God's Atlantis

An hour spent in that blood-soaked place had netted me fifteen thousand Life Points. The monsters drawn by the scent of human blood had been plentiful enough.

Thirty thousand AP. Not a bad haul.

No stat increases was a shame, but there was plenty I could do with thirty thousand AP.

Maybe enough time has passed. The monsters drawn by the blood scent have thinned out noticeably.

Everything that had been nearby had already come and died, more or less. This spot had nothing left to offer. I scanned the surroundings, then headed south. No particular reason — just gut instinct.

My Luck stat is high. Things will work themselves out.

This place only had rough notes in the setting book, so even I didn't know the details. Still, I was confident I wouldn't lose to whatever monster jumped out. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was strong now.

The sound of water reached me. I picked up my pace.

A wide, blue lake stretched out ahead. Not an ordinary lake — palm trees jutted up from the water here and there.

Palms and a lake… an odd pairing that somehow fits perfectly.

I raised my blade.

Monsters from this place all shared one trait: every last one was a hybrid of two or more kinds. Animal with animal. Plant with plant. Or animal fused with plant. Those palms in the lake might well be monsters themselves.

There's a simple way to check.

Just check. No living thing wants to die easily.

I layered blue sword-ki onto the blade and swung toward a distant palm. The ki shot out and struck ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the tree. The palm lurched hard. A scratch appeared on its surface.

Just a scratch from sword-ki?

Definitely no ordinary palm.

The palm came toward me. The once-calm lake surface erupted into violent ripples. Getting attacked out of nowhere had pissed it off.

Beneath the palm was a massive blue crayfish. Roughly one and a half times my size, it scuttled at me in a rush, claws swinging.

A simple attack. Not hard to dodge. I stepped back and swung.

Clang!

Hwaryeonbido, wreathed in sword-ki, bounced off. Nothing more than a tiny scratch on the thing's shell. Absurdly hard carapace.

KRA-KOOM.

I dropped a lightning bolt. The palm-crayfish, struck head-on, froze for a moment — about two seconds. Then it charged even more aggressively, as if the hit had only made it angrier. The bolt had done nothing but scorch part of the palm.

Astrape.

Crackle-crackle-CRACK.

Crimson lightning gathered along Hwaryeonbido's edge and overlaid the blade. A blade made of pure lightning gleamed with lethal light.

In this world, using a skill boosts its power as a package deal.

Bluntly put: a correction bonus.

I leapt onto the crayfish's back. Its body structure meant the claws couldn't reach up there. The crayfish thrashed, trying to throw me off. I kept my balance with practiced ease and drove the blade into its back.

It wasn't easy, but the edge finally punched through the carapace and into the body. Red lightning raced through its insides. Before long the crayfish went limp, and a savory aroma began to rise.

Seven hundred Life Points!

More than any monster I'd faced so far.

I surveyed the lake once and smiled. Fifteen palms in sight alone. I could easily pull ten thousand points from this place.

This was the goldmine. Heh.

I roamed the area, killing every monster I laid eyes on. A few were troublesome, but most crumpled and died before my high stats. When I felt short on power, I switched the status window to Heavenly Demon mode and fought that way.

Walking through the forest, I stopped and stared under a tree. A purple mushroom. A mushroom with insect legs. I pointed at the poison-mushroom bug with my index finger. A single blue lightning bolt shot toward it.

"A dud."

I shook my head the moment I saw the recovery potion. Expensive, sure, but something you could buy anytime if you had the money.

I downed the potion on the spot.

At the supreme grade, it restored not just vitality but stamina and mana as well.

Full Recovery is my ace in the hole. Better to save it as much as possible.

Four hours in, I had thirty-seven thousand Life Points. Target was fifty thousand, with two hours left.

Plenty of time.

I needed to hunt big ones, not small fry like the poison-mushroom bugs. That was how Life Points stacked properly.

After walking the forest path for a while, a sudden stench of rot hit me. The smell of a corpse decaying. Familiar enough to make me frown.

I headed toward the source. Every monster here was bizarre. Maybe something that leaked a rotting stench existed.

My guess was right. The decay smell was coming from a monster.

A rag pile?

A Rag Zombie.

A zombie stitched together from multiple corpses. One of the nastier kinds to fight among zombies. Worse, it came in plenty of variations — sudden explosions, poison gas, the works.

This one's enormous.

Even among the Rag Zombies I'd seen, this ranked among the biggest ever. Ten meters tall at least. And while Rag Zombies were usually made of human corpses, this one was different. All kinds of animals and plants had gathered into a single colony.

Sitting still, it almost looks like a corpse heap… but look closer and it's writhing.

I stared at the Rag Zombie and thought it over. Could I take it down, or not?

A few sword swings won't drop it. I need firepower.

Ordinary firepower wouldn't cut it.

…Wait. This is the Forest of Living Things. Should there even be undead here?

I flipped through the setting book in my head.

Area 4,344 — the Ragged Laboratory.

The name alone could make you think it was a place that manufactured Rag Zombies.

But the real purpose of the Ragged Laboratory wasn't sewing corpses together. It was fusing living things with living things. Strange creatures were born, and sometimes those strange creatures produced rare materials. The Ragged Laboratory sold those rare materials. At the same time, it bought animals and plants from hunters and herbalists.

And challengers existed as a setup to test the strength of the hybrid creatures.

The false god who can be called the master of this place is the Rag King. True name: Chimera. Chimera is a living being and loathes the undead.

So the Rag Zombie in front of me might not be undead at all — it might be a living organism.

If it's alive, my lightning should work, right?

If things went south, I could just run.

Having planned for the worst, I dropped lightning on the rag pile.

KRA-KOOM! BOOM-BOOM!

Not one bolt. Lightning kept falling.

The rag pile twitched under the strikes. I clicked my tongue. Fifteen consecutive bolts and barely any effect. Its body didn't even catch fire.

"Gwooooaaah…!"

A human face burst from the rag pile's chest and let out a grotesque sound. Then tentacle-like things punched through the face's skin along with red blood. Eyeballs were attached to the tips of the tentacles. More than ten of them fixed on me.

A sight that triggered pure revulsion. Fighting down the rising nausea, I pieced together what it was.

Those tentacle shapes… they look exactly like horsehair worms.

I understood why the rag pile kept writhing.

The rag pile was just the host. The real thing was the parasite living inside it. Parasites were living organisms too, so their presence in this forest wasn't strange.

The rag golem moved. When that body over ten meters tall shifted, the ground shook.

What was the parasite fused with?

Flying insects. Mosquito wings were attached to the backs of the tentacle-like parasites.

The eyeball-bearing parasites flew at me. Looking closer, sharp spine-like teeth jutted from their bodies.

Status window change.

I switched to the Heavenly Demon's status window. Power flooded my body. Purely in terms of physical ability, Heavenly Demon mode was still better.

I hurled the black flames that appeared in my hand at the rag pile. The black fire clung to its skin and began to burn.

"Gwoooooaaaaaah!"

"Kiiiiiik!"

"Kiiiiiiiiiik!"

It wasn't just the rag pile screaming. Something else was shrieking. Not the parasites. Other living things were inside that rag body.

Bugs poured out of the rag pile. At least ten thousand of them. Their destination was me. I wrapped my whole body in black flame. Hot, but bearable.

Damn it. Killing the bugs doesn't give points.

I clicked my tongue inwardly and lured the rag pile toward the lake. No time. Maintaining the black flames burned through too much mana.

The lake!

I ran across the water's surface. The rag pile chased without a shred of fear. The farther into the center of the lake it went, the more its body sank beneath the surface.

The black flames didn't vanish easily even on contact with water. Parts of the lake boiled and bubbled. The flames only disappeared once the rag pile was fully submerged.

Looking under the surface, I opened my mouth.

Fish with frog legs were tearing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into the rag pile and the bugs. A spectacle.

I'd finally broken the fifty-thousand target. The rag pile had given as many points as its repulsive appearance deserved.

Three rewards appeared in succession.

The skill earned for hitting fifty thousand Life Points. A satisfied smile curved my lips. This was why I'd come here.

Combat Recovery. Exactly what it says — boosts recovery mid-fight. Thankfully, the skill landed on the Heavenly Demon status window just as I intended.

Combat endurance went up.

At A-rank, it would let me keep fighting for over thirty minutes even when exhausted.

Goal achieved, and I've still got about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an hour left. Hunt more? Hitting fifty-five thousand might give an extra reward.

I flung sword-ki and killed a fish in the lake.

I shook my head. Even a hundred of them would only net a hundred points.

Abysmal efficiency. Better to find and kill other monsters in the forest.

I left the lake. Walking the woods in search of monsters, I stumbled on an unexpected corpse. One of the four challengers who had fled from me.

Something sharp had cut him down.

Looks like a sword did this?

The body was clean — no bite marks. The monsters here killed each other to eat. Leaving a corpse intact after killing a living thing made no sense.

They fought among themselves, then.

I was passing the corpse when I sensed a presence. I fixed my gaze under a large tree. Someone was in a shadow unnaturally deep.

"Come out. I know you're there."

I raised Hwaryeonbido and let killing intent flow. Someone stepped out of the darkness. My mouth fell open in surprise.

"Your senses are excellent."

Long pink hair, a pink cheongsam — the beauty was Li Mei.