232. Outlaw Penalty Applied
232. Outlaw Penalty Applied
***
The moment countless beams of moonlight-laden light pierced through her entire body.
'......It's over.'
The Outlaw, Lyudmila, could think of nothing else.
There was no space to dodge into, and the range of the light beams filling the area was far too wide to attempt an evasion. With even her Mythic Artifact unusable now, there was nothing she could do.
Her HP gauge plummeted, racing toward zero in an instant. Even as she registered it, she took in the sight of the user called Rin.
A noble woman standing her ground, gazing down at her.
In that image of Rin, Lyudmila suddenly saw someone else overlapping.
Black hair holding pitch darkness, the complete opposite of pure white silver hair. A woman who always countered with a cold, indifferent expression.
The utterly cold Jeanne d'Arc and the user called Rin before her now looked far too similar.
'I shouldn't have taken this request.'
Along with belated regret, Lyudmila's vision was dyed completely red, as if signaling death.
Ding!
And in that moment, a message decorated Lyudmila's vision in large letters.
*
————
Player death detected. Connection will be forcibly terminated.
—Stage 2 Outlaw Penalty applied.
Death penalty in current Outlaw state is as follows:
*Connection ban penalty: 7 days.
*Experience drops completely to 0%.
————
*
After reading the message, Lyudmila couldn't help but let out a hollow laugh.
'...Fuck.'
The expected connection ban penalty was one thing, but the massive experience loss was completely unexpected.
Wondering if this was an additional penalty from the infamy she had accumulated, Lyudmila could only despair.
And that penalty was the exact sum of experience lost by all the users Lyudmila had killed, applied to her in full.
The fact that her experience gauge, which had reached 40 percent, was converging on zero filled Lyudmila, who was turning into light, with an immense sense of emptiness.
Whoosh!
Soon, the Outlaw Lyudmila completely transformed into light and vanished.
***
Ding!
[You have slain the infamous Outlaw 'Lyudmila' and gained a massive amount of experience!]
Serin glanced at her experience gauge, which was partially obscured by the notification window.
The experience gauge, which had clearly been at only around 60 percent, had instantly shot up to 80 percent.
"Just how much of a menace was she, to give this much experience?"
Even as she muttered absentmindedly, Serin's mood suddenly soared.
The moment she had recognized the Outlaw, irritation had flared up, but it felt as if all of that had been repaid double.
At her current level of 65, experience rose so slowly that she couldn't even tell whether killing monsters was raising it at all.
Yet killing a single Outlaw had instantly granted her a massive amount of experience amounting to 20 percent of her total.
It was a reward far better than most items, and the thought that she wasn't far from the next level made Serin smile without realizing it.
As she smiled, Serin's vision soon caught sight of multicolored clusters of light filling the temple.
The moment she realized that all those colorful clusters of light were the Arch Lich's magic, Serin let out a small mutter.
"Really no mercy, huh."
Amid her rising mood, she registered that her True Moon Princess state had ended.
FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH!
The clusters of colored light hanging in the air began to rain down vertically, one by one, targeting Serin.
Serin evaded the magic pouring down like a bombardment with precarious acrobatics. For the first time in a while, she found herself facing the Arch Lich directly.
Cerberus, the Outlaw Lyudmila.
Due to all the interference, she hadn't had the leisure to target the Arch Lich's main body, but now she finally did.
Tap! Tap!
As she kicked off the space and hurled her body through the air, Serin recalled the Arch Lich's traits once more.
'Life Force Vessel, Perfect Barrier.'
Given the nature of the dungeon, the Arch Lich's Life Force Vessel had to be nearby. There was no way she'd have to search the entire temple—that would make the difficulty inexplicable. Yes, that much was certain.
WHOOSH!
A spell she failed to fully dodge grazed her cheek, making her frown as she looked up at the Arch Lich floating high in the air.
Then, gauging a certain radius around the Arch Lich like a circle, she made her decision.
'Destroy all terrain within range.'
Where the Arch Lich had hidden its Life Crystal, and what terrain that Life Crystal rested upon, was close to a complete unknown. So destroying all terrain within range was the surest method.
Destruction was always one of the easiest methods, after all.
As she darted through the temple space, continuously creating clusters of moonlight, the temple—already heavily damaged from the aftermath of her previous technique—became even more wrecked, with explosions bursting out everywhere.
Boom! Boom! Boom!!
『Do you think you can find it just by destroying everything recklessly!?』
The Arch Lich let out an eerie sound, as if mocking Serin, and deployed a massive spell.
—Doom.
Darkness swelled up enormously from the Lich's ruby staff, as if gushing forth.
——————!
The thick darkness pouring from the ruby staff immediately spread throughout the entire temple, and the temple lost its color completely, as if submerged in a massive darkness. The Arch Lich's form, floating in the air, also became invisible as if sinking into the darkness, and in an instant, a darkness in which nothing could be seen was complete.
Within the thick darkness, only Serin, her pure white Crescent-Moon Weight holding a great amount of moonlight, maintained her own color fully.
Relying on the moonlight lingering on the blade of her Crescent-Moon Weight to illuminate the space, Serin was smiling even in this utterly grim situation.
The Arch Lich's words just now had seemed composed at a glance, but the spell it had just used was the exact opposite.
It was a spell the Arch Lich used when it felt threatened.
"...So you found it?"
Serin twisted the corner of her mouth and muttered lightly, staring at a single point in the darkness-dyed space.
It was obvious that the Arch Lich's Life Crystal existed somewhere in the area she had just destroyed.
—@#^%@#%$#!
And in that moment, something with an indistinct form surged violently within the darkness-dyed space, swallowing up the vast area.
Serin, who had been watching the space while relying on the moonlight on her Crescent-Moon Weight, urgently kicked off the ground as the thick darkness suddenly rushed at her.
Boom!!
Even in the darkness, she could clearly see the space where she had just been standing distort violently, as if crushed mercilessly.
"..."
Strength entered the hand gripping the Crescent-Moon Weight as Serin took in the darkness where she couldn't see an inch ahead.
The spell called 'Doom' was certainly magic, yet it belonged to a category of something that was not magic.
It painted the entire area over with darkness, making it impossible to distinguish even an inch ahead, and formless forces meant solely for thorough destruction struck repeatedly.
Its form was unclear, its power couldn't be properly gauged, and it had no presence, no aura, nothing at all.
The only way to counter it was to catch the fleeting instant when the darkness rippled.
"Seriously... this is why wizards all need to die."
Absorbed in the immediate situation, she had forgotten she was streaming and was speaking coldly.
With True Moon Princess released, her eyes were indifferent, yet filled with thick killing intent.
She deeply disliked this situation.
—@#^%@#%!
Immediately after, the darkness rippled through the space once more and struck rapidly, and this time Serin couldn't react perfectly.
Boom! Crunch!
Along with the sound of space bursting apart came the sound of bones breaking, and Serin stared blankly at her left arm.
It was dyed completely black, so hideous that it looked as if the arm would fall right off if touched even slightly.
Being ambushed from a blind spot by magic with no presence, no aura, nothing at all—even as it hit her, it made her feel sick to her stomach.
Even as that immense rage surged up, Serin steadied herself.
'Stay calm.'
The more dangerous the situation, the colder her head needed to be.
Compared to facing the Arch Lich in Black Ark, in that world, her current state was incomparably different.
The difference in equipment level, and the fact that allowing the Outlaw to land a hit had dragged out her True Moon Princess time, were also major variables. So in the end, she had no choice but to focus even harder.
The moment she complained about the current situation, her fighting spirit would only break.
"..."
Holding her breath, Serin focused to the extreme, filling her vision endlessly with the darkness-dyed space.
—@#^%@#%$#!
Immediately after, as the third and final ripple entered her eyes clearly, Serin kicked off the ground swiftly.
Boom!!
The ground where Serin had been burst apart more violently than ever before, and the darkness occupying the space suddenly began to recede rapidly.
That signaled the end of the spell the Lich had deployed, and it was like the opening of a counterattack.
Tap!
Immediately leaping toward the space where the Life Crystal was, she released her Moon Princess state.
Slither.
The light armor that had been dyed pure white returned to its original blood-red color.
Registering that, Serin felt her body grow lighter, and as the familiar sensation returned, a small laugh escaped her.
She was about to dance a vicious slaughter, and a noble appearance like moonlight didn't suit it.
———!
Blood-red energy burst from Serin's form as if exploding in an instant.
—Dance of the Heaven-Filling Slaughtering Ghosts.
Her skin immediately dyed red, and her deeply sunken blue eyes held a massive killing intent, as if ready to tear things apart.
Fiercely rippling blood-red energy coiled over the blade of the pure white Crescent-Moon Weight.
Watching the Arch Lich desperately hurl its body toward her, Serin began carving out countless lines of blood-red light to destroy the space itself.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!!
『This is madness...!!』
As the space burst apart repeatedly under the countless blood-red lines striking it with intense force, the greatly alarmed Arch Lich desperately tried to deploy magic.
But the situation had already ended.
Crunch! Ding!
*
————
Arch Lich's Life Crystal destroyed!
————
*