196. Grim Reaper - (3)
196. Grim Reaper - (3)
***
Within the Domain of Despair, parrying was generally known to be impossible.
After the Grim Reaper deployed the Domain of Despair, the scythe it held had no proper form. With nothing solid to knock away, there was no way to land a parry.
That was only natural, since the visible shape of the scythe was not its true essence.
Even if you tried to knock the scythe aside, the massive scythe attacked in a bizarre, shifting form.
—Death Scythe (The range of the scythe wielded by the Grim Reaper can extend farther than it appears)
The Grim Reaper's "Death Scythe" trait only truly shone once you entered this skill called the Domain of Despair.
The scythe's visible appearance and the attacks you actually felt were different. That was why keeping your eyes open only led you astray.
People were surprisingly dependent on sight, so no matter how rationally you told yourself that what you were seeing was a lie, the moment a desperate situation hit, you would end up believing exactly what your eyes showed you.
The Grim Reaper's notoriety largely stemmed from this Domain of Despair.
Serin's countermeasure was to simply close her eyes.
Before each attack came, a strange sensation swept through her entire body, as if a chill were settling in. That was the warning sign.
The moment she felt that chill, Serin pictured the scythe aiming for her neck and swung her right hand swiftly.
The Grim Reaper's attacks always aimed for the neck, so as long as she knew the timing, landing a parry wasn't difficult.
—Clang!!
A burst of light erupted as the distant scythe suddenly seemed to bounce away.
That clear, ringing sound burst out several more times.
'Thirteen left.'
Serin calmly counted the remaining attacks.
Out of seventeen total attacks, she had deflected four.
Dodging would only drag things out, so she absolutely had to parry.
If she dodged the first massive scythe strike aimed at her neck, the scythe would immediately go for her waist. If she dodged that too, it would finally slice at her ankles.
In effect, dodging meant she would have to evade not seventeen attacks, but three times that—fifty-one in total.
In a raid, these attacks would be spread across multiple players, drastically lowering the difficulty. But Serin, mindful of the Troll Blood, chose to shorten the fight by landing parries rather than dodging fifty-one times.
Moreover, the skill she was currently building up grew more destructive with every exchange, making it perfectly suited for delivering the final blow once the domain ended.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
......
After Serin had deflected ten of the seventeen attacks, she suddenly opened her closed eyes.
She saw a space submerged in darkness, and within it, the Grim Reaper's form appeared translucent.
"The sacrifice that should have died still refuses to die."
The Grim Reaper stopped attacking and, with its signature line, signaled the start of the final instant-death pattern.
If its attacks had been formless and indistinct before, now, ironically, she had to keep the Grim Reaper's attacks clearly in her sight.
Whirrrrr...
The massive scythe began to rotate slowly along the Grim Reaper's hand.
The spinning scythe, as if painting an even deeper darkness within the dark space, was wreathed in shadow. The Grim Reaper's massive scythe whirled rapidly, scattering darkness throughout the area.
—Guillotine.
The darkness of the spinning scythe flowed across the pitch-black floor, then soared up into the high air.
The dense darkness soon began to take shape. The shape of a massive blade.
Three, eight, nineteen, thirty-six.
Countless wisps of darkness formed a full thirty-six blades before finally dissipating completely.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
The Grim Reaper slowly aimed its scythe at Serin and uttered the line in a bleak voice.
The countless blades hanging in the air began to fall toward Serin one by one with terrifying force.
They looked like the blade of a guillotine plummeting down to finish off the condemned.
Serin watched the countless blades, yet all she did was raise her right hand, which was already producing an eerie red haze.
'I need to deflect ten of them.'
Even at a glance, there were more than thirty blades. The moment she thought that she needed to deflect ten of them, she twisted her hips.
Whoosh!
Serin narrowly dodged a blade that slammed deep into the floor. She then began to move through strange acrobatics, as if dancing an elegant dance.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!!
Amid the blades plunging down at high speed, her pure white silver hair decorated the dark space brilliantly.
She worked her feet without pause, narrowly evading the razor-sharp blades that seemed ready to split her body apart at any moment.
Whoosh!
A blade shot at her head—she ducked. A blade surging as if to cleave her chest—she twisted her hips. A blade stabbing down as if to sever her leg—she simply stepped back one pace.
Even while dodging every blade's rush and performing acrobatics, Serin never let her hands rest.
The blood-red trajectories embroidering the space began to knock away blade after blade.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!!
At some point, Serin's movements became almost trancelike as she dodged or deflected every blade, and the chat window was scrolling madly.
[Wow...]
[She's seriously solo raiding this, insane;]
[There's someone raiding the Cave of Trials...?]
[The instant-death pattern looks brutal just watching it]
[I can't do anything but admire this;]
[Dodging or deflecting all that alone... is that even possible?]
[They say it's theoretically clearable, but is she actually gonna clear this;]
[Is Rin playing a different game by herself? How is this the same game I play]
[Couldn't Jeanne d'Arc do this much too?]
[Probably about the same?]
[Seeing the pattern up to the instant-death skill, the difficulty is actually insane]
[One thing's for sure: anyone who missed Rin's stream today missed out big time]
Ding-a-ling!!
『IceTreeForest donated 100,000 won!!』
《How am I supposed to watch this without donating;?》
『Type-B Pigeon donated 50,000 won!!』
《If it were me, I'd have died while spacing out, damn》
Donations kept bursting in alongside the rapidly rising chat, but Serin was so focused on the immediate situation that she couldn't even hear the donation alerts.
Clang-clang-clang-clang! Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
After she succeeded in dodging or deflecting all thirty-six massive blades.
Fwoosh.
The Grim Reaper once again vanished abruptly from sight.
With a few minutes of breathing room granted right after, Serin slowly sank down into the darkness.
"Thank you to IceTreeForest and Type-B Pigeon for the donations. But I'll rest for just a moment too."
Serin let out a tired sigh and slowly tidied her silver hair, which had been thrown into wild disarray.
'...This is way more exhausting than I expected.'
She had definitely chosen the Cave of Trials to shake off the distracting thoughts about Charlemagne and the scrim. But the Cave of Trials turned out to be far harder than she had imagined.
She had come in intending to warm up a bit, and now her head was going blank.
She had been quite tense even while breaking down the Grim Reaper's Guillotine just now.
There wasn't much left, but she already felt drained.
Fwoosh.
When the massive scythe revealed itself in the air again, Serin slowly straightened up.
Because it wasn't over yet.
As the scythe came attacking again, weaving through the space, Serin closed her eyes once more.
'Seven left.'
Once she finished these, she could effectively wrap things up.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The clean sound of successful parries rang out repeatedly, along with flashy effects lighting up the space.
After successfully parrying all of the final seventeen attacks, Serin opened her eyes again.
"..."
The vast space that had been swallowed by darkness now showed the cave's original appearance.
That meant the domain had been lifted, and the Grim Reaper, which had been faintly submerged in shadow, now stood at the front with its form clearly outlined.
A reaper that failed to kill its opponent within the Domain of Despair through the seventeen attacks and the instant-death pattern temporarily lost its qualifications as a reaper.
That was why the Grim Reaper had set its scythe down on the ground and exposed itself, defenseless, offering up its own neck.
"So... I have become the sacrifice."
Serin looked at the Grim Reaper reciting its signature line in that defenseless state, then immediately moved into action.
She thrust her right arm forward, now feeling distinctly heavy, and kicked off the ground in a single motion.
Even without being able to use Bloodstained Step, her strides surged through the space as if she were executing a skill.
After countless exchanges, her entire right hand had accumulated enough power to blaze fiercely.
The energy that had long since built to its limit now held destructive force comparable to an Awakening Skill.
Slaaaash!
The blood-red line blazed so fiercely it seemed to burn the very space itself, rippling brilliantly—and the Grim Reaper's head fell away, empty and anticlimactic.
Ding!
—Red Blood effect activated.
—A '???' item has been added to the Cave of Trials reward list.
(The Cave of Trials reward list currently contains a total of 6 items.)
Along with the hologram messages ringing out, the headless Grim Reaper could be seen gradually turning into light and fading away.
Serin stared blankly at the sight, then muttered a single sentence in a daze.
"...So that was Stage 3."
She couldn't believe she had now cleared Stage 3 out of the Cave of Trials' total five stages.
***
Immediately after defeating the Grim Reaper, Serin entered the fourth fork in the road. When she saw the hologram filling her vision, a hollow laugh escaped her.
*
————
Left.
Archdemon's Prank: Guaranteed acquisition of 1 Legendary-Grade item. The probability of a 'terrifying' trap appearing increases by 5 times.
Right.
Resurrection of the Dead: Guaranteed acquisition of 2 Legendary-Grade items. A monster that met its death revives once (30% of Max HP).
————
*
"If it were you all, which option would you choose?"
Serin stared at the choices, none of which she wanted to pick, and parted her lips in a deflated tone.