Leo's Grand Performance (2)
At this rate, I can leave the cleanup to him.
Strip away Sahyeol Gate's true elites, and the rest of them looked as if they'd be swept aside without Leo ever breaking a sweat.
Before he absorbed the Dark Predator advancement book, I never expected any real fighting power out of him.
After that, Leo's strength had climbed at a frightening pace.
The other summons still outclass him for now, but none of them have his potential.
At present the Bone Dragon and the Shadow Summons stood at the top. The Basilisk, the Orc Shaman, the Demilich, the Sand Worm, the Skeleton Knight, the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, and the rest were monstrous in their own right.
Even so, their limits are plain.
Even the Bone Dragon would hit a ceiling once they reached the Tower's middle and upper floors. The only summons that could keep growing beside Jin-soo all the way there were the Shadow Summons, which scaled with his stats and his blessings. And now Leo had joined them.
Dark Predator is a miserable class to raise. Job level, skill level—both of them crawl.
Raised properly, though, it was powerful enough to be called the strongest there was. Before his regression, Jin-soo himself had advanced into Dark Predator and climbed to second on the Tower's rankings.
I don't know why, but the Dark Predator Leo absorbed is gaining job levels and skill levels at a pace that defies sense.
If the kitten kept shooting upward like this, Jin-soo would be holding a trump card he had never once accounted for. A satisfied smile touched his mouth as he watched Leo toy with Sahyeol Gate's players, plucking stats and skills out of them one after another.
Then a presence wrapped in a violent surge of mana came tearing toward Leo at a terrifying speed.
Han Man-ok. Sect Leader of Sahyeol Gate.
Dark-crimson qi streamed from the great saber in his hands. He swung, and a wave of that qi hurled itself at Leo. Sahyeol disciples crowded the ground around the kitten, and Han Man-ok did not spare them so much as a glance.
The range is too wide.
No matter how fast Leo moved, dodging that was impossible.
Unsummon.
An instant before the wave could touch him, Jin-soo cast the skill.
Leo's body melted into empty air and vanished. A heartbeat later, Han Man-ok's wave of dark-crimson qi crashed down over the blameless disciples of Sahyeol Gate.
"Ghk—!"
"Aaaagh!"
"Sect Leader!"
"Why would you… us…"
More than thirty Sahyeol players died in a single stroke. A perfect, pointless slaughter.
"You filthy little rat!"
Han Man-ok's face twisted savagely the moment he understood that Leo had been unsummoned.
"Every disciple below the Peak Realm, return to the lodgings at once!"
At the order, the Sahyeol disciples who had been hemming in Daehan Guild hauled up their fallen comrades and fled. Stay, and they would only die for nothing a second time. They could feel it.
"Leo."
Jin-soo summoned him again.
"Hunt them."
"Nyaaang!"
Freshly returned, Leo bared his tiny fangs in a wicked little smile and shot after the disciples running for the lodgings.
"Th-that damned cat!"
Sahyeol's elites flinched at his reappearance.
"There you are!"
The Sect Leader was another matter entirely. Han Man-ok launched himself straight at Jin-soo and brought the great saber around.
Exceptional mana sense. Sharp eyes, too.
The simplest victory would have been to fall back, pen the Sahyeol disciples in like rats in a jar, and feed them to Leo a little at a time. Han Man-ok and the elites could be lured off with the kitten and cut down one by one.
No need to go to the trouble.
He could wipe the lot of them out where they stood. There was no point in the tedious work of splitting them apart.
Leo and I can't stay tied to the Starting City forever.
For Jin-soo, the profit lay in crushing Sahyeol Gate today and moving on to the hunt. He drew Baekcheonsingeom and the Blood-Sucking Sword. Pure-white sword aura and blood-red sword aura streamed from the paired blades, and the instant he met Han Man-ok a detonation like bursting thunder ripped outward, shards of qi scouring the ground in every direction. In less than two seconds the two of them collided again and again.
"It's the Blood White Sword Demon! Aid the Sect Leader!"
"Form the Sahyeol Eight Trigrams Formation!"
"We end the Blood White Sword Demon here!"
The masters who had not retreated to the lodgings moved like lightning. They unfolded the Sahyeol Eight Trigrams Formation and swung their weapons at Jin-soo as one. Mana resonated, and an invisible pressure crushed down on his body—the formation's power. Centered on Han Man-ok, its might sat on an entirely different plane from what he had faced before.
Cast by real masters, of course the level changes.
The protective qi wrapped around Jin-soo warped. The Black Dragon's Cursed Armor, so proud of its defense, split and cracked.
"Sword aura, and this is all the damage we can do?"
"Monster! How high is that endurance stat?!"
"That armor of his is no ordinary piece either!"
"Keep pressing him!"
Han Man-ok and Sahyeol's elites drove in without a moment's pause.
Their level really is high.
The formation woven by one Transcendent master and thirteen Peak masters was immense. It bound Jin-soo's movement and suppressed his mana, while spreading out the shock they took and amplifying their own power. If that wasn't cheating, nothing was. The items in their hands were high-level pieces a climber on the Tower's 200th floor would be lucky even to glimpse.
And still, not one of them has broken the level 1,000 wall.
Their core skills all sat below level 1,000 as well.
If we're talking gear, I'm hardly lacking.
Skill Nullification went to work. Baekcheonsingeom unraveled the bundles of sword aura bound into their weapons and the warding auras wrapped around their bodies, and both melted away at once.
"Why did the sword aura vanish?"
In that instant a Peak master died, absurdly empty of resistance. Skill Nullification reached the Sahyeol Eight Trigrams Formation as well. The array flared—and guttered.
"The formation just collapsed?!"
A Peak master who had charged in trusting the formation's boosted mana and its dispersed impact startled when he was suddenly cut out of the array. In that same breath the Blood-Sucking Sword punched through his heart. Buried there, the blade drank him dry in a flash, and the blood it swallowed amplified Jin-soo's stats while his vitality and mana surged back.
"Watch the white sword! It nullifies skills!"
Han Man-ok had grasped what Baekcheonsingeom could do, and he raised his voice to warn his men. It meant very little.
Knowing about it doesn't mean you can stop it.
They were doing everything they could to avoid meeting Baekcheonsingeom head-on, which made picking off the Peak masters a little trickier. It would only take more time. It was not impossible. One after another, Sahyeol's Peak masters died.
"You damned bastard!"
The Sect Leader's face twisted into something demonic.
"You! Stop scurrying like a rat and face me fair and square!"
He hurled the insult like a taunt. Jin-soo let it slide straight past him.
"How long do you think you can ignore me?!"
Han Man-ok threw everything he had into the charge. Jin-soo slipped the blows with fluid grace or brushed them aside, and poured his focus into Sahyeol's Peak masters instead.
I can't waste an opportunity this good.
Even without dipping into the skills of his other classes, if Jin-soo went all out he could cut Han Man-ok down—formation buff and all—in twelve minutes.
Without the Sahyeol Eight Trigrams Formation, two minutes would do it.
He wasn't openly gunning for the Sect Leader, because dodging and shedding attacks of this caliber did enormous work for his skill conversion.
Soaring Ascent
Shifting Flowers, Grafting Wood
Just like that.
And there's no reason to fight enemies who lay a formation out in the open on their terms.
Smashing the hardest point of the Sahyeol Eight Trigrams Formation paid no bonus. Striking the weakest point first was simply more efficient. Jin-soo had no intention of turning his back on a method that cost less effort, saved time, and advanced his skill conversion all at once.
"Coward! If you've truly reached the Transcendent realm, face me one on one!"
True to an unorthodox martial artist, Han Man-ok's standards for cowardice—and for what counted as a duel—were remarkably flexible. He was the one who had dragged a whole string of Peak-realm subordinates along, unfolded the formation with them, and struck the first blow.
And he hasn't dismissed the formation or pulled his men back, either.
What he was really proposing was that Jin-soo ignore the subordinates holding the array together and duel him alone—him, whose mana the formation had raised and whose impacts it softened.
The nerve on this man.
If the lives of the men dying around him mattered, he could order a retreat even now and stay behind to fight Jin-soo by himself. He did not make that choice. He had realized Jin-soo stood a full tier above him.
He means to burn my mana and stamina even if it costs his men's lives.
Unfortunately for him, Jin-soo had the Blood-Sucking Sword, Blood Drain, and Essence Drain. Put simply, the mana and stamina spent cutting down Han Man-ok's subordinates came rushing back the moment he drank their blood.
My mana stat and my stamina stat are both 1,622.
High stats meant a greater volume of natural recovery, and a faster rate besides.
And even if mana and stamina both ran dry, I could just switch status windows.
Failing that, he could unsummon a summon and call it straight back. In short, Han Man-ok's choice to sacrifice his men instead of withdrawing them—all to improve his odds of winning—was meaningless busywork.
"He's tiring! Push a little harder!"
Han Man-ok urged his subordinates on and poured out a ferocious assault of his own. He genuinely believed he had a chance.
Because the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set has taken a fair beating.
No matter how high an item's grade and level, shock beyond its limit would break it.
Auto-repair will take about two weeks.
It was the first time the set had been damaged this badly since he had bought it and put it on. And because the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set had held, Jin-soo had already cut Sahyeol's Peak masters down by more than half. Pure-white sword aura gathered along Baekcheonsingeom and split an enemy's blade and torso in the same stroke, and a scream tore loose in the wake of it.
I'm picking up speed.
Thirteen of them had been holding his attacks. Six could only strain under the same weight, and with fewer bodies the Sahyeol Eight Trigrams Formation weakened as well.
They're worn down, too.
Sahyeol's players had lower mana and stamina stats than Jin-soo, so of course both ran dry faster. A life-or-death blood fight gnawed through mental strength in a hurry, and the formation was not free—maintaining the Sahyeol Eight Trigrams Formation demanded a steady drain of mana. On top of that they were moving at full speed, swinging without rest, and pouring out sword aura and protective qi with everything they had. It would have been strange if they weren't exhausted.