Chapter 152
Chapter 152
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 152
Chapter Title: Let's Die Once!
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"Let's die once!"
Having broken through the wall of the first wave of warriors, Jeong-hyeon immediately kicked off the ground and charged into the second wall.
Unlike the warriors he had already carved through, this group had plenty of time to prepare, so his view was packed tight with halberds.
And as always, Jeong-hyeon's gaze filled with the red attack paths warned by his Combat Sense.
*Annoying.*
But finding and exploiting gaps in what looked like an impenetrable space was second nature to him.
His body twisted in an unnatural way.
Then shifted slightly downward.
It was a spot where the halberds were relatively sparse.
Of course, there were still plenty of blades, but he could dodge that many easily enough.
They were more like fixed obstacles meant to block approach than swings aimed directly at him.
Slipping under the shadows of those dense polearms, Jeong-hyeon planted his pickaxe vertically into the ground.
His range of motion was too restricted like this, so he planned to widen it.
*Thwack—*
Using the full length of the pickaxe's elongated blade, he flicked up the halberd shafts looming over him.
The explanation might sound long, but all this happened in less than a single breath.
"Hyrk!"
The Lizardman Warriors freaked out at Jeong-hyeon suddenly appearing below and batting away all their shafts.
And that was the last emotion to flash through their minds.
*Crack—Crunch—*
In an instant, he smashed the heads of two right in front of him and one in the row behind, then took their places just like before.
"Hirrk!"
The warriors reacted swiftly.
They attacked Jeong-hyeon, who was now surrounded on all sides.
Of course, they didn't have time to draw the shortswords at their waists, and they were too close to strike accurately with the halberd blades.
Their options were limited to smashing him with the sturdy shafts or thrusting short jabs.
*Clang—Clang—Crack—*
Jeong-hyeon dodged about half the attacks with subtle shifts while letting the rest hit willingly.
The halberd shafts couldn't pierce the Cursed Armor's defenses anyway.
There was a faint dull thud, but the armor absorbed most of the impact.
The metal parts melted from the Dullahan's armor registered no sensation at all.
*And besides, this aura seems to affect them a bit.*
The aura-like energy emanating from the Cursed Armor's metal.
It was just Jeong-hyeon's hunch, but it seemed to have a negative effect on the warriors.
Regular Lizardmen barely noticed, but these elite warriors shrank back oddly when facing him.
Probably because the Dullahan was a death knight, the effect worked better on the disciplined warriors than on the berserk regular Lizardmen.
Either way, it was a welcome feature for Jeong-hyeon.
*Splat—*
As he tore through the Lizardman Warriors in front of him with his pickaxe, his path wasn't toward the narrow path beyond the initial plaza where the fight had started.
"Hunter Han Jeong-hyeon, where are you going?"
Yun-ho, watching the Lizardmen slowly approaching the sanctuary with tense eyes, asked puzzledly at Jeong-hyeon's direction.
Ji-hee shook her head in response.
"I don't know either."
And understandably so—Jeong-hyeon wasn't heading for the path but veering into the dense forest beside it.
One might think it was a mistake, but the distance was too far for that.
Or maybe there were too many Lizardmen around, disorienting him?
Watching Jeong-hyeon slaughter the warriors almost like a massacre made such doubts unlikely, but anxious Yun-ho spoke up.
"Maybe some magic support to guide his direction..."
Of course, he didn't finish the thought.
Ji-hee, whose complexion hadn't fully recovered, quietly shook her head.
Even with the Trait Stabilizer, her limits remained.
The flame dragon she'd summoned earlier had nearly burned out the embers in her chest.
It hurt that it hadn't performed as hoped, but she needed this much rest.
*And with Hunter Han Jeong-hyeon gone, I have to protect these people.*
Even if she could use magic, she couldn't recklessly support Jeong-hyeon now.
The Lizardman Warriors he'd left behind had to be handled by the rest of the party still at the sanctuary.
A barricade of Lizardmen corpses was just a temporary measure.
Ji-hee's top priority was providing fire support to make that barricade hold as long as possible.
In that sense, the warriors' strategy of slowly closing the distance was a godsend.
Feeling the faint embers reignite within her, Ji-hee tracked Jeong-hyeon's receding figure with her eyes.
***
Lizardman Warriors weren't very lizardman-like.
Un-lizardman-like, they wore plate armor and had serious temperaments.
Their combat power had skyrocketed as a result, but that was the way of the world—gain something, lose something else.
Could you even call such Lizardmen true Lizardmen?
That was exactly the point Jeong-hyeon targeted.
*Normal ones would've chased me into the forest, but these guys can't.*
Instead of fighting the blocking warriors, he went straight into the forest to intercept the shamans.
The bulked-up warriors in plate armor simply couldn't enter the woods.
Even Jeong-hyeon hesitated to plunge in recklessly—the forest was that dense.
And with the risk of ambushes from Lizardmen lurking below, he'd avoided that route until now.
*Crunch—*
As he killed yet another warrior, the end of the wall came into view.
*Whish—*
He spotted a gleaming shortsword blade flying at his neck.
"Whoa."
The ones behind had switched from halberds to shortswords, so he had to be a bit more careful.
The moment he leaned back to dodge—
*Whoosh—*
A purple mist rose around Jeong-hyeon.
*What the?*
For a split second, he panicked, then a similar memory surfaced.
Hadn't it been just moments ago?
*That curse!*
It was the shaman's curse.
Sure enough, a significant amount of strength drained from his body.
Unlike the Dullahan's Curse or Trait Suppressors, the Trait Shop didn't react to nullify it.
The shamans' curse wasn't a trait effect but their innate technique.
That made it tricky, as he couldn't pinpoint exactly how it affected him.
And crucially, in any other situation, he'd just shrug it off as "Feels shitty," but the timing was too perfect.
*You bastards—!*
He was in the middle of dodging a neck-aimed shortsword.
The more evasion mastery one had, the more precisely they calculated direction, force, and optimal timing for dodges—and moved accordingly.
This time was no different.
He was mid-motion for the tightest but surest evasion when the curse threw everything off.
Gritting his teeth, Jeong-hyeon threw his body backward with full force.
*Clang—*
Even then, he couldn't fully avoid it.
The shortsword grazed right below the Cursed Armor's gorget, leaving a long scratch.
*Without Thought Acceleration, I'd be dead.*
The thought flashed through his mind.
Thanks to Thought Acceleration, he'd noticed and reacted to the curse; otherwise, he'd have bled out cluelessly.
"Hirrk!"
Meanwhile, the warrior who'd landed the surprise hit seemed thrilled, letting out a weird laugh-like cry.
The ones around it started making similar noises.
"Have they all gone mad?"
Why the sudden yelling?
After a shaman curse barely scratched his armor.
*Wait, shaman's curse?*
Come to think of it, aside from blocking Ji-hee's flame dragon, had the shamans intervened in the fight?
This curse was the finale.
They hadn't just watched idly, so the answer was probably one thing.
*They were on cooldown too.*
That explained their overly cautious advance despite the losses.
With all shamans on cooldown and unable to support, they'd proceeded with extreme caution.
This curse signaled their return, hence the uproar.
Jeong-hyeon's eyes darted quickly.
His next move was critical now.
He poured every detection asset he had—Mana Sensitivity and all—into finding the shaman.
Cursing him meant they were in visual range.
*Found you!*
His body spun instantly toward the rear.
The shaman was already trying to retreat back through the pass.
"Lend me a shoulder!"
*Boom—*
Jeong-hyeon kicked off a warrior's pauldron without regard and leaped high.
Far off, he saw the shaman's back, adorned with a feathered headband.
*Not so fast!*
He immediately drew and hurled an Onyx Dagger.
No chance for retrieval, but that didn't matter now.
A rough throw, its path seemingly sailing harmlessly high over the shaman's head.
The shaman startled at the throw, glanced back, saw it miss wide, and turned to flee again.
*Whistle—*
Of course, it wasn't a miss from Jeong-hyeon.
It was B-Rank Level 5 Throwing Skill.
In that trait alone, he outleveled any party member.
The curse might've roughened the trajectory a bit, but the golem core allowed mid-flight corrections anyway.
And that was within his expectations.
The dagger streaked like lightning, then its tip dipped—
*Shink—*
Suddenly plummeting sharply downward.
As if someone had re-thrown it at the apex.
Its target: obviously the shaman's back.
The fool never imagined a skyward dagger dropping to impale him.
"Kerelek!"
Hearing the pained screech, Jeong-hyeon landed back at his spot.
"Missed the vitals."
He'd aimed for an instant kill, but the scream suggested it survived.
*Serves it right for cursing me.*
The curse had thrown off his aim—self-inflicted.
Only Jeong-hyeon knew that, though.
Anyway, as the shaman's agonized cries faded, the curse on him lifted too.
Indirect confirmation of its death.
As Jeong-hyeon flexed his lightened body, the surrounding warriors stared silently, as if their cheers had never happened.
No, silent wasn't right.
Their eyes boiled with a mismatched mix of despair and rage.
Jeong-hyeon swept his gaze over them and shrugged.
"What?"