Chapter 88
Chapter 88
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 88
Chapter Title: 전생혈마-88화
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 88
Chapter Title: 17. Countdown (3)
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The hypothesis was spot on.
A powerful enemy threatening his life.
Blood Demon Art stats brimming to the full.
When both conditions were met, the desperate situation triggered the miracle known as 'Burning Time'.
A shiver ran through him.
For the next 900 days.
Kang San had to exploit Burning Time to grow as strong as possible.
No matter how much he strengthened himself, he couldn't match an S-Rank Dark Lord, but there was no other way to boost his odds even a little.
Werewolves attacked from all sides, suffocating in their intensity.
He had already taken down over twenty, but the ones still in sight filled his vision completely.
This situation.
He didn't dodge.
From the moment Burning Time activated, Kang San had to endure somehow, hold on, and raise his stats even by one more point.
Whoosh.
He evaded an attack.
Kang San moved to counter immediately, but he caught a glimpse of red energy grazing past his neck.
Sure enough.
Krunch.
A werewolf savagely bit at his throat right beside him.
Kang San barely dodged the attack by a hair's breadth, but the tangled killing intents surged in from every direction, refusing to give him any openings.
He moved frantically.
Twist his head, and razor-sharp claws whistled past his nose; simultaneous strikes raked scratches across his body.
A tightrope walk.
Precarious.
Yet Kang San's expression wasn't one of despair.
Every action Kang San took.
Converted into stats.
As long as he demonstrated sufficient prowess, the stats granted in reward gave him reason to endure.
His eyes were already bloodshot.
Blood Demon Art flared to its extreme, clouding his mind, but in that feral state, he faced the enemies.
A one-against-many battle.
He needed to grow even more accustomed to it than now.
Even against more foes than Yeon Gyu-seong's test, even facing enemies he couldn't handle like in this isolation incident.
Kang San needed the strength to endure.
Amid the killing intents twisting from all sides, he clung to his fraying thread of sanity and focused on a single goal.
'I have to control the killing intent.'
Killing intent.
He read its direction.
Like the old man who plunged fearlessly into a storm of myriad arrows, Kang San concentrated on reacting to the werewolves charging from every angle.
Stat growth and killing intent training.
That was Kang San's goal in the stat training ground.
And whenever a gap appeared amid it all, he unhesitatingly severed a werewolf's head.
The twenty-third one.
Kang San was gradually being consumed by the killing intent.
Even training had an end.
After dealing with about thirty, no more appeared, and the werewolf corpses scattered on the floor evaporated like magic.
That didn't mean he could relax.
Kang San roughly replenished his energy with the provisions here, staying prepared for any sudden werewolf assault.
'...This is going to be a long 900 days.'
The collapse of the training area and rest space.
It had stripped away all leisure.
In a situation where combat could erupt anywhere, anytime, Kang San kept his senses perpetually sharp.
'At this rate, I'll have to sleep in fits and starts. To rest as efficiently as possible, I need to hone my killing intent sensing even more. Even dead asleep, I have to react the instant it's detected.'
He caught his breath.
His breathing stabilized.
At first, even breathing had been a struggle, but after the intense battle, it felt like his airways were opening up a bit.
A brief respite.
Kang San didn't devote it solely to rest.
During these 900 days, he had work to do.
'I can't reveal the Outbreak's existence to the world, but pinpointing its location would make it easier for me to respond. I need to identify the most suspicious points. If I narrow it down here and verify outside, I can nail the exact spot before it erupts.'
He pulled something from his pocket.
A map he'd brought in advance.
Kang San spread it out and marked the mountains around Pohang City in North Gyeongsang Province.
'When the announcer reported the Outbreak, the TV screen briefly showed a mountainous landscape. So the odds are high it started in the mountains. In general, dungeons don't form in flatlands. Technically, they can appear anywhere, but terrain warped by mana gets noticed fast in open areas. First, I need to narrow it to mountains.'
He examined the map.
Cheonryeongsan, Biaksan, Bangmoksan, and so on.
He sifted through the mountains.
In truth, counting every peak and ridge, it was impossible to pinpoint with just a map and memories.
Still, he marked them all for now.
The clues from his future memories to locate the Outbreak weren't just any mountain view.
'Disaster's 17 days. Pohang's borders were breached, surrounding areas devastated, but the borders didn't crumble that quickly. So eliminate spots that could be called borders. If monsters poured from border areas, Pohang and beyond would've been wrecked before quarantines even went up.'
Scratch, scratch.
He crossed out several mountains.
Pure speculation.
But following his reasoning, he compiled a list to check outside.
Just the first day.
Kang San was enduring a grueling one.
The first three days.
Fortune among misfortunes, the werewolves came in waves, then stayed quiet for a while in a set pattern.
Thanks to that, he could rest properly.
As his rising stats accumulated, at some point, even facing the first werewolf of a wave felt a tad easier before Blood Demon Art kicked in.
He had fully grasped their attack patterns and habits.
Maybe he could last the 900 days, he thought—then the trials shattered the predictable rhythm.
'Killing intent.'
Flash.
He opened his eyes.
Kang San, leaning against the wall in light sleep, rose and gripped his sword.
That instant.
Kyaak.
Boom—!
A werewolf burst in.
Facing the arrow-like charge piercing the darkness, Kang San grimaced and barely raised his arm to block.
That was the start.
Werewolves surged like a tidal wave.
True to the melee training system, werewolves swarmed everywhere he looked.
The voice announcing enhanced stats from Guardian's Will sent chills down his spine.
In the space thick with killing intent, Kang San stabbed and slashed repeatedly, thinning their numbers one by one.
Stab.
He pierced a werewolf's throat.
He already knew which spots were softer than their tough hides.
But the werewolves were learning too.
As he dispatched them with repeated patterns, at some point, they anticipated his strikes and twisted away.
Swish.
His sword cleaved empty air.
He'd barely felled the foe, but a trial message flashed.
'So this is what learning means.'
The message had said monsters share experience to hunt the wicked.
As Kang San's stats rose with repetition, the monsters learned his patterns and countered.
The situation was irreversible.
With 900 days to endure, if they adapted to his patterns, Kang San responded with faster, fiercer strikes, constantly varying to sever their breaths.
One, two.
Corpses piled up.
As expected, Burning Time triggered, his eyes already crimson.
Twenty-fifth.
His head grew numb.
Immersed in the sole purpose of killing the enemy.
Mind stat prevented full Qi Deviation, but Kang San deliberately didn't suppress the roiling Blood Demon Art.
There was no safe path to strength.
To trigger Burning Time, he needed at least twenty kills—and that's when real growth began.
He couldn't miss that chance.
Thud—!
Stab.
Grrrrrk.
Kill.
Kill again.
As corpses mounted, Kang San reaped the rewards.
He didn't rely on the Guardian's Will safety net.
Day one: moderate training.
Day two: pushed himself to activate Guardian's Will.
If feral state hit its limit? No safety net to grab his sanity this time.
Still.
He didn't stop.
Kang San wanted to confirm something.
'The moment Blood Demon Art's feral nature peaks. If I can't withstand the mental shock, what happens to me?'
He had to test it.
Before facing the S-Rank Outbreak.
Kang San placed his limits on trial.
Where the true edge lay, how far he could push without breaking.
He'd checked in past training but survived somehow; now he craved the real limit.
Instinct told him: as Blood Demon Art grew, the backlash intensified.
The moment he severed over thirty werewolves.
"Hup."
Mana erupted like an explosion, and Kang San's eyes flew wide.
His vision blurred.
Werewolves were right there before, but one blink, and the scene shifted.
"Agh!"
"Aaack!"
People were fleeing.
Monsters that appeared from somewhere massacred them, and amid the horror, a child froze, face pale as he stared up at the beast.
Dazed.
Unreal.
The teacher who'd been leading the kids moments ago was torn in half, upper and lower body chewed crunchily in the monster's maw.
Then.
"N-No!"
"Kang San!"
Far off.
A man and woman beyond the crosswalk came running, faces ashen.
Familiar faces.
They threw themselves to shield the child, but the monster scoffed and snatched the man's torso, shoving it into its mouth.
The woman screamed.
Glancing between man and child in panic, she heard the man bellow in agony.
"Run! Take San and... Aack!"
Crunch.
Flesh slid down its throat.
The woman scrambled up to flee with the child, but suddenly heaven and earth spun.
Thud.
"A, aa."
Her foot was grabbed.
She was dragged away.
Even then, she gazed at the child and cried desperately.
"...San. Run. Hurry, run now!"
Then it hit him.
Ah.
I'm Kang San.
And those are my parents, who died saving me.
Whether truth or not, he couldn't tell.
Kang San had no memory of the past.
Precisely, how his parents died— the shock had buried it, refusing to surface.
That day's memory.
Replayed before his eyes.
As an adult snatched the child mid-flight, Kang San's eyes beheld his mother cruelly devoured.
"...Ah."
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Couldn't face reality.
When he opened them again.
"N-No!"
"Kang San!"
The same scene looped.
Parents dashing across the crosswalk.
Child rigid as stone.
Kang San existed in that space.
Gazing down at his hands with blank eyes, the sword that had just butchered werewolves dripped blood.
He wasn't a helpless child.
He had the power to kill monsters.
Then.
"Don't you dare touch my parents, you filthy bastards."
He couldn't just watch.
Kang San stepped forward.
His eyes dyed thick with killing intent.
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