Chapter 270: An Ideal Ending
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 270: An Ideal Ending
The fear of death is an instinctual emotion shared by all living things.
Even more so when all the efforts one has painstakingly built up are on the verge of going down the drain.
[Unique Ability 'Grave of Swords' has been activated!]
[Lv15 'Primordial Flame' has been activated!]
Jinhyuk released the mana he had been stealthily gathering.
At that exact moment—
Boom!
A dark red spear plummeted from the sky.
It was an attack aimed directly at the crown of Tristan's head.
"Ah..."
Tristan let out a short gasp.
Now.
"Watch out!"
Jinhyuk shoved Tristan aside with an exaggerated movement.
In a split second that was practically simultaneous—
Crash!
The spear pierced the ground.
It was a hair's breadth. If he had been even a fraction of a second slower, Tristan's head would have gained a fancy new ornament.
"Th-this is..."
"It's a demon's spear. That bastard Hargan. He must have been incredibly pissed off, leaving something like this behind even after returning to the Demon World."
Shiver!
Tristan's body trembled like an aspen leaf.
The noble, haughty demeanor he had shown before was long gone.
In its place, only a man stained with despair and terror remained.
Thanks to that, manipulating him had become easier than breathing.
"W-was he trying to kill me with that?"
"Yeah. And this probably isn't the end of it. Knowing how relentless demons are, he'll keep targeting you until he succeeds."
Jinhyuk gathered his mana once more.
In the empty air, new spears began to manifest one by one.
Swoosh.
Jinhyuk stepped in front of Tristan.
The spears, which looked ready to fire at any second, froze in midair.
"As you can see, Hargan is terrified of the demon sponsoring me. And that demon hangs on my every word. If I ask for a favor, he'd probably jump out of bed in the middle of the night to help me."
Jinhyuk boasted pompously.
Since he was properly concealing his presence and Tristan was already half out of his mind, the acting delivered its dramatic effect flawlessly.
[The Divinity 'Rotting Heart' strongly questions your statement.]
Veliel hurriedly popped up a status window, but Jinhyuk closed it even faster.
Interrupting at such a crucial moment.
"Make your choice. Will you side with the Demonic Humans and die at the hands of a demon? Or will you side with me and save your life? I'll give you one last choice."
"If I do what you say... can you really protect me from that demon?"
"Of course. I absolutely can. As long as a powerful demon is watching over you, you don't have to worry about a thing."
[The Divinity 'Rotting Heart' lets out a silent scream.]
[He warns you to stop talking absolute bullshit!]
"See? The great being is absolutely thrilled. He's practically putting on a fireworks show."
Jinhyuk pointed to the empty air.
There, colorful sparks were crackling from Veliel's furious mana.
"It's true... To think I could receive the protection of a high-ranking demon..."
Tristan swallowed hard.
Life or death.
His hesitation didn't last long.
"...Please keep your promise."
"Don't worry about that."
Of course, he intended to keep it to the letter.
[‘Brand of the Flame Soul’ has been activated!]
As an excellent slave, that is.
As the red brand seared into Tristan's flesh, an absolute mark of obedience was formed.
Perfect.
'Gawain is dead, and Tristan has been swayed. With this, the remaining Demonic Humans are nothing but empty husks.'
On top of that, being able to exploit the Demonic Humans' infrastructure and internal information made this an incredibly successful harvest.
"If others see you, there'll be too much to explain, so leave through the other path. I'll contact you later."
"...Understood."
Tristan nodded weakly.
* * *
Emerging from the room of the Wailing Witch, Jinhyuk joined the rest of the people waiting outside.
There, the players were waiting for him with anxious faces.
"Hyung! Are you okay?"
"Oppa!"
Lee Tae-min and Yu Yeon-hwa were the first to greet him.
They looked completely exhausted from evacuating the Dangun Guild, but their faces lit up with bright smiles upon seeing Jinhyuk safe and sound.
"...Thank you, Jinhyuk-nim. Thanks to you, we all managed to survive."
Park Jung-jin of the Dangun Guild, who had regained consciousness, also expressed his heartfelt gratitude.
"Thank you."
"We wanted to help, but we ended up only receiving help instead."
His voice carried a hint of self-deprecation over their lack of strength.
Although they had been brimming with pride as members of a major guild, this raid had forced them to realize a bitter truth.
Just where they stood.
And just how incredible Jinhyuk was for defeating an enemy that possessed strength beyond imagination.
'No matter what we do, we can't even hold a candle to him.'
'To think a single person is more formidable than an entire raid team.'
'Just how much harder do we have to work?'
It would probably be impossible even if they spent their entire lives trying. Even just standing beside him to fight.
One might expect them to feel bitter or complain about his overwhelming talent and skill, but instead, they felt deeply reassured that such a player was climbing the Tower of Trials for the sake of humanity.
"You're a total superstar now. Even if I want to join you next time, I doubt I'll even get the chance with my current level."
Maria of Olympus also approached Jinhyuk and offered a handshake.
If not for Jinhyuk, they might have been wiped out after being betrayed by the Gandhara Guild.
Even if they hadn't, they would have met a miserable end at the hands of the Wailing Witch or the Demonic Humans.
"How could Europe's greatest mage say such a thing, Maria-ssi? It was all thanks to everyone's wonderful support."
Jinhyuk politely deflected the credit.
It wasn't because he had suddenly matured or learned humility in the meantime.
He was only being fake because he was about to receive the reward for his "good behavior."
[The conditions for copying have been met.]
[You have copied 'Hellfire'.]
Just as expected.
From start to finish, because he hadn't stabbed Maria in the back, he was able to copy Hellfire.
With this, he had secured both Black Tears and Hellfire.
He had successfully completed everything he absolutely needed to do on the 15th floor.
"Thank you as well, Elder Yu Cheon-yeong. It was an unreasonable request, but you readily agreed, which took a huge load off my mind."
"Haha. What did I even do? I heard clearing the ruins' boss and saving the raid team were both entirely your doing. Besides, this is the least I can do for the benefactor who saved my life."
Yu Cheon-yeong burst into a hearty laugh.
It was a good feeling.
In the past, he had to handle everything entirely on his own, but now he had companions to walk this path with.
Precious companions whom he could trust with his back even in life-or-death situations.
"We're probably heading straight to the 15th-floor boss raid. Oppa, what are you going to do now? Do you want to come with us if you're interested?"
"The boss?"
"Yeah. Now that news of the successful ruins raid is out, various guilds are planning to mobilize on a large scale. Since you took care of the hardest part, they've calculated that the rest is manageable."
The boss, huh...
There was a separate boss monster guarding the 15th floor, but it didn't offer much of value to him.
It would be more than enough to leave that to the two of them and the major guilds.
"No, I have other things to do. First, I'm going to take a good rest for a few days to recover my stamina."
From practicing the synergy of his newly acquired skills to fusing them to create higher-tier abilities.
He had a mountain of work to do.
Furthermore, the Empire would likely have finished its preparations by now, meaning the dark clouds of a massive war would soon gather once more.
He needed to prepare for that as well.
'I should probably take this opportunity to visit the Murim and meet Master, but...'
Jinhyuk shuddered slightly as he thought of the Dark Emperor.
'...Does this mean I have to go through that training again?'
Even though Jinhyuk had enjoyed all sorts of twisted, masochistic processes up until now, the mere thought of training with the Dark Emperor gave him goosebumps all over.
* * *
Three days had passed since the ruins raid.
Having exited the Tower, Jinhyuk took a leisurely rest to relieve his accumulated fatigue.
Though calling it a "rest" was a bit of a stretch; he had basically been knocked out cold.
Once he had fully recovered his condition, Jinhyuk headed to the special training facility prepared by the Awakened Association along with Alice.
"This is it. Privacy is completely guaranteed here, so you don't have to worry about anyone else coming in."
It was a private training room accessible only to S-rankers and above.
Alice looked around in wonder.
"Ho. To think such things are possible. Not bad for something made by humans. But what is this?"
Alice approached the augmented reality device in the center of the training room.
She then pressed down firmly on the red button in the middle with her finger.
[Scanning target's mana.]
A blue light swept over Alice's body.
"How insolent...! How dare a mere machine attempt to analyze my mana!"
Alice's red pupils dilated.
At that exact moment—
Vroooom!
[Lv??? Unmeasurable. Materializing the strongest practice opponent the system can generate.]
"Groooar!"
A 30-meter-tall giant species made of holograms appeared.
A Black Dragon.
The ultimate creature, covered entirely in black scales.
"A-a dragon? How can there be a dragon outside the Tower?"
Alice stammered in disbelief.
It was only natural for her to be flustered, suddenly facing a dragon of a bizarre form she had never seen before.
However, no matter how powerful the ultimate creature was, her pride as a True Ancestor wouldn't allow her to back down.
"I am the head of the Ataraxia family, Alice von Ataraxia!"
Alice unleashed 'Blood Lord'.
Hmm.
A battle between the idiot queen and a machine...
This was quite interesting.
The fact that it would be a pyrrhic victory no matter who won made it even more appealing.
"Die! Die! Huh? Why is it dodging all my attacks? Don't tell me it even has the ability to distort space...? As expected of a dragon. A formidable foe that cannot be taken lightly!"
Formidable foe, my ass.
She was definitely an idiot.
Shouldn't she have realized by now?
While Alice was mindlessly spamming attacks, Jinhyuk quietly activated his status window.
--------------------------------------------------
Name: Kang Jinhyuk
Gender: Male
Age: 27
Level: 100
Strength: 101 | Agility: 30 | Stamina: 40 | Magic Power: 233 | Gap: 100 | Luck: 10 | Adaptive Stat: 78 | Essence: 51.24
Available Stat Points: 18
Coins: 5,175,356
Class: Rune Interpreter
Unique Abilities: 'Fusion', 'Grave of Swords', 'Blessing of the Stars', 'Judgment of Anubis', 'Blood Demon Qi', 'Mandala', '1-Second Invincibility', 'Thousand Poisons', 'White Beast', 'Universal Sharing', 'Sanctuary of the Sun', 'Black Heaven Demonic Emperor Art', 'Triple Magic', 'Colossus Strike', "Fire Dragon's Breath", 'High-Speed Sword', "Tombgrave's Right Arm", 'Berserker', 'Domain of Wind', 'Shadow Extreme Kill', 'Blood Explosion', 'Black Tears'
Skills: Switched to 'Collapsed' state due to the excessive number of learned skills.
Barriers: Switched to 'Collapsed' state due to the excessive number of learned barriers.
--------------------------------------------------
Level 100.
The number of digits had finally changed.
It was proof of just how massive the experience points gained from defeating the Wailing Witch and the Apostles were.
'Time really does fly.'
There was a time when he looked at enemies with three-digit levels and wondered when he would ever reach that point, but now he had arrived at the very same realm.
Though he was still a long way off from his prime.
[Agility increases from 30 → 39.]
[Stamina increases from 40 → 49.]
It was time to raise his Agility and Stamina, which he had invested in relatively little.
While he could overcome stat gaps with sheer senses and experience in the lower floors of the Tower, the balance of stats could not be ignored as he moved past the middle floors and toward the upper floors.
Good.
Now, next up...
It was time to check the long-awaited 'rewards' that would blow away all the hardships he had endured during this raid in one go.
Jinhyuk pulled out the items he had obtained from defeating the Wailing Witch from his dimensional subspace inventory.