Chapter 138
Tiger, Rabbit, and Horse mocked Seong-Hwi’s foolish behavior.
“Idiot! You could’ve killed at least one more if you had stayed hidden! Kekek!”
“His stealth skill is outstanding, but nothing else seems special about him.”
“I don’t understand your unfounded confidence. The eight of us are all Semi Rankers.”
The others also paid no attention to their slowly dying comrade and surrounded Seong-Hwi.
“Fuuu, haaa,” Seong-Hwi took a deep breath to quell his rage before the battle commenced.
His eyes became clear, and his blood circulated faster to supply his muscles with oxygen. His muscles contracted from being filled to the brim with mana. His intermediate-caliber A-rank Magic and superior-caliber A-rank Destiny Force filled him with power.
I’ll win, he thought as he smiled confidently, feeling his overflowing power.
He was a Double-A human. Although he was practically the same in stat values from before entering the dungeon, Research in Progress, it did not account for his caliber. He was still at Double-A because the rate at which his calibers heightened was faster than his Karma earning rate. Hence, it only looked like he was running in place despite continuing to open stat cubes.
His growth was abnormal because it was normally not this simple to heighten one’s caliber. However, Seong-Hwi pulled it off with the Wings of Evolution. Although he was still a Double-A, he was completely different from when he entered the dungeon. Just the fact that the number of his wings rose from five to nine showed how much more powerful he had become.
Back then, I was on par with a Semi Ranker in the five-hundreds and could face even one in the hundreds with full doping. But now...
[Operating Wings of Evolution.]
[Nine Wings.]
Nine beautiful wings appeared behind Seong-Hwi’s back and amplified his stats more than three times over.
I’ve recovered about eighty percent of my power from my past life!
“Ngh... What the hell?! His mana suddenly spiked!”
“Rainbow wings? Oh, I’ve heard about him! He’s Cheon Seong-Hwi!”
“Cheon Seong-Hwi?” Seo-Gyeong said as his eyes widened.
He recalled the name suddenly appearing in the ranking one day. Seong-Hwi was a Semi Ranker who saved his fellow humans from Clan Trophy and gained even more fame from going against Clan Hard Drug.
“Wasn’t he in the nine-hundreds?” he wondered.
His mana density, aura, and bloodlust... How is that a Semi Ranker in the nine-hundreds? It’s like I’m... facing an upper Ranker! That’s impossible! How could he have jumped over eight hundred ranks from the nine-hundreds in just a few months?! Seo-Gyeong shouted inwardly.
The Wings of Evolution flashed, and Seong-Hwi suddenly disappeared.
“Behind!” Snake shouted.
Seong-Hwi appeared behind the fat man, Pig. His flank kick blew Pig away as the sound of ribs shattering echoed.
“Kurgh!”
Rooster charged at Seong-Hwi and screamed, “Die!”
Red chicken feathers sprouted from his entire body and shot out like arrows. Seong-Hwi embodied twenty-eight gold pentacles before him. The feathers slammed into the pentacles but fell to the ground, unable to break through.
Twenty-eight light blue swords appeared behind the pentacles, all imbued with the sharp energy of wind. The swords simultaneously rained down on Rooster.
“Kurgh!” Rooster grunted as he turned his feathers as hard as steel.
He was confident that nothing could get past his defensive skill, Steel Feathers, but it was nowhere near enough to stop the swords filled with Seong-Hwi’s mana and Destiny Force.
“GAAAH!” Rooster screamed as he became a hedgehog and collapsed.
“Guys, get out of the way!” shouted Snake, who underwent Beastification with her black boa constrictor, Lara.
She was covered in black scales, and the corners of her mouth reached her ears. She hissed as she opened her mouth and emitted a grey smoke that filled the surroundings. The binding skill, Petrifying Haze, hardened anyone who made contact with it.
Several cards flew out from the Tarot Deck of Destiny, and Seong-Hwi embodied twenty-eight wands this time. They each emitted a pillar of fire, resembling twenty-eight red dragons soaring.
The Petrifying Haze clashed with the pillars of fire, causing explosions in the air and scattering the haze. The fire also scattered, burning Snake’s hair.
“KYAAAH!” she screamed.
“Huuu!” Seong-Hwi took a deep breath and quickly scanned the surroundings.
The fat man he kicked was struggling to stand up, and the man with chicken feathers was incapacitated but not dead.
They’re not Semi Rankers for nothing, I suppose. They won’t go down that easily! In that case... Seong-Hwi thought as he changed up his strategy.
The Wings of Evolution were dyed dark blue, and the hexagonal pattern changed into the shape of agonized faces.
[Converting Destiny Force to Wraith Force.]
[00:01:50]
[00:01:49]
...
He felt the Wraith Force coursing through his body as he activated a skill.
[Activating Unique Skill: Symbol Embodiment.]
[Harvesting Scythe, one of the symbols of No.13 Death]
[Drastically boosting the power of the Harvesting Scythe through Wraith Force.]
[Extinction Aura is available.]
The Grim Reaper’s scythe appeared in his hand.
Horse, the fastest member of Clan Earthly Branches, and Rabbit, the most agile, worked together.
“Let’s go, Rabbit! He’s using a long weapon!”
“I’ll rip you to shreds!” Rabbit screamed.
Horse’s legs had turned into those of a horse, and Rabbit underwent Beastification and became half as small, making him look like a rabbit beastfolk.
Horse ran straight toward Seong-Hwi, holding a trident in one hand, and activated a skill as he shouted, “Die!”
[Activating Skill: Wind Charging.]
Wind gathered around Horse’s trident, creating an intense wind pressure that prevented enemies from escaping. However, Seong-Hwi had no intention of escaping from the start.
“I welcome a head-on battle,” Seong-Hwi remarked as he raised the Harvesting Scythe covered in a destructive black aura.
Wraith Force, the secondary force of the undead, had a high affinity with the Harvesting Scythe. It upgraded Deathly Aura to Extinction Aura.
Horse and Seong-Hwi clashed. Seong-Hwi swung down the Harvesting Scythe, destroying the trident and cutting Horse’s chest.
[Thousand-Killing Aura permeates the target’s body.]
[Extinction Aura permeates the target’s body.]
[Aggravating the injury through the curse of the wraiths.]
[The curse of the wraiths prevents the injury from healing.]
“GAAAH!” Horse screamed as he experienced a thousand kinds of pain from the Thousand-Killing Aura, and blood poured from the aggravating injury on his chest like a fountain.
However, he had fulfilled his objective. A gap in Seong-Hwi’s defenses formed due to swinging such a large scythe, which Rabbit took advantage of.
“Gotcha!” Rabbit shouted as he thrust a dagger covered in a deadly poison toward Seong-Hwi’s heart.
I won’t make it in time! Seong-Hwi shouted inwardly as he tried to block with the pentacles.
As he was about to pivot so that the dagger would stab his abdomen instead of his heart, something that not even Seong-Hwi expected occurred.
[The Steel Tortoise Heart Guard detects danger.]
[Activating Item Skill: Steel Plate.]
A rectangular steel plate three meters tall and two meters wide suddenly appeared, destroying Rabbit’s dagger once it made contact with the shield.
“W-what?! A passive skill? Dammit!” he shouted as he stared at his dagger, reduced to just the hilt.
Seong-Hwi placed his hand on his chest. The Steel Tortoise Heart Guard, which Muka had made for him with janateel, was explosively exuding mana.
He thought, The constant feeding of the heart guard with small amounts of mana over time finally paid off. I should give Muka a gift or something the next time I see him.
“All of you, fall back!” Seo-Gyeong ordered with a hardened expression.
Rooster and Horse were incapacitated, and Pig was also having difficulty moving.
He continued, “Treat him like a Ranker. Average attacks won’t work.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?!”
“Use Chaos Mana.”
Everyone froze. All members of Clan Earthly Branches were Chaos Humans, meaning they could use Chaos Mana. However, it was a double-edged sword. Everything would be over if they were corrupted by Chaos Mana and turned into Chaos.
“Kekek! Yeah. Power is meant to be used!” shouted Tiger, the most battle-hungry of them, as he unleashed his Chaos Mana.
The whites of his eyes vanished, dyeing his eyes completely black. His blue mana mixed filthily with grey Chaos Mana.
“Alright. Let’s work together to kill him quickly.”
“It’s still six-on-one! We can win!”
The six Earthly Branches members, including Seo-Gyeong, unleashed their Chaos Mana, a power as destructive as the clashing of light and darkness.
[Chaos Mana is in use.]
[Applying Debuff: Corruption.]
“GAAAH!”
“GAHAHA! I’M OVERFLOWING WITH POWER!”
“LET’S KILL HIM!”
The Earthly Branches clansmen, intoxicated with Chaos Mana, charged at Seong-Hwi again.
***
“Poor bastards,” Seong-Hwi clicked his tongue, expressing sympathy for the Chaos Humans.
They had obtained that power at the cost of their humanity. A Chaos Human could never become a pure human again. They were somewhere on the border between human and Chaos.
There have been many failed attempts to turn Chaos Humans back into humans.
Seong-Hwi remembered it clearly because Lina had also been interested in it once. Although the method of becoming a Chaos Human was currently a highly kept secret, it would be exposed to the public in a few years. It was rather simple: to be unable to pay the survival tax.
One couldn’t pay the survival tax without Karma or Coins, so the system took one’s stats instead. If they ran out of stats to give, Chaos Mana corrupted them, turning them into Invasive Chaos.
However, the corruption halted if they cleared a quest or were given enough Coins to pay the survival tax during the corruption. By repeating this process, they slowly obtained more Chaos Mana that they could use once they became accustomed to it.
At first, it was groundbreaking.
Everyone tried to earn Chaos Mana by using this method. Humans were especially hooked on it because they did not have a secondary force. However, it resulted in a massive disaster. Millions of humans, sooner or later, became mindless Chaos and attacked their friends and family.
Despite the risks, people consistently chose to become Chaos Humans because the conditions were perfect for low-ranking humans. Humans with high stats wouldn’t give them up by purposefully not paying the survival tax. The less one had, the more likely they were to gamble their life. Chaos Humans born from this process were known as the Reborn.
There are also Children, who become Chaos Humans in a different way than the Reborn, but... I don’t think they are.
Seong-Hwi stared at the six Chaos Humans, drunk on the omnipotent feeling that Chaos Mana gave them, and said, “I will kill you quickly out of sympathy.”
“Gahaha! Stop acting tough! We’re completely different people from before!” Tiger shouted.
“No, you aren’t people anymore. You have already crossed a line you can never return from.”
“Bullshit! Let’s go!”
“Now that you’ve seen us in this state, you’ll have to die!”
The six Earthly Branches clansmen charged at Seong-Hwi simultaneously. The twenty-eight pentacles surrounded him.
“It’s pointless!”
“Break them!”
[Pentacles destroyed.]
[Unavailable for 72 hours.]
Although they destroyed the pentacles, it bought Seong-Hwi enough time. The pattern on the Wings of Evolution changed again, but there were two patterns. The five wings to his right shone pure white, and the hexagonal pattern changed into circles arranged in a row. The four wings to his left turned pitch black with a white pentagram pattern.
[Converting Destiny Force to Holy Force.]
[Converting Destiny Force to Demon Force.]
“Huuup!” Seong-Hwi reined in the overpowering Holy Force and Demon Force, his face turning red as blood rushed to his head.
As I thought, the Demon Force is stronger.
It was only natural. The Holy Force was extracted from Seriel, a fourth-grade angel, but the Demon Force was given to him by the Second Fiend, Curiositas. The Demon Force was still stronger despite him infusing it into four wings, while he infused the Holy Force into five.
But it’s balanced enough for me to use both!
The white Holy Force enveloped Seong-Hwi’s right hand, and the black Demon Force enveloped his left. He was using the secondary forces of two superior races simultaneously.
“What... is that?”
“It looks dangerous.”
The opponents expressed hesitation as they felt the pressure exerted by the immense calibers of Holy Force and Demon Force.
“If you won’t come to me, I’ll come to you!” Seong-Hwi quickly acted after checking that the conversion would only last two minutes.
He clasped his hands together, causing the Demon Force and Holy Force to clash as they mixed.
I was shown a good example, Seong-Hwi thought.
He recalled Seriel, who borrowed Gabriel’s power, and Taizet, who possessed Krypta’s body, collaborating as they took advantage of the immense force generated from the clash between Demon Force and Holy Force. Demon Force and Holy Force were opposites; mixing them would display more force than what Seong-Hwi could usually exert.
“Kurgh!” he grunted as the black and white energies pulsed as if they would explode at any second.
His hands felt burning, but he controlled the power with all his might.
“What are you doing?! Stop him!” Seo-Gyeong shouted, noticing the seriousness of the situation.
However, Seong-Hwi immediately activated a skill, and a dark blue lightning mark appeared on his right temple like a teardrop.
[Activating Unique Skill: Symbol Embodiment.]
[Catastrophic Thunder, one of the symbols of No.16 The Tower]
“AHHH!” he screamed as he unclasped his hands, emitting Catastrophic Thunder in all directions.
The power infused in the lightning bolts, filled with Holy Force and Demon Force, was amplified as they bumped into one another. The surroundings were filled with black and white lightning flashes.