Chapter 207
A hundred silhouettes moved in the dead of night, along the hallway as one, like a centipede.
“We must take care of this as quickly as possible,” said the black man at the front, holding a machete in his right hand. “The cocoa this time is big. Record Breaker, Cheon Seong-Hwi. Mistakes will not be tolerated.”
His subordinates’ eyes carried a slight anxiety. They were members of Clan Cocoa Farm, and in their clan, cocoa referred to targets. Their target this time was RB; if even only half of the rumors about him were true, he would be a High Ranker.
“There is nothing to worry about. Do as we always do. We go in and pick the cocoa. I have taken all the necessary measures.”
Uniform white teeth appeared in the darkness. He was Henri Konan, the Black Reaper of Cote d’Ivoire, forty-eighth in the human ranking, and the leader of Clan Cocoa Farm.
“This is for destroying Clan Earthly Branches. Because of you, I’ve been forced to lie low for months,” Henri mumbled as the whites in his eyes were dyed black.
An unsettling grey aura wrapped his machete; it was Chaos Mana, meaning Henri Konan was a Chaos Human.
“That son of a bitch, Kim Seo-Gyeong... Why did he have to get captured?” Henri mumbled as he clicked his tongue.
Seo-Gyeong had leaked all the information he had about the organization, forcing the Chaos Humans to hide even deeper in the darkness. Seong-Hwi was the one who had captured Seo-Gyeong and handed him to the Union.
It’s only natural that I got the order from above.
The organization had highly anticipated Clan Earthly Branches’ accomplishments, but the clan had been destroyed overnight by Seong-Hwi. The organization ran on the mindset of forgetting goodwill but never forgetting a grudge. Revenge was the natural step.
I barely managed to persuade him not to go straight to the Capital.
Seong-Hwi seemed impatient for some reason, as if he were in a race against time. Henri suspected he might have been internally injured in Forestis. Hence, he delayed the warp gate user from arriving quickly and told Seong-Hwi that they wouldn’t be here until tomorrow.
He had just received word from a subordinate that Seong-Hwi had fallen asleep. Seong-Hwi would be unconscious for at least half a day since Henri had sprayed Dormio, a powerful sleeping scent, in his room.
“Hehe, you felt like a close friend, possibly because we’re both killers, but don’t resent me. I’ll take this opportunity to be promoted from a Reborn to a Child!”
Henri licked his lips. His accomplishment would allow him to receive the Divine Grace and become a Child. He would no longer be a half-baked Chaos, but become a new race entirely.
Henri and his subordinates arrived at the bedroom where Seong-Hwi was sleeping. They already knew the room’s layout; the bed was right in front of the door.
Breach!
Henri swung the door open and gave the signal. He saw the bed before him and a figure under the blanket. Around a dozen assassins, including Henri, leaped toward the bed.
[Activating Unique Skill: Cocoa Harvest.]
[Activating Skill: Dark Strike.]
[Activating Skill: Critical Strike.]
...
The assassins were certain of their success after feeling an exhilarating sensation from their weapons.
He’s dead!
A direct hit!
We did it!
“Ahaha! After all those rumors about him, he was nothing special. I would’ve just done it by myself if I knew it was gonna be this easy!” Henri shouted as he beheaded the corpse like picking a cocoa.
A hundred of Cocoa Farm’s elite assassins had already surrounded the bed. They stared at the bed dyed in blood, each smiling ruthlessly.
“Hahah! I’ll upload a photo of your chopped-up corpse on the Network! It should be a good warning for our enemies,” Henri remarked as he threw the blanket aside. “Huh?”
His eyes widened once he got a good look at the chopped-up corpse. The severed corpse was not that of Seong-Hwi, but of a black man. It was Henri’s subordinate who had reported to him that Seong-Hwi had inhaled the Dormio and fallen asleep.
Then, Henri heard the sound of a door closing. He quickly turned to the door and shouted, “Who’s there?!”
A man, whom Henri couldn’t sense, stood in front of the door. He looked the same as the man whose corpse was beheaded on the bed.
“What... the hell?” Henri mumbled as he looked back and forth at the severed head and his alive subordinate.
“I had my suspicions, but you really were a Chaos Human,” Seong-Hwi said as he removed the Myriad Cheoyong Mask.
“Cheon Seong-Hwi! You tricked us!” Henri shouted.
“This many people should serve as a good test.”
Fourteen Wings of Evolution sprouted from his back, and a golden light gathered from his solar plexus.
***
Seong-Hwi had felt a strange sense of familiarity with Henri Konan when they had first met. He initially thought it was because of his positive impression, but he couldn’t help but feel uneasy about it. Not only that, but Seong-Hwi was a veteran who did not overlook such feelings. He had stored the doubt somewhere in his mind and thought about it whenever he was reminded of it.
Then, he posed a hypothesis as he was escaping Forestis. Familiarity was a feeling of closeness. He likely felt close to Henri because they shared a similarity—a sense of kinship.
He wondered, What could have given me that sense of kinship? The fact that we’re the same race? Wait... the same race?
Just then, an absurd hypothesis flashed past his mind.
What if he’s a Chaos Human?
Once someone became a Chaos Human, they developed a sense of kinship with the Chaos, replacing their sense of kinship with humans. This trait was why Seo-Gyeong had treated his little sister Seo-Yeon like a tool.
I have the Chaos gene—one of the top Bachtasha-rank Chaos, no less!
Hence, he could call himself a Chaos Human in a broad sense. If this hypothesis were correct, the strange sense of familiarity he felt with Henri might have been the subtle connection among those with Chaos Mana.
With that hypothesis in mind, Seong-Hwi thoroughly examined Henri after returning to Manaus. His every word and action, which Seong-Hwi would have usually overlooked, felt suspicious.
However, the decisive point was that Henri had placed someone on him, saying that he was there to serve his needs. Seong-Hwi immediately used the Majestic Scepter on the observer to gain information about the ambush from him, and had placed a trap for them. This was the result.
***
“Kill him!”
“Plan B!”
“We’ll cut you up into pieces!”
Seong-Hwi began his experiment as he stared apathetically at the Cocoa Farm assassins charging at him with various weapons. First, he sprouted the Wings of Evolution, drastically amplifying his stats. Then, a golden light gathered around his solar plexus as he slowly drew out power from the Fruit of the World Tree, seeping out from the gaps between Curiositas’s Grace Period Chains and filling Seong-Hwi’s entire body.
“Kurgh!” Seong-Hwi grunted, his eyes widening from the excruciating pain throughout his body, equivalent to his bones breaking, his flesh exploding, and his blood having become red-hot liquid iron. His entire body was screaming at him.
[Unleashing 1% of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
[Strength A(72) → Strength S(1)]
His fast-twitch muscle fibers were condensed as if wringing wet laundry, exuding power he had never felt before. Seong-Hwi vanished once the Wings of Evolution flashed.
“Die!”
“Haaah!”
Then, the assassins at the front burst like fireworks. The remaining assassins stopped in their tracks as they watched pieces of flesh raining down on them.
“What are you waiting for?! Fire ranged skills!” Henri commanded.
The assassins with conjuration skills simultaneously spammed their skills.
[Activating Unique Skill: Flamethrower.]
[Activating Unique Skill: Explosive Shot.]
[Activating Unique Skill: Water Wave.]
...
Dozens of skills flew toward Seong-Hwi. The assassins were certain the skills would hit because of the confined space. A massive explosion shook the Amazonas Theatre.
“We did it!”
“He must be in pieces now!”
The entire room was destroyed, exposing the adjacent rooms and the hallway. However, their cheers did not last long. A hand appeared from the dust cloud and broke the necks of five assassins.
The other assassins watched their corpses falling to the ground and shouted, “Over there!”
Seong-Hwi appeared from the dust cloud, panting heavily and drenched in sweat.
He shouted inwardly, This is... insane!
[Unleashing 2% of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
[Dexterity A(25) → Dexterity A(99)]
[Unleashing 3% of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
[Sense A(8) → Sense A(89)]
The physical burden rose exponentially as the power within the Fruit of the World Tree was slowly unleashed. His body instantly became burning hot, rapidly depleting his stamina.
The Fruit of the World Tree amplifies stats at random in exchange for enormous stamina consumption!
Seong-Hwi instantly understood what the Fruit of the World Tree did. It was the crystallization of the energy that the World Tree had absorbed from countless individuals. It provided a temporary, tremendous boost in stats, but its risks were equal to its benefits.
It was similar to blood doping, in which athletes injected oxygenated blood to boost their red blood cell count to enhance athletic performance. Although their performance undoubtedly rose because of their enhanced oxygen-carrying capacity, it also carried a risk of death by heart attack during their performance, and other side effects such as kidney disorders, pulmonary embolism, and more.
But this is like being injected with blood from random people with no regard for blood type!
Blood doping usually involved the injection of one’s own blood that they had pulled beforehand or someone else’s blood after a blood compatibility test, so that there was no transfusion reaction.
However, the Fruit of the World Tree was the crystallization of power absorbed from various individuals of various races. It was like injecting a cocktail of type A, B, and AB blood into someone with type O blood.
“Out of the way!” Henri shouted as he pushed aside his subordinates after noticing Seong-Hwi sweating profusely. “Hehe, you seem exhausted, Cheon Seong-Hwi. I can see you were probably internally injured in Forestis or something.”
Seong-Hwi paid him no mind, focused only on assessing his condition. “Huuu. I can’t maintain this state for long. I feel like a cheetah sprinting at top speed.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Has the fear of death driven you insane?”
Henri gathered his mana and Chaos Mana around his machete and thought, I don’t know what happened, but he’s exhausted! And now that I’ve unleashed my Chaos Mana, I’m on par with a High Ranker!
Of course, he had never fought against a High Ranker, but he was confident that he could face one with this much power, especially an exhausted High Ranker.
“I will prove to the organization that I am worthy of becoming a Child!” Henri shouted as a long, yellow cocoa appeared in his hand.
It was his D Weapon, Magic Cocoa. The fruit split on its own, revealing the cocoa beans resembling almonds. Henri shoved all the cocoa beans in his mouth and chewed them.
[Activating Unique Skill: Magic Cocoa Bean.]
[Amplifying the Magic stat as per the effect of Magic Cocoa Bean.]
[Magic A(99) → Magic S(1)]
...
Mana surged from Henri’s machete like a fire pillar.
“Ahhhhh! Hahaha! So, this is what an S-rank stat feels like! I’m as strong as a High Ranker right now!” he shouted as he leaped toward Seong-Hwi and swung his machete at Seong-Hwi’s neck, activating a skill.
[Activating Unique Skill: Cocoa Harvest.]
He swung his machete with the same movement ingrained in him from working as a slave at a cocoa farm in Cote d’Ivoire. He was sure that his habit, developed from countless repetitions, would behead his enemy.
Seong-Hwi simply watched calmly as he mumbled, “An internal manipulation doping ability. I see... I should treat the Fruit as the same.”
[Unleashing 4% of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
[Magic S(1) → Magic S(5)]
[Unleashing 5% of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
[Magic S(5) → Magic S(10)]
Blue mana gathered around Seong-Hwi’s fist. He did not use any skills; it was simply mana. However, that was more than enough. Not only was his Magic stat ten times higher than Henri’s, but it was actually much higher considering the difference in their caliber.
“I gained a new doping ability, though there’s the flaw of death if I misuse it,” Seong-Hwi mumbled as he got into a boxing stance, the same as what his former comrade Hector used to do.
“Off with your head!” Henri shouted, certain of his victory from seeing Seong-Hwi’s defenseless neck.
Seong-Hwi silently punched forward. Although it looked slow, it reached Henri’s machete before Henri had realized it. The machete and straight punch collided, and a blue mana wave blew away the west-facing wall of the Amazonas Theatre. The mana wave was thick enough to see from anywhere in Manaus.
[You hunted an individual with Murderer Karma.]
[4,458,523 Karma obtained.]
Henri, who had taken the full brunt of the mana wave, was obliterated without even a trace. Only the Akasha Message was left as proof of his death.
***
[Terminating the unleashing of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
[Applying Debuff: Overload.]
[Applying Debuff: Internal Injury.]
[Applying Debuff: Exhaustion.]
...
[Temporarily reducing the Health stat drastically.]
[Health A(30) → C(66)]
“Urgh,” Seong-Hwi groaned.
He stopped using the Fruit’s power after killing all the runaway assassins. Exhaustion and vertigo hit him like a truck, as if the blood he had injected instantly left his body.
He fell to his knees, clenched his temples, and mumbled, “Huff! Huff! I should invest... in the Health stat.”
He became certain of which stats to use his Karma on, feeling his body becoming as heavy as soaked cotton. Then, an Akasha Message appeared before him.
[One strand of the Grace Period Chains has broken due to overuse of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
[94 of the Grace Period Chains remain.]
[94 days remain until the termination of Indigestion.]
[6% of the Fruit of the World Tree’s power is available.]
...
Seong-Hwi’s expression stiffened like an iron mask. One of the chain strands wrapping the Fruit of the World Tree turned into smoke and scattered.
“Dammit... I’ll be headed straight to the afterlife if I use this willy-nilly.”
The grace period given to him would be reduced if he misused the power without knowing his limits. He became certain that it needed to be used for a very short time at crucial moments. Not only that, but such worries would be meaningless if he couldn’t find a way to digest the Fruit in the time he had remaining.
Pwoooo!
A long, silver-grey trunk sprouted from his hoodie pocket and sniffed the assassins’ equipment. Bulgasal absorbed only the metal portions.
“Come out and eat,” Seong-Hwi said.
Pwoo! Bulgasal trumpeted sharply, expressing refusal.
“What? Are you still mad at me?”
Pwoo! Pwoo pwoo! Bulgasal trumpeted intensely, intending to never forget that Seong-Hwi had covered its trunk with itchy Rust of Ruin and left it with a human and tiger it had never met before.
I hate you, Daddy! You abandoned me! Bulgasal shouted.
Seong-Hwi smirked as he placed his hand in his hoodie pocket to gently pat Bulgasal’s butt.
“I’m sorry. I’ll buy out all the yummy equipment for you to eat once we reach the Capital.”
Pwoo?
“So, don’t be mad anymore. We’re soul partners, aren’t we?”
Bulgasal’s trunk subtly shook, liking the term, soul partner. However, it would never have forgiven Seong-Hwi if it could read Seong-Hwi’s mind.
I have to feed you tons to make good use of you anyway.
He needed to buy stat cubes soon—ten million Karma’s worth of cubes. He anticipated the greatest results with Bulgasal’s power.