𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟔𝟖
‘So that b*stard is the one who bought the staff for 6.5 billion.’
Why is he attacking the Emperor Guild?
Is he attacking because he can’t control the power of the staff?
“……Is that staff perhaps Daylis?”
Illia, who was watching the video with me, spoke at that moment.
As a former developer, Illia also seemed to know about the legendary item Daylis, so she asked, and I nodded in response.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Then that person must be the one who bought Daylis.”
“More important than the purchase is why he’s attacking.”
Anyway, I could understand the force I was witnessing to some extent, but not completely.
It didn’t make sense that having one legendary item would be enough to overwhelm the Emperor Guild, so when I looked more closely, I could see that the ground was stained black.
‘But I think I’ve seen that somewhere before.’
First of all, unlike a skill used by a player, the range was incredibly wide.
Looking at the black ground that was stained for hundreds of meters, a skill that someone had used in the past came to mind, and as soon as I thought of that, I was able to easily figure out what skill it was.
“It’s the S-rank skill that Heuksin used.”
“Yes, Death Zone of Deston.”
“Death Zone of Deston?”
“Didn’t you know? The name of the S-rank skill that Heuksin used is Death Zone of Deston.”
“I didn’t know the name.”
In any case, since Illia and I had the same opinion, it seemed that the skill the player was using was indeed Heuksin’s skill.
‘Did he get it from a Random Skillbook?’
While I was briefly thinking about this, Illia spoke.
“From what we’re seeing now, it’s a legendary staff and an S-rank skill. And I think it’s safe to assume that the S-rank skill has been enhanced.”
“S+ rank?”
“Yes, that player’s level must be over 200, so it would be strange if he hadn’t enhanced his S-rank skill.”
‘Hmm.’
Well, as many players expected, when you reach level 200, you could strengthen one more skill along with the promotion quest.
I couldn’t do it because I hadn’t reached level 200 yet.
“Lastly, considering the unusual skill range, it’s safe to assume he’s surpassed the Transcendence stage.”
“Simply put, he’s over level 30.”
“Could it be because of the staff that Rudin-nim sold?”
“……”
Certainly, that staff had two skill level increases attached to it.
Moreover, the possibility that he spent time to reach level 30 couldn’t be ignored, so it was probably correct to assume that he was above the Transcendence level, as Illia said.
‘And he has other equipment too.’
Roughly three months.
That’s enough time to obtain a unique set.
Simply comparing equipment, I had to think that his was better than mine.
“Are you going to log in?”
“I’ve seen enough. It wouldn’t be strange if they were pushed back again, so I have to log in.”
“Then you have to finish within 30 minutes. Okay? The longer you stay in Twilight, the more dangerous it is.”
“Don’t worry.”
Actually, I was half convinced that I could win.
The reason is simple.
That player is a magician.
And one more thing, there’s my damage. If all four Thunder Strike attacks hit, it would deal about 200,000 damage.
No matter how much of a player he is, would he have that much health?
Considering that my health, equipped with the legendary item Eternal Life Ar’ua, doesn’t reach 70,000, I believed I could defeat him with 1 or 2 Thunder Strikes.
‘And if I just defeat him, I’ll win without any problems.’
If the summoner dies, the summoned beast will naturally disappear, so there would be no need to worry after that.
[May you find what you seek in the streets illuminated by Twilight……]
Anyway, I logged in with the original helmet instead of the modified one, and with the headache slowly starting, I checked my equipment and immediately headed out of the Guild Castle.
Since the place I logged in was the Guild Castle, I was able to come out immediately and ran towards the location of the battle, and with my agility close to 3,000, I was able to reach the battle location, on top of the wall, in no time.
[An unknown energy is infiltrating your body.]
[1,200 health will decrease every 5 seconds.]
[The effect of Holy type skills is halved.]
[Health recovery effect is sealed.]
‘What?’
However, before I could even fight, I received damage and checked the message that popped up to see what was happening, and soon realized that a message similar to the one I received when I fought Heuksin had appeared.
However, there was one more message that was different from Heuksin’s, which was that the health recovery effect was sealed.
‘Is recovery still not possible?’
Upon checking, as expected, my health remained decreased and did not recover.
‘I need to finish this as quickly as possible.’
Since health recovery was sealed, there was a high chance that the recovery from the shield skill wouldn’t work either.
Despite that, I wasn’t particularly worried because I thought it would be a quick fight.
‘Hmm?’
Suddenly, the head of the summoner player who created this situation slowly moved, and then he looked directly at where I was, as if he knew.
Perhaps one of the many players nearby pointed me out.
As I made eye contact with the player, I couldn’t shake a strange feeling.
‘……Is he smiling?’
Naturally, I couldn’t see his expression because he was wearing a white mask, but somehow, it felt like he was smiling.
And looking at each other like this, I felt like I knew who he was.
‘He’s like that summoner I met in the Ronda Kingdom.’
Come to think of it, that guy was also wearing a mask like that.
Although my memory was hazy due to the passage of time.
If he had at least summoned his S-rank summoned beast, the Skeleton Dragon, I would have recognized him right away, but surprisingly, he was facing the Emperor Guild without even summoning the Skeleton Dragon.
‘Well, there’s no need to stall any longer.’
Just staring at each other like this wouldn’t defeat him, so I decided to make the first move to end this quickly.
“Jayer’s Guardian Shield, Shield of Light, Battle Awakening.”
[S-rank Skill. Jayer’s Guardian Shield is activated.]
[Health decreased by 17%.]
[Strength and Agility increased by 17% for 51 seconds.]
“Blink.”
I used all kinds of auxiliary skills and then consecutively used Phantom Shift to approach the player.
As I used Phantom Shift, an illusion appeared in the place where I had been, and they started attacking the hostile players and Skeleton Knights nearby, and the Emperor Guild members seemed to gain more strength at the sight.
“It’s the Vice Guild Master!”
“Everyone, cheer up!”
“You b*stards! How dare you attack the Emperor Guild!?”
“……”
I’ve been resting for months, but what’s with this expectant reaction?
Anyway, I thought I had roughly diverted the attention of the surroundings with the illusions and decided to attack the player right away.
“Giant’s Sprint!”
“Tomb of Bones.”
As I ran with Giant’s Sprint, huge tombs made of various bones began to rise around me, including around the player.
Kwaaaaaang!!━
‘What’s so fast?’
The Tomb of Bones appeared almost instantly.
Thanks to that, the Giant’s Sprint attack was nullified, but after confirming that the blocking bones had disappeared, I tried to continue the attack with Thunder Strike, but he was faster.
“Forced Transfer.”
Pat!━
And with that, my vision was reversed.
It was similar to using Phantom Shift, but since I used it frequently, I was able to immediately recognize my situation and realized that I had been moved to a strange place.
Kwaaaaaang!!━
[You have taken damage! -15,510.]
As soon as I realized I had been forcibly moved, the Tomb of Bones next to me exploded, dealing significant damage.
‘This, the skill composition somehow……’
I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but it seems to be composed of skills suitable for dealing with players who engage in close combat.
Especially Forced Transfer.
It’s a skill that forcibly moves you without any warning, so if you don’t have ranged attacks, you’re bound to get hit.
Kugh!
“Phew.”
Before I could continue thinking, I saw several Skeleton Knights rushing towards me and adjusted my shield.
Since I had about half of my stamina left due to the skills I had used so far, I was thinking of using these Skeleton Knights to replenish my stamina.
Kwaaaang!- Kwakang!━
“……!?”
However, the Skeleton Knights that had approached a certain distance began to explode all at once.
The explosion range was also considerably wide, so I couldn’t avoid it and had to take damage once again, and I instinctively checked the message.
[You have taken damage! -8,532.]
[You have taken damage……]
‘Damn it.’
Checking my health afterwards, I realized that more than half of it was gone.
‘So, this is how he’s doing it, huh?’
Come to think of it, it was a good method.
The player had summoned hundreds of Skeleton Knights so far, so detonating 3 or 4 of them wouldn’t be noticeable.
No, if I were that player, I would have detonated dozens of skeletons.
‘First, get out of here.’
Anyway, feeling that I was at a disadvantage, I quickly left the range of the player’s S-rank skill, Death Zone, to replenish my depleted health and stamina.
Then, I ran towards a hostile player who was fighting an Emperor Guild member and swung my shield without hesitation.
“Thunder Strike!”
Kwaaaang!━
[Skill Damage! 38,238.]
[Health……]
As expected, I was able to defeat the player with a single attack.
Moreover, thinking that even after all this time, I could handle ordinary players without a problem, I tried to find and eliminate nearby hostile players, but this was also hindered.
[An unknown energy is infiltrating your body……]
‘No way.’
Looking down at the ground, I realized I had entered the Death Zone range again.
When I looked to see what had happened, I saw that the Skeleton Dragon player, whom I thought I had shaken off, had approached within a certain distance. It seemed that Death Zone moved according to the player’s location.
‘The range is considerable, and it even moves?’
“Die, Rudin!”
Kwaang!━
[You have taken damage! -894.]
While my actions were momentarily stopped, a nearby hostile player attacked as if waiting for the opportunity.
The damage wasn’t much.
The health constantly decreasing every 5 seconds within Death Zone was actually more significant.
Kwaaaang!━
[You have killed a hostile player.]
Seeing this, other players were nothing special.
The problem was that Skeleton Dragon player.
I don’t know why he wasn’t summoning his S-rank skill, the Skeleton Dragon, but seeing him constantly following me, it seemed like he was determined to kill me somehow.
‘But that doesn’t mean there’s no way.’
All I had to do was summon someone who could hold him back.
“Title Change, Summon.”
[Summoning Ust, Swallowing the Bitter Cold.]
So, I summoned Ust, the strongest summoned beast I had. As if he was aware of it, a huge magic circle appeared in front of him, and soon a Skeleton Dragon, well over 50 meters tall, was summoned.
Kuoooooooo!!━
“……”
But was that Skeleton Dragon always that big?
Just based on size alone, it was more than 5 times bigger than Ust.
And as if he had given some command, the Skeleton Dragon charged straight at Ust, and the player dealt with the Ust problem with ease and made the nearby Skeleton Knights charge towards me.
He was probably trying to kill me by exploding the skeletons.
‘If only I could land the Thunder Strike attack.’
To do that, I felt the need to recover my health and attack again, so I used Phantom Shift to escape the Death Zone range again and tried to attack another player, but this time, it didn’t go as I planned.
Kwaaaang!━
“He’s here! It’s Rudin!”
“Take out what we prepared!”
‘Prepared?’
As soon as I escaped the Death Zone, I eliminated one player and recovered my health, but seeing that, the players immediately took out fist-sized orbs from their item windows and threw them on the ground.
While I was wondering what kind of items those were.
Kwakwakwang!!━
[You have taken damage! 3,054.]
‘Bomb items?’
The orbs the players took out seemed to be bomb items.
But strangely, I took a lot of damage. Originally, bomb items should have ridiculously low damage compared to their crafting cost, but the bombs they detonated now were different.
‘These crazy b*stards.’
Also, bombs deal equal damage to all targets within range, regardless of whether they are allies or enemies, so they were items that were rarely used even if you had them. But these crazy b*stards didn’t care and kept detonating bombs.
Kwakwang!- Kwaaaang!!━
“Giant’s Sprint!”
Anyway, since I finally escaped the Death Zone, I had to complete my objective.
I used Giant’s Sprint and ran with all my might, recovering my health by sacrificing a few players, but where I ran to, dozens of skeletons were already in place.
“Blink.”
It’s not easy to recover either.
Both the players and the Skeleton Knights were all launching suicide attacks, so it was more likely that I would die first.
And the bigger problem than that was Death Zone.
If I stayed within its range, my health wouldn’t recover no matter what I did, so I had to get out of the range somehow, but the range of Death Zone was too wide.
‘Where did this kind of player come from?’
It was surprising that his name wasn’t known until now.
‘The fight……’
Pabbat!━
“……!?”
At that moment, with a brief flash of light, the Skeleton Knights were moved.
I don’t know what skill it was, but seeing dozens of skeletons moved near me, I escaped with Phantom Shift without thinking, but there were also Skeleton Knights waiting where I escaped to.
‘Damn it.’
Kwakwakwang!!━
[You have taken damage……]
[You have taken damage……]
[You have died.]
‘Wow, he tricked me like this.’
The Skeleton Knights that were initially moved near me were a deception.
As soon as I moved, surprised by those Skeleton Knights, he exploded the Skeleton Knights that were there. Realizing that, I was inwardly impressed, but the situation was getting worse.
[The demonic power within you awakens due to death.]
[Your race temporarily changes to Demon.]
‘It’s hard to win in this state.’
If I had raised the level of my demon-type skills, it might have been different, but since I hadn’t, I concluded that it would be difficult to win like this.
However, believing that I could at least escape, I immediately changed my items and got up, but I could already see dozens of Skeleton Knights waiting around me.
“……You b*stard.”
This was something he couldn’t have done unless he knew I would revive as a demon.
It’s a fact that most people know because of that damn broadcast anyway.
Also, realizing that I couldn’t use skills like Phantom Shift because I had turned into a demon, I looked at the player one last time.
Still, I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but it seemed like he was smiling.
Kwakwakwang!!━
Soon, the explosion engulfed me, and.
[You have died.]
I experienced my second death in Twilight.
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