The Demonic Massacre
-CRAAAAAAAAAAAAASH-!
“Hii… Hiiiiik……”
Yoo Heeyeon stared at the Spear of Longinus embedded in the ground right beside her. The sight of Han Seonggil not only lifting that long, colossal spear but swinging it like a sword was shocking enough. What terrified her far more, however, was its raw power.
-RUMBLE-!
The floor struck directly by the Spear of Longinus cracked faintly. It hadn’t split the earth completely, yet the sheer fact that a single swing of a spear could fracture the ground defied common sense.
Yoo Heeyeon whirled toward the A-class members behind her and screamed.
“B-block it! Right now—!”
-SWISH-!
The reinforcements rushing in from behind had already closed the distance, arriving right beside her.
“HAAAAAAAH—!”
One of the A-class students—the tank who usually carried a shield—charged forward with a courageous roar. But the outcome was instantaneous.
-WHOOSH-!
-BOOOOOOM-!
His shield shattered like tofu. The instant his body made contact with the spear Han Seonggil had swung, it exploded.
Blood sprayed across the sky. He never even had time to scream before he was forcibly teleported out of the stage. The pain he must have felt was probably unbearable.
A-Class Participant Has Been Eliminated
“Kuhuhuhuhuhu……”
Han Seonggil began to laugh in a disturbing, broken voice. Excessive dopamine flooded his brain. He was experiencing an insane rush of pleasure. The very act of fighting filled him with indescribable ecstasy.
“More… more… I want screams… I want battle……”
-CLANG-!
Han Seonggil discarded the Spear of Longinus and charged the enemy with his bare hands.
“E-everyone scatter—!”
The moment he rushed them like a rabid dog, the mages retreated to the rear while the swordsmen and those with decent physical stats stepped forward, desperately trying to halt his charge. It was useless.
-THUD-!
“KAAAAAAGH—!”
Every time he swung his arm, another elimination message rang out.
A-Class Participant Has Been Eliminated
Han Seonggil had already taken two direct hits from the Spear of Longinus. Massive physical and mental damage had stacked on top of each other. In other words, his Berserker Trait was amplifying his physical abilities to an absurd degree. The more damage he took, the greater the pain he endured, the more the trait robbed him of sanity while granting him monstrous strength.
-DASH-!
Han Seonggil sprinted across the battlefield, eyes darting wildly. It wasn’t conscious observation. His mind had already flown far away. His body simply moved on pure instinct—a berserker existing solely to kill and tear his opponents apart.
-WHOOSH-!
He crouched low, then sprang upward in a single explosive motion, seizing the neck of a mage who had been hiding in a tree.
“S-spare m—”
-CRACK-!
With a casual twist of his wrist, Han Seonggil snapped the man’s neck like a chicken’s. The limp body was immediately teleported out of the stage.
A-Class Participant Has Been Eliminated
Jeong Eunseo, watching the slaughter from afar, clapped both hands over her mouth.
“Wh-what on earth is happening…?”
As she stood there in utter confusion, Lee Hyunseung spoke from beside her.
“He took two direct hits from the Spear of Longinus. The damage stacked instantly. That spear delivers devastating shocks to both body and mind, so the Berserker Trait reacted to both. He was probably on the verge of death. Or maybe the pain he felt right before losing his mind was so horrible that dying would have been a mercy.”
Lee Hyunseung glanced at the Spear of Longinus lying on the ground. He reached out and touched it. The materialized spear looked crude and poorly made.
‘I don’t know why, but it really isn’t the real Spear of Longinus.’
It was a sloppy imitation. Both the skill and the weapon itself. Even so, its power was monstrous. The true Spear of Longinus was a technique so mighty it was once said to have been created to kill a god.
‘About one percent of its original power…’
Based on his knowledge, Lee Hyunseung estimated that this version only replicated roughly one percent of the original skill’s strength. Possibly even less. Yet it still possessed enough force to explode a human body and enough durability to crack the earth without breaking. It was astonishing.
‘Who the hell did this…?’
Thanks to Han Seonggil’s one-man massacre of the A-class students in the distance, Lee Hyunseung had a moment to breathe. He immediately began searching for the culprit. Anything done from outside the stage couldn’t affect the inside. That meant the Spear of Longinus had been used by either an A-class or F-class participant.
‘At this point, every F-class student except me, Jeong Eunseo, and Han Seonggil has already been eliminated…’
The F-class was off the suspect list. That left only the A-class.
Lee Hyunseung fixed his cold gaze on the most likely culprit and spoke.
“Yoo Heeyeon, I already knew you were insane, but using forbidden arts? Even your father, Guild Master Yoo Hanbeom, won’t let that slide.”
Yoo Heeyeon answered with a hysterical shriek.
“Wh-what nonsense are you spouting?! I didn’t bribe anyone in this match—!”
She gasped, realizing her slip of the tongue.
“You didn’t bribe anyone this match?” Lee Hyunseung stared at her with icy eyes. “So you’re admitting you did bribe people in previous ones?”
He didn’t need her to specify when. The memory of nearly dying to a massive fireball during the F-class representative selection, then being blocked by an unbreakable shield no matter how many bullets he fired, was still vivid. It had obviously been her doing, but he had lacked concrete proof—until she confessed it herself just now.
“Th-that was—”
Yoo Heeyeon tried to make a belated excuse, but Lee Hyunseung ignored her and slammed her face into the ground.
“If you don’t have the ability, stay in your lane. Why do you always crawl upward by leeching off other people’s power? How do you not realize what a walking disaster you are, you vermin?”
“Kgh… L-let… go…”
-SWOOSH-!
-THUMP-!
Lee Hyunseung hurled her aside and shouted at her collapsed form.
“If you don’t want to die right here, ask your team who used the Spear of Longinus.”
“Wh-why should I…? Y-you ask them yourself!”
“You still don’t get the situation? Pathetic bitch.”
-STEP- -STEP- -STEP-
Lee Hyunseung walked over to one of the fallen A-class students—a fighter-type man—grabbed him by the collar, and slapped his cheek hard.
-SLAP-!
-SLAP-!
After several sharp blows, the unconscious man jolted awake.
“Ugh… where am I…?”
Lee Hyunseung gripped the man’s head and demanded.
“That spell floating in the sky. Who cast it?”
“……”
The man stayed silent. The moment Lee Hyunseung aimed his gun, he panicked.
“W-wait! Don’t! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”
After Lee Hyunseung gave an impatient gesture, the man took a shaky breath and spoke.
“Sh-Shin Junho. That bastard demanded we send all our mana to him. Then he poured it into some kind of orb, demonic energy poured out, and that spell appeared……”
Lee Hyunseung’s expression froze.
“What did the orb look like? Did you see any patterns or strange engravings?”
“It was a small black sphere with weird tattoo-like symbols carved on it……”
A-Class Participant Has Been Eliminated
Lee Hyunseung shot the man without hesitation, then gathered the information with uneasy eyes. A small black orb. Strange tattoo-like symbols. An artifact that activated forbidden arts when mana was poured into it.
It was the Demonic Orb.
“Fuck……”
This was bad. If a Demonic Orb was here, winning or losing the match was no longer the issue. The orb could activate forbidden spells when mana was injected, but the real danger came when it was swallowed. If someone consumed a Demonic Orb that had gathered the mana of dozens of people, something irreversible would happen.
Just as that thought crossed his mind—
-KUUUUUUUUUUNG-!
A massive roar erupted from Han Seonggil’s location.
-KUUUUUUUUUUNG-!
“Too late.”
-KUUUUUUUUUUUUNG-!
When Yoo Heeyeon looked over, a gigantic monstrosity stood there with a grotesque expression.
“My… arm……”
“Give me… my arm back……”
The creature muttered a few times, then grabbed a nearby A-class student with one massive hand.
“U-uh… AAAAAAAGH—!”
The student thrashed and screamed, but the bizarre monster simply shoved him into its mouth and began to chew.
-CRUNCH-!
-CRRRRUNCH-!
Yoo Heeyeon stared at the creature in a daze. Then she noticed something strange.
“W-wait… why isn’t the elimination message…?”
No elimination announcement had sounded. That was abnormal. A bug? Or had something gone wrong? Could it be that dying here meant actual death? Had the mages’ protective spells failed?
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant.
-KUUUUUUUUUUNG-!
-KUUUUUUUUUUUUUNG-!
-CRAAAAAASH-!
The monster hurled Han Seonggil aside and began charging straight toward Lee Hyunseung and Yoo Heeyeon.