In the A-rank world, he was supposed to be a strong person, but now he was flapping black wings and actively teasing Kang Yeon-su.
Despite his considerable age, seeing him train himself from dawn made me certain that I would never see that version of him again.
‘Why is that man…?’
In the fleeting moment when I saw him rush towards those guys, I wondered if what I was witnessing was reality.
In some ways, it was even more surreal than seeing the fragments of a great being.
What on earth happened after those association guys crossed over through the dimensional corridor?
– “Hehehe, look at those breasts. Did she get a breast job?”
The eyes of the monsters, including Maeng Seong-yong, were stained black to the point of being creepy. I couldn’t tell if it was the actual color or just their vile lust reflecting in my eyes.
– “I’ve been wanting to taste her for a while. That arrogant girl. Ignored my opinions every meeting, didn’t she?”
– “Even if you scream for me to kill you, I’ll keep violating you!”
– “Kihihihihihih! Let’s mate! Let’s fill her with magic power!”
Monsters, with tongues flicking like snakes, stared at the blood-soaked and torn body of Kang Yeon-su, revealing her breasts.
“Uuugh…”
Unfortunately, Yeon-su was still conscious.
She was fully aware of those dirty gazes.
Her mouth was stuffed with torn red fabric, and her arms and legs were tightly pinned to the ground by the tentacles protruding from those guys’ sides.
Kang Yeon-su, who had seemed immensely strong in her previous life, and even stronger in this life, was showing me only her weak side, and I couldn’t understand this connection.
‘Huh—’
If only she were unconscious, I might have considered a better way.
The best option would have been to sneak her out and make a run for it. Given the monsters’ tentacles were distracted with their swollen lower parts, I would have been confident about my success.
“Hi… Ah… Ha… Uugh…”
But her almost audible cries of despair clouded my mind, preventing me from thinking of another option.
In that moment, I saw Yeon-hee superimposed over her face.
What if Yeon-hee or my companions also faced such fate while I was away for three weeks…
For some reason, that unimaginable thought made my mental state escalate beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.
Soon, the surroundings began to dissipate in tune with that heightened emotion.
The debris of collapsed buildings and the ruins of the city vanished as if they had never existed, leaving only a white world behind.
At the same time, my senses sharpened to such an extent that I could perceive every detail, even the texture of the hairs on the monsters’ heads, as I stood at the center of this realm of martial power, fixated on one goal.
‘I must kill them all…’
But the sheer number of them was overwhelming.
‘Bind them together…’
I summoned the Chain of Flame.
It manifested into a solid, heavy chain that bound the monsters together in a space where reality and unreality intertwined.
– —-?!!
It was then that the black-hued monsters, realizing my presence, turned their heads slowly, their eyes wide in shock.
Their expressions suggested they had no idea what I was planning, fueling my anger further.
Anger is like fire.
Once it ignites, it spreads uncontrollably, and this trait momentarily elevated my magic power to a higher realm.
The blazing Chain of Flame turned a fiery red before igniting into a pitch-black flame.
Pachichiching─────!!
“Guuaaaah!!”
“It’s hot!! It’s hot!!”
“Kyahaha!!”
The constricted black flames consumed and devoured the more than twenty black monsters as they writhed in agony.
These were monsters that had entered the transcendent stage.
Yet, it felt surprisingly easy to bind them together.
‘Why…?’
In the realm of martial power, I often achieved feats I could never have imagined.
Serious doubts about this space began to arise.
I once thought it was merely a realm reached by maximum concentration and mental strength, but relying solely on that to bridge such a power gap is puzzling.
The dissonance of their pain gradually harmonized into one.
I hoped their tormented cries would resonate like a bard’s song, mending the fragments of Yeon-su’s shattered heart even a little.
“Y-Il-wol… Ugh…”
I pulled out the fabric stuffed in Yeon-su’s mouth, and draped my cloak around her bare torso.
Her eyes, wide open, stared at me as she was lightly lifted into my arms.
The teardrops, mixed with blood, continuously slid down her cheeks, following the path of the long wounds on her body.
Kang Yeon-su, Liu Xiao-Wo, and any mighty transcendent were ultimately human.
When faced with a stronger being, human nature tends to reveal its bare face.
Feeling fear while cornered isn’t something to be ashamed of, yet the one in the situation often cannot see it that way, a pattern I had always witnessed.
‘Her face is pretty messed up.’
How long had it been since she faced the First Escalon, for her to suffer such pain again?
‘Still, her condition is better than when she faced the First Escalon. Her body and mind both grew stronger.’
Unconsciously, I began tidying her disheveled hair.
The blood pooled on her wounds flowed over her chin and dripped down again.
“…..”
The skull clad in crimson armored she wore could not show any expression for her as she struggled to suppress sobs.
What could I possibly do, aside from deal with those horrific monsters?
Pong—
The lid of the potion crackled, incongruous with the current situation.
All I could do was retrieve an alchemist’s potion from the spatial pocket.
‘Her bones must be shattered… No organ is intact. Did she almost die?’
I poured the potion into her mouth and added a healing pill I received from Ah-rin.
The cold energy rose from Kang Yeon-su’s mouth in a mist of smoke as her eyes widened.
Shifting my gaze from her, I surveyed the black monsters.
They still thrashed and screamed entangled by the chains.
‘Can’t tell if they’re dead or alive… They’ve transcended human boundaries…’
They were the antithesis of Yeon-su, nestled warmly in my arms.
Kyaaaar—
The energy felt emanating from the monsters experiencing hell within the tides of black flames oddly reminded me of Ham Eun-young’s adorable bodyguard.
‘Did the blue-eyed hunters from the demon realm ever reach her…’
It didn’t matter.
I glanced around.
The view was filled with the desolate urban wilderness, a scene so chaotic it wouldn’t be out of place to consider it our shelter.
This now familiar, dismal sight of the world must be often seen.
‘What was Yeon-su doing?’
The remnants of various hunters’ magic powers lingered around, indicating that she had not come alone.
I could also see glimpses of the cracks slowly closing.
Amidst them, I briefly caught sight of what looked like an orc’s arm flailing about, but the fissure swiftly concealed its innermost secrets as if it had never opened.
‘It’s… closed?’
Had I gotten lucky that the gate closed at my timing?
‘That can’t be…’
The dimensional paths opened by dungeon breaks and fissures hold different meanings.
While dungeon breaks have solutions, there’s no known way to close a dimensional path in an area without a dungeon.
Just a moment of thought established a hypothesis.
Could Yeon-su and the hunters have been closing the gate the orc opened? Was that even attainable?
I couldn’t find a single fragment of such information even in my past memories.
Still, following the residual magic waves, I pieced together a narrative.
‘There were many Barrier Mages, and skilled individuals at Yeon-su’s level. Did those things emerge as the gate closed… And did she foolishly try to play the hero alone?’
If it was the Yeon-su I knew, she would be the one to consider a noble sacrifice to save her companions.
Though she often appeared cold and indifferent, she was a hero ready to devote herself to others in critical moments, just as she had come to save me just before I faced Jo Gi-man.
“…..”
Yeah, she truly was a hero.
“Cough—!”
Her mouth spewed a hot crimson stream, soaking my face.
Yeon-su flinched.
Shaking her trembling hands, she attempted to wipe the blood flowing down my face.
Seeing her contorted expression made me feel the punishment those dancing monsters were receiving wasn’t enough.
[Flame Shot]
Puh-ack—!
In the meantime, the Flame Shot, now elevated to black flames, erupted exploding the head of one of the monsters in a burst.
It appeared satisfactory, yet the satisfaction of the explosion was lacking.
‘…Strange.’
At some point, they began to forget their screams of agony, merely swaying like seaweed in the water.
Moments later, they just stood there, staring at us blankly.
Their bodies melting in the black flames.
[……]
‘Creepy bastards.’
These beings were completely unfathomable.
I hugged Yeon-su and distanced myself.
The moment I stepped out of the realm of martial power, I realized that all the spells I wield wielded an unusually high chance of igniting black flames.
– ‘A Great Being’ clearly recognizes your existence.
– ‘A Great Being’ clearly recognizes your existence.
Messages continued to pop up as I escaped the realm of martial power.
It felt as though it was asking if it hadn’t forgotten about me.
‘Long time no see, but… if you could just recognize me, at least give me a useful skill.’
– ………
While I used to freeze just from sensing the gaze of a great being, I had adapted a bit.
If it was a presumptuous request, so be it.
While black flames certainly bore immense destructive power, just look at the hideous figures of the black monsters crawling towards us.
Even with the power of black flames, I couldn’t instantly cut off their breaths.
‘I guess I really must use the black flames to directly sever them—’
I carefully laid the Dark Stone on the ground, gently setting Yeon-su down before I charged ahead.
As I did, a snap——!
‘Huh? Did they die?’
As if to admonish my fleeting thoughts, the monsters’ bodies turned to ash and scattered. No, it would be more accurate to say they condensed together as if crushed and were sucked into something.
There was someone else’s intervention.
‘…Something is behind them.’
Perhaps because I had just slipped out of the martial realm, I could sense an alien energy from beyond dimensions that I hadn’t felt before.
My senses told me that not a single one of them had succumbed to death.
Moments later, fissures began to form in the air among the ruins of another collapsed building.
Kwarrrr—
[Kehekh- Kekek-]
As the fissure tore open, a dust-covered black monster emerged, looking incredibly ridiculous.
Flames marked its shoulders swirling ferociously.
‘As expected…’
“Haha! This is a real masterpiece!!”
‘Did it regenerate its body from another dimension and break through the fissure…? What a trashy situation.’
It felt like facing a puppet with no core.
The future, where I had to eliminate the controlling body of these monsters to end the scenario, appeared pathetically obvious.
‘Sigh…’
My head throbbed.
This was on a whole other level compared to the ‘Asymbiotic Species’ I once controlled with ‘Crystal Road.’
It felt like pouring water into a bottomless pit.
The comforting fact was that unlike earlier, the number of monsters had significantly decreased.
‘Right. Even the most formidable of beings must have their limits.’
“Il-wol!! Is that the name? The first summon of Lee Yeon-hee!! Clap, Clap, Clap?! Kyahaha!!”
Over-exaggerated gestures and an unnatural tone of voice.
Maeng Seong-yong was laughing heartily, as if he found something utterly amusing.
Having overcome the brink of death, the one who reappeared was oddly closer to his former human self.
The ominous, winged aura and the sticky tentacles had vanished.
Yet it remained unbelievably strong, but somehow… it felt like it was missing something crucial.
That would be its essence, known as the soul.
What stood before us was already something wearing the guise of Maeng Seong-yong.
He smiled wide and tossed us a surprising proposal, but that person no longer existed.
‘Sigh…’
Creeeak—!
“Hm?!”
No longer willing to exchange words.
‘Regenerate, huh? Then keep getting slashed.’
With no special techniques, I swung down my sword.
Bwoooosh—
Once a hunter measuring potential, he was now sliced cleanly in half.
Maeng Seong-yong could not even utter a dying scream.
Shwooom—
The two sprawled on the ground extended probing tentacles toward one another.
This is revolting, honestly.
‘Hm?’
Inside the severed section, maggot-like creatures had densely packed in and writhed restlessly.
Upon inspection, they were parasitic beings embedding hook-like thorns into Maeng Seong-yong’s body.
A fleeting memory of similar imagery flashed past my mind.
‘Dragon Turtle… Parasitic Bloodline…’
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