Chapter 179
Chapter 179
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 179
Chapter Title: ACT.32 Paradise (5)
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Kang Dae-ho, the head of Paradise, frowned as he looked at the sturdily built wall.
An iron fortress encircled the residential area as if to protect it.
It was obvious that it had been created with the help of players who possessed abilities of that nature.
The thought of those detestable people, who had fought once and then refused to come out from within, was inherently displeasing.
“We can’t just recklessly climb that wall…”
As powerful as the Fiends were, scaling a well-fortified wall was a significant burden.
Above all, there was the presence of the guild masters.
*Just you try it. We’ll tear you to pieces.*
That was because three guild masters stood firmly atop the wall, their very presence conveying that message.
‘The fact that they’re not engaging in a power struggle between S-Ranks isn’t bad for our side, though.’
But he couldn't drag this out for long.
Monsters were naturally drawn to residential areas.
The longer this took, the more they would end up fighting the monsters on their behalf, and it was clear their own losses would only grow.
‘There’s no choice.’
Finally, Kang Dae-ho made his decision.
The power of the Guide of the Abyss.
Even if it meant shouldering a burden, he would unleash his full power and end this swiftly.
Kang Dae-ho’s skin gradually turned black.
A deep darkness covered his entire body, his form changing until he no longer looked human.
A knight of darkness clad in obsidian armor.
*Phu-hat,* Kang Dae-ho exhaled.
“Go.”
Swoosh.
Darkness flowed from beneath his feet like a shadow.
In an instant, the darkness split into dozens of streams, seeping into the shadows of each Fiend.
It was one of the powers held by the Guide of the Abyss—the power to ‘strengthen the Fiends.’
A strengthened Fiend possessed power comparable to an A-Rank.
Kang Dae-ho was certain this would be the end.
With over a hundred Fiends, their combined strength could be said to surpass the total power of all the players in Seoul.
“Kyaaaak!!”
Fear appeared on the players' faces as they watched the Fiends charge like a pack of beasts.
Although the guild masters were doing their best to hold them back, it was difficult to easily stop the Fiends, who charged without any regard for their own injuries.
Some Fiends leaped over the wall in a single bound, making it difficult to even maintain a defensive stance.
“Break down the wall! Without it, they’ll be just as exposed to the monster threat as we are!”
Craaaash!!
The solid iron wall began to crumble.
Fiends who were injured simply retreated for a moment to rest, their wounds healing instantly.
It was a structure where they could never lose a war of attrition.
The eyes of Seong Woo-hyeon and the others grew desperate, while Kang Dae-ho’s smile deepened.
He could do this without any help.
He could eliminate these vermin-like players.
These hideous beings wearing the masks of hypocrites!
‘I haven’t forgotten.’
A fragment of an old memory surfaced in Kang Dae-ho’s mind.
Back when he was still an ordinary person.
The memory of those who claimed to be players, who saved them from a monster attack only to take everything from them as payment.
The smiling faces that made unreasonable demands of his lover, telling her to serve them if she wanted to save her boyfriend.
The sight of their backs as they fled, after killing his lover out of fear their actions would be discovered, leaving him half-dead without even dealing with the monster.
‘They’re all the same.’
Those who gain power will try to wield it in some way.
Players, in the end, are all the same kind.
When Kang Dae-ho, burning with such vengeance and on the verge of death, awakened as a player, a myriad of emotions crossed his mind.
Then, he smiled a twisted smile.
To catch a monster, one had to become a monster.
“Guoooooooh!”
“Kuaaack!”
A distorted scream pulled Kang Dae-ho from his thoughts.
It was not the scream of an ordinary human.
“Wh-what in the world is…!?”
The Fiends were writhing and screaming in agony.
A black, steam-like substance shimmered around their bodies, evaporating, and with each wisp that vanished, their struggles intensified.
He glanced up at the wall, wondering if the players had done something, but they seemed just as bewildered.
They hadn't done anything.
Then why?
“Their weakness is still the same.”
“Something like that wouldn’t have changed. Considering everything up to now, the strategies for specific beings haven’t changed much.”
“It wasn’t like that with the Disaster of Verdure, though.”
“Wasn’t that because that devil interfered?”
“That’s always a possibility, anywhere, anytime. We have to be careful.”
As Kang Dae-ho’s mind raced, two figures appeared before him.
They were speaking of things he couldn't comprehend.
A weakness?
A weakness for the Fiends.
That couldn’t be. It shouldn't be possible.
What Kang Dae-ho saw before him was the sight of his Fiends powerlessly collapsing.
***
The Fiends have a fatal side effect.
A side effect that not even Paradise, their creators, had discovered.
‘The stronger the moon’s power, the more unstable a Fiend exposed to moonlight becomes.’
Then, the moment the moon becomes full, the forced fusion shatters. Pop.
They become nothing more than mindless husks.
This phenomenon occurs because the monster’s power goes berserk as the moon’s power intensifies.
It was only natural they never found out.
They conducted all their research in a lab where not a single ray of light entered. How could they possibly know how their creations would interact with nature outside?
‘Their mistake was bringing out the Fiends as their main force on the night of a full moon.’
I recalled that in the original story, the protagonist had fought the Fiends a few times before the war, accidentally discovered this weakness, and then exploited it.
“How do you know a weakness that even I am unaware of…”
Kang Dae-ho’s face hardened to a frightening degree.
A hint of urgency was visible.
As if he was searching for a way to resolve this situation.
“Pentagon Eagle isn’t coming.”
“…!?”
Kang Dae-ho flinched and shot a glare at me.
His relationship with Taegeuk was likely already ruined, so they weren't even worth considering.
“You might think The Order could come, but that’s not happening either.”
Han Hyeok-jun was personally marking them.
With the brutal mindset that if they made a move, he would kill them all on the spot.
“The reason we’re holed up in the residence like this is to prevent any of the unofficial guilds from backstabbing us while they’re staying quiet for now.”
We had preemptively blocked off every place Paradise could reach out to.
Isolated, with only their own strength to rely on.
“What… are you?”
Kang Dae-ho’s face had turned deathly pale.
The muscles around his twitching mouth relaxed, and his face gradually flushed red.
Finally, his anger reaching its peak, Kang Dae-ho roared.
“What the hell are you to interfere with us to this extent!!!”
At last, the Guide of the Abyss rushed forward, unleashing a torrent of darkness.
Kwaaaaaa!
At first glance, it was a power similar to my ‘Lord of Darkness.’
However, its nature was quite different.
Hwang Chan-jin and I dodged at the same time.
‘Abyss.’
There was something one had to be especially careful of when facing the Abyss.
Absorption.
The greatest characteristic of the power known as the Abyss.
It absorbs the opponent’s attack, reconstructs it, and turns it back against them.
It was similar to what the King of Disease had shown.
If an attack fails, it only serves to increase the enemy’s power.
But attacking passively meant you could never defeat him.
A power that excelled in both offense and defense.
That was Kang Dae-ho’s unique ability, ‘Guide of the Abyss.’
[Character Information]
Name: Kang Dae-ho
Sex: Male (31)
Strength: 68(+8) Stamina: 65(+3) Agility: 71(+1) Mana: 72(+9)
Unique Ability: Guide of the Abyss (S)
Traits: Illusionist (S), Tainted by Darkness (S), Vengeance (S), Charisma (A), Affinity for Darkness (S)
Skills: Aura of the Abyss (S), Abyss Gate (S)
His abilities were all S-Rank.
His stats were comparable to any of the guild masters.
He was by no means an easy opponent.
To think that in the original work, I had to face a guy like this with capped stats. A bitter smile formed on my lips as I thought about the difficulty of the original game.
“Don’t get in my way! You hypocrites!!”
Craash!
The ground suddenly caved in as a purplish-black aura erupted.
Like a geyser, the Guide of the Abyss charged through the explosions that erupted at random locations throughout the area.
My sword clashed with his arm.
The Abyss, enveloping his arm like armor, writhed like a snake and tried to swallow the Black Moon Divine Sword, but the blooming Black Flame slapped it away as if scolding it.
Kang Dae-ho’s eyebrows furrowed.
“That power is…!”
“Aren’t you paying a little too much attention to me?”
Kang Dae-ho hastily twisted his body.
A sword carrying a chill missed him by a hair’s breadth, and Hwang Chan-jin spoke as if dumbfounded.
“Why would you tell him that?”
“Trying to hog all the contribution points? I’m not letting you take first place this time.”
“You took first place with Ignis too. Are you really going to fuss over something like that when you were the one who said to take him down as fast as possible?”
“You would’ve done the same if the aggro was on you.”
“…I would not.”
“Look me in the eye when you say that.”
Crack!
A thick, whip-like appendage struck the ground, gouging it in various places.
As if by agreement, we dodged simultaneously and turned our eyes to Kang Dae-ho.
His armor had evolved further.
The whip-like thing from before was a tail attached to his armor.
“To casually exchange such idle chatter in front of me…!”
The black armor still covered his entire body, but a purple light now flickered where his eyes should be.
The Devil Form, one of the Abyss Armor's various forms, excelling in close-quarters combat.
It was also the form that could best utilize the Abyss’s ‘absorption’ function.
And the tail, a third arm-like organ, was something he always manifested when fighting multiple opponents.
‘But he must have seen me use the Black Flame earlier.’
Even among S-Ranks, not many powers could stand against the Abyss.
Of course, the Black Flame belonged to the highest tier, so it could fend it off, just like it did before.
However, Hwang Chan-jin was a different story.
“You’re first, you expressionless bastard!!”
Hwang Chan-jin’s first attack was laced with a chilling cold.
Among cold-related powers, none could block the Abyss.
Kang Dae-ho knew this, which was why he targeted Hwang Chan-jin instead of me.
Without realizing that was the trap.
Clang!
Hwang Chan-jin didn’t dodge Kang Dae-ho’s attack; he blocked it head-on.
A sly grin appeared on Kang Dae-ho’s face.
The Abyss writhed, then moved. To devour its prey.
“Foolish man.”
Fwoosh!
Hwang Chan-jin’s sword shone, and the Abyss was swallowed by the light and vanished.
He kicked the dumbfounded Kang Dae-ho and spoke, clicking his tongue.
“I already know several ways to defeat you. Did you really think I would come unprepared?”
The Sa-jin-cham-sa-geom.
Hwang Chan-jin’s sword, which possessed overwhelming power against all things profane, emitted a brilliant white light.
He also had the Baekseol, so I thought he might go for a dual-wielding build, but it seems he has no interest in that path.
“Strategy… guide…?”
Kang Dae-ho stammered.
“I’ve never revealed myself before, so what do you mean there’s a strategy to defeat me…”
“It’s just a thing.”
The Black Moon Divine Sword glowed darkly.
Due to the Black Flame, the black light seemed to shimmer and burn.
“Kuh…!”
Kang Dae-ho bit his lip, and his body slowly began to change.
The Evil Form.
He must have judged that using absorption in close combat was difficult and decided to switch to long-range tactics.
“You cannot escape.”
Hwang Chan-jin froze the ground, then slid across it as if on a skateboard, instantly closing the distance and swinging his sword.
Shwaaak!
His wing was cut, but the wound was shallow.
Kang Dae-ho bit his lip again, then unleashed a barrage of projectiles to keep us from approaching as he spread his wings wide and soared into the night sky.
“The Fiends may have fallen anticlimactically, but Paradise is not so easily defeated!”
As if preparing to use a major skill, the dark energy around Kang Dae-ho’s body grew denser.
The Affinity for Darkness trait.
A decent trait whose power amplified as the night deepened.
It wasn't top-tier, which was why I hadn't bothered to acquire it.
“Intercept and bring him down. Kim Se-hyeon, you should…”
“I’m the one who’s getting him.”
Thud!
I kicked off the ground and leaped, rushing past Hwang Chan-jin, who was about to use some skill.
“No matter how skilled you are, do you really think you can reach this height with a jump!”
As Kang Dae-ho said, I didn't even make it halfway before I began to fall.
It was only natural.
Perhaps if my strength and agility had broken through into the realm of the ‘superhuman,’ it would be a different story, but with my current stats, it was far from enough.
But I grinned.
If I did it knowing full well it would happen, it's obviously because I had a way, isn't it?
[Using the skill, ‘Air Walk’.]