CH 259

“Huff. Huff.”

The Mage of Ruin hunkered down behind his shield and unleashed his mighty spells of destruction.

Phil Grant, from Canada, was drenched in sweat and clutching his staff. His legs were shaky and he had no energy. He was squeezing every last bit of mana to use his spells.

The number of monsters he had killed today alone had to be over a thousand.

“I leveled up six times today? Is this why Korean Hunters are so obsessed with raiding dungeons?”

He had gone from level 101 to level 107.

As everyone knew, the higher the level, the harder it was to level up. This speed was nothing short of a miracle, but what was the point if the price of leveling up this quickly was imminent death?

The moment he sighed in despair, something happened that made him sigh once more.

Crack. Crack.

The powerful barrier Bi-Ga had installed was now cracked and it was clearly on its last legs. Even though he had been attacking with all his might inside the barrier, he had barely been able to vaporize a drop from the sea of monsters. The monsters were still coming from far away, and they were coming in waves.

Not only Phil Grant, but all of the ranged Hunters were already gasping for air. If the barrier was broken, the melee Hunters would step up to the plate and keep the monsters at bay, but he did not know how long they would be able to hold out.

“Damn it! If I knew I was going to die here… Huh?”

Just as he was about to accept his death, something amazing happened!

Drrrr~

It sounded like something was grinding, or rather, rubbing against something. There was a dull crunching sound and shadows suddenly covered the ground.

Looking up, Phil saw a number of tall pillars that appeared as if they were growing out of the ground. They were not doing anything to the towers that Bi-Ga had built. They were just normal pillars—hundreds of stone pillars had just popped up out of nowhere.

Flash!

Roar!

The cracks in Bi-Ga’s barrier disappeared, and the barrier’s light grew more powerful. Then, a bright blue orb suddenly appeared in the sky!

Flash!

“What the…”

A beam of blue light stretched out from the orb and cut through the monsters. What Phil saw after that was unthinkable.

The monsters touched by the beam of light were instantly turned to ice. As the frozen monsters were smashed by other monsters, they shattered into millions of ice shards. Hundreds of them were destroyed in one fell swoop.

And that was just the first attack.

Beam after beam of light struck the monsters. It did not take long for all the charging monsters to be turned into ice shards and scattered across the ground.

“I don’t think that’s Bi-Ga’s ability…”

‘Then who is it? Is it who I think it is?’

Phil looked up into the sky, and as luck would have it, he spotted a man with a fox fur wrapped around his neck.

“Um Ji-Cheok! It’s Um Ji-Cheok!!”

The savior had arrived.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

“Ah~ That hit the spot,” Ji-Cheok said.

«Excellent choice, Master. You can kill two birds with one stone and take down the enemies without harming the glacier.»

“I know, right?”

He smugly accepted Cheok-Liang’s flattery.

These Self-Defense Magic Towers (Barrier) were buildings created by using spells rather than Arcane-Engineered items, but they were still quite powerful. For starters, they had the ability to add power to allied shields and barriers. More importantly, they also created their own barriers., which did not cost any additional mana to maintain. The barriers needed to be recharged if they were broken, but in theory, they could be maintained indefinitely.

And Ji-Cheok had just made hundreds of them. That was enough to replenish Bi-Ga’s barrier.

The next thing he created was a formation. It was called the [Grand Reversal of Yin and Yang], and it was a skill that could be used by cultivators who mastered formations.

Unlike magic circles, formations had a subtle influence over the environment. The Grand Reversal of Yin and Yang absorbed Yang energy and created Yin energy.

Additionally, Ji-Cheok built Self-Defense Magic Towers (Cold). With these towers, it got even colder outside the formation. The temperature outside the barrier normally fluctuated between -10 and -20 degrees Celsius, but under the influence of the demonstration technique, the temperature had dropped to -40 degrees! The heat thus captured was converted into mana and used to power the magic towers!

Next, the cold air was compressed into a sphere in the sky… and then fired at the monsters. What happened next was history. The monsters were wiped out in one fell swoop!

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Thanks to this, Ji-Cheok’s number of Likes was rising fast. The people at the construction site were sending him an incredible amount of Likes.

Of course, the monsters were still coming, but he was killing them as they came. Now, all that was left was to destroy those dungeons and this whole thing would be over.

«The Hunters are heading out, too.»

‘I bet they’re going out to kill the remaining monsters to gain experience.’

«Yes, Master. The ranged Hunters have gained an average of 12 levels.»

‘Wow, that’s a lot. I guess the melee Hunters are a bit jealous, so they are going out to get their levels up. Let’s leave them and get moving then.’

It was time to close the dungeons.

Swoosh!

Ji-Cheok moved toward one of the dungeons with his Steps of Hermes. It was the dungeon where the chimera bats were coming from. He diced the bats with his Mind Sword and threw himself into the dungeon.

The landscape had changed, and he found himself in a demonic-looking world. The sky was filled with dark clouds and red lightning rained down. The sun was not up, so it was dark, but strangely, it was also not quite nighttime. The world was bathed in an ashen reddish color, and there were countless chimera bats in the sky.

On the ground, a giant toad was catching bats with its tongue.

‘Wow… I’ve never seen a dungeon like this before!’

[Toad that Eats Fragmented Worlds]

[Level: 189

Attribute: Darkness

Weakness: Light

A Demon with the ability to travel between dimensions. A scavenger that feeds on fragmented worlds.]

The description was short, but that didn’t mean the monster was not strong. On the contrary…

‘That thing is level 189?’

It was safe to say that no human had ever reached this level. Ji-Cheok could not believe that such a powerful monster just happened to be in this dungeon.

The toad saw him, and its eyes glowed with a strange light.

Woong!

[You have been exposed to a mental attack!]

[You are immune to mental attacks.]

«The mental attack just now was very dangerous! If an unprepared Hunter had been exposed, they would have been swallowed up by madness in an instant.»

‘The attack was that powerful?’

«Yes, Master. It is thanks to the shield and skills that Hope gave you, as well as the protection of the World Tree, that you are still alive.»

‘Wow, that sounds pretty dangerous! The monsters outside the dungeon outnumbered us, but they were still beatable. But this monster seems to specialize in genocide, with its wide-range attacks. Maybe it was a trap?’

«It might be, but they do not seem to know your true capabilities yet, Master.»

‘That’s good news. Then, let’s smash that monster!’

Roar!

His entire body was energized. He became a force of pure light, and in an instant, he crossed space and slashed at the toad’s body.

‘Five Elements of Heaven and Earth Chaotic Divine Art! Mind Sword — Cosmic Fracture.’

Just like the name of this technique revealed, it was a kind of [cutting] power. It was originally a cultivation skill, but since it had the power of a God behind it, it was capable of slicing through almost anything.

It was no wonder that when Ji-Cheok used the Augmented Sword Qi in conjunction with the Mind Sword, even a level 189 boss monster was sliced in half.

Slice!

The creature split in half and fell apart, but it was not dead yet.

Tentacles grew out of the halves of the toad, trying to sew back the split body. However, no matter how much they tried, they could not bring the parts back together. It was as if some unseen force was not allowing it to happen.

Ji-Cheok knew why this was happening. This was the power of [cutting]. Once he cut it, the monster would stay split in half until it died.

The monster grunted as it tried to reattach its severed body for a while, then finally gave up and collapsed.

A Portal opened, with experience points in and a message saying the dungeon was cleared. However, Ji-Cheok knew that things would not end like this.

Woong~ 

Ji-Cheok spread his Qi Sense and instantly found the dungeon Core.

‘There it is!’

As soon as he noticed the dungeon Core, it tried to run away, but he thrust his sword at it. He could feel the blow land on the dungeon Core; as long as the target was within range of his senses, the Mind Sword would strike unerringly.

Boom!

The ground exploded and a huge Core emerged from it.

It was a gigantic creature, at least thirty meters tall. This one was not a toad, but a chimera bat.

[Dungeon Core of Evolving Flying Beasts]

‘Is this all the information we can get for it? So this dungeon is called [Evolving Flying Beast Dungeon], right? I guess that’s why it’s full of mutant bats.’

«Here it comes!»

“Got it!”

The chimera-shaped dungeon Core, which was entirely made of some kind of crystal, opened its mouth. A beam came out, aimed right at Ji-Cheok!

Boom!

Ji-Cheok dodged by a hair’s breadth! Then, he moved to the side of the creature with his Steps of Hermes and used the same Mind Sword technique once more.

Slash! Slash!

Ji-Cheok did not manage to cut through the entire chimera at once—his strike stopped only about three meters deep. He stepped back as its huge tail swooshed past him.

‘This guy is pretty strong! It’s time for some Cosmic Fracture, I guess!’

After the tail passed by, he dove into the creature’s body, energizing his dual swords with determination, and cut through the rest of the body with the power of the Cosmic Fracture.

Slice!

The behemoth split open, and the dungeon Core was instantly destroyed.

‘Good! One dungeon cleared!’

The world collapsed, and he was back in the real world. He looked to the side and saw a steady stream of monsters pouring out of the other dungeon, racing toward the Arctic construction site.

‘Wow, these guys are really persistent. At least we’re holding out thanks to the towers that I’ve built and Bi-Ga’s barrier.’

«Still, we cannot hold out for long, Master. You will have to clear the dungeons faster.»

‘I’m with you on that one. Let’s go.’

They moved on to the next dungeon.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

-What?! Is he for real?

-I can’t believe there is a Hunter who can single-handedly wipe out ten dungeons in a row. That’s crazy!

-Ji-Cheok is becoming too powerful. Back in the day, he could only clear one dungeon a day…

-And he posts videos of himself destroying dungeons in that fluffy hamster outfit.

↳Hahaha! Why the hell is he still wearing that? LOL LOL

-Is he stronger than ‘That Hunter’ now?

↳’That Hunter’ has been destroying five-star dungeons for the past couple of months now, and he did it all by himself.

↳That guy is not exactly sane either.

-How many skills does Ji-Cheok have, anyway?

↳I heard hundreds.

↳What?! Hontoni?[1]

↳Beep! He’s telling the truth!

-Um Ji-Cheok, he is a mighty strong man.

↳Is this guy a foreigner? He’s talking gibberish!

Um Ji-Cheok livestreamed as he destroyed the dungeons. He did not bother to respond to the chat or interact with the viewers, because he was too busy for that.

Instead, he ran around in a hamster suit, doing the Zero Two Dance and making super spicy chicken ramen in the dungeon.

With that in mind, the time it had taken him to defend the Arctic construction site and destroy the chimera bat dungeon was a whole thirty-five minutes.

“Everyone! Right now, I’m Hamtori. And since I am Hamtori, I should roll inside a hamster ball, right?”

Ji-Cheok struck a pose, kind of like a hamster washing its face.

“But my old hamster ball is too small, so I am going to make a new master ball and show you how I roll. Go, go, go!”

Ji-Cheok made a giant spherical shield around him and rolled it forward with his own two hands and feet, like a giant hamster, crushing the monsters in his way. That also took him thirty minutes.

It was bound to leave a lasting impression on the viewers.

1. Japanese for “really?” ☜