Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: The Second Dawn
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Havel's leisurely tone stirred impatience in Mad Dog.
'Good. I can end it with the next attack.'
Mad Dog shook off stray thoughts and raised both hands again.
This time, instead of fists, he crooked his fingers like sharpened blades.
At once, the red-black thunder qi from moments before coursed through his hands.
Pelleban swallowed hard at the sight.
He knew just how immense the power emanating from those hands was.
In that instant, Mad Dog thrust out his left hand and leaped forward.
Simultaneously, his fist shot toward Dante in a flash.
This time, he intended to slit his throat.
But in that split second, Dante barely twisted his neck aside, dodging the attack.
Mad Dog frowned, realizing for the first time that his strike had been evaded.
Just as he had gauged Dante's level,
Dante had adapted to Mad Dog's assaults.
"You bastard!"
Mad Dog stomped the ground and twisted his body, launching another attack without pause.
Dante gathered his aura in response and countered.
Chaeng! Chaeng! Chaeng!
The clash of sword and fist echoed several times.
But his opponent was Mad Dog.
Slash!
Mad Dog's claws rent across his chest in a vivid gash.
At the same time, both fists slammed into Dante's abdomen.
Blood sprayed as Dante tumbled across the ground.
This time, it was over.
That blow must have pulverized his organs.
"Five."
But Havel recited another count.
Blood and flesh dripping from his torn chest, Dante rose once more.
A chill ran through Mad Dog—different from the fear Havel inspired.
His attack had landed squarely.
Dante was a mangled wreck, certain to die within five strikes.
Yet his eyes still glared defiantly at Mad Dog.
Even though he hadn't landed a single blow on him.
Dante refused to release his grip on his sword.
And seeing that, Mad Dog realized too late.
"So you're saying if he endures five hits, he wins."
Mad Dog's eyebrows twisted in rage.
Fury poured from his face.
He couldn't accept it.
Five strikes or whatever—he'd kill him this time for sure.
Once more, thunder qi surged up Mad Dog's arms.
But this time, it was different.
The power flowing from his body wasn't aura, but calamity.
Even Havel's expression shifted.
He hadn't expected him to wield the power of calamity.
'Well, look at this guy.'
As the calamity power welled up, Mad Dog's form began to warp.
A dog's muzzle protruded from his mouth, his upper body ballooning massively.
At the same time, black and red fur burst wildly from beneath his robes.
Zzzt! Zzzt!
Pelleban nearly collapsed on the spot at the sight.
The aura pouring from him sapped his will to fight.
"Kng!"
In that moment, Mad Dog—drooling greedily—let out a feral bark.
His eyes burned scarlet red, perfectly suiting a mad hound.
Thud!
Soon after, the ground shook under his step,
whipping up a storm right there.
The gusting wind knocked Pelleban over, sending him rolling.
Havel's hair whipped fiercely in the gale.
Yet through strands of it, Havel stared straight at the two combatants.
Mad Dog was strong.
His calamity beast form was utterly overwhelming.
But he didn't know one crucial fact.
The foes Dante had fought alongside Havel all this time weren't human.
The enemies he'd trained against were none other than calamity beasts.
In this moment, the reflexes ingrained in Dante's body reached their peak.
And those reflexes intertwined with his transcendent focus.
Dante's eyes gleamed sharply.
His heightened reflexes and concentration propelled him into a new realm.
The charging Mad Dog felt agonizingly slow to Dante.
At the same time, he saw a vivid line of light connecting Mad Dog's throat to his sword.
A single thread of dawn visible only in the face of utter extremity.
The moment he glimpsed it, Dante's sword naturally followed the light.
Shlick!
In the end, Dante's blade quietly severed the light.
And blood gushed from Mad Dog's throat along the parted glow.
"Guhk... Kk... Grk."
Drenched in his own blood, Mad Dog staggered and collapsed.
It had all happened in an instant.
"The first dawn is the light you ignite yourself."
Havel walked up to Dante as he spoke.
"And the second dawn is seeing the light bloom in your foe."
Like fireflies drifting about.
A tiny flicker of light rising.
Only those who can see that light witness the second dawn.
Havel smirked faintly at Dante, who had lost consciousness standing.
"Well done reaching the second dawn. Dante, you're an Aura Guardian now too."
In that instant, Mad Dog's head jerked up.
His eyes had long gone dead.
But the calamity animating him was different.
As if this were his true form.
The calamity erupting from Mad Dog was on another level entirely.
Its bared fangs were about to shred Havel's unguarded throat.
But Havel had noticed it long ago and gazed down coldly.
"If you're going to hide, you should've stayed hidden till the end."
And in a flash, Havel's sword whipped around, spewing light.
Kwahgagagagagak!
Beneath the emerging dawn,
Mad Dog had already vanished.
Instead, Havel shifted his gaze to the distance.
The one who had turned Gehenna into a calamity beast alongside Mad Dog.
Time to have a proper chat with the true ordeal.
"Pelleban, watch Dante and the others. Treat his wounds."
"A-Are you going alone?"
Pelleban's face filled with alarm.
Calamity beasts and Gehenna's gang were still lurking nearby.
"Or you can go kill whatever shows up there soon instead."
The spot Havel pointed to held only pitch-black darkness.
Pelleban quietly shook his head.
"......I'll stand guard."
He knew Havel wouldn't joke about such things.
Whatever monster lurked there, it meant he had to step up.
Pelleban glanced at Dante.
A total mess, on the verge of death even now.
Watching him stirred unexpected resolve.
"Havel, when you return, may I ask one thing?"
Havel turned to Pelleban.
His expression suggested it wouldn't be nonsense.
"Sure."
No reason to refuse, so Havel stepped away.
In that moment, his silhouette blurred.
Havel advanced into the darkness.
Though not a sliver of light pierced the gloom.
It held no sway over him.
'After dealing with something similar in the Demonic Palace.'
That place distorted not just sight, but every sense—a true hell.
How much he'd suffered escaping it.
Thanks to that, mere visual blocks like this were no match for Havel.
He simply enveloped the surroundings with his aura's senses.
Twitch—
In that instant, amid the spreading aura currents, one presence reacted.
It knew it was spotted.
Havel poured power into his forward step.
Boom!
With surging aura, his body shot forward like a cannonball.
Right before him as he streaked through the dark.
Two blades surged simultaneously.
One sword near-white,
the other near-black.
Havel eyed the two blades arcing toward him, slow as molasses in his vision.
Then, mid-flight, he drew his own sword and parried.
Chaeng! Chaeng!
The twin clashes rang out as the blades flew back.
In that moment, two presences darted through the shadows.
One aimed for the throat, the other the heart.
Two hand blades extended.
The razor claws protruding from them could shred human muscle with ease.
And rightly so—they were each wrapped in master-level aura.
But once again, Havel's sword was faster.
His returning blade sliced both wrists in unison.
Shlick!
The severed wrists sailed into the air.
Meanwhile, the presences rapidly retreated from Havel.
"Not letting you escape."
Havel bellowed that and raised his sword.
In an instant, pure white dawn light gathered atop his blade.
Flash!
The erupting dawn light banished the darkness in a burst.
Before it stood two bloodied women, somehow enduring the dawn's glare.
One with black hair,
the other with white.
Their oddity lay in the horns sprouting amid their locks and the tattoos etched inside their clothes.
Havel recognized those tattoos and reacted with surprise.
"Children of the Freyja Tribe?"
Both women's bodies tensed.
The Freyja Tribe.
A clan that existed even before Havel entered the Demonic Palace.
Each member a fierce warrior surpassing knights.
'During the Unification War, the Beltaron Empire tried forcibly conscripting them, and I struggled to stop it.'
He never imagined seeing them again here.
He wasn't sure if the Freyja Tribe still existed,
but these two seemed to have fled to the Tower, turned into calamity beasts.
"Were you acquainted with my masterpieces, the Freyja sisters?"
In that moment, a voice echoed in Havel's ears.
The grating tone, like metal scraping, soured his mood instantly.
Where Havel turned, a pitch-black skeleton appeared.
More precisely, a human with skin clinging to bone.
A robe of mingled black and purple, adorned with a staff topped by a human skull.
The orb in his grasp stood out.
The moment Havel saw him, he knew:
This was the mastermind behind this trial.
The 5th-floor ordeal.
Calamity Sorcerer.
The one who turned humans into calamity beasts.
A corpse sorcerer from ages past who slaughtered countless, turning the world against him.
Now hiding in the Tower, wielding even calamity.
That was the Calamity Sorcerer.
"You're the trial."
Havel asked to confirm.
"Heh heh, the trial."
The Calamity Sorcerer sneered.
"Still too young to discern properly, it seems. To you, this body won't be a mere trial— it'll be a catastrophe."
His sunken eyes, barely visible, leered grotesquely.
Meanwhile, the Freyja sisters flanked the elder.
Two master-level warriors turned into his calamity beast minions.
That alone spoke volumes of his prowess.
Even outside, few sorcerers could rival him.
Thus, the Calamity Sorcerer brimmed with confidence.
Havel was an impressive swordsman for felling Mad Dog,
but with his personal intervention, the outcome was sealed.
"Ten seconds should do. To become my newest child."
In that instant, calamity flowed from the sorcerer's orb.
"Eut."
"Hng."
The calamity poured straight into the Freyja sisters.
Their eyes instantly turned scarlet.
The two stomped the ground and shot toward Havel.
The Calamity Sorcerer's eyes curved in amusement.
Havel staring blankly at him was comical.
Soon, he'd die unknowing.
The moment he anticipated Havel's head rolling,
Splat!
Flesh pierced with a wet sound.
Hope flickered in the sorcerer's eyes,
only for his gaze to waver.
"Uh."
The Calamity Sorcerer uttered a deflated noise.
Holes gaped side by side in the abdomens of the Freyja sisters he'd just launched.
Gush—
Organs and blood spilled from their guts.
They crumpled to the floor like shed skins.
Master-level prowess, infused with his own calamity, yet
they met such a pathetic end.
"Perfect."
Havel's voice rang out then.
His blade—still pristinely white despite piercing their bellies—held firm.
He stared at the Calamity Sorcerer.
"I'd hoped to meet someone reasonable for a talk."
And as Havel smiled for the first time, the sorcerer's eyes bulged.
Havel's silhouette blurred.
"You bastard......"
And that was his final cry.