk slice apart like they’d been cut by blades. You’ve got to be kidding? The hit range is way too wide.
Each dancer’s attack covers four meters fore, aft, left, right, up, and down, and with their instant gap-closing leaps, I couldn’t stop moving for a second. Leap, step on a rock and leap again. The instant I touch ground, explosive rush trick for high-speed movement. Leap again.
I shook off the one clinging to my back, only for a golden body to come flying at me head-on. This could go on forever. I drew up my mana and bellowed.
“Get out of my waaaaay!!!”
[Shock]
BOOMCRASHBOOMCRASH!!!
The dancer directly hit by the scorching shockwave from my hand flew back, smashing into rocks with a metallic clang.
As I moved to finish it with a new spell, three dancers and six blades swarmed me. They perfectly targeted the blind spot where I couldn’t maneuver easily.
“Argh, screw this. Save the knife fights for the knife experts!”
[Gale], [Spell Enhancement: Maximize]
[Leap], [Spell Enhancement: Range Increase]
[Protective Ward], [Spell Enhancement: Multicast]
I blasted the airborne one with gale, forced another to leap off trajectory, and shoved the multilayered ward right in the face of the closest.
CLANG!
Sparks flew from the twin blades blocked by the transparent ward. But I’d lingered too long in one spot. Eight more blades came from another angle. Ah, I’m really gonna die.
Ah, forget it! No more minimizing damage!
I flung out both hands, nails torn clean off, and unleashed spells in every direction.
Ziiiiing...!!
I concentrated mana overloaded with yang energy into my fingertips. Blood flowing from my torn, burst fingers started boiling and evaporating.
[Thunderbolt]
[Spell Enhancement: Maximize]
[Spell Enhancement: Multicast]
My already wrecked ten fingers felt like they shattered completely. Eerie pain crawled from my fingertips up my spine. But the extremely amplified lightning obeyed my command, drinking my mana and swelling enormously.
ZZZCRACKLECRACKLE!
Golden lightning blazed in eye-searing splendor, bursting outward.
It was like two massive trees growing from my hands. A bizarre sensation I couldn’t tell was pain or pleasure. My mind went hazy. The trees of lightning ensnared the dancers lunging to embrace me, growing at the speed of light. Gold conducts electricity well, right?
ZZZAPAPAPAPAP!!!
While the lightning-wracked dancers were paralyzed, I triggered a fireball under the skateboard.
[Harden]
[Fireball]
KABOOOM!
As the fireball’s explosion peaked, I added...
[Leap]
I leaped again. My guts felt like they’d spill out, but I shot up vertically over twenty meters in an instant.
WHOOSHCRASH!
Wind battered my face and ears.
At the leap’s apex, I threw my head back to look down. Or more precisely, I started falling headfirst... Anyway, below me stretched the dark Tanxian forest, the ruins laid bare like a naked body, and the dancers glittering under starlight.
“K’haarrrr! kya’vughtmm!!”
“Waugh! F’huzur ghliis khaa!”
Even the ones who dodged the lightning gathered under me like they were chasing. Nice and clustered.
Had so many people ever clung to me like this in my life? Guess my love life’s at an all-time high. Anyway, perfectly packed. Textbook herding for an AoE.
[Sonic Refraction]
[Spell Enhancement: Multicast]
Mana barriers rose around the dancers. A magical dome like an open lid, warping sound waves.
Take this, Lee Chang-hyuk’s ultimate technique.
[Sonic Shock]
“GRRAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!”
BOOMCRASHBOOMCRASHBOOMCRASHCRASH!!!
The shockwave from the sonic shock bounced off the refraction barrier, converging back inward as echoes.
Trapped and unable to escape, the shockwaves overlapped relentlessly, unleashing horrific destruction.
The ruins’ rocks and the dancers’ metallic bodies, caught in the nightmarish vortex of sound, couldn’t withstand the repeated blasts and shattered to pieces.
Crumblecrumble...
Even after I stopped the spell, the trapped shockwaves lingered inside the barrier for a good while.
Better results than expected. If I time it right, this alone could shred most enemies from now on.
Ground’s handled. Now to save myself.
[Feather Fall]
I cast the spell to slow my fall and reached for the skateboard in midair... but realized my agility couldn’t pull off that stunt, so I triggered another spell to grab it.
Not over yet.
During my leisurely freefall through the air, I looked up at the sky.
The dark night sky.
And the glaring yellow star shining brightly in it.
‘A totally insane sky.’
Staring too long might induce psychosis. A gruesome, ominous sky. There’s a moon, but its faint crescent light pales against that baleful star’s massive presence.
‘Fuck, I’m going home no matter what insane shit I have to do.’
With that resolve, I landed at the center of the wrecked ruins.
“No achievement pop-up, huh. Kinda surprising.”
I figured I’d get something like “Shall We Dance?” But nah, that probably requires me dancing too.
The dancers who’d charged so fiercely were mostly obliterated by the stacking sonic shocks.
Of course, not all of them were wiped out. Four dancers remained.
But they weren’t unscathed. Gone was the elegant dance in their gleaming golden bodies.
All four had taken sonic shock damage in some way, their metallic forms ruptured and crumbling.
Crawling away from me on arms missing hands and legs with shattered knees—it was less tragic and more comically pathetic.
This is [Cthulhu World], though. No compromising with beings from the abyss’s darkness.
As I approached, the dancers screamed in unison.
“K’haarrrr!”
“K’haarrrr!”
“K’haarrrr!”
“K’haarrrr!”
“Iä! Iä! Hastur! Ugh! Ugh! Iä Hastur! n’ghah- ghaaa mglw’ghaa mhatha!”
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
[System: ‘Enhanced Vigilance’ trait activates.]
[System: ‘Enhanced Vigilance’ trait activates.]
[System: ‘Enhanced Vigilance’ trait activates.]
[System: ‘Enhanced Vigilance’ trait activates.]
[System: ‘Enhanced Vigilance’ trait activates.]
[Enhanced Vigilance] trait screams.
“Damn it, stop!”
[Fireball]
KABOOM!
A massive explosion and crimson flames erupted.
One golden monster chanting the true name of the [King in Yellow] was destroyed. But three remained.
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
[Lightning Strike]
Rumble... KABOOM!!
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
Still not stopping. You fucking... Shut up, you lunatics!
[Inferno]
Yet one mouth remained to chant the abyssal entity’s true name.
[Magic Missile]
[Spell Enhancement: Multicast]
Rat-tat-tat-tat!!
Dozens of mana bullets shredded the last dancer’s body. Holes riddled it, golden scales and fragments scattering everywhere.
But even so, the lone head from the bodiless dancer kept crying out praise for their king.
“Iä! Iä! Hastur!”
The rolling head suddenly stopped against someone’s leg.
“Huh? You.”
The problem wasn’t the dancer. A new shadow blocked its path. Elongated limbs, gleaming golden fur. Bizarre earrings.
No, wait—this wasn’t a new figure. It was the one who should be here: Jang Hyun-deok.
“You... what are you...?”
No, hold on. Something’s off. The mana’s quality, form, and flow are totally different. Jang Hyun-deok approached the dancer with an eerily emotionless expression.
The dancer wasn’t fleeing from me. It was heading toward Jang Hyun-deok.
“Hey, stop.”
[Arrow of Ruin]
Zzzing!
I hastily fired a sub-dimensional mana arrow toward Jang Hyun-deok. The purple arrow flew straight—then veered inexplicably off course, missing him entirely.
Not a misaim. The Arrow of Ruin had been dead on target. But suddenly, space twisted, and it turned on its own.
Before I could think of my next move, Jang Hyun-deok finished his. As if it were the most natural thing.
Jang Hyun-deok peeled off the mask covering the dancer’s face and flipped it onto his own.
And then—silence.