Chapter 147: Khartz
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 147: Khartz
Unlike the empires where magic and high culture flourished, the Sisul tribe maintained a unique tradition of harnessing nature through their physical bodies rather than relying on spells.
In the empires, they were often dismissed as savages or primitives. Yet, the reason they could exist among those powerful nations without ever being conquered was simple: the Sisul warriors were just that strong.
They were a martial race that considered it the highest honor to die in battle.
A Quad composed entirely of these Sisul warriors was currently locked in a fierce struggle against a guild of about sixty members.
At the very rear, a middle-aged man holding a staff taller than himself slammed it against the ground. A powerful surge of energy enveloped the warriors, buffing their strength.
—Rumble!
"Try and stop us!"
Driven by the reckless momentum of the Sisul warriors, the sixty-man guild was pushed back further and further.
"Kuaaaaah!"
While imperial knights wore thick armor to defend against enemy attacks, the Sisul warriors wore almost no protection, relying on their weapons to parry strikes. Despite this, their charging power surpassed that of most heavy knights.
—Boom!
—Crash!
Every time they struck the ground with their crude, distinctive weapons, shockwaves swept over the guild members, narrowing their footing.
In the midst of the chaos, three black shadows moved swiftly toward the middle-aged shaman, who was focused on healing and buffing the warriors from the rear. As the three assassins pounced with agile movements, targeting his flanks and front, the shaman didn't panic. Instead, he charged forward.
—Clang!
Dashing fearlessly toward the enemy in front, he swung his staff and sent one assassin flying. He then spun around to deal with the two closing in from behind.
"Dammit! What kind of strength is this?!"
"He's just a shaman! Finish him quickly!"
Despite being a Sisul shaman, he possessed a body as well-trained as any warrior's. However, red lines began to multiply across his skin, and the flow of blood from his wounds increased. He was managing to avoid fatal blows, but it was impossible for him to win against all three with his strength alone.
Even in a situation where defeat seemed certain, the shaman showed no sign of anxiety. His eyes gleamed as he gritted his teeth, showing a clear determination to take at least one of them down with him.
—Slash!
Just as an assassin who had perfectly taken the shaman's back lunged with a wrist-mounted blade, his vision suddenly flipped upside down. The assassin couldn't understand why the shaman's back, which he had been staring at, was now spinning away.
Seo-un stepped over the rolling head and body, instantly taking care of the remaining two assassins pressing the shaman.
Bronze Wing.
He could estimate their level after exchanging just a single blow. No, he could tell just by their positioning and the fighting spirit they emitted.
"Who are you?" the shaman asked, not lowering his guard. He hesitated while looking at Seo-un, who had appeared out of nowhere and killed three enemies in an instant.
"The ones who don't kill civilians... that's you, right?"
Seeing Seo-un answer his question with another question, the shaman thumped his chest and replied.
"The Sisul do not lay hands on powerless commoners."
"I like that."
As Seo-un finished speaking and dashed forward, Juriel and Gi-chan appeared by the middle-aged man's side and began firing magic. Beside Seo-un, Li Lingwei's hands began to turn pitch black.
"What is this now... Gurgle."
A knight who had charged at Li Lingwei as she swung her hands wildly couldn't finish his sentence. He collapsed, clutching his throat. In an instant, four nearby players showed the same reaction, their faces turning black. A mage shouted loudly.
"It's poison! Don't get close!"
It was an impossible order. Unless they ran away from an enemy charging at them like a madman, there was no way to avoid getting close.
The moment attention was drawn to Li Lingwei, Seo-un had already broken through the front-line knights and seized the rear line where the mages were positioned. As he passed through, the mangled corpses of mages were left scattered in his wake.
With the intervention of the two, the balance of power shifted drastically, and the Sisul warriors were able to annihilate the remaining enemies in a heartbeat.
"We owe you our lives. What is your name?"
Seo-un replied to the man holding a large axe, who was bleeding profusely from long sword wounds on his shoulder and chest.
"Jin Seo-un."
"Ah! You're the Epic Monster."
Seo-un chuckled at the man's simple response. "Yeah. I'm the Epic Monster, Jin Seo-un."
"They say catching you gives 1,200 coins. And something else... they said an Ego Weapon is given as a reward."
"Must be tempting. Why don't you give it a try?"
At Seo-un's words, the man's smile deepened.
"Is that a warrior's confidence? I'd like to, but the Sisul tribe does not turn their blades against their benefactors. You only stepped forward to protect the residents of your world. You are no monster."
Seo-un nodded, seeing that the man had a clear sense of judgment. "Is your Quad moving independently?"
"That's right. We smelled Khartz and were pushing inward when those bastards swarmed us."
As the man finished speaking, Juriel, who had approached them, furrowed her brows deeply.
"Did you just say Khartz?"
Seo-un, already curious, became even more so after seeing her reaction. "What is Khartz?"
She remained lost in thought for a moment before speaking with a serious expression.
"To put it simply, Khartz is a method of using magic. It's a system created by a mage named Khartz Der Gray. For example, it's a method where multiple mages pool their strength to cast high-circle magic that cannot be cast alone. However, the side effects were so severe that every empire banned its use."
"Side effects?" this time, Gi-chan asked.
"It's a method with a fairly high success rate for casting high-circle magic, but there's a high probability that the caster's mana circles will be destroyed. If they're unlucky, it can even take their life."
Seo-un spoke with an incredulous expression. "Why bother banning a spell like that? Who would use it? If you lose your magic or even your life, people would naturally avoid it."
She shook her head slightly. "Human malice often precedes individual instinct. When the Khartz method was first discovered, it was during the height of the Imperial Wars. At that time, Khartz magic was used on numerous battlefields to overturn unfavorable battles. There was even an incident where a royal palace was wiped out by a Giga Meteor summoned at the cost of the lives of 3,000 3rd and 4th Circle mages."
"Giga Meteor?"
"It's a spell that boasts the strongest destructive power of the 9th Circle. It tore through the royal palace's powerful defensive magic like paper and led the Teigan Empire to ruin. Of course, the hostile Karsia Empire, which committed such an act, also suffered a severe weakening of national power and was forced into isolation."
After finishing her explanation, she turned her gaze to the man and asked, "How are you suspecting Khartz?"
It wasn't the man who answered her, but the shaman standing behind him.
"Because I saw it myself in a Smoke Vision."
At the mention of Smoke Vision, Juriel's expression softened slightly. Just as Seo-un was about to ask what that was, he heard the team voice chat in his ear.
Her tone made it clear she didn't believe in Smoke Vision at all.
From Seo-un's perspective, it didn't seem much different either way, but he had no intention of arguing.
"You don't seem to trust my words much," the shaman noted.
"It's not exactly that. It's just that I've never actually experienced a Smoke Vision..."
As she brushed it off, the middle-aged man's brow furrowed. "I have never seen a prophecy as clear as this one."
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"I saw mages casting Khartz in these five locations. And I saw them summon three Meteors to this place, cough up blood, and die. I saw clearly how the Meteors turned this place to ash and killed countless people."
Seo-un's expression crumpled as he checked the locations the shaman pointed out with his staff, projecting his map onto the ground using his ability. When the five locations centered around Beverly Hills were connected, they formed a perfect pentagram.
"What I saw was undoubtedly shown to me by the Mother of this world, hoping I would save the people of this world from a great disaster."
Seo-un didn't believe everything he said, but he knew for certain that if the prophecy were true even by a fraction, an unimaginable loss of life would occur.
Beverly Hills was a special area within LA that was restricted on the map. Seo-un was well aware that countless civilians had fled into that area to hide from players. According to the briefing he heard in the car, approximately 200,000 people had evacuated to Beverly Hills.
If a Meteor were to fall there... the bastards who did it would gain an enormous amount of coins, but a massacre that would be remembered in history would take place.
"Are you sure about these locations?"
"I am certain. The proof is that as soon as we entered this far, even more players suddenly blocked our way."
The shaman was certain, while Juriel looked skeptical. Seo-un, with a serious face, marked the five locations the shaman had pointed out on his map with pings.
"If it really is Khartz, how much time is left until they cast the spell?"
At Seo-un's urgent question, the shaman answered decisively. "What I saw was the morning three days from now."
"Thanks for the information. We'll be going now."
Quickly parting ways with them, Seo-un began heading toward the nearest ping on the map.
At Juriel's words, Seo-un found himself hoping that was the case. Gi-chan surveyed the surroundings with a grim face and briefed the team.
There was no reason for those trying to hunt civilians for coins to settle down and occupy a specific area. Only then did Juriel begin to think that perhaps the hallucination the shaman saw was indeed a prophecy.
Come to think of it, there were no better conditions for using Khartz than the Cloyd game. Whether the circles engraved in their hearts were damaged or they lost their lives, as long as the magic succeeded and they achieved their goal, the side effects would disappear anyway once the game ended. They likely saw it as an opportunity for rapid growth, thinking they could collect their share of coins in the waiting room from their guild members.
At Hamit's warning, Seo-un stopped and raised his hand. From a point about two kilometers away from their destination, alarm magic was spread out in all directions.
It was still daytime, and the sun hadn't set yet. However, the fact that players were hiding inside buildings everywhere was definitely strange. Whether they were trying to protect or kill, there was no reason for so many players to be camping in a map where farming wasn't even possible.
If there was a reason, it was only one.
Now it was certain. Whether it was Khartz or something else, there were people banded together planning a massacre.
Dividing 200 by five meant there were at least 40 mages at each location.
As she finished speaking, Seo-un moved. He openly stepped on the alarm magic and entered. Before long, enemies began to reveal themselves from buildings everywhere.
—Shu-crack!
Seo-un shattered an Ice Lance flying at him as if he’d been expecting it, then scaled the side of a building in a flash. Li Lingwei also began climbing the exterior walls toward players attacking from the rooftops. Juriel and Gi-chan supported the two with magic from their positions.
Their strategy of trying to maintain a guerrilla formation in the city and perform area defense didn't work against Seo-un's team. In fact, they might have lasted longer if they had gathered in one place and pooled their strength.
The presence of Carmen's Eye, Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils, and Hamit neutralized the greatest advantage of guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla tactics where you couldn't hide were bound to fail.
In truth, even if this many players had gathered and resisted with numbers, they would have struggled to exert much power against Seo-un. To catch Seo-un, who drew out Aura and cut through even thick knightly armor like tofu, much stronger players were needed.
By the time an 8-man squad had been wiped out in an instant, Gi-chan gave a briefing.
Not long after his briefing, about a hundred players were seen running toward them. The appearance of the knight leading the players from the front, gathered in a formation, seemed unusual.
Seo-un had no choice but to agree. Having encountered enemies he actually had to fight with tension since coming to LA, Seo-un brushed back his hair while preparing Hellfire.
Just as Seo-un gave the order and was about to unleash Hellfire while charging at the rushing bastards, a group of people intervened in front of them.
"Finally found you! You little rats!"
"I'll wipe you out all at once!"
Two knights, wearing red and blue armor, shouted gallantly as they led the group. They discovered Seo-un, who had stopped in a charging posture behind them, a beat late.
"Y-You!"
"Jin Seo-un!"
They surely could have known he was here just by opening the map, but seeing them so surprised, it seemed they had rushed over after catching the enemy's presence. Seeing the two brothers staring at him with wide eyes, Seo-un waved his hand.
"Hi."
He wasn't exactly trying to tease them. He just couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Do you think we'd be 'fine' if it were you?!"
Magic flew in, flipping the ground toward the excited Verus. Dozens of spells flew in simultaneously, shattering multiple layers of barriers and swarming over the distracted Verus.
—Whooooosh!
At that moment, Verus slammed the sword in his hand into the ground and knelt on one knee. A powerful golden defensive wall rose, blocking all the incoming magic.
Seo-un, darting past Verus, whispered softly. "Let's catch up later."
Li Lingwei and Gi-chan followed behind Seo-un, and Juriel took a position near the mages among the group brought by the brothers Skus and Verus, pouring out offensive magic.
It didn't take long for the fight, which seemed fairly balanced at first, to tilt.
"Dammit! There are too many Crowns!"
Those who have reached the Crown Rank are always listed in the waiting room with their rankings for everyone to see. Most of them were celebrities in their own worlds. There was no way they wouldn't recognize such Crown Rankers.
Every high-level player knew that the brothers standing beside the Madman of the Battlefield, Jin Seo-un, and the team with him were all Crowns. The reason they could overwhelm more than double their number with barely forty people was precisely due to the performance of the Crown Rankers.
Verus, who drew out Sword Aura and poured out area-of-effect skills, and Skus, who strictly dealt with knights to protect the mages in the back, were key. And Li Lingwei, who used poison like a fish in water, preventing enemies from entering a certain radius while continuing her attacks, was truly showing the difference in skill.
However, none had the presence of Seo-un, who drew out ten lines of Aura like long claws, withstood magic with his bare body as if it were nothing, and sliced through swarming players in an instant.
In the face of that overwhelming power, even the Sword Emperors among the enemies were reluctant to challenge him.