Chapter 149
Chapter 149
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 149
Chapter Title: Orc Legion's Invasion (2)
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“Haap!”
The Fist Emperor, who had followed Kang Hyun-soo into the heart of the metropolis, let out a powerful shout as he thrust his fist forward.
Kwajik!
His fist, enveloped in golden aura, swept away dozens of orcs in an instant.
“Ice Rain!”
Pew-pew-pew-peok!
As Song Ha-na unleashed her area-of-effect skill to clear out the orcs,
Pajijijik!
Kang Hyun-soo swung his sword, wrapped in pitch-black lightning, slicing through the orcs.
Though Kang Hyun-soo’s group worked hard to thin out the orcs’ numbers,
the situation didn’t resolve easily.
‘There’s easily over 100,000 of them.’
[Summon 5 has been destroyed.]
[Summon 7 has been destroyed.]
At that moment, the summons Kang Hyun-soo had unleashed began to be destroyed at a rapid pace.
‘There must be some pretty strong ones mixed in.’
Players classified orcs not as demons, but as monsters.
Low-grade monsters, at that.
They were so common and their combat power so low that they’d been categorized that way.
‘Orcs are residents of the demon world, after all.’
Which meant the orc species itself was classified as demons, not monsters.
Taak!
Kang Hyun-soo launched himself toward the site where his summons were vanishing.
Kuwaaaah!
There stood a massive orc over three meters tall, shrouded in thick demonic energy, rampaging mercilessly with a double-headed axe gripped in both hands.
Hwiiik!
As Kang Hyun-soo descended to the ground, he drew up his mana.
Kwakwakwakwa!
His sword became wrapped in blood-red aura.
Kwaaaang!
A massive explosion erupted as the aura clashed with the demonic energy.
Seogeok!
The orc’s right arm was severed.
“Kuaaaak! Human! I’ll kill you!”
The giant orc, having lost its right arm, unleashed even stronger demonic energy as it charged at Kang Hyun-soo.
However,
the combination of the Goddess’s Tear, which absorbed demonic energy, and the Divinity stat
Kwaang! Kwaang!
was powerful enough to effortlessly devour mid-tier demons like this.
Kwajik!
Kang Hyun-soo’s sword pierced the giant orc’s heart.
[Eliminated upper-rank demon orc great warrior. Absorbed its demonic energy permanently.]
[The EX-Rank Goddess’s Tear purifies the permanently absorbed demonic energy and converts it to the special stat Divinity.]
[Divinity stat has increased.]
In an instant, it became nourishment for raising Kang Hyun-soo’s Divinity stat.
‘I need to clean this up as fast as possible.’
The orc legion’s greatest weapon was their human wave tactics, overwhelming with sheer numbers.
‘Demons are demons. They can evolve anytime.’
Before his regression, the orc legion grew stronger the longer they fought.
It didn’t matter if allies or enemies died.
Demonic energy grew by absorbing negative emotions like despair and fear, along with the blood and flesh of the living.
The more intense the battle,
the longer it dragged on,
the more infinitely the orc legion’s power grew.
‘Legion Formation.’
Kang Hyun-soo revived the orc great warrior as a summon.
And then,
‘Legion Integration.’
Transforming from a one-man army to a one-man legion, he activated the new skill he’d acquired.
Legion Integration was a skill that adjusted the sizes of his summons to be roughly uniform.
‘At first, I thought it was just a useless ceremonial skill.’
It was inevitable—he could only think that, since it only changed sizes without altering appearances or boosting combat power.
It merely made the summons look neat when lined up?
However,
‘It’s more useful than I thought.’
For starters, their sizes now matched humans’.
In cases based on humanoid monsters like orcs,
‘If I equip them with full-body armor, they’re indistinguishable from humans.’
Even for semi-humanoids like dragonians and drakans,
‘Armor can cover it.’
The Atlantis Dimension overflowed with all kinds of armor.
‘Tail and wing decorations on the armor are just a minor quirk.’
Until now, Kang Hyun-soo hadn’t been able to actively utilize summons based on monsters.
But after acquiring Legion Integration?
He could make much better use of monster-based summons.
The downside was
‘For something with a huge build like the demon dragon Karas, Legion Integration has its limits.’
Even if a skyscraper-sized body shrank to a mid-rise building size,
‘It’s still huge either way.’
Though summons were made of mana,
there seemed to be limits to their transformation.
‘Well, it might change once the skill rank goes up.’
What mattered now was that thanks to Legion Integration, he could deploy his summons at maximum capacity, and
‘I need to wipe out these orcs as quickly as possible.’
Kang Hyun-soo flew toward the direction of the stronger orcs once more.
[Level has increased.]
[Level has increased.]
[Level has increased.]
……(omitted)……
Perhaps due to the sheer number of orcs, his levels rose like crazy.
Before his regression, the orc legion had been a massive ordeal, but also
‘The best grinding spot.’
Back then, the Kabbalah Guild had hogged all the honey.
‘Not this time.’
A golden opportunity to raise levels,
skill ranks,
Divinity stat,
and increase his summons.
‘I can’t let anyone else take it.’
Kang Hyun-soo and his summons began devastating the orc legion at a terrifying speed.
Kwaaaang!
Amidst it all, a massive explosion rang out from afar, along with a clash of powerful mana and demonic energy.
‘What’s that?’
Kang Hyun-soo’s eyes flashed.
The power of the mana and demonic energy bursting in all directions was extraordinary.
‘Orc chieftains.’
Two of them, no less.
Orc chieftains were top-tier demons, stronger than most named players.
Facing two orc chieftains alone?
‘Is there a top-tier named player here?’
Not everyone in the border metropolis had been wiped out.
Players had banded together, using buildings as shields in a desperate resistance.
Likely, one of those players was a top-tier named, and a fight had broken out with the orc chieftains.
Taak!
Kang Hyun-soo dashed full speed toward the clash.
‘I can ignore the other orcs, but I have to take down the chieftains.’
How much Divinity stat would one top-tier demon yield? He couldn’t pass that up.
Kang Hyun-soo soon arrived at the battlefield. His eyes caught sight of
three massive mud golems boasting enormous builds.
‘Golems?’
Not low-rank ones either—these looked like high-rank golems.
‘A golem master. Who is it?’
Golem masters were a rare branch of mage-class players.
‘Could it be that guy?’
But that guy
‘would specialize in blood golems, right?’
Using mud golems as mains suggested it probably wasn’t him.
Pasak!
At that moment, one mud golem crumbled under the ferocious assault of the two orc chieftains.
The remaining two mud golems held on as best they could,
but it was precarious.
‘Deal with this first.’
He could figure out the golem master’s identity after taking out the two orc chieftains.
Kwakwakwakwa!
Blood-red aura flew toward the orc chieftains.
“Kuwaaak! Enemy!”
The orc chieftain turned to block Kang Hyun-soo’s attack, but
the demonic energy coating its axe melted away like snow,
Seogeok!
and the axe split in two all too easily,
Jwak!
as one arm flew off.
“Strong enemy! Die!”
The other orc chieftain charged at Kang Hyun-soo instead of the mud golems.
It became a 2-vs-1 fight, but the situation didn’t change.
The Goddess’s Tear, Divinity stat, and Vampiric Aura synergized,
shattering the two orc chieftains’ demonic energy with ease.
Seogeok! Kwajik!
The two orc chieftains lost their lives in an instant.
‘Legion Formation.’
As a finishing touch, Kang Hyun-soo turned the two orc chieftains into summons, then turned around.
‘Now, let’s see who the golem master is.’
Kang Hyun-soo approached the spot the mud golems had been protecting.
Kung!
At that instant, the two mud golems collapsed into ordinary piles of dirt.
‘Mana must’ve hit its limit.’
Golems were summons created via skills, too.
Keeping them active required continuous mana expenditure.
‘Temporary ones, huh?’
A properly made golem
would retain its form even if it stopped moving, instead of reverting to dirt.
‘A player party?’
What came into Kang Hyun-soo’s view was a small group of players forming a defensive line with buildings as shields, protecting around 30 civilians.
“Thank you for saving our lives.”
One player stepped forward and bowed in gratitude to Kang Hyun-soo.
‘He doesn’t seem like the golem master.’
Dressed in heavy armor with a shield, he looked like a tank.
“It was just the right thing to do.”
As Kang Hyun-soo replied, he scanned for the golem master.
That’s when he spotted her.
Purple hair and eyes.
A canine beastkin girl with dog ears and a tail.
‘That’s her, isn’t it?’
He’d thought it unlikely,
but no.
‘Well, golem master is a rare class to begin with.’
Her name was Sakazaki Yuka.
A half-Japanese player and native canine beastkin from the Mulan Kingdom.
One of humanity’s strongest players, known before regression as the Mad Blood Witch.
Wanted by every nation and guild in the Atlantis Dimension.
‘Did I help her for nothing?’
He hadn’t expected this lunatic to be here.
The Mad Blood Witch
was one of the players dubbed humanity’s calamities.
‘Before regression, she single-handedly destroyed two kingdoms and slaughtered tens of millions.’
What was even more insane
was that she wasn’t even a demon king’s minion.
She took the power given to protect the Atlantis Dimension and safeguard humanity, and
‘used it to massacre humanity. A total madwoman.’
Murderous intent flashed in Kang Hyun-soo’s eyes.
‘It’s not too late even now.’
If she hadn’t died by orc hands?
‘Then I’ll kill her myself.’
The moment Kang Hyun-soo hardened his resolve,
“Um, did I do something wrong?”
The tank player asked Kang Hyun-soo in an anxious voice.
“No. I was just thinking for a moment.”
“Did the Saklant Empire send a large relief force?”
The tank player asked curiously.
“No. I just came to the Frank Kingdom on my own to stop the orc legion’s invasion.”
At Kang Hyun-soo’s answer, the tank player’s face fell.
He’d hoped for a large relief force, but was disappointed to learn otherwise.
“More importantly, is that one the golem master?”
Kang Hyun-soo asked, gazing at the Mad Blood Witch.
“Ah, yes. Thanks to Yuka, we held out this long. But her mana’s almost depleted. More importantly, we need to break through the encirclement and escape before the orcs swarm again. Please help us.”
“Is that really necessary?”
Thanks to Song Ha-na, the Fist Emperor, and the summons’ efforts, the orc legion’s numbers were plummeting in real time.
There was no need to flee the city.
“What? What do you mean? Are you saying we should just sit here and die? Ah, is it because of those people? Then at least save us. People who can live should live, right?”
The tank player said to abandon the civilians and save themselves.
‘Not for nothing a companion of the Mad Blood Witch.’
As Kang Hyun-soo thought that,
“If you want to go, go by yourself. I can’t abandon those people.”
The Mad Blood Witch made an unexpected statement.
“You had a chance to escape from the start, but because you insisted on protecting them, we’re in this mess? So now all our party members have to die with them because of you?”
“That’s not...”
“Yuka, this isn’t just because I want to live...”
The tank player and Mad Blood Witch argued over whether to protect the civilians.
‘Huh?’
Kang Hyun-soo’s mind grew confused.
‘Is that really the Mad Blood Witch who treated human lives like flies?’
The Mad Blood Witch.
The witch who massacred tens of millions without remorse,
used their corpses to create armies of blood golems, bone golems, and flesh golems to rampage across the Atlantis Dimension.
One of humanity’s strongest players, whom even divine-titled players couldn’t handle—a living calamity.
‘Is it really the same person?’
The rare class of golem master.
Purple hair and eyes.
And the name Yuka.
‘Definitely the same person.’
Yet her personality was worlds apart.
The Mad Blood Witch in Kang Hyun-soo’s memories?
‘A slaughter-crazed maniac.’
But the Mad Blood Witch before his eyes now?
She seemed like a pushover on par with Iban.
‘So sentimental and soft-hearted?’
The Mad Blood Witch’s massacre spree and descent into madness began three years from now.
‘What on earth happened to change her so much?’
Kang Hyun-soo couldn’t know.
But,
‘I need to change my plans.’
Kang Hyun-soo had planned to kill the Mad Blood Witch at the first opportunity and turn her into a summon.
Considering growth potential?
‘Putting her under me without killing her would be ideal.’
But convincing a lunatic to join was tough,
‘and even if she did, control would be impossible.’
No telling what crazy thing she’d do.
‘There’s the Marionette skill’s permanent domination, but...’
He already had targets lined up for permanent domination.
‘Too wasteful to use on the Mad Blood Witch.’
However?
‘If the Mad Blood Witch’s mind is still sane, that changes things.’
Plus, she seemed overflowing with ‘pushover’ vibes.
In that case?
‘No need to kill her.’
He could just recruit her alive and use her.