Chapter 985
Chapter 985
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 985
Chapter Title: 985. Radiant Ascension Blade
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“Jin Gu-eon!! Don’t do something stupid! Do you really think you lot can take down that damn toad without me?!”
“It’ll be tough, sure. But not impossible. We’ve hunted down yokai like that one plenty of times before. Right?”
“That’s right, Captain! A toad like that is actually on the easy side!”
“Charge! Kill him!”
The Iron Five Squad members shouted as they launched their assault on me. Those who’d reached the Outpost Realm stepped forward, while the rest provided cover fire from behind with thrown stones and arrows.
‘Fuck. Feels like I’m the monster here.’
It was a standard raid formation. I clicked my tongue. Looked like I’d underestimated the Iron Five Squad after all.
Clang!
I deflected Jin Gu-eon’s sword and glanced sidelong at the Flame Toad. It was facing off against Seong Ji-gon while eyeing our side. Seong Ji-gon didn’t look like he had any spare capacity to help me.
“Jin Gu-eon!! Think this through! You really believe that toad’s just gonna sit there? You’ll die too!”
“The idiot here is you. Those yokai might lack intelligence, but they’ve got killer instincts. They target the strongest on instinct. Look—the toad’s eyes are fixed on you, not us. It and we both just want you dead.”
Whoosh!
The Flame Toad’s tongue and the Iron Five Squad’s arrows came flying at me simultaneously. Jin Gu-eon and his men weren’t slacking either. Even with Moment, dodging everything was impossible.
‘Take the hit and counter. Moment!’
My thoughts accelerated. In the slowed world, I quickly decided to tank the incoming arrow. Thud. It buried itself in my shoulder. No time to dwell on the pain. I raised my sword to block Jin Gu-eon’s blade, then dropped low to the ground to evade the toad’s whip-like tongue.
‘Thunderbolt, Landmine!’
Crackle!
I slammed my palm, wrapped in lightning, into the ground. Electricity surged outward and upward in all directions.
“Gaaahhh!”
The squad members screamed as the lightning shocked them. Not the reaction I’d expected—if it’d been truly dangerous, they wouldn’t have had the breath to scream.
‘Anyway, that’s my opening.’
Jin Gu-eon was the linchpin of the Iron Five Squad. Kill him, and their morale would crater. They’d remember their fear of me all over again.
“Die, Jin Gu-eon!!”
Shadow Heaven Style: Thunder Light.
The Flame Lotus Sword was on the verge of becoming a streak of red light when, right on cue, the Flame Toad’s tongue lashed at my right leg.
I aborted the attack and backstepped immediately. As I retreated, I checked the Flame Toad’s status. Seong Ji-gon was rolling on the ground. The scorch marks on his chest suggested he’d taken a hit from the toad’s forepaw.
“Seong Ji-gon!! You dead?!”
“Not dead. Just a little slip-up.”
Seong Ji-gon sprang back up. His eyes burned with fighting spirit. He’d grown even stronger.
“Worried about your friend too? Quite the luxury.”
Jin Gu-eon’s massive sword came crashing down at my crown. But the toad’s tongue slithering snake-like along the ground toward my legs worried me more.
‘Stormbreaker.’
I summoned Stormbreaker in sword form with my left hand to parry Jin Gu-eon’s blade, then drove the Flame Lotus Sword into the ground with my right. The toad’s tongue impaled itself on the blade, pinned in place.
“That summoning ability. We already knew about it!”
A small dagger shot silently from Jin Gu-eon’s sleeve—far too dainty for his build. Its tip glistened with black, sticky fluid. Poison, no doubt.
The dagger aimed for my side, its blade morphing into serrated teeth. No ordinary dagger—this was a magic treasure.
Meanwhile, squad members closed in from all sides, thrusting at me.
Tsk.
I drew up the demonic energy of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art and planted my foot.
Heavenly Demon Divine Art: Heavenly Demon Overlord Step.
A shockwave erupted, blasting the enemies away. Jin Gu-eon wasn’t spared. A fatal opening appeared. A massive one.
“Jin Gu-eon. Impressive, but this is the end.”
“Not yet!”
Not Jin Gu-eon. It was his subordinate, Woo Young-tae. I ignored him. He’d only just entered the Outpost Realm—hardly a threat.
The moment I kicked off to finish Jin Gu-eon, something yanked at my leg. I glanced down.
‘Rope? When’d he loop that around?’
Woo Young-tae gripped the other end. Pathetic.
Crackle.
Lightning raced along the rope toward Woo Young-tae. He gritted his teeth and endured the current.
“Yu-jin!!”
Seong Ji-gon’s urgent voice rang out. The Flame Toad had opened its maw wide toward me and spewed flames. That was Woo Young-tae’s real play.
‘Stormbreaker, shield form.’
Boom! A massive tower shield materialized. I braced it with one hand, blocking the flame jet. Woo Young-tae lay unconscious behind me, fried by the shock. I discarded the red-hot shield and moved to end things.
Instead, Jin Gu-eon charged me. The red saber energy cloaking his giant demon-slaying blade split into three streams, targeting my left, right, and front simultaneously.
‘Attacks coming in near-perfect sync. Threatening... but sloppy.’
Shadow Heaven Style: Thunder Light.
A blue slash cleaved through Jin Gu-eon’s saber energy and sword in one go. My recent training had boosted not just its precision, but its power too.
“You’ve got a lot of tricks, huh. But I’ve got an ace up my sleeve too.”
Crimson energy gathered in Jin Gu-eon’s palm.
‘...Mobi-seol’s Crimson Divine Palm? Figures. He stole the manual behind my back and trained it.’
But that palm never touched me.
Stab.
A sword appeared behind Jin Gu-eon and pierced his back. His eyes bulged as his hand dropped. In his final moments, he stared at my right wrist. The Meteor Sword Bracelet, adorned with a tiny sword—a magic treasure that summoned and dropped meteoric blades from the void. I could easily control their size, position, and angle.
“You bastard... You’ve got way more than I thought.”
“I’ve got even more than you imagine.”
He collapsed face-first.
“......Can’t go alone to hell. Come with me!!”
A dagger gleamed in Jin Gu-eon’s hand. Crack. It shattered, belching thick purple smoke. Poison gas.
“This your real ace?”
“Holding your breath won’t help! It absorbs through the skin!”
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
I unleashed lightning. Just like how I’d burned away the sedative’s effects with thunder energy before, the bolts incinerated the poison gas in an instant. Jin Gu-eon’s face twisted in horror at how quickly it was neutralized.
“Fuck yooou!! Gack!”
His head lolled limply. His heart was already skewered by the meteor sword. He could’ve died anytime.
Thud!
I kicked his head. It sailed through the air and burst against a tree.
‘Jin Gu-eon’s down, so next up’s the Flame Toad... Huh. It’s been weirdly quiet. Dead already.’
The Flame Toad was dead too. Seong Ji-gon sat on the ground before it, more than half his upper body burned, breathing raggedly. His sword was caked in the toad’s flesh.
‘Tough for Seong Ji-gon’s level... Did he time it for when the toad spewed flames earlier?’
The Flame Toad had fixated on me the whole time. That was its fatal mistake.
I whipped my head around. There was still unfinished business.
The Iron Five Squad members paled under my gaze. None ran. They knew fleeing from me was pointless.
“S-Sung Yu-jin-nim. Spare us!”
“We didn’t want to do this! The captain... No, Jin Gu-eon blackmailed us!”
“We’ll do anything! Just let us live!”
I smiled coldly.
“You talk too much. Betray me, and you pay the price. But I’m merciful—I’ll let you live a bit longer.”
I severed every member’s right arm and looped rope around their necks. The smarter ones realized their fate and hung their heads. I lopped off left arms from the noisy ones.
Then I approached Seong Ji-gon.
“Good work, Ji-gon. Not dying on me, right?”
“Ugh... Feels like I’m gonna die from the pain. Gimme some golden sore salve. Should help if I rub it on.”
“Better to head up to the 8th floor and get healed by the recovery mages.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Seong Ji-gon staggered to his feet. Despite the agony, he bounded up the stairs. I followed leisurely, dragging the Iron Five Squad remnants.
‘Not quite according to plan... but it worked out.’
???
“Congratulations on clearing the 7th floor trial.”
Soldiers awaited us. Not just one—several. They scanned us once, their expressions unchanging.
“Do you require a spellcaster’s assistance?”
“Yeah, help us out. My skin’s burning like hell—it hurts bad.”
“We’ll summon a spellcaster.”
A spellcaster arrived in under three minutes—they must’ve been on standby nearby. Seong Ji-gon received treatment. The burns on his upper body faded rapidly.
The spellcaster then examined the Iron Five Squad.
“Arms severed. We could reattach them if you had the limbs... but no such luck. I’ll stabilize them for now.”
I stepped forward and shook my head.
“No need.”
The soldiers and spellcaster simply nodded. No words, even though they sensed the bloody tension between us.
“What reward will you choose for clearing the trial? We have superior martial arts and elixirs compared to the 6th floor. And from now on, you may select a magic treasure.”
“Magic treasures for all of us.”
“Understood. Follow us.”
We followed the soldiers. The floor there bore a strange spell formation.
‘...Seen something like this. Similar to the one in the Flower Moon Pavilion. This one’s simpler, though.’
Whummm.
The formation glowed briefly, teleporting us elsewhere. Another formation marked the floor there.
I looked around. Display cases filled the vast space, packed with all sorts of items. Just eyeballing it, there had to be hundreds of thousands.
“Choose one magic treasure from those here. This book details them.”
The soldier handed over a thick tome. I flipped it open. Info on the treasures filled its pages. After skimming, I frowned.
‘No decent ones.’
I wasn’t asking for something like the Meteor Sword Bracelet, which summoned swords from the sky—that was top-tier among magic treasures.
‘A sword that ignites flames? A robe immune to water? A spear that never dulls? A belt that smells nice? Why so much junk?’
Almost nothing useful in combat. Mostly trash. They had peculiar powers, sure, earning them the magic treasure label... but that was it.
‘Mass-produced by artificers? Nah, too generous. Practice pieces from novice artificers.’
Artificers.
Specialists who crafted magic treasures.
‘...Still magic treasures. Could sell ’em later for cash?’
I picked ones that seemed valuable.
“This, this, this... the shiny figurine... and this one.”
“Understood.”
The soldier didn’t question it. No doubts—he just fetched what I wanted.
“W-Wait! That’s our share too! We haven’t chosen yet!”
“Right! We didn’t pick!”
“I want an elixir!”
The Iron Five Squad begged desperately. The soldier ignored them calmly. From their nonchalance, I gathered this wasn’t their first rodeo.
I pulled out a box, stashed the items inside, and slipped it into my inventory.
“Impressive spatial pouch.”
The seemingly emotionless soldier admired my smartphone. A spatial pouch—like this world’s version of inventory.
“My treasure. This place might get messy... that okay?”
“No issue. We clean daily. But this loophole works only up to the 7th floor. From the 8th, we’ll intervene.”
They already had countermeasures for tricks like this. Makes sense—otherwise, someone could loot all of Manmu Tower’s rewards.
“S-Sung Yu-jin-nim! Mercy!”
The Iron Five Squad wailed. Some thrashed in futile escape attempts.
“You’ve outlived Jin Gu-eon. That’s enough.”
“Yu-jin. Let me kill Woo Young-tae.”
Seong Ji-gon and I drew our weapons in unison. Soon, death rattles echoed.
“Aaaahhhh!!”