Chapter 254
Chapter 254
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 254
Chapter Title: Celestial Dragon (6)
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THWACK!
The dull thud sounded like a club striking a sack of meat.
A fist, accelerated by Exceed, slammed into Barbatos's philtrum, sending his body flying back like a pebble.
“Grrrrrr!”
Crackle!
Riark charged toward the reeling Barbatos.
The muscles in his clenched right arm bulged as if they would burst.
Like a hammer driving a nail, his fist slammed down into Barbatos's stomach.
“Kuh-heok!”
Barbatos, now slammed into the ground, coughed up blood.
“Keuk!”
Clutching his stomach, Barbatos hastily raised his arm.
A violet haze took aim at Riark.
“Too slow!”
Riark dodged the violet haze with an agile backflip.
“You… you bastard!”
Staggering to his feet, Barbatos glared at Oh-jin with eyes that could kill.
Of course, he didn't ask the pathetic question of why Oh-jin had charged after counting only to one when he'd said three.
However, the mere fact that he had fallen for such a cheap trick had bruised his immense pride.
“Nice timing.”
Oh-jin glanced at Riark, letting out a short exclamation of admiration.
As they say, to deceive the enemy, you must first deceive your allies.
He had charged without any prior coordination so that Barbatos wouldn't notice.
Yet Riark's timing for the follow-up attack was so perfect, it was as if they had planned it from the start.
“Hmph. Who do you take me for, boy?”
Riark scoffed, baring his teeth fiercely.
“In terms of experience as a warrior, you couldn't catch up to me even if you regressed ten more times.”
“Fair enough.”
Indeed.
There was no point in trying to teach an old dog new tricks; he couldn't possibly compete with Riark's experience.
“Stop the idle chatter and focus on the fight, boy.”
“Yep.”
Oh-jin replied curtly and turned his gaze back to Barbatos.
The violet haze spread out like a curtain.
“Your cheap tricks won't work on me again!”
Barbatos spread his arms wide, scattering the violet haze in all directions.
A violet curtain unfurled around him like a magic circle.
To get to him, they had no choice but to break through that curse-laden haze.
“Well then.”
Oh-jin sprinted toward the haze, Dantalian in hand.
“Let's see just how powerful this so-called curse of yours is.”
The moment he threw himself into the violet curtain.
“Keuk!”
It felt as if a heavy lump of iron was crushing his body.
A dizzying sense of lethargy washed over him, and he found himself gasping for breath.
It was like finishing a long march while carrying a pack weighing dozens of kilograms.
An intense urge to lie down on the ground and sleep right then and there surged within him.
‘The curse of fatigue.’
A curse he had heard all about from Ha-eun.
-Wooooong!
Just then.
A blue light burst from his pocket and enveloped Oh-jin's body.
It felt like drinking a cup of coffee amidst extreme fatigue.
‘Is this the effect of the fortune pouch Isabella gave me?’
It didn't completely nullify the curse, but it was quite effective at weakening it.
“Heup!”
Oh-jin took a deep breath and stomped his foot hard.
A horrible stench assaulted his nose.
His ears went deaf, and all sound was cut off.
Suddenly, his vision flipped upside down.
The deeper he went into the curtain, the more countless curses assailed him.
However.
“Not as impressive as I heard.”
Oh-jin twisted his lips into a smirk and passed through the curtain.
“Hup!”
He could see the Celestial Dragon staring at him with wide eyes.
“Azure Lightning.”
Sizzzzzle!
The blue lightning extending from the tip of his spear struck Barbatos.
A startled Barbatos quickly rolled on the ground.
“You seem to enjoy crawling on the ground, just like the lizard you are.”
Riark, appearing from the opposite side, kicked the rolling Barbatos's head like a ball.
“Kyaaaak!”
Barbatos's face, which had maintained its handsome features even when covered in filth, swelled up grotesquely.
‘His close-combat skills are definitely terrible.’
The curses were annoying, but aside from that, Barbatos's movements were far slower and clumsier than the other powerful foes Oh-jin had faced.
“You... you wretched things...!”
Barbatos wiped the blood from his nose and glared at Oh-jin and Riark with his amber eyes.
Soon, a violet haze enveloped his body.
-Wooooooooong!
The haze gradually grew, and Barbatos, who had been in human form, began to transform into the shape of a dragon.
Violet scales covered his entire body.
His amber eyes glowed eerily, and two black horns sprouted from his forehead.
Instantly transformed into a colossal 50-meter body, Barbatos let out a ferocious roar toward the sky.
[KaaaaaaaaaaaaRAAAAAAAAAAA!!]
A dragon's roar that didn't just shake the eardrums but seemed to seize and shake the very soul.
Was even the roar imbued with a curse?
A terrible headache and a wave of nausea washed over him.
“His breath already stinks, and now he's just screaming his head off.”
Oh-jin suppressed the rising nausea and curled his lips into a smirk.
Now that the Celestial Dragon had returned to its original form.
The real fight was about to begin.
[The sin of wounding this great Barbatos's sacred body! You will pay for it with your lives!]
A voice that echoed directly in his mind.
“Oh dear, I'm about to piss myself. I'm so scared, what should I do?”
Oh-jin let out a dry laugh at Barbatos's line, which sounded like it had been pulled from a "Top 100 Most Used Villain Lines in History" list.
Hearing such a cliché line actually seemed to ease his tension.
[Grrrrrrr!]
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Barbatos flapped his two massive wings and soared into the air.
As the 50-meter-long body took flight, the surroundings darkened as if a shadow had been cast over them.
“Huh? What? Weren't you unable to fly?”
According to Ha-eun, Barbatos couldn't fly, but whatever had happened in the last six years, he was now flapping his wings perfectly fine and ascending into the sky.
[Now that I have received His Grace, even these once-rotted wings can no longer restrain the great Barbatos!]
Barbatos, soaring high in the sky, shouted in an arrogant voice.
‘His Grace, he says.’
Oh-jin narrowed his eyes and looked up at the black horns that had sprouted on Barbatos's forehead.
Horns that didn't exist in Lee Shin-hyeok's memories.
Could that be the proof of the 'grace' Barbatos mentioned?
[Writhe in miserable agony as you crawl on the ground like insects!]
High in the sky, Barbatos's scales began to glow.
Like a carpet bombing, a rain of violet haze imbued with the energy of curses poured down.
“Hmm. So you can fly.”
Being able to fly was a tremendous advantage in battle.
It wasn't for nothing that they said victory in war belongs to the side with air superiority; if you could launch a one-sided bombardment from an unreachable distance, even the most powerful beings would have to submit.
However.
“Riark, I'll take the left.”
“Then I'll take the right.”
The significant advantage of 'being able to fly' was a weapon that didn't work on Oh-jin and Riark.
-Thud!
Oh-jin and Riark simultaneously kicked off the ground and jumped.
Even with their superhuman bodies, they couldn't possibly jump to where the Celestial Dragon was flying hundreds of meters above.
‘Lightning Mark Step.’
Th-th-thump!
Oh-jin and Riark ran as if sprinting through the air.
The two split perfectly to the left and right, as if they had been partners for a long time, and charged toward the Celestial Dragon.
[What...!]
Barbatos let out a cry of astonishment at the sight of the two of them sprinting through the empty air as if it were a field.
[Keuk!]
Barbatos hastily changed the direction of his curses.
With Oh-jin and Riark charging from both sides, he could only target one of them.
Barbatos chose Oh-jin.
[I shall bestow upon you the ultimate pain a human can feel!]
All of Barbatos's scales were covered in an ominous violet light.
In that instant.
An overwhelming pain washed over Oh-jin, as if his skin was being sliced by sharp blades and hot oil was being poured into the wounds.
The curse of pain.
It was one of the most powerful among the thousand curses Barbatos could use.
A terrifying curse that caused its victims to writhe in horrible pain until they either went mad or died from seizures.
Having been hit by this curse, a terrible scream would soon ring out like a song—
“You picked the wrong opponent.”
Thud.
Having sprinted through the air, Oh-jin landed on Barbatos's wing.
He held his spear in a reverse grip, the blade pointing downward.
Oh-jin's face was smiling brightly, his eyes glowing like blue will-o'-the-wisps.
[What...?]
Barbatos stared at Oh-jin with eyes full of disbelief.
Did the curse not work?
No, that wasn't it.
His two eyes were bloodshot from burst capillaries, and his lips were bitten raw.
His arms and legs were trembling uncontrollably.
The curse of pain was definitely inflicting overwhelming agony upon him.
There were two things Barbatos had overlooked.
One was that the fortune pouch Oh-jin carried was weakening the curse's effect.
“You should have used it on Riark, not me.”
And the other was that for a man named Kwon Oh-jin, 'pain' was not a significant problem.
Szzzzzzzzzzzle!
The blue lightning gathered at the tip of his spear blazed like a ferocious beast.
He violently thrust the spear downward, piercing the powerfully flapping left wing.
The blue lightning spread out, incinerating the wing.
[Kyaaaaaaaah!]
Barbatos let out a terrible scream and twisted his body.
Having lost a wing, his body lost its balance and began to fall.
“Hmph! Even if you had used it on me, the result would have been the same, boy.”
Below the falling Barbatos.
Riark, waiting as if on standby, bared his teeth fiercely.
Crackle!
Blue claws made of lightning formed on Riark's hands.
“Flash Lightning.”
A wolf, transformed into a streak of blue lightning, shot through the air.
A long gash was carved into Barbatos's chest, and blood poured out.
[Kyaaaaaaaah!]
CRASH!
Barbatos's colossal body crashed to the ground.
[Gasp, gasp!]
Pained, ragged breaths escaped his mouth.
‘Wh-what in the world are these monsters!’
There weren't any monsters like this six years ago!
Barbatos screamed internally as he frantically turned his head to scan his surroundings.
His eyes landed on a woman with platinum blonde hair and a delicate appearance.
[Grrrrrrr!]
Before Oh-jin and Riark could catch up, Barbatos quickly moved toward Isabella.
He grabbed Isabella's body with his massive arm and lifted her high.
[St-stop! One more step and this bitch's life is forfeit!]
Casting aside even his pride as a dragon, Barbatos took the delicate woman hostage.
To be precise.
He took the 'delicate-looking' woman hostage.
“Oh my?”
Isabella, caught by Barbatos, widened her eyes.
“It seems I've been captured.”
A deep smile formed on Isabella's lips.