CH 254

“Since the transcendent level bosses disappeared, we won’t be able to gain anything from the Forbidden Lands.”

At that time, Arc, who was checking the performance of her newly acquired magic item, stated her thoughts aloud.

The Forbidden Lands, which Arc was referring to, were the four areas widely known to users as the lands from where the four large armies originated before they marched to Starting during the beta phase of the game.

In other words, the Forbidden Lands were the Bitter Earth, the Desolate Desert, the Silent Forest, and the Dead Earth.

The bosses in these lands were field bosses, not dungeon bosses like Zygmunt, so there was no particular benefit from their disappearance. Unlike the Seadragon’s Temple, where a reward room awaited users after defeating a dungeon boss in the boss room, field bosses dropped rewards once they were defeated; hence, it was now impossible to defeat these field bosses, since they had been forcibly expelled from DIO.

“That’s an accurate assessment, but there are still pseudo transcendents, or transcended-like realm beings, left in DIO. In addition, they’re weaker than general transcendents.”

“Huh? What are you talking about… no, wait… you’re not referring to…”

Miho, who was handling her newly acquired item, Hydra, turned her head in surprise.

A petite girl who was shorter than 160 cm in height, Miho looked quite out of place as she stood next to her oversized, two-meter-long staff.

However, the center of gravity of the item didn’t present much of a problem for Miho, as she wasn’t planning on swinging the oversized staff like a baton.

Though the size of the staff was a bit inconvenient and cumbersome, as long as Miho could lift the magic weapon, the staff’s size didn’t really matter.

“Right, just as you suspect, we’re going to catch the New Continent’s dragon. We’re buffed to the heavens, and with our party members, we’ll be able to contend against and defeat that dragon. In addition… there’s an essential item I need to get my hands on.”

After saying so, Merlin prepared for another group teleportation.

It was a long-distance teleportation of more than 200 kilometers, but he was in an overpowered buff state, so he was able to complete the teleportation spell within the time it took for one to breath four times.

“You really want to catch that dragon? But it’s a full pseudo-transcendent, no?”

“It’s a fake transcendent. It’s something artificially produced.”

Smile.

Merlin criss crossed through space with a smile on his face.

Their destination was the New Continent.

*** Extraterrestrial Expansion ***

The New Continent was a space created for the users to experience large-scale battle. Since the New Continent was created for this express purpose, the area had settled down considerably after Merlin placed DIO’s system into an emergency mode setting.

Since the creation of quests stopped, as all operators of DIO could no longer access the system, only a few Master-level user parties ventured into the New Continent, mainly to scrounge and grind out some gem points.

“It seems the New Continent monsters have started to wander and fall into a state of confusion.”

From the moment Merlin put DIO into the emergency mode setting, the Gold Dragon or [Great Will], the god who ruled over the New Continent, stopped all of its activities and confined itself to its Holy Land.

Originally, according to the orders and plans of the Gold Dragon, the New Continent monsters had to invade Dynamic Island, but as things unfolded under DIO’s emergency mode, the war between the continents quickly ended.

In fact, this happened because the Gold Dragon was artificially created; it wasn’t an external contractor like the Red Dragon Igniz or the Seadragon Zygmunt.

When the command of the Noblesse, the operators and administrators of DIO, ceased, the Gold Dragon also ceased its activity.

The Gold Dragon possessed basic intelligence, but because it was confined to the express control of the DIO system operators, it did not move unless an order was given to it.

[You… How did you get here?]

“As expected, you were fully controlled by the DIO operators in the past. I was wondering if you possessed any real emotions or intelligence…”

When the party suddenly appeared in front of the Gold Dragon, the Gold Dragon stared blankly at the party members without even thinking of attacking them.

The Gold Dragon didn’t even consider attacking the party because the only being that was allowed in its Holy Land, the Tower of Truth, without the Gold Dragon’s express permission was the divine beast Moby Dick.

“Ugh. Merlin, hold up a minute. This is too much… No matter how strong the buff is, going up against that dragon…”

Miho, who was holding firmly onto Hydra, trembled at the sight of the Gold Dragon, which exuded an enormous sense of intimidating power.

Miho was originally an NPC from the New Continent, so she had lived her life worshiping the Gold Dragon as a god.

Of course, the situation had changed, as she had now become a user, and the forced fanaticism and worship of the Gold Dragon previously placed on her by the system had all but disappeared, but even so, her body naturally trembled as she stood in front of the imposing Gold Dragon.

Moreover, she still couldn’t get over the mental block that the power emitted by the Gold Dragon was divine and formidable.

“Hmm… it’s definitely strange to call that thing a true transcendent.”

“That’s because it’s fake.”

“But it is strong. It possesses an immeasurable amount of mana.”

Miho was the only one who trembled; the rest of the party didn’t feel any fear at the sight of the Gold Dragon as they freely and casually conversed amongst themselves.

For users like Merlin and Arc, even [real] transcendent beings were beings that they had seen many times, and it was the same for Sungmuk.

In addition, although the power exuding from the Gold Dragon was overwhelmingly powerful, Merlin, and most of his party members, didn’t feel the intimidating ‘force’ unique to a transcendent.

It was as if the Gold Dragon was created by forcibly combining enormous sources of energy; it possessed tremendous power, but that only meant the power the Gold Dragon possessed was simply large rather than threatening. The dragon didn’t give the other party members any sense of hopeless or other oppressive feelings that a transcendent would normally give off.

With the Gold Dragon right in front of him, Merlin started explaining something to his party with a calm expression on his face.

“Strictly speaking, that dragon is not a complete transcendent. How should I explain this… it’s a half-assed creation. Obviously, it possesses as much power as a transcendent being, but it lacks sufficient enlightenment. To be precise, it’s probably closer to a Level 19.5 being than a Level 20 being.”

“…!”

Overhearing Merlin’s words, the Gold Dragon’s golden eyebrows wriggled and twitched.

Of course, Merlin’s words were true, and the Gold Dragon knew this to be true; however, how could the Gold Dragon not be stunned when some upstart user dared to appear in its Holy Land and talk smack right in front of its face? Was this upstart user ignoring the power of a Gold Dragon?

The Gold Dragon was a monster with an inexhaustible magic power capacity. Moreover, it possessed the ability to command and execute complete spells without chanting. In other words, it could launch magic spell attacks just by being conscious.

Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.

Though the realm of its spirit and its realization of the world didn’t reach those that would normally be associated with a transcendent, its specifications and stats were close to those of a transcendent.

[This is absurd. First of all… I’ll eliminate half of you, then I’ll force you to explain how you even got into this space!]

Whoosh!!!

Using spirit speech, which seemed to be filled with a sense of annoyance and anger, tens of hundreds of magic circles appeared around the Gold Dragon.

It was a chain magic spell that conjured the image of countless storms that would burn, freeze, crush, and pulverize its enemies.

However, both Arc and Sungmuk, as well as Merlin, jumped at the Gold Dragon instead of raising their defenses. This sort of frontal attack was a dangerous act, as any outsider would have thought that they were committing an act of suicide by throwing themselves into the Gold Dragon’s waves of spells.

At that moment, Miho, who was standing in place, raised Hydra, which was taller than herself, and shouted.

“As for me! Release all the spells now!”

Despite her complexion being completely white, as she was filled with fear and tension, Miho’s Hydra, which accurately released all its spells, shot out a thunderbolt sword strike.

The spell was activated immediately without any activation lag time. Moreover, the speed of the magic projectile strike moved at the speed of light! The thunderbolt sword strike hit the Gold Dragon’s body as it avoided all the magic circles surrounding the Gold Dragon.

/Lightning Blade of Zeus!/

With a dazzling display of light, a spell with the highest concentration of destruction among the suite of Merlin’s Howling Spells also hit the body of the Gold Dragon, and most of the defensive spells that protected the body of the Gold Dragon were instantly destroyed.

The Gold Dragon would have been better off if it had suffered a surprise attack, as it would still be able to muster most of its power to maintain a defense, but the current situation was an utter disaster for the Gold Dragon because it had converted a large part of its power to launch a formidable AOE spell attack against the intruders.