Chapter 207: 38th Floor: Giant Guild Party (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 207: 38th Floor: Giant Guild Party (2)
“D-don't come any closer!”
Park Kang-seok flew away, fleeing for his life.
He spammed Teleport to create distance, but…
Th-th-th-th-thump!!
Lee Do-hee was chasing him at incredible speed. As if she'd mastered some advanced form of parkour, she leaped smoothly between buildings, flying through the air. Whenever she faced a difficult gap, she used her boots' skill, creating foothold panels to pursue him relentlessly.
The moment he glanced back, he saw Lee Do-hee soaring high in the air, flying right at him.
"That damn bitch... Die!!"
With desperate resolve, he hammered her with his spells.
[Flame Spear]
[Fire Rain]
[Fire Storm]
Flames engulfed Lee Do-hee from all sides.
There was no escape; she was completely incinerated mid-air.
The surroundings were so consumed by fire that the very air seemed to burn.
Fwoosh!!
But, as if it were nothing, Lee Do-hee burst through the flames and flew toward him.
“Haaaaaaaaah!!”
'How in the world…'
She had broken through all his spells on her own. Her body was slightly burned and showed signs of injury, but it was by no means a critical blow.
“Dammit, Assimilation!”
Shhhk!
Lee Do-hee's spear sliced through his neck, but he dispersed into flames only to reform again.
By assimilating with fire, he had dodged the attack.
It was one of the skills from the necklace given to him by the Magic Tower's Guild Master.
It allowed him to disperse like fire, becoming immune to all physical attacks for ten seconds. During this time, his affinity for and the power of his fire-attribute magic were greatly enhanced.
“Yes… You've walked right into my trap!”
Now invincible, he unleashed a storm of magic.
High-level spells he normally wouldn't use in a real fight.
But now, assimilated with fire, he felt he could somehow cast them.
[Fire Blast]
[Atomic Bomb]
[Fire Ray]
A series of massive explosions lit up the dark city, and a crimson beam shot toward Lee Do--hee.
But even then, Lee Do-hee flew straight at him, her gaze fixed.
She had wounds all over, and her clothes were half-burned off, but the fire in her eyes hadn't died in the slightest.
His final, desperate struggle had only succeeded in creating more distance between them.
"Ah..."
For a moment, his mind went blank.
The operators in the situation room must have lost their minds when Baek Seung-chan died, because there had been no orders for a while.
He had to do this himself.
'No, I can do this.'
Holding back now would be foolish. This wasn't some turn-based battle where you strategize and play your cards one by one in response to your opponent.
This was a battlefield where you had to pour out everything you had if you didn't want to die.
His ring had a function that allowed him to use three pre-stored skills with no cost.
They weren't skills he had stored himself.
They were the highest-tier fire spells, personally stored by the Magic Tower's Guild Master for him to use in an emergency.
He'd been told to save them since the goal was to capture and brainwash her, but he'd also vaguely heard that it was better to win, even if it meant killing her, than to lose so pathetically.
'I cannot lose here!!!'
“Dieeeeeee!!!”
A spell imbued not with his power, but with the Magic Tower Lord's, was unleashed.
[Solar Requiem]
"Huh...?"
'Fuck, I've never seen that before.'
A massive sun appeared in the sky between him and me.
The city became as bright as day, and I could feel the gravity shift strangely.
“Go!!”
A mass of flames too large to be called a mere fireball. It was the size of an apocalyptic meteor.
The very essence of fire magic, endlessly honed and perfected by a high-ranking Awakener who had reached the 80th floor.
The gigantic artificial sun shot toward Lee Do-hee.
'Crazy… A spell like this exists?'
Lee Do-hee let out a hollow laugh at the absurd situation unfolding before her.
If I had to describe it, it was the kind of ultimate skill a final boss would use in its last-ditch desperation phase. And he'd just cast it with a simple click, no prep time needed.
I absolutely could not take that head-on.
[Blink]
I used my boots' Blink skill to dodge sideways and created a series of foothold panels to escape, but…
'I'm getting caught in it.'
No, I was already caught.
The map was warping. Light was bending.
Buildings and debris from the ground were being pulled up into the sky, sucked into the artificial sun.
Even the dark clouds were being drawn in, forming a ring around it.
It wasn't as strong as a real sun, but I was being pulled in by the spell's immense gravitational force.
It didn't need a homing function. It was a decisive, sure-hit, sure-kill skill that would pull its target in no matter how it was thrown.
The only saving grace was that he'd fired it horizontally, probably thinking his own teammates would die if it fell to the ground. Of course, that alone was more than enough power to finish me off within its range.
Even when I created foothold panels, they were sucked in by the powerful gravity.
I felt like a human caught in a natural disaster.
A gravity that sucked in everything. I was being dragged along by this law of nature.
'Fuck, this is so fucking broken!'
I really didn't want to use this, but!!
I couldn't see any way to escape other than using 'that'!
"You... you're so dead!!"
Fwoooooooooosh!!!
I had no choice but to use 'it'.
The center of my pants ripped open, and a gas mixed with pink and purple light sprayed out.
An immense amount of fuel was consumed in an instant. Expelling an amount I normally couldn't, I flew smoothly, as if orbiting along the trajectory beneath the artificial sun.
I accelerated, using the gravity to my advantage.
Whoooooosh~!!!
The artificial sun flew past in the opposite direction, and I escaped its gravitational pull.
Without slowing down, I flew straight toward Park Kang-seok. He must have planned to run after firing it, because he was staring slack-jawed, completely bewildered.
A trail of pink and purple light embroidered the sky.
“Crazy! F-Flame Incarnation's Ad—”
“Too late.”
Just as Lee Do-hee's fury-filled spear was about to pierce him…
…a metallic black veil materialized in front of him.
'This is...?'
Kraaaaaang!!! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!!
It wasn't just one layer.
After breaking through multiple layers of the black veil…
“[Kekekek, you're the one who's too late!]”
[Flame Incarnation's Advent]
His body had already transformed into a flame giant about two kilometers tall. Nearby apartment buildings crumbled beneath its feet.
'Dammit, that bastard helped him.'
Below the flame giant stood a warlock in a black hood, holding a grimoire.
He must have been hiding nearby and appeared at the critical moment.
A black metal orb was circling beside him.
It was the same automatic defense orb that Baek Do-hyeon used.
There were seven in total, but it seemed he'd kept one for himself and used the rest to protect this guy.
'That bastard.'
I'll leave him to Dotamuk and focus on this flame giant.
'This guy chose the wrong skill.'
Bigger isn't always better.
He must have instinctively used a skill that favored survival because he was in a hurry, but if he wanted to win, he should have used a skill that could kill me for sure.
Especially with a half-assed fire mage like him as the pilot.
“[Dieeeeeee!!]”
The flame giant's magnificent voice echoed as it swung its arm.
Befitting its massive size, the arm was slow.
Right, you can't catch me at that speed!
I'd never seen that sun-summoning skill before, but this one I know.
'This is a skill for slaughtering weaklings. You've made a huge mistake!'
The core of this skill is the user's own body.
If I pierce it and kill him, this flame giant will crumble too.
I charged forward without slowing down.
The core's location was right in the center of its chest.
'Hoo…'
Just getting close was enough for the intense heat to envelop my body.
'I can do this.'
I stacked five more layers of my defense buff, bringing it to nine.
I stacked three more layers of Bless to raise my elemental resistance.
My defense stat was now close to 3,000.
'I'll break through.'
[Meteor Spear Fall]
Kwaaaang!!
As I threw my spear, the giant's outer surface softened, and I plunged straight into its body.
Fwoosh!
“[You bitch! Did you come in here to kill yourself? Hahaha!!!]”
I could hear his mocking laughter.
It's hot.
It felt like I was being crushed by hot lava from all sides. The flame giant's body wasn't just simple fire.
It was made of a heavy, lava-like liquid mass. It felt like lava was flowing through it instead of blood.
My remaining clothes burned away in the intense heat.
Still, I didn't slow down.
No, I accelerated.
I'd already done something shameful once, so I expelled all my remaining fuel and pushed forward.
Thump...
The naked Lee Do-hee charged toward the source of the giant mana pulse!!
"You're deaaaaaaad!!!"
[Meteor Spear]
Becoming one with my spear, I flew like a beam of light.
“[Ugh…? W-wait!]”
Where I flew, Park Kang-seok's real body was floating with his eyes closed.
He opened his eyes out of instinctual danger, but it was too late.
I flew in in an instant and pierced…
his body.
Pshuk!!!
His body was torn in half, and I lost my momentum, trapped inside the flames.
My body was burning. I'd finally used up all the... anyway, that rocket fuel.
Gurgle...
'Ah... it's so hot.'
Just as I thought I was about to die from the heat and pressure, trapped in the center of the flame giant…
Fwooo~
...the pressure crushing my body vanished, and a cool breeze blew over me.
'Hoo…'
He died, and his incarnate body was unsummoned.
'I almost died.'
First, I put on some clothes.
As I fell through the air, I looked around... and the scene was absolute chaos.
'What the...?'
What had happened in that short time for the ground to be completely covered in black?
*
Before Lee Do-hee charged into the flame giant's heart.
“There he is. Byeon Ki-chan!”
“I told you not to call me by my real name!!”
Dotamuk and Ilbon-do were taking cover some distance away.
Fortunately, the artificial sun hadn't come their way and had gone in another direction. If a brutish skill like that had fallen to the ground, everyone here would have died.
In any case, having spotted the warlock, they joined the battle as Lee Do-hee had ordered.
"Watch closely."
Dotamuk's longbow bent as he drew the bowstring.
The muscles in his arm bulged as he pulled back the string, which was under immense tension.
Surprisingly, an archer wasn't an agility-based character.
Strong power to draw the bowstring. Bigger muscles. That was the only way to increase an arrow's power. There was a reason Dotamuk's body was so muscular.
“First, one shot.”
The arrow was fired at almost the exact same moment Lee Do-hee entered the flame giant's heart.
A long-range sniping skill activated, and the arrow flew, far surpassing the speed of sound.
Fshooooooong~~!
The arrow, which covered a distance of about three kilometers in a few seconds…
Kzzzzzt!!
...was unfortunately blocked by the black veil in front of the warlock, Ivan.
“It's fine. I expected that.”
"Because I shot another one."
Pshuk!!
“Kuaaaaaargh!!!”
Another arrow, arriving at almost the same time, pierced through his shin.
“You... you bastards!!!!!”
That wasn't the end of it. Arrows flew in from multiple directions at once.
"Of course I didn't just shoot one more."
"Huh?"
Bang!! Bang! Bang! Bang!! KABOOM!!
One of Dotamuk's secret techniques.
A technique like an acrobatic feat, where he fired arrows with different forces and from different directions so they would all arrive at the same time.
A secret art that could only be performed with precise control and calculation.
Ivan recalled his black orbs to block the arrows coming from all directions, but there were seven arrows in total.
One of the black orbs was still in its recovery state from the first powerful arrow, and in that opening, another arrow slipped through the black veil.
Thwack.
But the arrow pierced Ivan's grimoire and stopped right in front of his neck.
"Oh... it failed?"
He'd already heard about those black orbs and the veil from Lee Do-hee. They were an overpowered item: incredibly durable and nearly impossible to pierce, they recovered after a one-to-two-second cooldown, and they automatically detected all attacks, unfolding into a veil to block them.
So he'd planned the best countermeasure, but he hadn't expected him to block it with his grimoire.
"What are you doing? Shoot again. That bastard's leg is crippled."
Ilbon-do said casually, but…
"Ah, I'm out of mana."
After using his ultimate move, Dotamuk was already out of mana, like some premature ejaculator. Surprisingly, archers weren't strength or agility characters. Without mana, they were half-useless cripples who couldn't even shoot their bows properly. They were mana characters.
"Ah... you fucking idiot. Are those muscles just for show?"
"Ahem... How'd you know? Without mana, I can't even hit that far."
"Ah, you fluffy-muscled bastard."
"Whoa? That one stings a little."
Meanwhile, Ivan, his leg and grimoire both ruined, felt extreme pain and fury.
His grimoire was one of the equipment items Baek Do-hyeon had lent him.
It could be repaired, but it would take an immense amount of time and money.
Above all, he was enraged that he had damaged the equipment bestowed upon him by the respected Baek Do-hyeon.
“Rise, and kill!!!!”
In an instant, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of black summons rose up around him.
The Shadow Knights weren't even the main force among them.
Monsters tens of meters tall, skeletons, unidentified monstrous birds, Death Knights, Meat Golems—the entire legion he had gathered so far charged toward Dotamuk and Ilbon-do.
“Uh... well, we're fucked, huh? Hey, you can block them, right?”
"I dunno... there are too many of them."
Ilbon-do scratched his head as he watched the scene. Their individual strength wasn't that great, but the sheer numbers were the problem.
"Ah, you can't even block that? You were acting all tough earlier..."
"What? Says the fluffy-muscled bastard?"
"Says the bluffing otaku bastard."
"Says the weak-dicked bastard."
"......That's crossing the line."
"Just get ready to fight, you idiot."
Dotamuk had tried to pick a fight to get back at him, but ended up losing even more ground.
And at that moment, Lee Do-hee finally broke out of the flame giant.
*
“Eh…?”
The black armies densely packed the entire city.
They were rushing toward Dotamuk's position.
The warlock was nowhere to be seen.
It was difficult to even get a lock on Woo-sik and Kwon Han-jun's positions.
Unfortunately, it was probably safe to assume Lee Woo-sik was dead.
Even if he were alive, he would have been swept away and killed by this massive undead army.
“Hmph… First, let's regroup.”
I figured it was better to regroup than to search for the enemy in the middle of nowhere.
Now there were only two enemies left.
But they were the two I had to be most wary of.
I couldn't let my guard down until the very end.
“Let's go, Bicorn.”
Heeeeeeeigh~~!
A majestic Bicorn was summoned from thin air.
Riding the Bicorn, I charged through the undead army.
P-p-p-p-p-pow!!
The undead army was ground to pieces beneath my Bicorn.
If they were normal soldiers, their morale would have plummeted from this alone, but they ignored me and continued to rush toward Dotamuk's position.
An endless black wave.
I cut right through its center.