Chapter 54
Chapter 54
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: 11. Step Up (4)
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This trial.
The silver lining amid the misfortune was that the ant cave subjugation wasn't entirely impossible just because Kang San couldn't kill the enemies. Of course, the difficulty had skyrocketed. But Kang San's role was clearly to hold off the foes from the front—someone else was tasked with actually dealing with this horde of monsters.
Yeon Woo-bin.
While Kang San bought time, his mana surged explosively.
Whoosh.
Roooar.
A fierce blaze erupted.
The roiling flames swallowed the ants whole, as if they were the maw of a salamander itself. Acrid smoke billowed with crackling pops, charring them pitch-black in an instant. Salamander's Breath was a solid D-Rank skill, but its firepower was enough to overwhelm even soldier ants of the same grade. Yeon Woo-bin was dead set on unleashing nothing but area-of-effect attacks. Against ants that overwhelmed with sheer numbers, he couldn't afford to waste mana on single targets.
Once one cycle passed like that.
'Shield of Trials.'
Flash.
It was Kang San's turn again, without fail.
As killing intent surged toward Yeon Woo-bin, Kang San intercepted it, raising his shield.
Crunch.
He blocked the attack by a hair's breadth.
But.
Bam—!
The powerful foreleg strike sent him sliding sideways.
He looked up, and once more, the world was darkening in his vision.
'So damn many.'
Dozens?
That was just what he could see.
Thanks to Guardian's Will, his defense had surged dramatically, but as always, that wasn't exactly good news for Kang San. It meant he had to handle proportionally more enemies. As he blocked the ants' relentless crashing assaults—boom, boom—he focused on the visible killing intent amid the chaotic tangle.
The ninth trial.
It couldn't just mean succeeding in subjugation without killing. The memory fragments always provided a clue, so Kang San knew he had to overcome this like the Blood Demon.
'The Blood Demon Art handles killing intent. As the old man said, it can definitely be used defensively too.'
Whoosh.
An ant raised its foreleg.
The swirling red energy revealed countless openings in that brief moment, but Kang San couldn't attempt a counter that would end its life. Instead, he widened his eyes. Even as the intense impact hammered him, he strained to capture how the killing intent moved.
Bam!
Boom, boom!
He was pushed back unilaterally.
Without offense, he couldn't efficiently control the enemies' movements.
"Tch."
His face twisted in frustration.
It wasn't easy.
No matter how hard he focused, he couldn't find the direction the old man had described.
'Is it the same principle as forging the sword?'
He had to think.
Kang San parried the ant.
Blocking each incoming attack one by one, he recalled the moment enveloped in killing intent as he hammered the steel.
Back then, for sure.
A path had appeared.
Even without a target to kill, the Blood Demon Art had pointed to a new way.
'I need to apply how I wielded the Blood Demon Art back then.'
It wasn't mere luck.
Kang San had definitely wielded the Blood Demon Art, and to recapture that sensation, he drew up its mana. The abstract concept didn't react instantly just because it was said to possess 'will.' When forging the sword, there had been intermediaries: hammer and steel, and flames. The violent clashes had acted as catalysts to ignite the Blood Demon Art's mana. But now, he had to draw it from utter nothingness.
Crunch.
"Tch."
A soldier ant finally bit into his shoulder.
He'd closed the distance to handle the killing intent.
Kang San shoved its head away.
He couldn't kill it, but in prying the soldier ant loose, a chunk of flesh tore free.
'Aura of Recovery.'
Whoosh—
He healed the wound.
The repelled ant, tasting blood, flew into a frenzy, raising its foreleg in rage.
'Focus.'
He didn't retreat.
He faced it head-on.
Shield raised in readiness, he showed his will to not yield a single step on the line between life and death.
In that instant.
'...!'
An anomaly entered Kang San's vision.
The soldier ant's foreleg.
Red energy rippled from there.
It wasn't marking a vital spot—it shot fiercely, aimed precisely at his right shoulder.
No time for thought.
More like, no time to think.
It was a split-second moment, and Kang San twisted his body on instinct.
Then.
Swoosh.
Boom!
As expected, the soldier ant's foreleg grazed his right shoulder and slammed into the ground.
A single success.
He'd finally achieved what he intended.
Kang San had clearly foreseen the killing intent and dodged the attack, but he didn't immediately assume this was the answer.
'Could just be a fluke.'
He needed solid confirmation.
Was this right?
The proper way?
Kang San watched the next onslaught with calm eyes.
Shhh—
Kyaaack!
Killing intent flared.
The soldier ant, having failed its attack, unleashed even fiercer momentum, its bared fangs swirling with energy aimed at Kang San's head. It meant a head strike. As Kang San raised his shield, the clash of steel-like forces rang out without fail.
Crunch—!
'It's real!'
He blocked the attack.
Goosebumps rose.
The old man's teachings were for this.
Not just using killing intent to kill enemies, but grasping the intent behind its expression.
He had the death-filled world in his grasp.
An inescapable net.
Surrounded by countless foes back then, surviving the Tang Clan warriors unleashing a sky-filling rain of hidden weapons wasn't luck. The old man viewed the world differently. Amid the tangled red threads, he pierced the gaps like a living road, slaughtering every last enemy.
Kyack!
Krararak!
The ants went berserk.
Frustrated that their attacks weren't landing, they flailed their limbs wildly to kill Kang San somehow.
Whoosh, whoosh.
He saw them all.
'Left.'
Swoosh!
The attack whistled past.
'Right.'
He dodged this one by a hair too.
The killing intent showed 2-3 seconds into the future, creating a massive edge in the breathless melee. Kang San absorbed the situation like a sponge. At first awkward with using the killing intent, he adapted as if it had always been his, piecing together the Blood Demon's fragmented memories. He recreated dodging attacks in the darkness.
That was when it happened.
An unexpected reward.
And at the same time.
"...What is this."
His vision expanded.
Kang San's world changed.
A world of red energy tangled like threads.
It was a new realm, unrecordable by tangible means.
The battle had already dragged on for over twenty minutes.
In a situation allowing no rest, Jo Han-byeol loosed an arrow and caught his ragged breath.
"Huff, huff."
From the start until now.
How many arrows had he fired?
He'd lost count after dozens, his hands torn and bleeding, yet he kept shooting.
He knew it too.
Ant cave subjugation.
Impossible unless everyone pulled more than their weight.
Catching his breath, he hurriedly gulped down a potion.
Gulp, gulp.
A refreshing sensation washed over his body.
Yeon Gyu-seong had provided at least high-grade potions, their effects swiftly restoring his stamina.
He glanced at the battlefield.
Kang San entangled fiercely with the ants.
"...How the hell is that guy E-Rank?"
It amazed him every time.
He'd acknowledged Kang San's skill from the start, but during Yeon Gyu-seong's test, he'd realized Kang San was beyond what he'd imagined. Logically, a necromancer hobgoblin was too much for an E-Rank party. From the moment they'd pulled off the impossible, he'd accepted Kang San was in another league.
But this.
This was beyond common sense too.
He was breathless just focusing on attacks, yet he couldn't fathom how Kang San endured twenty minutes.
'By the original plan, Chan-woo was supposed to buy time if needed...'
Basic plan.
When Kang San hit his stamina limit, Jeong Chan-woo would swap in for even a minute to buy time for potion recovery. It was about time for the signal, but seeing Kang San still holding strong made him feel a pang of shame.
Since meeting Kang San.
It had always been like this.
Kang San shouldered everything, so Jo Han-byeol never bore the full weight of any crisis.
Impressive.
To stand with someone like that, he needed to change too.
Yeon Woo-bin had.
Jeong Chan-woo had.
He didn't want to fall behind their sudden growth spurts.
Shh.
He nocked an arrow.
Pain lanced from his raw fingertips, but it was trivial compared to Kang San's suffering. He swallowed the pain. As he focused to fire.
Jo Han-byeol too.
Was steadily enhancing his abilities.
Absurdly enough, Kang San didn't find the situation as grueling as Jo Han-byeol imagined.
Whoosh—
Seeing attacks meant.
He could react in advance.
Before, he'd detect and block; now, he could dodge to conserve stamina unnecessarily. Of course, un-dodgeable attacks still needed blocking. But with fewer direct clashes than blocking ten out of ten, Kang San gained breathing room.
A new realm.
The Blood Demon Art let him assault enemies more effectively while boosting his defensive efficiency.
The enemies' numbers visibly thinned.
Kang San shouted.
"Clearing a path from now!"
"Got it!"
They'd planned this.
Start in a defensible spot to thin numbers maximally, then seize the moment to advance.
This was that moment.
'Tinker Bell's Light Halo.'
Whoosh—
The scroll glowed.
Kang San had used it early on; tiny halos of light scoured the ant cave tunnels. Dead ends or paths to the queen? He'd finished scouting during the twenty-plus-minute fight. Magical barriers might block Tinker Bell's light, but not these earthen tunnels.
"This way!"
Roar.
Roooar.
They had direction.
Moving toward the halos, Yeon Woo-bin unleashed his prepped spell, blasting the blocking monsters. Progress was smooth. Ants boasted numbers, but some stayed to guard the queen's safety.
Thus.
Thinning support meant nearly all outside the queen's guard were dead.
Kang San downed a potion midway.
After advancing far, they reached where the halos stopped.
Whooo—
A vast cavern.
In the empty space, atop a mountain of dirt, loomed a gigantic ant.
And not just that.
Grrruk.
Kieeek.
Over a hundred ants guarded its perimeter.
Kang San gripped his shield and yelled.
"Get ready!"
"Damn, so many."
Was that the signal?
Kyaaak—!
As the queen ant's maw gaped wide, the hundred-plus ants charged en masse.