Sanctuary Declaration
Jinwoo's awakening led straight into Pur's.
Still half-lost in the depths of complete absorption, Jinwoo startled at the overwhelming blue frost pouring off Pur.
"A hollow shell of a thing…!"
That hollow shell had awakened. Shadow Wing roared.
So that's it.
Only then did Jinwoo understand.
Right now, Pur stood clearly above the other thralls in rank.
A Hero-grade undead.
On top of that, he carried two souls of the Incarnation of Evil.
And yet, on paper, he hadn't pulled all that far ahead of First.
He never had full access to a Hero-grade undead's power.
This fight must have finally met the conditions and triggered a true awakening.
The new skill is…
Jinwoo studied the notification windows carefully.
"That's not it."
The skill that had just awakened wasn't Pur's.
"I got a skill?"
He'd assumed Banshee Lord Pur had learned something new. He was wrong.
The one who'd learned the skill was Jinwoo.
Conditions have been met.
"So a Hero-grade thrall's awakening was the condition."
Jinwoo looked at his hand.
Shaaaaaa—.
What was currently active was Domain Declaration.
"Something's different."
Originally, Domain Declaration was marked by a dense release of dark energy.
The sensation of darkness rolling in with him.
But something else was flowing from his hand now as well.
"Frost."
The cold of the underworld had settled into his palm.
Domain Declaration has been upgraded!
You have learned Sanctuary Declaration.
Your power is no longer confined to the domain alone.
You interfere with the souls of every being that enters the area.
"Sanctuary Declaration, huh."
He had learned Domain Declaration's upgrade skill: Sanctuary Declaration.
Jinwoo swept his hand and activated the skill properly.
"Sanctuary of Souls."
Shaaaaaaaaaa—!
In an instant, dark energy and underworld frost erupted from his entire body like an explosion.
Shadow Wing's domain, which until now had been locked in a tug-of-war split roughly down the middle, was swallowed whole by Jinwoo's.
Everything within a radius around him was his ground now.
"Sanctuary."
Past a domain, into a sanctuary.
I do hold the power most opposed to the sacred…
Ironically, among dark-type powers, this was as close to sacred as it got.
"!"
Shadow Wing's wings trembled.
Everything had changed.
Centered on that human, the undead's power itself was amplifying.
He wasn't leaning on his thralls.
He was leading them.
"My soul."
Shaaaaa—!
"You can interfere with it? How dare—how dare—!"
The old Domain Declaration had been a simple thrall-strengthening technique.
Sanctuary Declaration layered those buffs with a powerful debuff on every entity inside the area. Shadow Wing had considerable resistance to ordinary debuff magic, but Sanctuary Declaration, which interfered with the soul itself, still took hold.
If it can even touch a dragon…
That meant the skill's specs had jumped considerably.
With Domain Declaration, all I could do was cancel out Shadow Wing's debuffs and buffs.
He could feel exactly how much stronger it had become.
Shaaaaa—.
"That's enough."
Watching his thralls fight, Jinwoo saw the path forward.
There was no need to drag this out any longer.
"Pur."
Jinwoo gestured to him.
"Today's your stage."
First slipped back a step.
"Repayment.for.your.faith."
He murmured it quietly.
Pur nodded.
Shaaaaa—.
World Tree's Judgment drank deep of underworld frost and the power of Sanctuary Declaration.
Kwaak—!
A crushing blow.
With Sanctuary Declaration active and a Hero-grade undead's full power finally awakened, Pur's damage was enormous.
"Ghk…"
Shadow Wing, who until now had never once let out a sound of pain, began to pant hard for breath.
As a follow-up, First swept his Orihalcon light blade.
Swaeek—!
Mortus loosed dark arrows into the same spot.
Pabababak—!
Pin slammed Shadow Wing's torso with steel wings, shaking the dragon's body.
And once more—
Pur's strike landed.
Kwaaang—!
Attacks that hit like explosions left Shadow Wing reeling, unable to gather himself.
"This is… this is absurd…"
To mere undead.
"To lowly… rotting creatures…!"
Shadow Wing beat his wings.
That was when Jinwoo pulled another piece of gear from his inventory.
"Just in case, I made one more."
Whoosh—!
Jinwoo flung a third Obsidian Net.
Honestly, making the nets had been pretty fun, and the feel of working the obsidian was so good that the bigger reason was simply that he'd made several.
"How many did you make in that tiny window of time?!"
Shadow Wing couldn't believe it. It really had been only a moment.
"Grrrrr—."
Cornered, Shadow Wing reached again for the power he trusted most.
Not Dragon Tongue.
Breath.
Shaaaaaaaaaaa—.
At the lips of a Shadow Wing who had been purified a great deal already, a vivid red breath took shape.
"There it is."
Jinwoo broke into a broad grin as he watched.
"Finally."
Ready.
He had come all this way for that flame.
Looking at the dying Shadow Wing, Jinwoo drew something from his inventory.
What he pulled out was a fairly large bottle.
The bottle Hairun gave me for collecting flame.
Shadow Wing was past the point of sound judgment.
"Flame Breath—!"
There was no Nether Breath left.
Swaaaaaaaaa—!
That last, desperate pure breath—Jinwoo caught it in the Magma Bottle.
Shaaaaaaaa—!
The heat was immense. The force behind it was so great that Jinwoo's body was shoved hard backward.
Effect activated.
HP is recovering!
"Almost died there."
Catching that breath had been the most dangerous moment of the entire fight with Shadow Wing.
"Grrraaaaagh—!"
Only then did Shadow Wing grasp the situation.
"Thanks."
But it was already over.
Jinwoo gestured.
Pur swung World Tree's Judgment with everything he had.
"Judgment."
Kwagak—!
Thud—.
Kuuuuung—!
That massive body pitched forward and collapsed.
The Great Dwarf God praises your achievement!
He expresses brilliant gratitude to you for saving the dwarves!
You have received the Rune of the Great Dwarf God.
Quest cleared!
You have been registered in the Hall of Fame!
The God of Hunters is watching you!
The moment Shadow Wing fell, so many notification windows stacked up that it was hard to even see straight.
The God of Hunters, huh.
Jinwoo had hunted a dragon his own way.
That must have been why the God of Hunters seemed to find him interesting.
"Level-ups, a rune, and achievements on top of it."
Jinwoo checked the rune first.
"The Rune of the Great Dwarf God!"
Effect: Absorbs power from the earth and converts it into strength all at once. Temporarily raises the Strength stat by a large amount.
The rune the Great Dwarf God had given him was Earth's Rune.
"Pretty solid effect."
Like the Light Nature Rune he'd obtained before, it was a rune used in skill form.
"Strength can never be too high."
With raw power, the range of things you could do only grew.
Next, Jinwoo checked the achievements.
Great, Great Hunter and Dragon Slayer.
Both were achievements only the upper ranks among combat-class players could earn.
Having hunted a dragon, Jinwoo had completed both at once—
and both had been registered in the Hall of Fame.
1. Tehunt [250 pts]
2. Shazam [224 pts]
3. Lepidence [200 pts]
4. Jinwoo [199 pts]
1. Tehunt [178 pts]
2. Shazam [170 pts]
3. Lepidence [150 pts]
4. Jinwoo [134 pts]
Amusingly, Jinwoo had landed fourth on both Hall of Fame boards.
"Didn't see that coming."
For him, it wasn't a bad ranking at all. He wasn't a hunter to begin with.
"Looks like they score based on the specs you had when you cleared the achievement."
What kind of build you'd used to do it.
That seemed to be the scoring standard.
"Rankings don't matter that much anyway."
Thanks to this, though, Jinwoo now knew the hunter ranking order.
Tehunt, Shazam, Lepidence.
They sat 1st, 2nd, and 3rd across both of the achievements he'd just earned.
"This Hall of Fame ranking isn't the same as the ranker ladder, but it does tend to track it pretty closely."
Worth remembering their names.
"There's nothing bad about getting friendly with hunters."
Just as he'd gotten close to miners like Yur and Artem before, once you were on good terms, good materials started finding their way to you.
"These achievement effects are seriously solid."
The rankings were one thing, but the actual bonuses were excellent.
"Drop rate goes up?"
A full five percent higher chance of rare materials from monsters.
"So this is how hunters keep pulling good materials—with achievements like these."
Then he looked at the Magma Bottle, the thing he'd needed to secure above all else. This was, in truth, the biggest reason he'd come hunting a dragon in the first place.
"This is it. This is the kind of flame."
The same flame he'd drawn from Hairun's forge.
"And on top of that…"
From here on was what mattered most. Everything so far had only been the appetizer.
Jinwoo grinned.
"Materials."
He looked over the byproducts Shadow Wing had left behind.
"This is…"
Among the materials he'd expected, there was something entirely new.
"Insane."