Chapter 122
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 122
Chapter Title: It Wasn't a Bug?
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The sun fell from the sky.
SolarFallen
It meant a plummeting sun or a corrupted sun.
Here, "plummeting" fit better, but the moment it fell, it might as well have been corrupted.
Such idle thoughts crossed my mind as I beheld the spectacle I had wrought.
"Wow..."
I couldn't find the words; nothing seemed to fit.
Annihilation? Incineration? Or maybe it just felt like a natural disaster.
Rumble—crash!!
The buildings collapsed, their supports melted away.
A magic circle turned into a makeshift gate, dropping the sun from the heavens.
Of course, it wasn't a real sun undergoing nuclear fusion in real time—just an overwhelming mass of flames.
'But does fire even have mass...?'
I'd heard somewhere that it technically did, in minute amounts, but this was mana-forged flame, so the sheer mass made more sense.
Anyway, a sun rivaling the monster's size had crashed to earth, swallowing it whole in an instant.
The blinding light had forced my eyes shut, tinting my vision red.
'And almost no sound.'
Only the monster's agonized screams echoed in my ears.
Oh, and the noise of it smashing the surrounding terrain.
Otherwise, silence as the sun's flames consumed everything, fueled by mana.
The ground melted like lava, the air scorching hot enough to sear flesh.
Drained of mana, hollow and exhausted, I wiped my face.
'What a bratty move...'
I'd have to wait for the heat to die down, so I sat on a nearby rock.
My body went limp, reality crashing in hard.
I'd spouted that "Sole Supremacy over Heaven and Earth" nonsense myself, so any normal adult would feel the comedown.
But I had my excuses too.
'These images just hijack your mind the first few times.'
Swordsmanship relied on intent, but magic demanded imagery—and the expanded world within it.
You pull the mental image into reality via incantation.
Buying the skill had imprinted the SolarFallen image in my head, so at first, my thinking bent toward it inevitably.
"Hoo... Still, for this payoff, the comedown's worth it."
I gazed at the boiling hellscape before me.
A sight that nodded to its power all on its own.
A crater over 100 meters wide, fully melted; surrounding buildings crumbled.
Lava flowed across the earth, reducing all to ash.
True to its stats—25% mana cost for standard cast—the sheer destructive force was unreal.
And the image: a grand sun descending from on high, permitting no interference.
Heaven above, heaven below; I alone am revered.
The phrase had demanded my mana, so yeah, the spell reeked of arrogance.
Like an untamed wild horse.
A brute ignorant of higher realms, fearing nothing.
"Upper-tier magic my ass—such a cocky bitch."
Not even the strongest, yet full of itself.
Zombies started shambling closer, so I gave a few headshots while resting.
How much time passed? Mana at about 20%, my body stirring with renewed vigor, I stood.
I plunged into the still-scorching crater.
"Holy shit."
Descending revealed the melted ground strewn with the monster's pulverized or exploded flesh chunks.
Unlike Fire Lance, these burned fiercely.
I waded through ashes of the fully incinerated and flesh still actively aflame.
At the crater's center: a pulsating lump, burning yet throbbing.
Dozens of arm-thick tentacles still wriggling.
Tough bastard. I drew my longsword from inventory.
No need for sword aura.
Its outer shell—once insanely durable—was burning away in real time, useless now.
I approached openly; sensing my killing intent, the tentacles thrashed wildly.
"Kieeeek—!"
"Yeah, scream your lungs out."
Last gasps anyway—I didn't block, just closed in slowly.
Within range, tentacles lashed out.
Whoosh—!!
Slash—
"Kieeeek—!!!!"
But severed by my longsword, they flopped on the ground, spraying black blood.
Another attack.
Weak power, sluggish speed.
"Kyaaak...!!!"
One by one, tentacles lopped off; soon, it lost nearly all.
No corpses left for regeneration fuel.
Even its own flesh had burned to ash.
Trapped on all sides, utterly helpless.
'This the same monster that was wrecking the city moments ago?'
My handiwork, but a pathetic end.
I plunged the longsword into its body.
"Kiaaaak!!!!!!"
No tentacles left, it thrashed its main mass wildly.
Sense of energy: barely a scrap remained.
No more tricks possible.
'Energy reading... Come to think, this came from my old neighborhood's market area, right?'
Its power back then felt weaker than that corpse pile I'd seen.
Plenty of suspicious clues.
Its approach direction, zombie distributions I'd spotted hauling Yuri Noona to Martco.
Yeah, that's when I'd first suspected variant zombies.
If it'd shown up then, Yuri Noona's group was dead for sure.
I'd have scraped by with 《Nameless》, but...
"Thanks for showing up now, I guess."
"Kieeeek!!!!!!!!!!!"
Squelch squelch!!
I watched it spew rotten blood and flail, then swung decisively.
A sharp shing shing, and the tenacious survivor met its end.
Ding~♪
You are the first to subjugate the named entity [Undead Tentacle]. Subjugation reward: 5000p acquired.
Conditions met. Acquired title [Giant Slayer]. Title bonus: 10,000 points additionally acquired.
Conditions met. System's [Lv] function unlocked. Commencing settlement of unreflected experience points.
"What?"
15,000p, the monster had a name, new title.
All huge, but the last line dilated my pupils.
'Level? The level function just unlocked?'
Despite rising stats and points, one mystery lingered.
Why the 'Lv: 1' stuck in my status window?
Zombie kills, human kills—no EXP, just points, and no info on tap.
Growing me felt half-baked next to 'Ajeol's' system—like a bug from my partial sync.
But now, conditions met, Lv unlocked.
Even settling all past EXP.
'Feels like "now you tell me," but it wasn't a bug after all?'
An unexpected windfall.
Better late than never.
Level-ups meant growth, whatever form.
Status showed juicy points; I climbed a intact building's roof, zoning out at the sky till EXP settled.
"Weather's amazing today."
The clear sky—first direct view sans window in ages—lifted my spirits.
Would've checked the title effect, but magic and levels overloaded info already; later.
Confirmed titles: [Zombie Skull Hunter], [Murder Newbie], [Giant Slayer]. Closed the window.
'Still [Murder Newbie]?'
Cutesy for my kill count.
Wondered how many to shed "newbie," but settlement done alarm hit; shoved the thought aside.