Egypt (4)
Ever since his awakening, quest windows had appeared at odd intervals. The nice thing about quest windows was that if you simply did as they asked, they paid out dungeon rewards matching the proper rank. Why they exist, I have no idea. After all, awakening itself had never come with a reason. Things just happened. If it's being offered? Take it. And this—this was his first S-rank quest, and he'd already sensed that clearing it would demand his absolute, unfiltered everything.
So he hadn't held back.
Kuu-gwagagagagaga!
It was a first. Never before had he thrown himself at an opponent with full sincerity, no research, no restraint.
If you had to name the single most terrifying skill among 1st Circle magic, Seo Hwarang would pick Veil of Deception without a moment's hesitation. Illusion magic.
TWoong!
From the very moment his staff first struck the ground, every last one of them had already fallen into the illusion—an illusion of catastrophic, Disaster-grade beasts closing in from behind.
"Aaaargh!"
"S-Save me!"
Toward the awakened ones sprinting his way—
1st Circle.
Master Ice Needle.
Skwagagagagaga!
Five ice needles spread out evenly among the crowd, and then—
2nd Circle.
Master Ice Shard.
Pabeobeobeobeobeong!
The needles burst into fragments, the fragments into finer fragments still, chain-detonating one after another.
"Gkkuaaak!"
"Uaaaaak!"
Mere contact with skin was enough to cause frostbite. Anyone pierced outright? Their flesh turned deathly pale on the spot. Hypothermia, the instant-freeze kind. And this was where Skill Book Collector revealed just how broken it was: skills like these could be spammed the instant their cooldowns came back around. Best of all, multi-casting was basically standard.
Chwaaa-aat!
An Aqua Splash at proficiency 85 crashed over the flailing, disoriented criminals, and then—
Kwagagagang!
Lightning came hammering down.
Hwa-reureuk!
A fire whip and a flaming mass disguised as a bolt tore in and exploded, while Gust, Wind Blast, and Wind Cutter layered into a raging storm of wind. The ground shook in every direction. Every criminal in sight went down bleeding. It was, quite literally, a mana tempest—a grand banquet of magic.
"Hoo."
He exhaled and stole a glance at his status window.
◈ Objective: Eliminate the Syndicate Leader — (0/1)
◈ Objective: Eliminate the Syndicate Executives — (3/5)
Three executives had died in that baptism of magic. He had no idea who any of them were. He'd simply ground up everyone he could see, and apparently three of them counted.
"H-Hyung-nim."
"Sh*t......!"
Han Minwoo and Jackson alike could do nothing but hang their mouths open at Seo Hwarang's overwhelming display. All they could manage was a glk as they swallowed dryly. Those guys' executives are at least B-rank, and there should be an A-rank among them...... Yet the moment they stood before Seo Hwarang, B-rank and F-rank were the same thing. Strength on an entirely different tier. Come to think of it— could that man beat an S-rank Awakener, a Sword Master? And then—
"O-Over there!"
Han Minwoo pointed at something. An awakened man walking toward them, sword drawn, flanked by what looked like underlings.
"That's him, Hyung-nim!"
An S-rank Awakener.
Hm.
Seo Hwarang, too, found something novel in his eyes. The man stood at a realm he had never seen before. At least, not on Earth.
Step. Step.
Seo Hwarang watched Kai's approach with careful eyes. His expression was utterly indifferent. Definitely. The face of a man who couldn't care less that his underlings had died. "Yah, yah." Yoo Seon-ah sidled up and whispered, "We should be careful with this one, yeah? The energy I'm feeling off him is anything but normal." "Maybe try talking to him first?" Park Juhee offered, but Seo Hwarang shook his head. Between two people about to fight for their lives, what was there to chat about? The language barrier made it pointless anyway. Might as well just fight.
Whoosh, whoosh-whirr!
Kai, apparently of the same mind, spun his blade lazily in one hand as he closed the distance. How many had died to that sword? If any of them had died unjustly...... I'll settle those debts on their behalf, then. This time felt similar. Not a crushing tension, exactly, but hardly something to be careless about either. The pressure radiating off the man made his skin prickle faintly, that was all.
"Hoo."
First, he wrapped himself head to toe in Magic Shield.
Gururung!
He layered Rock Shield on top, scattered Dark Cloud across the ground, and—simultaneously—suspended every spell he could cast into the empty air. The moment he finished—
Seup!
Kai vanished from before his eyes. So this was a Sword Master. Faster than expected. Where is he? 1st Circle. Master Detect Magic. He unfurled the spell and swept his surroundings. Left. Where the whole of space glowed a uniform gray, only the left side burned red. In other words: killing intent detected there.
Yes. This is how a mage fights, even at the 1st Circle.
Swae-ae-ae-ae-ek!
With his blade brimming to the brim with black energy, Kai came surging in. kkagagagagagak! Magic Shield and Rock Shield unfolded in overlapping layers, but the man's strength was such that he simply crushed through them as he advanced. Seo Hwarang didn't stand idle. Beyond dumping every floating spell at once—
2nd Circle.
Master Earth Spike.
Earth Spike rocked the ground beneath Kai's feet, and Gust and Wind Blast rattled his balance in turn. Kai pressed stubbornly on regardless, but Seo Hwarang's concentration was beyond imagination. A little more precise. He had learned Brandel Swordsmanship too—so he knew exactly where a strike would rob a swordsman of his footing. Ten Arcane Missiles flew in a dizzying weave, picking apart Kai's vitals one by one. And fast. Twenty Light Arrows kept hammering at him without pause. So total was Seo Hwarang's focus that streaks of brilliance poured from his eyes.
And then.
TWoong!
The instant the legendary staff flared—
Kwarurururung!
Thunder Spike slammed straight into Kai's blade.
"Kgh."
Forced back at last by that ferocious storm, Kai's face twisted. He examined his own body. What is this? What the man was casting was clearly not high-circle magic. So why was it this strong? Honestly, he'd meant to endure it and push all the way in—but instead he'd been crushed under pressure that felt ready to flatten and erase him outright. Hm. Kai was genuinely baffled. He'd met countless awakened ones, S-rank mages included, and none of them had possessed anything like this. Besides, an ordinary mage by now should—
By all rights, he should already have been steamrolled into melee range, sliced open somewhere, and be hemorrhaging blood in sheets.
Worse.
The cycle of magic that had just finished was already spawning again in midair, jajajajak!, fresh and immediate.
What the—?
Absurd. How long had it been since he used those, and they were ready again? And—
Just how much MP does this guy have?
Kuu-gwagagagaga!
Dodging the maniacal downpour of spells, Kai kicked off the ground and flew. He had to close in. But he couldn't close in. Entering that storm was like plunging bare-skinned into the heart of a tornado. Now he understood. This opponent is at least S-rank. Understood—so no room for carelessness.
"Hraaaaah!"
The moment Kai roared out his battle cry, both his pupils began to shimmer with black light. Dark Anger. A technique unleashed by mustering every ounce of strength mid-combat, maximizing attack speed and destructive power. "Consider it an honor." Few awakened ones ever pushed this technique to its true limits, after all.
Kuu-gwagagagaga!
The black energy erupting from Kai's sword began to swallow Seo Hwarang whole.
What a fascinating technique. He felt it for the first time: a clear instinct that this attack must not be blocked—that evasion was mandatory. For one thing, having mastered Arcane Missile, he could tell. That one's similar. Homing. Even with Veil of Deception clouding his senses, the attack was flying straight toward him—meaning its target was already locked. In that case.
TWoong!
Staff planted against the ground, he simply waited. When the black energy had closed to within a hair's breadth of his brow—
2nd Circle.
Master Shadow Veil.
Seuseuseup.
With Shadow Veil, he melted into the shadows. Nothing else came close as pure evasion. Especially at Master rank: it evaded detection spells entirely, and it even forced targeted homing attacks to slip wide. And one more thing—
If he hid here and struck from ambush? It granted a guaranteed 100% critical hit rate. In other words: guaranteed burst damage.
Seup.
Seo Hwarang invoked Gale Step, the footwork he'd learned before. Within the shadows, he closed on Kai at the speed of a gale.
"......!?"
Sensing the sudden approach, Kai's expression warped. What—? How is this so uncanny—? The instant something felt off—
Puk, Pu-uk!
An Ice Needle conjured out of thin air bit into his flesh. In the same breath it burst—Paeng!—and dulled his whole body. Tch. It was nothing but a slow-debuff spell, yet the damage was beyond anything he'd imagined. It didn't stop there.
Ung-ung-ung-ung!
The countless spell-tricks he'd seen earlier were refilling the air, wave upon shimmering wave.
"Goddammit."
Kai had to choose. Dodge again. Or stand and fight. The window for thought was short, and he decided fast. "You'll regret getting close to a swordsman, mage!"
Swae-ae-ae-ek!
Kai swung his dark blade on instinct—and pierced clean through the abdomen of Seo Hwarang, still half-emerged from the shadow.
Pu-uk!
Smooth as skewering a block of tofu. "Just as I thought!" A mere mage, using cheap tricks to charge a swordsman head-on? Pu-hwak! Blood spraying out settled it. And yet—
Strangely, the spells floating in the air refused to vanish.
"What the hell have you been muttering about in English all this time?"
And then—
Seuseuseup!
Seo Hwarang's pierced form scattered and dissolved like a jigsaw pulled apart. An illusion! Toward the horrified Kai, the spells began raining down exactly as they were. The very same magic combo that had erased Iron Wood without leaving a speck of dust behind.
Kuu-gwagagagagaga!
He tried to dodge, but the barrage had already carpeted every direction—useless. Water like a tide dragged him in with crushing pressure, wind bore down on him from all sides, and through the gaps fire, lightning, blades, and every manner of energy churned together, splitting and shredding his body.
"Kkehuk!"
Black blood erupted from Kai's mouth.
"......"
This was not a kind of power anyone could withstand. Yes. This strength was......
Just like the golden tiger he'd glimpsed in Cairo. A power strong enough that merely possessing it would earn a place in the world rankings, no questions asked. And then he understood. He should never have fought this man. The moment he laid eyes on him, he should have run!
But the searing magic had already swept through his entire body. Frankly, being alive was a miracle.
"Kk, kkeo-eok!"
Strength drained from every limb; his clothes hung in tatters. His sword had long since flown off somewhere. As a last desperate throw of the dice—
"Save, me...... Please."
He begged. Fat chance.
"Why do you keep muttering in English, hm? You're a dead man either way."
TWoong!
Seo Hwarang tapped his staff again, and that horrific magic combo rose into the air once more. Its cooldown was already full. "Die well."
Kwagagagagagaga!
The terrifying baptism of magic poured down a second time.
"damn."
That was Kai's final testament.
An S-rank Awakener? Stronger than anyone he'd faced before, sure. But that was the whole of it. He's not in my league. As he'd said before, not all S-rank Awakeners were born equal. Some awakened at A-rank and climbed to S; others awakened at B-rank and clawed their way up. Yoo Seon-ah's Orthodox Mage class, for instance? A case built to rise step by step from F-rank all the way to S. But Seo Hwarang? He was born S-rank. Whether there was room to climb further, he didn't know—but the caliber itself was simply different.
◈ Objective: Eliminate the Syndicate Leader — (1/1) ✓
◈ Objective: Eliminate the Syndicate Executives — (5/5) ✓
In any case. Objective achieved.
"......A-Amazing, Hyung-nim. Not content with facing an S-rank Awakener, you single-handedly...... annihilated an entire organization. And that Sword Master—he's a fairly notorious criminal even by this place's standards."
Han Minwoo murmured, mouth still hanging open. Something no world ranker could have pulled off was being done, casually, by an unknown Awakener none of them had ever heard of.
"Awesome! Incredible!"
Jackson wore a look of sheer disbelief. The truth was, he knew Kai well. He'd watched the man from a distance before. Among the S-rank Awakeners of the whole world, Kai's skill likely ranked comfortably in the upper-middle tier. And this man had simply crushed him. Like that.
"......"
Park Juhee stood frozen, her face asking how there could possibly be anything left to be surprised by, and Yoo Seon-ah just shook her head, muttering, "This lunatic."
Meanwhile, Seo Hwarang had things to check. First: the red cores visible among the corpses. Then the dropped weapons and armor. Right—items do drop. Cores, he knew, popped out of a defeated body even if they'd been stuffed into an inventory at death. And indeed they had.
'Core of Keurim' (A-rank)
Two cores, for starters. He scooped them up and tucked them into his inventory. "Juhee-ssi, Noona—can you two collect the rest of the accessories and gear? Sell it all off as stolen goods." "......Okay." "Leave it to us." The remaining looting went to the women.
And then—
One hundred thousand coins—and a strange-looking scrap of paper.
A companion summon, hm.
Seo Hwarang's face lit up with anticipation. Why not try drawing this one first?