Chapter 180
Chapter 180
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 180
Chapter Title: ACT.32 Paradise (6)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
*Thump!*
I kicked off the air, leaping once more.
As if stepping on a platform of solidly compressed air.
"Wh-what is this!?"
"You guys have a lot of good stuff in your mines, you know?"
One of the two S-rank Stigmas left in the third mine.
It was a skill that allowed for mid-air leaps, called ‘Void Step.’
*Craaash!*
Kang Dae-ho, who had barely managed to block my sword, was slammed into the ground.
Evil Form wasn't suited for close-quarters combat.
Allowing me to get close was as good as admitting defeat.
And since he had only just managed to block, he must have taken considerable damage.
Hwang Chan-jin spoke, a look of disbelief on his face.
"That Stigma was definitely in the last mine. What happened? Don't tell me you broke that one too?"
"Of course not. There's no way I'd use such a useful S-rank skill as a one-time thing. I absorbed it properly."
"You absorbed an S-rank Stigma in such a short time?"
"My Magic stat is high."
To fully absorb a Stigma for permanent use, one had to spend time absorbing it.
To use the skill immediately, you could break the Stigma, allowing for a single, instant use.
But breaking the Stigma containing Void Step was something I wouldn't do, no matter how urgent the situation.
Void Step was one of the skills of a transcendent being, obtainable only after breaking 100 in the pure Agility stat.
Acquiring it this early would be incredibly useful moving forward.
It was like gaining an extra transcendent skill, of which you could normally only get one.
"Are you bragging about your high stats, Kim Se-hyeon?"
"What? Jealous?"
"You annoying bastard."
Hwang Chan-jin shot me a dirty look before turning his gaze to where Kang Dae-ho had fallen.
"Get ready for phase two."
Having transformed once again, Kang Dae-ho was rising from the crater.
The cumbersome wings and the rather practical tail were gone, replaced by a suit that looked like something out of a superhero movie.
However, a violet light seeped out from the cracks scattered across it.
Abyss Form.
The most powerful form of the Abyssal Armor, and the one Hwang Chan-jin and I had been waiting for.
It's finally out.
Now we can properly take down the ‘Guide of the Abyss.’
"If you stand in my way, you are no different from them."
A viscous darkness trickled down.
As if the pent-up emotions in Kang Dae-ho's heart were taking shape.
I knew what kind of past Kang Dae-ho had.
"Pay for your sins with death, Player."
"You're a Player too, you know?"
"To hunt monsters, I had no choice but to become one myself."
*Swish!*
A frost-colored sword grazed Kang Dae-ho.
Hwang Chan-jin, having cut the conversation short with a single slash, chided me.
"Talking to someone impervious to logic is a waste of time, Kim Se-hyeon."
"That wasn't really my intention."
There was nothing more to talk about anyway.
I had seen this event scene so many times I had the lines memorized, but it was an unskippable part of the game.
"Then die here, Player!"
The darkness that had pooled on the floor shot up all at once.
*Clang!*
I parried the darkness that had transformed into countless blades, slicing through the space, and closed in on Kang Dae-ho.
Spears formed from condensed abyss rained down.
I deflected them one by one, narrowing the distance.
Kang Dae-ho moved as well.
A dark violet energy erupted from his entire body as he threw a punch at me while I was busy blocking other attacks.
*Shatter!*
The ice broke.
The finely shattered ice shield momentarily blinded Kang Dae-ho, and I didn't miss the opening, swinging the Black Moon Divine Sword.
*Craaaash!*
It was tough.
Although I had Black Flame, just as the Black Flame had repelled the abyss, the abyss rejected the Black Flame.
Still, it couldn't completely reject it, and the abyssal energy recoiled.
Slightly staggered by the impact, Kang Dae-ho tried to counterattack, but Hwang Chan-jin immediately targeted his back, forcing him to block that instead.
Each time it was swung, the light from the Four Dragon Sword gradually weakened the Abyssal Armor.
He couldn't even dodge, and his power was continuously being drained even as he defended. He must have been going mad.
"You filthy bastards…!"
Kang Dae-ho gritted his teeth, his attacks growing fiercer.
*Kaboom!*
The ground beneath us exploded, and the abyss, in the shape of swords, shot up.
It seemed tricky at first, as it followed the target character and continuously attacked from below, but in reality, it wasn't.
‘It always rises from under the spot I was just in.’
In other words, a slight shift in position right before it erupted was enough to easily dodge it.
As long as I didn't make any large movements, it wasn't dangerous.
*Swish!*
I synchronized my attacking and dodging timings.
By accomplishing both with a single action, Kang Dae-ho was just wasting his strength while the situation remained unchanged.
"Damn it…!"
"You can't escape."
Abyss Form couldn't fly like Evil Form.
Whenever he tried to create distance, Hwang Chan-jin would immediately freeze the ground, trapping his feet, making even that a distant hope.
Even when he tried to force us back with an explosion, we'd use set-up skills to keep him rooted in place.
Neither side had sustained a fatal wound.
But the situation was clear.
Faced with our joint assault, Kang Dae-ho was unable to land a proper attack and was becoming increasingly defensive.
"You bastards!"
Kang Dae-ho let out a roar and unleashed a burst of energy, but Hwang Chan-jin and I precisely timed our retreat just out of its range before quickly resuming our barrage.
What kind of attacks Kang Dae-ho used.
The range of those attacks, and the power they held.
Knowing all of this made for the most efficient evasion possible.
"I felt this back in the game too, but his health pool is just ridiculously huge."
"We just need to accumulate damage on the Abyssal Armor. Stop complaining."
"I think we're almost there."
It might have looked like we were just bickering, but our conversation was aimed at Kang Dae-ho.
We were this relaxed, this unharmed.
From his perspective, he was bound to grow more and more desperate.
'As expected, he knows how to use this level of psychological warfare.'
Thinking this, I glanced at Hwang Chan-jin, but his expressionless face still betrayed none of his thoughts.
…I’m probably right, though?
"There's no way… no way I can be pushed back this one-sidedly…!"
Despite panting so hard his breath was sweet, Kang Dae-ho desperately unleashed his attacks.
Abyss Form is the most powerful form.
There were ways to defeat him before this.
But we didn't.
Because we knew it was a trap, and we knew we shouldn't.
If Kang Dae-ho was killed before entering Abyss Form, the unstable abyss would instantly expand, annihilating the entire area.
And then, a massive Abyss Gate would open.
Monsters on a completely different level from the existing ones would pour through, and failing to stop them would lead straight to a bad ending.
‘Besides, it’s easier to fight the Abyss Form according to the strategy guide.’
Just as Hwang Chan-jin said, destroying the Abyssal Armor that maintained the Abyss Form would leave Kang Dae-ho in a groggy state, unable to use most of his power.
The Abyssal Armor was created by gathering the abyssal power Kang Dae-ho himself possessed.
Once we reached that point, the Guide of the Abyss raid would effectively be over.
And the war with Paradise would end.
*Paaang!*
As Hwang Chan-jin's sword struck a crack in the armor that looked ready to shatter, the Abyssal Armor lost its light, and the seething energy vanished as if it had never been there.
"Keuk!"
Coughing up blood from overexerting himself, Kang Dae-ho staggered, barely managing to stay on his feet as he muttered.
"Not yet, I'm not…."
"I'm not interested in a villain's sob story."
*Swish!*
I mercilessly swung my sword at him.
A piece of the armor broke off and clattered to the floor.
I didn't stop there, continuing my assault.
"Whatever your reasons are."
I'd heard this story hundreds of times already.
"It doesn't change the fact that what you're doing is evil."
There were times when my heart wavered and I cooperated with Paradise.
"You're just rationalizing your actions."
But the results were always catastrophic.
"And you never admit that your methods are wrong."
That's when I realized.
"Did everyone with a painful past turn out like you?"
Evil is just evil.
"Isn't it strange? Heroes often have painful pasts as their motivation too. Why do both heroes and villains have tragic backstories? Why is the cause the same, but the conclusion so different?"
The parts of the armor from which violet energy emanated.
By focusing my attacks there, the Abyssal Armor's core would accumulate damage and eventually be destroyed.
*Kaboom!*
Caught in an unexpected explosion of Black Flame, Kang Dae-ho let out a faint scream.
"You're just a loser who failed to control his emotions, got consumed by them, and now just blames others for everything."
"You're unusually talkative."
"These are things I've always wanted to say to the character Kang Dae-ho. It's refreshing."
In the game, the story only followed the pre-written script.
The player couldn't say a single thing they wanted to.
Hwang Chan-jin, who had been listening to me with a quiet nod, had already closed the distance to Kang Dae-ho.
"I see. Then I'll do what I've always wanted to do."
"Huh? …Hey, you cheap bastard!"
The moment Hwang Chan-jin raised his sword to strike Kang Dae-ho.
[Warning.]
[Character, 'Kang Dae-ho' is absorbing a 'Fragment of Disaster'.]
An unfamiliar system message appeared, blocking the view.
"…I am…."
*Swoooosh….*
Even though he should have been unable to use his power in his groggy state, abyssal energy suddenly began to swirl around Kang Dae-ho.
Still, Hwang Chan-jin's weapon was the Four Dragon Sword.
It was normal for him to take damage, unable to block it completely.
That's how it should have been, but it wasn't.
*Gurgle.*
Instead, the Four Dragon Sword was caught by the abyss and lost its light.
"What…!?"
Startled, Hwang Chan-jin tried to pull his sword back, but the weapon, ensnared by the abyss, didn't budge.
Forced to abandon his sword, Hwang Chan-jin drew his spare, White Snow.
‘The abyss is devouring the power of the Four Dragon Sword?’
It wasn't entirely impossible.
Light and darkness were natural opposites.
The stronger side simply wins.
However, the power Kang Dae-ho possessed shouldn't have been enough to overcome the Four Dragon Sword.
Most importantly, I had never seen Kang Dae-ho in this state before.
‘Fragment of Disaster.’
I mulled over the system message that had just appeared.
I didn't know what a Fragment of Disaster was.
But it was clear that Kang Dae-ho, having absorbed such a thing, had grown considerably stronger.
"I cannot let it end like this."
*Ruuuumble….*
The cracked and broken Abyssal Armor began to repair itself.
Not only that, but the power it now held was stronger and more refined than before.
Hwang Chan-jin frowned.
"The Guide of the Abyss shouldn't have had a pattern like this."
"…It's not that strange."
"What do you mean, Kim Se-hyeon?"
"You know it too. This isn't the first or second time."
Hwang Chan-jin quietly shut his mouth.
By now, we had to accept it.
The bosses who played an important role in the original game were all appearing stronger than before.
[The intensified abyssal energy eclipses the moon.]
[A forced lunar eclipse begins!]
This wasn't just a problem with Kang Dae-ho himself.
The Demoniacs, who had been self-destructing under the influence of the full moon, began to rise one by one as if nothing had happened.
From a distance, I could hear the urgent shouts of the guild masters.
They must have been pushing back the remnants of Paradise while Hwang Chan-jin and I dealt with Kang Dae-ho, but now they were trapped with Paradise in front and Demoniacs behind.
"Kim Se-hyeon."
Hwang Chan-jin's face hardened as he fixed his gaze on the Demoniacs.
"Am I sensing things?"
"No, you're probably right."
"Impossible. How can an Arch-Demoniac appear at this timing…!?"
Among the Demoniacs, some individuals succeeded in absorbing more abyssal energy.
These special entities, called Arch-Demoniacs, were S-rank enemies with power comparable to, or even greater than, individual guild masters.
And there wasn't just one or two, but several of them.
Just as Hwang Chan-jin said, they were not enemies that should be appearing at this stage.
"What else could it be."
The reason was simple.
The Demoniacs that appeared during the war with Paradise were originally enhanced by Kang Dae-ho injecting them with abyssal energy.
If the power supply increased, the output would naturally rise as well.
"It's because of him."
The ‘Guide of the Abyss,’ now completely shed of its human form, flashed its blue eyes.