Chapter 378
Chapter 378
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 378
Chapter Title: Titan Village (3)
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BOOM!
The clash of power against power was the same as before. But the aftermath was worlds apart.
The ringing of the locked weapons in midair shook the atmosphere.
If any weaklings had been nearby, their eardrums would have burst, and the shockwave would have churned their insides, rapidly draining their health.
But there were no such frail beings here.
With the Titans arrayed like a folding screen, the shockwave had little chance to leak outward. The terrain and features had endured countless Titan duels over the ages and held up just fine.
“Meat Tenderizer!”
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
“Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce.”
Silly skill names, but their destructive power was extraordinary.
Even a grandmaster would be pounded into ground meat by those powerful overhead strikes hammering down on Rokan, who calmly defended while biding his time.
“Back Grab!”
Right after the combo ended, in that brief 0.5-second gap. He circled behind in a half-moon arc, aiming for that opening.
“Spin!”
WHOOSH!
But he couldn’t land it. The enemy covered his back with a spin like a Wheel Wind.
Rokan retreated unwillingly, but he hadn’t given up.
The instant the spin stopped, he shot forward in that split second.
“Full-Body Charge, Blink!”
BOOM!
Like a shell exploding, their bodies collided.
Skreeee.
Unlike with the others, his body didn’t crumple or his heart explode. He was just pushed back a bit, holding firm with his strength and defense.
Thud, thud, thud.
Instead, the Titan raised both arms and smashed down on Rokan’s back.
It was hard to swing the mace, so he used fists, but that alone made Rokan’s body ripple.
“Hraaah!”
Rokan didn’t back down and wrapped his arms around the Titan’s waist.
He hugged the log-like waist tight and poured in his strength.
Crack, crack!
The bones began to shift.
The Titan’s strength was immense, but Rokan matched it—no, surpassed it.
Bones shifted, nerves compressed.
Shrombel’s face paled, and the power drained from the fists pounding Rokan’s back. Paralysis was setting in.
“Graaah!”
As his strength faded and his mind grew hazy, the Titan instinctively unleashed his power.
True to the belligerent Titan nature, he had no escape skills and simply tried to break through with raw force.
Divinity.
Destructive energy infused with divinity dwelled in Shrombel’s body.
“Kraaaaaah!”
A mad roar similar to Rokan’s erupted from Shrombel’s mouth.
‘……What’s that?’
Rokan released the waist with a hint of regret and hurriedly retreated. Something strange caught his eye.
Was he hallucinating? He rubbed his eyes, but the enemy’s form remained the same.
“Ha, well now…….”
Gale. The form of the Gale overlaid Shrombel’s body.
Wasn’t the first master skill he used the power of the ancestors? Rokan had tensed up, assuming it was close to the strongest Titan, Tamos, a creation skill. But out of nowhere, the Gale’s form appeared.
Gale armaments identical to his own clad Shrombel’s body, and the Gale’s divinity dwelled within.
[The God of Massacre says he is not his apostle.]
To be precise, it wasn’t the true Gale. More like a Gale that he had created?
Through his own ‘world,’ he had raised a Titan hero resembling the Gale.
And now that power was manifesting through Shrombel’s body.
“Weapon Awakening!”
Seeing it, Rokan grinned and awakened his Gale armaments through Weapon Awakening.
Gale versus Gale.
That’s what it looked like to others, but Rokan thought differently.
That wasn’t the true Gale, and he had broken the true Gale on this side.
Plus, back then, the Gale armaments hadn’t had their full set effect.
Now the question was whether Shrombel’s created Gale was stronger than the true Gale without divinity.
“Kraaaangh!”
Shrombel charged with a roar that went nowhere, swinging his mace head-on. It brimmed with destructive power that made his skin crawl just from being held in the weapon, as if all divinity had been converted to pure strength.
‘It’s over.’
Rokan muttered inwardly at that strike.
That one move decided everything.
It was the imagination of someone who hadn’t faced the true Gale.
With such overwhelming power, it could shatter most foes, but getting swept up in brute force like this meant he couldn’t even use half of the true Gale’s abilities.
“Wha—?”
Rokan vanished like a mirage before Shrombel’s eyes.
He mimicked the wind-like movements the true Gale had shown.
Strike and it slips past; touch and it scatters—ghostly evasion left Shrombel reeling.
Slash!
Each time he vanished, a large, deep wound appeared on Shrombel’s body.
Another movement learned from fighting the Gale.
How to reliably wound an erratic, ever-changing foe.
The answer: fundamentals.
Pure fundamentals, no feints or tricks. Direct, shortest-path strikes to the target, stripped of all excess.
But faster and more powerful.
“Can’t……hit…….”
Thud.
In the end, Shrombel gazed blankly at Rokan, his limbs severed.
Rokan didn’t even need Ultra Extremity.
Control victory. Just like with the Gale, that alone decided the fight. Before Shrombel could regenerate with divinity, Rokan mounted his body.
With the battle axe, he shallowly sliced through the thick hide and muscle.
Then he drew a dagger and stabbed deep.
Stab!
[The Heart-Eating Ogre devours the heart of the Titan tribe leader Shrombel.]
[Absorbing the power dwelling in the target’s heart and soul.]
[Absorbing the deeply inherited Titan blood.]
[The Titan’s power now dwells in your body.]
He filled one of the few remaining slots on the Heart-Eating Ogre.
“Oh?”
Rokan had absorbed Titan hearts before, but this was different.
Previously, it was just their attribute powers, but this time he fully absorbed the most purely inherited Titan DNA.
Since it was blood thick enough to draw ancestral power, the innate Titan strength pulsed more fiercely than ever in his body.
“Whew!”
Shaking with exhilaration, Rokan soon fully assimilated it all.
His base stats surged massively, but especially Gale Manifestation and Blood Awakening benefited greatly.
It felt like the skills had leaped to the next level.
“Wooooaaargh!”
‘Can’t stop these guys.’
The Titans surrounding him roared in unison.
To avenge their leader’s killer? No. They purely celebrated and cheered the victor’s birth.
“Next is me!”
“No, me!”
They competed to appeal their prowess, exuding strength to be Rokan’s next opponent.
“No time, so come at me all at once!”
Rokan barked mercilessly at them.
And when all his skill durations ended.
[You have leveled up.]
He laid low every Titan that charged. A festival broke out in Titan Village.
Rokan couldn’t understand holding a festival after watching their kin so brutally slaughtered, but since they saw him as the Gale incarnate, he let it slide.
From their view, the apostle of their worshipped god had appeared. As born warriors, they believed that dying in full battle earned the Gale’s care and entry to his world.
“By any chance, do you know about the Altar of Corruption?”
Mingling in the festival, Rokan cautiously gauged reactions before naming the Altar of Corruption.
Flinch.
That one word froze everyone.
Faces like they were terrified.
That told Rokan they knew something.
“Ugh, scary. Can’t say that name.”
“We don’t know. Shouldn’t know. We’ll all die.”
Eyes filled with fear. They genuinely dreaded the power of corruption and Tamos.
‘I see.’
The legend of Tamos seemed passed down differently.
Not as the great ancient Titan, but as the name that nearly annihilated them.
That explained the reactions.
But hadn’t some fallen to corruption? They were probably stragglers cornered after Tamos vanished, forced to accept his power to survive.
Of course, Tamos with his divinity had likely tempted later Titans to destroy the world.
‘Anyway, not here, I guess.’
Rokan concluded the Titans weren’t as tied to corruption as thought.
So where was the Altar of Corruption?
God altars weren’t in one place.
“……Wait?”
Lost in thought, an idea flashed in Rokan’s mind. The core of the main scenario quest: the power of corruption.
How did they first obtain it?
“Could it be on the surface?”
Plausible. They gained corruption from the altar but misinterpreted it, thinking awakening the Frost Titan completed the world’s ruin?
Pingrrrr.
As soon as the hypothesis hit, Rokan sprang up.
He used the Compass of Desire to track the Altar of Corruption.
“Huh?”
But the needle spun endlessly, not stopping.
Even flying far on Kai, it continued.
Meaning no Altar of Corruption in the heavens.
“Rokan, come back! We wait!”
Amid the Titans’ farewell, Rokan headed straight to the surface.
Pingrrrr.
“……?”
Same on the surface. The Compass of Desire pointed nowhere.
“Damn.”
Two reasons: no altar in heavens or surface, or in an area the compass couldn’t detect.
Since the quest already demanded destroying it, it had to be the latter.
‘Well, makes sense?’
It did, in a way.
A rejected power and god of corruption.
Would anyone leave their altar in an easy spot? Anyone finding it would destroy it.
So likely hidden deep with divinity.
Requiring specific conditions to find.
The quest difficulty spiked.
“Tricky.”
He’d thought it solvable immediately, but back to square one.
Main scenario quests were never easy.
[Demon Realm territory Gromoto is under attack.]
Then, a system alert startled Rokan.
His Demon Realm territory under attack? By whom? Another high demon declaring war?
Absurd, but no time to dawdle.
He geared up hastily and returned to the heavens.
To his besieged territory.
“These bastards……!”
Slaughtering NPCs and pushing in, he spotted the invaders and his eyes blazed.
The siege attackers were none other than players.