Chapter 147.The Hunter’s Plateau (3)

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Hantae carefully approached the woman.

And the woman was weirdly covered from head to toe in scars.

Hantae saw this and was felt a bit at ease.

‘No matter how I see it… She doesn’t seem strong. But I should still be wary.’

And there was a suspicious and faint blue light radiating around the woman’s body.

Hantae moved his chin towards Elis.

“You go and deal with her.”

“…”

“What? You don’t want to?”

Elis sighed quietly, raised all the senses she had to the brim and slowly approached the woman.

‘I… still must approach her.’

She needed to find out the thing that has caused those scars on the woman anyway.

‘Since she arrived before us… There’s a high chance of her knowing.’

At that moment.

The woman, who was standing in a daze, suddenly made moaning noises and turned to look at Elis.

As Elis flinched from her actions, the woman made a very sincere expression and then ran to her.

“Thank god! Thank god!”

“…What?”

Elis almost subconsciously accepted the hug from the woman who was running towards her with an extremely sincere expression.

But Elis woke up from her stupor, raised her blade and pointed it towards the woman.

“Don’t come closer! What’s going on?”

The woman flinched at Elis pointing the blade at her and then stopped in place.

She then smiled.

“You thought I stopped right?”

An instant.

The blue light radiating around the woman exploded out.

Kwaaaaaang!

A destructive torrent swept the surroundings.

“What…!”

As Elis flinched, the woman who was surrounded by the blue light disappeared in that instant.

And with movements that couldn’t even be compared to those she had until now.

Kuduk

The woman who had disappeared appeared right in front of Elis in another instant.

Crunch

The woman grabbed onto Elis’ neck and then smashed her abdomen.

Smack!

“Kuuhuk…”

Elis couldn’t even resist as she simply fell unconscious.

Since this strength was not something she could resist.

Though she was prepared to a degree, all her skills were smashed apart as she simply fell unconscious.

The woman raised the unconscious Elis up high and then shouted out loudly.

“Ten! I filled it up! Ahahahahaha!”

In another instant.

Kiiiiiiing

Elis, who had been caught in the woman’s hands, got surrounded by the blue light and started to disappear.

As if she was being teleported somewhere.

Soon only the woman and Hantae were left in the area.

Hantae was shocked at this scene as he shouted towards the woman.

“This crazy bitch!”

The woman made a smile and she replied.

“Don’t be like that. I need to survive as well right? It was really urgent because I didn’t fill up the quota. Phew… Now, the final part is important.”

Hantae flinched at the words of final part but the scene he expected didn’t occur.

Kiiiiing

As the woman concentrated her power, the blue light surrounding the woman landed down onto her palm.

A gem that was created from the compression of the blue light.

Hantae frowned as he looked at the strange gem.

The woman glanced between the gem and Hantae and smiled.

“How was my strength from before? It was quite nice right?”

Hantae, who had been looking at the woman with a dumfounded expression, was about to shout out something but then simply nodded.

Since the power was beyond nice and was quite amazing.

The woman spoke while looking at Hantae.

“What would you do if you could gain this power? Well… It’s not for free though.”

The woman started to explain.

***

Grrrrrowl

Hansoo’s fist which had been enhanced by the Dragon Essence Blade smashed onto the face of the black leopard which had been charging towards him.

Smack!

Kuuuaangg!

The black leopard got deflected backwards and smashed into the jungle.

No, actually it was beyond a simple smash.

Since it smashed through three trees the width of a house and continued on.

Kuururu

The black leopard, which had been laying on the floor, stood up and then growled quietly towards Hansoo.

The bluish skin of the leopard, which didn’t even have a trace left behind when Altair had hit it, had cracks on it from Hansoo’s bare fist.

But Altair made a confused face rather than a surprised one.

‘What, why? Why!?’

Altair couldn’t hold it in and shouted out.

“Why aren’t you using the spear!”

There was clearly a shiny spear on his back.

She didn’t know what that was but it was obvious it would be more effective to use that weapon than his bare fists.

Strength that could smash away a 3m large leopard like that.

If he used the spear with that strength then a hole would be created on the skin of the leopard no matter how hard it was.

But this guy was using only his fists from a while ago.

And the black clouds that he took out didn’t really do anything as they just floated around his body.

This was basically throwing away every play one had in their hands and just going at it.

Though it was quite effective.

And as evidence, the black leopard which had left with their comrade couldn’t even do anything as it stumbled around.

‘Whatever, we need to do our task as well.’

Though they couldn’t butt in, there was still a lot to do.

Altair shouted towards the people around her.

“Hurry and set up the air barrier! We need to muffle the sound!”

If the sound of the fight resonated out then the others would swarm towards this location.

One was enough for them.

Altair’s group followed her words as they quickly spread out and set up the barrier.

Sound used the air as a medium to transfer.

The air barrier they made by gathering up the surrounding air was quite shabby in terms of defenses but if you made it two layers and left the space between as a vacuum then an amazing soundproof barrier would be created.

‘Good.’

Hansoo, who was watching these scene, suddenly disappeared from where he was standing.

Boooom!

In an instant.

Hansoo appeared right above the black leopard and smashed down onto the leopard.

Kuuuung!

The black leopard couldn’t resist the tremendous power smashing into its body and fell down onto the ground.

While leaving behind a small crater which made it seem like a small meteor had crashed there.

Keeerururu

Hansoo lightly landed on top of the black leopard which had turned into a mess.

At that moment.

A change occurred in the Dark Cloud around Hansoo’s body.

Swoosh

The black clouds disappeared into the leopard’s body as if it had been sucked in.

And soon the bluish skin of the black leopard started to undergo a change.

Kuduk. Kuduk.

The fur clumped up as if it had been infected by something and keratinized.

And the bluish skin turned black as it started to shine.

The muscles also made snapping noises and got enlarged.

In just a moment the 3m large body turned twice as large.

The leopard was nowhere to be seen and instead a black female lion was born.

Hansoo nodded as he saw this.

‘I like this reward. It’s made quite faithfully to the true powers of the Dark Cloud race.’

Dark Cloud.

Infect living and nonliving organisms, get them under one’s control and enhance them.

The infected monster now will probably win against three of its previous versions.

At the same time the infected black leopard, Kali-Crown’s five senses and its rudimentary memories flew into his mind.

‘Good. The surrounding area is set up like this huh.’

The surrounding area that the black leopard was roaming around was inputted into Hansoo’s head.

He would need to turn a living organism half dead in order to control them but this was good enough for him.

And since he had quite a large amount of Dark Clouds, he would be able to control a few of them at once.

To him, who would need to do quite a lot of things from now, a skill that was very versatile such as this would increase the rate at which he could progress in his plans by a large amount from now on.

‘Move.’

And he was able to use it right away since he hadn’t made any holes in it or anything.

The black leopard fiercely jumped up according to Hansoo’s orders and disappeared into the jungle.

In order to look around the surroundings.

Altair mumbled with an expression that showed others that she had figured it out after she had been watching this scene for a moment.

A monstrous amount of strength and a power that they couldn’t even have imagined.

‘So the rumors of a new Margoth-level being born was not fake huh.’

Altair’s head quickly spun around.

That strength.

It would be of great help in this mysterious place.

‘I need to stick with him. But how am I…’

But there wasn’t enough time for her to plan things out.

Since Hansoo started to move right away.

‘No!’

Altair panicked as she hurriedly shouted towards Hansoo.

“Let’s go together!”

Hansoo laughed as he spoke:

“You said you’re a rescue squad right? Just go to your headquarters.”

Altair bit down onto her lips.

But throwing away her pride was nothing.

They had a hard time dealing with that one leopard.

And if they didn’t stick by this guy then even more of them might die.

“…I’m sorry. It was a lie. Actually it hasn’t been long since we came here as well. But we have no thoughts of dragging you down so let’s travel together. We’ll be of great help, were were a scout team.”

But even before Hansoo could say something in reply.

Rumble.

The ground shook and quaked.

“What is it?”

The moment Altair checked her surroundings in shock.

An explosion came out from the location Hantae and Elis disappeared from.

“What…!”

During the short moment Altair was shocked.

Somebody walked out through the dust clouds.

And Altair spat out curses while looking at this.

“Hey! Are you crazy? What are you doing? Where did Elis go?”

Why would anybody who had ran over here crazily and turned the surroundings into clouds of dust be pleasant to look at?

But Hantae didn’t reply at Altair’s words as he focused onto the strength that could be felt from within.

Kiiiiing.

A tremendous amount of strength which radiated out from the gem and onto his body.

‘Amazing. It’s really amazing!’

Hantae exclaimed at this strength. At the same time, he remembered his previous conversation with the woman.

— It’s simple, it was given to us by a higher race than humans.

— Higher Race?

At those words, the woman nodded.

— Yes. A Higher Race that sees humans as toys. The way you can keep that power is easy. Ten people this week. All you have to do is knock out ten people and then send them away like before. Then you can keep that power.

Hantae asked with a puzzled expression at that.

— What if I fail? What if I can’t send all ten people?

The woman said casually,

— Simple. You will be taken in their place to the <Birdcage> of the higher race.

The woman shuddered as she spoke, then continued,

— Well, I’m exhausted. Once you receive this power, <Blue Jade>, you cannot give it up at will… it’s not that hard, but I haven’t seen a single human in three weeks, how can I not be happy now that you’re here? Take it quickly. Ahahaha!”

Hantae stared at the woman and asked one last question,

— What if I don’t take it?

— Huh? Why wouldn’t you want to receive this power? I mean, you seem pretty smart… don’t you think it’s a little hard to survive in this world right now without it?

Hantae nodded.

He was having difficulty dealing with these leopard-like individuals right now. It would have been easier if there were many humans, but no humans have come through the portal in the past few days.

‘At this rate, I’ll really die. I need this power.’

He had no choice but to take it.

After receiving it and falling unconscious for a short moment, he woke up and the woman was nowhere to be seen.

But he didn’t regret it at all.

An explosive amount of strength rose within his body.

‘And… filling the quota doesn’t seem that hard.’

Hantae looked at the people in front of his eyes and laughed.

Exactly ten people counting the one who had just come up.

He just needed to fill up the quota with these guys and go through the jungle with this strength. Towards the place the woman had told him before he fell unconscious.

— My name is Trandal. Let me tell you something in exchange for receiving this right: if you succeed in your hunt, use that power to… come here. So fight!

After thinking about it, Hantae looked at those around him and smiled.

“You have been good colleagues to me. Oh, and also thanks to you newbie. You’re the tenth.”

The blue light that surrounded Hantae’s body exploded.

Kwaaaaang!

Trees snapped and dust scattered.

Everyone took a step back, overwhelmed by that force.

When Hantae looked at them and smiled with extreme satisfaction. Hansoo also smiled at him.

‘I can’t believe there’s already a hunting dog. It was fast.’

If you can’t see the owner, you have to beat the dog first.

Higher Race, Archon.

Hansoo poured strength into his fists as he looked at the hunting dog the hunter race had created.