The God of Controls' One-Coin Clear
The maze. The prison.
Euphrates dimension.
It was a once-prosperous dimension that had dared to stand against the demon world, only to be defeated, torn to shreds, and subjugated into the dimensional labyrinth.
How long have I been trapped here?
Icardi had once belonged to the Central Order of Knights.
The Central Order. The kingdom of Tebe’s premier knight order, renowned even within the Euphrates dimension for its reverence of martial prowess.
An ultra-elite unit where only those who had achieved Skillization of their movements through relentless training could earn entry.
Icardi had lost his honor along with the fall of the Tebe Kingdom.
His vision had blurred. He had even forgotten the passage of time.
All that remained was a bone-deep hatred for the demon race.
Even that had begun to fade beneath the crushing weight of endless time and the lash of whips.
Or so he had believed.
“Guhk!”
Taeyang drove the spear he had stolen from a demon guard straight into its owner’s abdomen.
The guard vomited blood and collapsed.
Watching the scene, Icardi let out a beast-like roar.
The hatred he thought had dulled surged back with burning clarity the moment blood boiled in his veins.
-Straight ahead at twelve o’clock!
“Hold them off for three minutes! I’ll open this and we move again.”
At Taeyang’s shout, the escaped prisoners responded in unison.
“Got it!”
“Black key! Rian’s cell needed the black key!”
“Kekeke, you still remember that? You perverted bastard.”
Besides Icardi, two more NPCs had already joined Taeyang to help clear the prison.
Over ninety-five percent of the prisoners were either completely uncooperative or outright hostile toward players, yet the NPCs Hyeonhye had selected were shockingly helpful.
Making the right choices with limited information.
That was Hyeonhye’s greatest strength.
“Open mine too! You stupid guards, those bastards are escaping! Catch them!”
“Me too! I can fight!”
“Aaaagh! You idiots. Hey, hey! Don’t just walk past, talk to me for a sec…”
Ever since the mission started, Taeyang had done nothing but run except when picking locks. He was already drenched in sweat.
Remaining Time: 11:23
Clang! Clang!
-It’s the black one.
“I heard!”
Click.
Taeyang’s hands, now accustomed to picking locks, moved with practiced ease.
“Thanks. My name is—”
“Shut up and run! We’re moving!”
Kwaaaaang!
“Kuaaaaagh!”
A human-shaped lump of meat slammed into the ground at Taeyang’s feet.
From the shape, it was one of the two NPCs they had rescued alongside Icardi.
Outside the screen, Hyeonhye clenched her sweat-soaked hands into tight fists.
They had been running for twenty minutes. Naturally, they had searched a massive amount of space.
Thanks to Hyeonhye’s cold, third-party orders, they had almost never wandered down the same path twice.
Normally, they should have found the door by now.
Unfortunately, they had run into one of those one-in-ten nightmare scenarios.
A thunderous roar erupted from the opposite side.
“I won’t let you escape!”
Just hearing the voice made his skin crawl. It belonged to something strong.
“Run!”
There had never been any sense of camaraderie among the prisoners anyway.
The only thing that mattered was self-preservation!
The prisoners were already sprinting before Taeyang even finished shouting.
On the opposite side, a team-leader guard clad in full plate armor gripped his spear with a sickening crunch.
His grip was so powerful the metal had dented inward to match the shape of his hand.
Right before Taeyang’s group could round the corner, the team-leader hurled his spear.
Thwoong!
“Tch!”
Taeyang snatched Icardi’s spear and threw it back in response.
Kwaang!
Taeyang’s spear bounced off pathetically.
The team-leader’s spear, however, still carried ferocious kinetic energy as it screamed forward.
The slightly off-course projectile punched straight through an unlucky prisoner’s chest.
“Krrrk.”
Thanks to that, Taeyang’s group managed to escape safely.
The guards chased after them belatedly, but every corner simply led to another corner.
“Find them! Don’t let them get away!”
The team-leader guard, face twisted like a wild animal, barked at the surrounding guards.
Remaining Time: 5:45
“Finally!”
They had found the door in the middle of an absolutely desperate situation, completely surrounded by guards.
The door was inside an empty cell.
“God damn it, we’re going to need two keys.”
One NPC muttered in despair.
The guards were right in front of them. The thought of testing the dozens of keys they had collected one by one made the situation feel utterly hopeless.
Clink.
Taeyang handed the bundle of keys to the NPC with the fastest hands.
“Hurry.”
From the opposite side, a swarm of team-leader-class guards appeared.
Among them, an especially massive guard exhaled pure white steam and roared.
“Escaped prisoners! Surrender now! If you surrender immediately, I will spare your lives!”
The way he slammed his spear into the ground with every word was so terrifying that the noisy prisoners fell silent in an instant.
“S-should we just give up?”
“It’s already too late.”
Taeyang sneered at the NPCs’ conversation.
“Why? If you get on your knees and beg right now, maybe they’ll kill you quickly. Isn’t that better than dying from shock after torture?”
Icardi muttered.
“So we don’t have to run anymore?”
“Yeah. There’s nowhere left to run, is there?”
“If only I had a single sword, I would swing it with joy.”
“Look, that guy’s bringing one over. Let’s kill him and take it.”
“Now that’s welcome news.”
Taeyang charged first.
He dodged the incoming spear with beast-like movements, grabbed it, yanked it forward, and smoothly kicked upward.
Crack. In the blink of an eye, one guard was knocked down.
He lost consciousness.
“Oh-ho. Not bad.”
Taeyang was impressed.
The difference of three achievements was clearly significant.
Against guards whose physical abilities far surpassed skeletons, he actually had room to breathe.
Icardi also snatched a sword and rampaged among the guards.
But the situation for the rest of the NPCs was far from favorable.
Those who ate better, slept more comfortably, and trained even a little more diligently were naturally stronger than prisoners.
For team-leader guards who had spared no effort in training for promotion, the gap was even more pronounced.
Promotion opportunities were rare for guards.
With greed thick in their eyes, the guards stabbed at the NPCs without mercy.
“S-save…”
Thud.
The guard mercilessly drove his spear into the prisoner’s head.
The prisoner’s skull burst like a watermelon, spraying bright red.
“H-hiiik!”
Clatter.
The prisoner holding the keys trembled violently.
“If you don’t want to end up like him, open the damn door!”
The moment Hyeonhye warned him, Taeyang dropped flat to dodge the spear.
He rolled away from the falling blade as well, then sprang up with elastic force and kicked a guard back.
Killing them was endless. Pushing them away like this was far more efficient.
The cell containing the door naturally had a narrow entrance.
Weapons could slip between the bars, but people had no choice but to come through the doorway.
For Taeyang’s outnumbered group, that alone was a massive advantage.
“Out of the way!”
The captain guard who had demanded their surrender shoved his subordinates aside and charged at Taeyang.
The shoved guard slammed into the wall and collapsed.
The force was so great that the soldier’s armor had crumpled into the pattern of the wall.
“Kuaaaah!”
The momentum behind the swinging spear was terrifying.
Taeyang didn’t even try to block. He simply threw his body forward.
Kwaaang!
The floor itself flipped over.
His strength was at a post-human level.
Well, since he was a demon, maybe “post-human” wasn’t the right term.
Icardi swung his sword and shouted.
“I’ll take him!”
The captain guard snorted and gripped his spear.
His grip was so powerful the spear seemed to scream in agony.
“Still not done with the key?”
“I-it’s almost there!”
Click!
Finally, the first door opened.
Remaining Time: 3:21
“Hey! Get inside first—”
The captain guard was already swinging his spear.
At that moment, Icardi stepped forward.
Squeeze.
One step.
Icardi’s entire body tensed with supple power.
Shing.
He raised his sword.
Whoooosh.
It was a cut that had reached the pinnacle.
A slash Icardi had perfected over decades of blood and sweat, one that had achieved Skillization.
Amadeus-style Wolf Decapitation.
Kwaaaaaang!
The captain-class guard was blasted backward.
The sword couldn’t withstand the force and shattered.
“Now!”
The quick-handed prisoner waved urgently.
By the time he had opened the door, the only survivors left were Taeyang and Icardi.
The instant Taeyang reached the door, Hyeonhye’s urgent voice rang out.
Icardi had exhausted every last ounce of his strength and stood frozen in place.
The harsh life of a prisoner had drained his vitality to the extreme.
The captain guard, on the other hand, had already risen again, gripping one of his subordinate’s spears.
Taeyang immediately grabbed Icardi by the collar of his prisoner uniform and yanked him back.
Whoooosh!
The captain’s spear barely sliced through empty air.
It was one of those accidental strokes of luck that sometimes happened in desperate situations.
Taeyang dragged Icardi inside and slammed the iron cell door shut.
Clang!
“You filthy vermin!”
Kwaang!
When the captain swung his spear, the incredibly sturdy iron bars bent.
Fortunately, the spear itself wasn’t as strong as its owner. After bending the bars, it shattered miserably.
“Phew. We’re alive.”
“Right! The key! The key! Hurry!”
Clink, clink.
The quick-handed prisoner began inserting keys again.
“What if none of the keys we collected work?”
Even in the middle of the crisis, they had swept up every key on the corridor near the iron bars.
The system guaranteed that at least one would fit.
Click.
From the other side, the iron cell door opened.
Taeyang glanced at Icardi’s condition.
“Can you move?”
Icardi shook his head.
It was complete exhaustion.
“S-sorry.”
“Nah. I wasn’t really expecting much anyway.”
What he had already shown was already above expectations.
Krrreeee!
The captain guard forced his way through the half-bent door.
“You filthy vermin. Your little tricks end here.”
Captain Guard Raid.
It was content that even rankers sometimes attempted after forming parties.
Known as “fun content,” its success rate was extremely low even when rankers gathered.
“Hiiik!”
The quick-handed prisoner was almost in full panic.
Taeyang patted the prisoner’s shoulder a couple of times.
“Relax, relax. Think of it like you’re in your own bedroom. I’ll hold him off, so take your time.”
The prisoner looked like he was about to cry.
Taeyang checked the remaining time.
Remaining Time: 1:59
Hyeonhye’s voice was starting to tremble.
It was probably because of the anxiety that came with knowing death in the game meant death in reality.
Taeyang cracked his neck loudly.
If he got hit, there would be no second chance.
In other words, he simply had to not get hit.
The problem was that the cell was so narrow there was nowhere to dodge.
The captain guard and Taeyang faced each other with only a single step between them.
The fact that the captain hadn’t been able to bring his spear inside was at least a small blessing.
Taeyang quickly licked his lips.
He was planning to end it in one strike as well.
Thud.
The captain guard planted his solid legs and shifted his full weight forward.
Taeyang took one step as well.
That single step drew the optimal line of movement.
One that was comfortable for Taeyang and uncomfortable for the guard.
Taeyang’s leg unconsciously performed the Transcendental Jin-gak from King of Fist.
It was a movement that had been repeated thousands, tens of thousands of times until it came out naturally.
Although King of Fist’s techniques had been implemented as game skills, they were motions created by researching, dismantling, and reassembling countless real martial arts.
In other words, they had practical combat value.
And that motion had manifested in Taeyang’s transformed body in near-perfect form.
Icardi’s eyes widened.
Crackle.
Electricity flashed across Taeyang’s fist.
Just like Icardi’s Amadeus-style Wolf Decapitation, the world itself was reacting to Taeyang’s movement.
Reacting, and elevating a simple punch into something far greater.
Whether Taeyang realized it or not, he drove his fist upward.
Transcendental Jin-gak – Whirlwind Fist.
Transcendental Jin-gak – Whirlwind Fist
Kwa-jijijijik!
Taeyang’s fist slammed into the captain guard’s jaw.
A clean hit that no one could deny.
It was the moment a King of Fist technique achieved Skillization and manifested within Dantalion.