Great Battle b 1}
Jang-Il was a farmer until his sister was raped and humiliated by a prominent religious leader. Jang-Il, whose job was to till the ground, buried his younger sister on his land and threw his hoe away for a sword.
He entered the Heavenly Devil Affiliation for the sake of revenge. Cutting to the chase a bit, Jang Il didn’t find his revenge.
“That’s too bad. If I had come to the Affiliation a little earlier…”
His talent for swords was considerable, but Jang-Il was too old to get into practicing Inner Force. By comparison, his foe was a late leader of the religious faction who took all kinds of tonics since childhood.
It took ten years for a river or mountain to change. Jang-Il had become stronger without knowing it…but that man was much stronger. He might have even thought that he just needed to work a little harder to catch up to him in his naive days.
Jang-Il, who had practiced mystical martial arts for a decade, knew better than anyone else that the difference between him and that guy wasn’t an easy-to-fill gap. So he gave up on revenge. No, he was going to give up.
Was it a joke from the heavens?
Jang-Il encountered him one day in his hometown that faced the East Sea. He didn’t remember Jang-Il. But the moment he saw him, he tried to kill him.
“H-help me! Please!”
It just so happened that the man couldn’t get out of his habit and tried to rape a married woman in the countryside, and coincidentally Jang-Il witnessed the scene. Jang-Il tried to fight to survive and not for revenge, but he lost. As soon as the knife penetrated his neck, he was called to the Tower.
「Please get ready. The duel will begin soon.」
For a while, he was scared of his unfamiliar environment. Then, Jang-Il felt a great deal of joy. He was at a place where his only obstacle, Internal Force, wasn’t needed. Even though he was weak right now, he could become much stronger if he had AP.
Jang-Il felt a new sense of hope and ascended the Tower, finally reaching the fifth floor after dying multiple times. He also signed a contract with the only admin that bid for him, but not much WP was rewarded. Because of this, he couldn’t buy proper powers.
Jang-Il came to the plaza on the sixth floor to soothe his tired mind and body. He didn’t have to fight for his life here, and there were people he could talk to. The desire to take a short break and climb the tower again gradually diminished, and his stay in the plaza increased day by day.
“Everyone, run!”
“Arghhhhhhhhh!”
Then there was a sudden turn of events as the plaza was devastated by one person. At that time, Jang-Il also thought that the choice of not climbing up the tower was wise. If he’d went up there, there would’ve been monsters like that. Of course, it was an idea that he had until he was enslaved into a contract by intimidation.
If he hadn’t given up and kept going, at least he wouldn’t have ended like this…
Regret always comes later, and the price he had to pay was to live like that forever, it seemed. Jang-Il slowly gave up.
And then another storm appeared. A storm strong enough to destroy everything unclean and wrong.
“…Fucking trash.”
Blood was spilled at the hands of that man, but he was different than the monster that appeared three months ago.
“Those who should die will die. Those who should live are still alive.”
The frightening red smoke separated those who would live and die. The differentiation was vague. However, Jang-Il was saved.
“Stay here.”
Despite the influx of elite people, he still went outside and was greeted by the enemy. Jang-Il didn’t miss the process in the building and witnessed it all. The more he bled, the more blood of the unclean flowed like a river. At the same time, that river of blood became Yoon-seok’s source of nourishment.
It was a creepy sight even for Jang-Il, who had seen all kinds of demons in the Affiliation after giving up on revenge. Based on the skills used, it was similar to that of Bloodseeker, one of the greatest masters of the time in Moorim. But they were different in terms of essence.
If he was a blood-crazed killer, Yoon-seok was a judge stained in blood who devoured the wicked.
“The world is better off without people like you.”
“…That’s it?”
It was long before he knew what the true meaning of evil was. Before that, Jang-Il was skeptical about Affiliation. He hated the religious faction with his whole being, but did he know that this place ran with the same filthy water?
One was not evil by nature. Just that they would break things without hesitation if they had to, just like this man.
“Are guys like you scared of heaven?”
Suddenly, the Heavenly Devil, a Moorim legend and savior of the Affiliation, came to mind. Divine and demonic, being able to destroy everything from on high. A demon that had reached the sky. She couldn’t be seen by the existences roaming the earth.
Thirty years ago, since the death of the Heavenly Devil, religious factions surrounded by pretense and evil had been running rampant, but she still hadn’t emerged into the world to cleanse it. But, this man was different.
“Those who want to stay can stay, and those who want to leave can leave.”
He descended to the ground and punished them with blood, granting freedom to the oppressed. Jang-Il wanted to be like him.
But he knew very well that he couldn’t. So.
“I look forward to seeing you again someday.”
He decided to follow him. It seemed to be a much more valuable life if he could chase after him someday, to help his pursuit even a little bit.
“Drink plenty of blood…!”
He wasn’t the demon in the sky. Without hesitation, he purifies the ground with blood because he was the real Bloodseeker.
「The Number of Evil Punished, 494/500」
The Sun Sword was already about to evolve to the next level of purification. Yoon-seok, who checked the figure with his own eyes, was lost for words. A total of 493. Except for the Giant Hydra, this was the number of people Yoon-seok had killed in the plaza today. No, some of the opponents were unmarked, so it was more than that.
Maybe it was because his Bloodseeker’s Energy had stopped operating, but the weight of the number seemed to weigh down his shoulders.
“…”
There was no sense of guilt. The idea that they deserved to die remained unchanged. Nevertheless, it felt like a thick chain was squeezing his heart. That was an unbearable number. Therefore, he chose conviction over clumsy regret.
‘No, I wasn’t wrong.’
They were harmful to the world. If he left them alone, he would have created innocent victims. Apart from this, however, he felt the need to address the side effects of b Bloodseeker Ultimatum} somehow.
‘I wouldn’t have fought like that if I were in my right mind.’
He just pressed forward with overwhelming force. The battle in the plaza wasn’t efficient at all. If Yoon-seok had been rational, he wouldn’t have worn himself down in the middle of a crowd of two hundred people.
‘Can’t I resolve this with Magic Resistance?’
The first solution that emerged as an alternative to the side effects of Bloodseeker’s Ultimatum was Magic Resistance.
He wouldn’t be in this situation if Bloodseeker’s Energy worked properly. Despite choosing the E-rank Mental Barrier feature for resisting all kinds of mental interference skills, the side effects of the Energy still lingered.
‘No, maybe it’s all thanks to that….’
Magic Resistance was the base of magic. If the magic stats were the same, the resistance felt like it would be about 50%. So Magic Resistance wasn’t the perfect answer, plus raising the magic stat would increase the Energy.
*Heart of Liberty – Immune to all physical and mental restraint and subversive skills.
Yoon-seok was reminded about one of Elle’s powers.
The explanation was vague, but perhaps this power could eliminate the side effects of b Bloodseeker’s Ultimatum}. However, the problem was that he didn’t have the 900,000 WP to buy it now, and he needed to reach the 10th floor to meet Elle again.
‘Until then, I have no choice but to try to get my senses together as much as I can…’
He couldn’t give up and searched the store, but it was a dead end. Finally, Yoon-seok decided to postpone the issue of resolving the side effects. He didn’t have answers for now.
‘If there are side effects like this, you could’ve told me…”
Elle’s idea was to create {Bloodseeker’s Ultimatum}, but the mental impairment was a hefty side effect. Still, while it would’ve been great if there wasn’t one, he wasn’t resenting it. Even if he had heard the side effects beforehand, he would’ve still created b Bloodseeker’s Ultimatum} since it was extremely powerful.
If it had been before having this skill, he probably wouldn’t have been able to fight hundreds of challengers alone. In that sense, he thought that signing with Elle was a blessing.
‘Now that I’ve tried it myself, I can see how Elle’s powers are sinfully impressive. Is that the same for everyone else?’
He wasn’t planning to increase his powers or anything, but Elle’s power was universal. The synthesis that created b Bloodseeker’s Ultimatum} was the same as Lady’s Commandment. An absolute territory that could create a scope within range. Although the consumption rate of magic increased with the parameter, this power was highly versatile.
‘The biggest advantage is that it can be used in any situation.’
There was reciprocity among the challengers. For example, for Yoon-seok, who could recover his injuries with energy, the Moonlight Sword wound exacerbation effect was proper.
However, it was practically impossible to prepare for your opponent, and he had to prepare for all such eventualities, assuming that his opponent might have the skill. Still, since he had limited AP, it was outright impossible.
But the Lady’s Commandment could replace all of that. If he met an ice wizard, he could stop them from using the magic completely, and if he met an opponent with high inner powers, he could diminish their powers within his realm. So long as he still had magic.
“Huuu…“
Yoon-seok thought he could say something to thank Elle for the next time they met as he finished thinking about it. Then, after opening the challenger profile window, he read the descriptive phrase for b Predation}.
{Predation}
Rank D — Absorbs the enemy’s highest capability in a duel and loses some capability absorbed when defeated.
Rank E — After winning a duel, one of the enemy’s equipment is randomly looted.
Rank F — After winning a duel, one of the skills possessed by the enemy is randomly acquired, and one of the skills acquired will be randomly lost when defeated.
Hundreds of people were slaughtered, but Predation wasn’t activated. The precondition of winning a duel seemed to be triggered only by the trials of the duel. He didn’t punish them for stealing their abilities, but it was a shame he couldn’t obtain them. If he were able to absorb all of their skills, he would have become ridiculously strong.
‘It means you have to climb up to become stronger.’
Yoon-seok checked the timer. It was still pointing to zero, as Elle said. There was no waiting time from the sixth floor on. It means it was up to the challenger to decide whether to ascend or not.
Of course, Yoon-seok had no intention of stopping here. Therefore, he manipulated the tablet and pressed the newly added [Duel] column under the [Achievement] section.
「You are matched with a team.」
「Please get ready. The Final Battle is about to begin.」
It was time to go up.
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