The Unsetting Sun
True to its name, The Unsetting Sun was utterly scorching.
The instant they stepped through the gate, blinding solar radiance bore down upon them. Calling it merely dazzling was an understatement; stand under that blaze a moment too long, and it felt as though human flesh would liquefy on the spot.
Are Myeolgeop and the Lich going to be alright...?
A pointless worry. Neither an earth-forged golem nor an ancient undead possessed any reason to fret over ambient temperature.
Yet what truly commanded his attention far more than the searing heat was the colossal entity looming directly before them. Jeon Jaewoo craned his neck, gazing in disbelief at the titanic trunk soaring straight into the sky.
...Is it even physically possible for a tree to grow that huge?
No exaggeration—the sheer footprint of this single organism rivaled an entire countryside town. Worse still, a suffocating, deeply ominous presence poured from every inch of its bark. While the sinister dread rolling off an undead like the Elder Lich felt natural in its own dark way, this energy was entirely alien—a repulsive miasma fundamentally hostile to mortal life.
The Unsetting Sun
Defeat the Corrupted World Tree before it drives all life on earth to death. (0/1)
The floating prompt confirmed it: that monstrous arboreal behemoth was indeed the conquest target of this Ancient-grade ruin.
Jaewoo turned to his vanguard.
"What on earth is that thing?"
[It is a divine tree, an arboreal entity designated to govern the cycle and vitality of living things. However, it currently appears incapable of fulfilling its divine role.]
So that's why the objective is to slay a Corrupted World Tree.
Even so, Jaewoo caught himself slightly underestimating their foe. No matter how immense it grew, wasn't it still just timber in the end? For a Transcendent construct like Myeolgeop, chopping down overgrown kindling shouldn't prove too difficult.
"No matter how huge it is, isn't it still just a tree?"
At his murmured remark, the Elder Lich clattered his jawbones with a rasping chuckle.
"Heheh... That will hardly be the case, Maker. Watch closely now, and you shall soon understand why this ruin bears the moniker of The Unsetting Sun."
One of the most essential ingredients for plant growth is sunlight. Casting a verdant canopy vastly wider than Liu Bei's legendary mulberry tree, the colossus drank in the fierce radiance across its endless foliage, continuously ballooning its internal reserves. And within the dimensional laws of this ruin, that blinding sun would never set.
"So as long as that sun hangs in the sky, it's virtually immortal?"
"Under ordinary circumstances, precisely so."
What kind of absurd condition was that? Was this trial even designed to be cleared by mortal hands?
Is this why Ancient-grade ruins require the combined elite forces of world superpowers just to stand a chance?
Rumble, rumble!
A tremor shuddered through the earth. Thousands of subterranean roots ripped out from the soil while endless canopy boughs plummeted from above, caging Jaewoo and his summons within a forest of razor-sharp timber.
...I take back what I thought about it being easy.
Taken individually, each tendril was simply a massive wooden limb. The real nightmare lay in their staggering scale and endless numbers. The instant a serpentine root whipped straight toward Jaewoo's chest—
Slash!
Myeolgeop extended his wrist blades, cleanly cleaving the encroaching roots in a single, surgical stroke. Yet severing them proved utterly inconsequential. Driven by insane restorative vigor, the shattered vines regenerated the microsecond they were cut, lashing out once more with predatory intent.
Bloody hell.
So long as the eternal sun burned overhead, the tree possessed infinite regeneration. Worse, it was not merely drinking the light; its root network sucked infinite vitality straight from the subterranean mana veins beneath their feet.
Without missing a beat, the Elder Lich cast a teleportation spell, spiriting Jaewoo across space to a distant vantage point. Left behind, Myeolgeop stood alone, engaging the boundless wrath of the World Tree.
A few stray vines broke away to pursue Jaewoo across the clearing, but the Elder Lich—wielding three S-grade traits—effortlessly intercepted and decayed them into ash before they drew near.
Now that's reassuring.
Having an S-grade powerhouse acting as a dedicated bodyguard offered immense peace of mind. Still, Jaewoo's gaze drifted back toward the center of the fray. Myeolgeop appeared to be caught in a grinding struggle.
Thick boughs wrapped tightly around the golem's limbs. Of course, mere wood could never crush Myeolgeop's reinforced earthen chassis, but the moment contact was established, the tendrils began siphoning his mana. Myeolgeop instantly sheared through the vines with his blades and surged straight for the central trunk.
Watching the solitary golem plunge deeper into the suffocating horde, Jaewoo bit his lip.
"Will Myeolgeop really be fine on his own?"
From where he stood, it looked like an uphill, attritional nightmare. Even if Myeolgeop triumphed, what if his core suffered catastrophic structural damage?
Yet the Elder Lich remained entirely unperturbed. Lacking even flesh or tongue, the skeleton merely clattered his jaws in an amused rattle.
"Heheh. It seems our esteemed Maker has yet to realize what truly defines a Transcendent-grade trait."
"?"
"If all that trait amounted to was manifesting blades and swinging them about, how could it ever dare lay claim to the pinnacle of Transcendence?"
There's more to his Annihilation trait than melee combat?
Recognizing that forcing a path through the writhing barrier via close-quarters strikes was inefficient, Myeolgeop suddenly disengaged, vaulting backward into a clearing.
Jaewoo’s eyes widened. Myeolgeop's physical chassis was rapidly shifting and reconfiguring.
Whirrrr. Clank. Clank.
It felt like watching a live-action sci-fi transformation sequence. Panels across the golem's body slid open like automated hangar doors. Though Myeolgeop stood roughly the height of an average adult male, an absurd array of heavy artillery deployed outward from within his compact frame.
Rumble!
Sensing an impending crisis, the World Tree surged, massing tidal waves of roots forward to smother him.
Bzzzzzt—!!
Myeolgeop locked his stance, hyper-condensing vast reserves of mana into his deployed cannons.
"Oh dear. This is quite dangerous," the Elder Lich remarked, his eccentric tone turning uncharacteristically solemn.
Wait, who's in danger?
Vrummmm!
Despite standing a considerable distance from the vanguard, the Elder Lich wasted no time layering multiple arcane barriers over Jaewoo. The very next second, the accumulated mana unleashed in a devastating salvo toward the encroaching wall of timber.
BOOOOOOM!!
Blinding light swallowed the landscape, forcing Jaewoo to shield his eyes. The omnidirectional artillery blast detonated upon contact, tearing through dense vegetation in a cataclysm of concussive shockwaves. The World Tree’s tendrils desperately tried to hold the line with raw mass and hyper-regeneration, but they were inexorably obliterated. Where was that compact frame drawing so much apocalyptic energy from? Whenever the barrage met the slightest resistance, Myeolgeop merely elevated his output, vaporizing everything in his path through sheer, overwhelming firepower.
Through relentless saturation bombardment, he carved a scorched corridor straight up to the World Tree's core.
Yet as the sole apex monarch of an Ancient-grade ruin, the corrupted entity refused to yield easily. Clinging tenaciously to its boundless vitality, it wove hundreds of reinforced boughs into an impenetrable, multi-layered dome to protect its main trunk.
The artillery fire crashed against the barrier, reaching a momentary stalemate. But Myeolgeop was far from finished.
The crown of the golem's head split open, deploying what appeared to be specialized solar absorption panels.
Fwoooosh!!
A terrifying vortex of solar energy converged from the heavens, siphoning directly into the golem's frame.
Wait... is he absorbing the sunlight just like the tree?!
The perpetual blazing sun was an environmental hazard engineered to make conquering this ruin an impossible trial.
And he just hijacked it for himself!
The solar energy pouring down from the perpetual zenith was astronomical. A cataclysmic volume of mana pooled through Myeolgeop's chassis, so dense that even Jaewoo—a fledgling hunter with modest mana sensitivity—could feel the terrifying pressure vibrating through the air.
Is it even possible to stabilize that much raw energy inside a single body?
The gathered cataclysm channeled entirely down Myeolgeop's left arm, reshaping it into a monolithic siege cannon.
KRA-BOOOOOM!!
He fired at maximum threshold. With optics glowing a radiant crimson, Myeolgeop discharged a hyper-concentrated thermal laser focused upon a single pinpoint. Layer upon layer of dense boughs melted like butter. The beam drilled cleanly through the World Tree's defensive dome, striking its massive trunk dead center.
SKREEEEEECH—!!
"Ugh!"
Jaewoo clamped both hands over his ears. The piercing, screeching agony of the laser boring into the ancient wood felt as though it would rupture his eardrums on the spot.
Hummm...
Noticing his master's distress, the Elder Lich muttered a quiet hex. An additional layer of dark sorcery settled over the barrier, completely muting the unbearable din.
An S-grade trait really is something else. The Elder Lich proved remarkably versatile across virtually every support role.
Pointing toward the smoldering front line where Myeolgeop had completely suppressed the arboreal giant, the skeleton cackled.
"Behold. Does he appear to need any assistance?"
"...I suppose not."
It was undeniably far more exhausting than clearing a Legendary-grade ruin. Though the clash seemed brief in retrospect, over three hours had already elapsed since they crossed the threshold. Had Myeolgeop been burdened with protecting his summoner during the engagement, the battle would have dragged on far longer.
As the final embers of the beam dissipated—Sssssssss...—a gaping, scorched crater remained hollowed out through the center of the gargantuan trunk.
Incredible. Honestly, Jaewoo had viewed Myeolgeop as merely an exceptionally capable golem until now. He's not just capable—he's an absolute monster.
Now it was abundantly clear why the golem possessed three Transcendent-grade traits. Until today, he simply hadn't encountered an adversary formidable enough to warrant unleashing his full specifications. Yet an even more surreal spectacle remained.
Squirm, wriggle.
Jaewoo sucked in a sharp breath. Just when he assumed the battle had concluded, the Corrupted World Tree began regenerating the massive crater in its core, thick fibrous tendrils knitting back together like an eldritch abomination straight out of the Cthulhu Mythos.
It can still regenerate from a wound like that?! Is this thing even a plant? So long as it bathed in the radiant sun, its regenerative capacity approached true infinity.
[...]
Myeolgeop stared impassively at the writhing wound.
Grrrrrr!
Without warning, the golem's chassis began to spin like a high-velocity industrial drill, plunging headfirst into the earth and vanishing beneath the surface.
Baffled, Jaewoo turned to the undead wizard.
"What is Myeolgeop doing?"
"Nothing complicated, Maker. If an opponent's restorative power proves tedious, one simply severs its source."
A few moments after Myeolgeop tunneled underground, the entire World Tree shuddered violently, trembling as though a living beast were screaming in silent agony. An instant later, Myeolgeop breached back to the surface amidst a shower of dirt and rock. In his brief subterranean sweep, he had systematically severed and dredged up the World Tree's primary subterranean root system.
"Even if he severed them, won't they just regrow with that kind of regenerative power?"
"You have yet to notice, Maker? You truly must train your senses to perceive mana more acutely."
"?"
"Did you truly fail to perceive that I have been channeling death mana into the deep earth throughout this entire battle?"
The foundation of the Elder Lich's Sorcery was the energy of death itself—the ultimate antithesis to the World Tree's living vitality. With necrotic mana saturating the soil, the roots could no longer drink from the earth.
Ruuuuuumble!!
Once more, Myeolgeop deployed his solar panels, drinking in the endless celestial radiance. An energy signature far more terrifying than before ignited within his chassis. As if a single main cannon were deemed insufficient, four additional heavy artillery barrels deployed across both shoulders.
...Wait, is he going to fire all of those at once?!
KABOOOOOOOOOM!!!
For a terrifying instant, Jaewoo genuinely thought the world was ending. The moment Myeolgeop discharged all that hyper-concentrated mana in a synchronized apocalyptic volley, the cataclysmic beam not only vaporized the Corrupted World Tree into cosmic dust, but utterly disintegrated three entire mountain peaks sitting on the distant horizon behind it.
Exploration mission complete.
From this moment forth, the ruin ‘The Unsetting Sun’ belongs to Jeon Jaewoo.
Only then did the system prompt confirming the conquest of the Ancient-grade ruin materialize before his eyes.
The violent aftershocks took minutes to fade, leaving his vision blurred by heat haze and billowing debris. Staring at the gargantuan mushroom cloud rising against the desolate skyline, Jaewoo swallowed dryly.
...Myeolgeop isn't ever going to go rogue and disobey me, right?