Experience Point Event (1)
The one most shocked when the true boss first appeared was none other than Ram.
“Wha······ What?”
An entity she had never anticipated had shown up.
“Th-that guy wasn’t supposed to appear until Chapter 3!?”
Shhhk-shhhk-shhhk.
She flipped open the setting bible she had written for the World Boss.
“What the hell just happened!?”
The bible detailed exactly which level of demonic warrior would be summoned based on the number of sacrificial rituals performed.
“That’s Grozya, right!?”
Grozya was indeed the one who was meant to come.
But apparently that had been a fake all along.
“I thought it was strange how his hand came out first.”
“Th-then the storyboard has already······?”
The Storyboard 3.0 had already sent a message saying it would now change the story.
Yet that message had only come after Grozya was already subdued by Junil.
Wasn’t this event supposed to have happened even earlier?
“The storyboard······ never asked for our permission. It simply declared that the story was being changed······ So maybe it’s acting first and reporting later?”
That was exactly it.
The storyboard had long since slipped beyond Ram and Sam’s control.
It was now handling matters by taking action first and notifying them afterward.
‘Wh······ When did this start?’
She didn’t know.
Perhaps from the moment Kang Hae-il’s father died on Line 4. Or perhaps when the two energies clashed at the tomb.
The storyboard system was an unknown realm even to the fairies.
After all, it was a colossal system free even from the constraints of time, let alone space.
“E-even so, a Legion Commander-class is way too dangerous! What the hell is that bastard thinking!? And······ that guy······ he’s even more dangerous!”
Crash!
Ram slammed her fist against the display.
It accomplished nothing.
This was merely a transmission device, after all.
“Pam······ That bastard Pam must’ve pulled some trick, right!?”
Ram couldn’t believe the storyboard would go this wild.
Sam scrolled through the data.
“No. It wasn’t Pam. There was an anomalous energy exchange between dimensions. Something we never intended. This might be the cause—”
Right then—
“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!”
Ram screamed in utter shock, covering her eyes.
“Wh-what’s······ Aaaaaah!?”
The old man had suddenly fired a bullet at Kang Hae-il.
In his current state, Kang Hae-il had no way of handling that magic.
Following Ram, Sam also covered his eyes to avoid witnessing the horrific scene.
But then Ram suddenly struck a Sagosul pose.
“It is I~! Sagosul!”
“······Huh?”
Sam cautiously opened his eyes again.
Sagosul was standing in front of Kang Hae-il.
He had saved him from the crisis.
“Waaaaaaaah!”
Sam was just as shocked as when the bullet had been fired.
At the same time, a question arose.
‘Why did he block it?’
Why had Julian protected Kang Hae-il?
What was his goal?
‘This is strange······.’
* * *
“Blergh······!”
Junil vomited everything onto the floor.
In that moment, alongside the embarrassment, he realized something else important.
‘Experience points······?’
His experience had gone up.
He had gained EXP just for blocking that bullet.
Only then did Junil realize the true nature of the bullet.
‘Was that······ Skra just now?’
Skra.
A tiny, swift lifeform that reacted to magi.
It charged at ultra-high speed and shredded everything in its path with razor-sharp teeth.
Alone, the creature was weak, but when properly supported by magi—like the old man had just done—it became an incredibly powerful tactical weapon.
Junil had never seen anyone handle Skra this skillfully, so he hadn’t recognized it at first.
Still, it was a living being.
Monster designation applied.
‘So I got EXP for killing it.’
EXP: 89.5%
It had been 87%.
Now it had risen to 89%.
Moreover, given the necromancer’s nature, he would likely fight primarily with summons.
‘Then······.’
A conclusion so obvious it was almost inevitable formed in Junil’s mind.
‘This is an EXP event, isn’t it?’
Of course.
That made sense.
The World Boss was this strong—there had to be some way to defeat it.
And that way was a massive level-up event.
Everything the old man summoned would become experience points.
‘If I can reach level 30 here······?’
He already had over three thousand Constellations watching.
What if he also broke through to level 30?
Junil closed his eyes for a moment and weighed the odds in his head.
Creak······.
‘Worth it.’
Even though it was a razor-thin margin, the scale tipped in his favor.
The biggest dilemma when the old man appeared hadn’t been his strength.
‘Kill him or not.’
Because of that strength, Junil couldn’t freely choose the timing of the kill.
But if he could level up, the story changed.
‘The moment I hit level 30, I’ll go all out—just once.’
Even a Demon King’s Legion Commander could be killed if Junil charged with genuine killing intent.
The real problem was simply being unable to kill him.
Having made his decision, Junil shouted at the old man.
“Hey, gramps!”
“······Wh······ What did you say!?”
The old man looked slightly shocked.
“Do it again. What you did earlier.”
He planned to provoke the old man into using more Skra.
Or any other summons.
But—
Blink
Shoom!
In an instant, the old man teleported through space.
“!”
No one except Junil could follow the spell with their eyes.
The old man now stood only three steps to Junil’s right.
‘A necromancer closing the distance like that?’
Mana Blade
Junil’s blue eyes flared savagely as he swung a fierce slash.
Even this sword was invisible to ordinary people—a shadowless blade with no reflection.
Yet the old man simply raised a finger and caught it.
Clang······!
“You’re swinging something interesting.”
The old man furrowed his brow, trying to see the invisible sword.
‘······Ah.’
Junil realized his mistake.
Mana.
As long as mana was wrapped around it, any high-ranking mage would naturally react to it.
He had been fighting nothing but insignificant foes and had forgotten to account for this.
“Hmm.”
Tang~!
The old man flicked the sword away with his finger, then slowly bent down to pick something up from the ground.
“Oof······.”
While the old man was bent over, Junil surprisingly found no opening to attack.
“Hey. Did you ‘cut’ this?”
“?”
What the old man held up was a piece of a Skra’s corpse.
“I came because it wasn’t moving, and lo and behold—it’s sliced clean in half.”
The Skra hadn’t moved, so he had come to check personally.
He examined the corpse with interest and muttered to himself.
Skra were incredibly fast and small. Cutting one with a sword required tremendous confidence—otherwise it was suicide.
The recommended approach was to dodge from a distance or at least deflect it with the flat of the blade.
“Interesting······.”
The old man was intrigued.
Swordsmanship this ghostly······
He had almost never seen it before.
Actually, he had—once.
“I’ve seen one similar fellow exactly once before.”
In his long life, he had encountered that man only once.
His combat prowess had been worthy of the word “hell.”
Back then, that man hadn’t even bothered to fight him properly and had sealed him away in the most humiliating manner possible.
“Huu.”
The old man shuddered for a moment.
“To think there’d be another one here.”
As he spoke, the old man twisted his body in an unnatural way.
Whoosh~
“Hup!”
A sword slash had just passed through the space he had occupied.
It was Junil.
“What are you mumbling about? Summon more already.”
Junil had decided he needed to pressure him harder.
‘I have to push him with real killing intent.’
Vwoooom!
Mana swirled violently around his entire body.
Current Viewers: 3,209
Incarnation ‘Hero – Julian’ Inheritance
32.09% in progress
The number of Constellations kept rising. Julian’s inheritance.
One-third of Julian.
Not even the usual “half-baked” version—just three-tenths.
‘It’s possible.’
Even against a Legion Commander’s strength, if he landed a proper hit, he could kill.
Junil swung his mana-wreathed sword again.
The old man dodged once more.
For a necromancer, his movements were ghostly swift.
His body had been enhanced in various places through dark arts.
‘I already know that.’
Junil was aware.
‘How about this?’
Another sword appeared in his other hand, held in reverse grip.
Thud!
“!”
The blade pierced the old man’s shoulder.
“Huh!?”
The old man was more surprised than pained.
“You withdrew the mana······?”
A sword with no mana at all.
Even the old man couldn’t see it.
It was the power of the Narrative Trick Hwando.
“A-ahaha! So what!? Without mana, what damage do you think you can do to this body!?”
High-ranking necromancers’ bodies were essentially zombies.
Even if they hadn’t reached lich status, most had attained a similar level.
“I can just pour mana in later.”
“!?”
Junil’s eyes blazed with an even brighter blue light.
Mana Pop
The technique that had instantly killed a Death Knight.
A specialized anti-undead skill that injected boiling, explosive mana into the target and detonated it from the inside.
Boom······!
The old man’s right arm exploded.
His body was sent flying backward helplessly.
‘Now······!’
Tap-tap-tap—
Junil wasn’t about to miss this chance.
In an instant he appeared above the old man and drove his sword downward in reverse grip.
Mana Blade
This time it was an honest attack.
Yet there should have been no time to dodge.
“Hmph!”
Swish!
The old man swung his left arm.
Black hands erupted from the ground and blocked the strike.
Clang······!
A high-grade dark-attribute summoning technique.
Though it seemed insignificant, it was one of the highest-level skills available to those who could manipulate both corpses and souls.
“Summon something else instead!”
Boom-boom-boom!
The Mana Blade tore through the air with ferocious force.
“Hoho.”
Whoosh!
The old man leapt far away, rolled nimbly, and clutched his right arm.
The Mana Pop damage seemed to have hurt quite a bit.
Vwoooom!
Purple magi ignited as his arm began to regenerate.
But Junil had no intention of allowing that.
“Hm?”
Five or six projectiles were already flying toward the old man.
‘Daggers? So that was the real attack?’
The daggers, brimming with mana, embedded themselves into the old man’s body in an instant.
Everything until now had been buildup for this moment.
Boom-boom-boom!
A murky blue dust cloud rose with the mana explosions.
When the smoke cleared, a massive black hand could be seen in a praying posture.
The old man was protected inside it.
“How the hell is his casting that fast.”
Junil wiped his sweat, disappointed.
The Constellations, however, were not.
Junil’s series of attacks, though they had failed, were more than enough to excite the new Constellations watching.
Some Constellations had misunderstood, thinking Junil was an F-rank who had reached this level through pure effort alone.
‘Well······ it’s not exactly wrong.’
If it was a happy misunderstanding, maybe it was better not to correct it.
Right then—
Rumble······!
An enormous amount of magi boiled over, making the rooftop tremble.
The floor was covered in black liquid.
Countless black, sticky shapes rose from within.
The liquid-like forms gradually took on human shapes.
Death Knight Summon
📍 Death Knight Lv.49
📍 Death Knight Lv.48
📍 Death Knight Lv.47
📍 Death Knight Lv.48
Death Knights.
They were stronger and more numerous than the Death Knights he had faced in Archidia.
Each one was stronger than Grozya.
Yet behind the mask, a smile spread across Junil’s lips.
“He does it properly when he does it.”
He had been waiting for a large-scale summoning like this all along.