Chapter 20. Altar (5)

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<Racial Skill>

A skill that a race has ever since they are born.

There were two racial skills that the Carnivorous Beast in front of him could use.

<Fear> and <Devour>

It would paralyze the prey with fear and then eat it with devour to quickly regenerate its health.

The fear which contains the killing intent of the predator was a skill in itself.

Kuahhh!

The Carnivorous Beast’s fear rumbled around the insides of the Altar.

The Fear was basically affected by the individual’s mentality.

And to Hansoo who had fought with the Abyss’s top rank devils, such a thing like fear was child’s play.

But even then it was still a skill.

His body was honest so Hansoo’s body momentarily stopped and in that small instant the front legs flew in aggressively.

But at this moment the Magic resistance showed its might.

Hansoo dodged the leg of the beast with only a hair’s length and then then ruthlessly stabbed whilst its guard was down.

It was the first time fighting this here it was rather common if you go beyond the tutorial.

‘Anyways, it’s good that it’s not fully grown yet’

If this thing grew more and reached 20m then it can use another Racial Skill, <Vampric Swamp>.

As it implied, it constantly drained the blood of the nearby lifeforms.

If it even had this, Hansoo probably wouldn’t have came in.

Since you would become a mummy and die a very quick death if you didn’t have magic and physical resistances.

But even this much wasn’t easy to go against though possible.

‘Second location of Primary Nerves between the joints.’

Hansoo, after applying some paralysis poison on the tip, strained all his muscles and stabbed between the joints ruthlessly.

Kududuk

Kuaaak!

Due to its very thick shell there was a moment of resistance but Hansoo’s strength which had reached the colorless rune stage plus his ability to find weak points and the hardness of the needle made it so that holes started appearing on the black shell.

Due it its enormous size, even when Hansoo shoved in a 1m long needle it went in for a long while.

‘A little bit more’

Though he had penetrated the skin but there is no point if he doesn’t reach the goal point.

Since the injury made from the needle was basically the same as a hole where the hairs grew out of.

He needed to hit the pinpoint.

Kachak

‘It’s done!’

Hansoo, who had felt the needle’s tip penetrate the primary nerve, quickly pulled it out.

Stabbing it in was important but taking out was also important.

Since if you didn’t pull this out on the right time then you will get ravaged by the beast’s outrage whilst the needle was still in its body.

Kuahhhh!

As he expected, the beast which had felt extreme pain and stopped for a moment from paralysis started smashing the ground in order to beat down Hansoo.

Boooom!

But it’s already been a long time since Hansoo moved away from that location.

The sound of the monster’s breath and the sound of bones cracking entered Hansoo’s ears constantly.

And at the same time Hansoo’s eyes looked over its body.

The images of its squirming muscles, the way the tail held balance and the contraction of its thigh muscles came into Hansoo’s head and created a three dimensional image of the monster.

As the image of the monster came into his head, his experience and knowledge merged with it.

All of this happened in an instant.

And as this happened, the next movement of the monster could be seen on Hansoo’s eyes.

It wasn’t a trait, martial ability or a skill.

It was simply an god-like ability developed from an immeasurable amount of battle experience and knowledge.

Since Hansoo could only learn seven skills, the only way for this trait to shine was to become strong in a different way than others.

And because of that, unlike the strong people who climbed relatively easily, he had to go through many more times worth of battles and struggles in order to climb up slowly.

But this had made him stronger after.

Since being able to read the enemy and knowing their next move was an overwhelming advantage.

Well most high level adventurers could do this do an extent but Hansoo was unique even out of these people.

— Battle Foresight! I shall give it a name! Calling it Battle Foresight! From now on!

— Please don’t call it that Gangtae, it’s embarrassing.

Hansoo, who had thought of the past situations with Gangtae, overcome his extreme lack of perception and agility through reading ahead and pushed the beast back.

Boom

‘He’s still not that easy’

Hansoo barely dodged another attack as he stabbed the needle again.

Puk. Pukpuk.

The needle which had entered its body in an instant, cut off part of the nerve cell cluster on his skin.

It would now have trouble sensing his movements through the vibrations in the air.

From one angle it would seem like that the fight was very one sided but Hansoo’s wasn’t in much of an ease.

There was nothing like hp in this world.

In other words, if your magic and physical resistances are equal than being larger would be a huge advantage.

A human body like his would get shredded even if an attack were to skitch them.

And because of that the high level adventurers basically stacked a lot of magic and physical resistances on their body.

And these high level adventures who had stacked these would show a miracle like view where they receive the blow of a monstrous beast with just their human bodies.

But you couldn’t gain those runes or items in the tutorial area so you needed to dodge every attack.

If he hadn’t raised his strength and stamina, he would’ve gotten thrown off from exhaustion whilst attacking the monster.

Hansoo quickly pulled out a flying cat’s marble as he stabbed the shampoo bottle tied onto his waist.

Since he had no leisure to squeeze it out with this hands.

Squirt

As the paralysis poison came out smeared onto the needle, Hansoo quickly stabbed it again.

Tudududk

It’s regeneration speed had been slowing down at an extreme rate as if it used all the materials it had stored.

The nerves which had been recovering despite being broken by the needle and melting from the paralysis poison had stopped regenerating at a point.

And to prove that, it’s movements had become rigid and its senses had dulled.

‘As I expected, fighting it inside the altar is the answer’

If he had fought this while it ate humans after escaping the altar, it would’ve been much more tiring.

Since the needle’s area of damage was small, eating one human can heal the damaged nerves for quite a while.

And if that happened even he would have to choose a different tactic.

But if this kept going on, he can lay the monster on the ground and put a hole in his heart before his stamina depleted.

‘Let’s smoke another one first’

As the effect of the cloud snack disappeared, Hansoo quickly bit into the eighth cloud snack and then jumped back in to resume the fight.

But at this moment something unexpected happened

“Hansoo! I came to help!”

‘Haha. Look at this thing’

Hansoo chuckled as he heard the voice that came down from the top of the altar.

***

Suyeol made a fed up expression after watching Hansoo for a while from above.

‘Isn’t this guy just a monster’s spawn’

A physical difference so large that one hit would’ve turned him into a bloody mess.

But Hansoo hadn’t received a single hit and stuck to the monster like a storm and then proceeded to attack in a one-sided fight.

And he was making the monster into a bee’s hive with that needle.

‘That bitch. Did he do this to scam us of runes?’

This thought was very normal because the fight seems like that he didn’t lack strength or stamina at all.

Since Hansoo looked very laid back in their eyes.

He was so laid back that he was fighting the battle whilst smoking a cigarette one at a time.

So they reassured themselves.

‘It won’t be dangerous to help out a little bit down there’

They couldn’t go down because they were scared from the power of the Carnivorous beast but it seemed like its movements had slowed down a lot.

And wasn’t Hansoo in front of them.

Hansoo was dodging the attacks with ease with a speed that was not that much slower than theirs.

So they confirmed in an instant.

‘He’s trying to monopolize it’

As they saw him fight it with such ease, it was very possible that he felt greed for monopolizing it.

Suyeol’s insides twisted and turned.

He couldn’t even imagine what kind of a reward would come out if you killed that thing.

No, even if the reward wasn’t good a lot of runes would come out

‘As I thought… We have to kill him today. Greedy bitch’

The carnivorous beast was obvious but killing Hansoo would result in a lot of runes.

Since the stronger someone was, the more runes they would drop.

No, he was actually jealous of the items that guy had.

And Suyeol definitely did not want to be trapped in the same space as that guy.

It was like being with a tiger whose stomach was full and not a human.

His personality didn’t seem that bad usually but no matter how timid a tiger is, you cannot live with it.

Suyeol felt more pressure from Hansoo than from the Carnivorous beast.

The beast was trapped in the altar but that guy was spreading his arms everywhere.

And in that moment the scene from the first night came up in Suyeol’s head.

‘Uuk’

He suppressed the curses that were coming up his throat and then glanced at the guy next to him.

That guy called Sangjin.

‘Stupid bastard. This is why you gotta have good friends’

He had struck up a conversation just in case he could squeeze out information about that guy called Hansoo but the talk went way too smoothly.

If that guy called Hansoo wasn’t much stronger then he didn’t really want to come this far but after hearing it was actually a rather close competition.

Then there is a chance for a third person to take everything whilst these guys fight.

And he had agreed to a plan to kill his friend this easily.

‘If I take care of this guy then everything becomes clean’

After using this guy as a bait in order to divert the beast’s eyes he would just simply take care of everyone once they are tired.

If he got rid of this guy and Hansoo then only five of their friends remain.

And then he could crush them with numbers.

‘Haa. That girl’

Whilst Suyeol was gulping from the thoughts of Mihee, Sangjin, who was watching the fight below, shouted.

“It looked like the beast has become slower than Hansoo so let’s go down!”

At these words they could see that the beast, who was originally much faster than Hansoo, had slowed down to the point where he was much slower than Hansoo.

If the beast had slowed down this much, and if Hansoo fought on the front these guys could probably dodge the attacks somewhat.

“Let’s go down”

Whilst they were running down after Suyeol’s words from the top of the altar on the stairways that connected the top and the bottom, Sangjin made an unexpected action.

“Hansoo! I came to help!”

As Sangjin shouted before going down, Suyeol was flustered as he cursed inwardly.

‘This retarded bastard’

As he saw, Hansoo couldn’t spread his awareness to other places due to him and the monster fighting each other with everything they’ve got.

He thought he could’ve used the element of surprise attack but if they shout from up above like this wouldn’t Hansoo be aware of this side.

But it was too late to become soft.

And when he saw the fight, there wasn’t much change.

‘Yeah. It probably isn’t the time to care about other things’

Since the beast was getting pushed back it couldn’t pay attention to things like them and since Hansoo probably thinks that they are backup he probably thinks that he doesn’t need to care.

‘Good. Good.’

Suyeol slowly walked down as he looked downwards.

The altar was very tall to the point where it reached 30~40m high.

The beast was occupied fighting Hansoo that it hadn’t been able to pay any attention to them who had already came down to the 10m height.

Suyeol, who was walking down, stopped and talked as he turned around.

“How about we wait here awhile? If we go in now we might become a nuisance.”

At those words, everybody nodded as if they were waiting for it.

But at that moment a huge amount of fear exploded from below.

Kuuuuuuaaaaangg!

As the fear that blew out from below bounced off the insides of the altar and got amplified, it exploded upwards as it hit everyone’s ears.

Shake

“Kuhuk!”

The power of the fear that was amplified from the altar’s structure was much more different.

The 11 had expected the fear to be like what they heard from the outside so they were shaking around without being able to catch their balance.

“Huuuak!”

But these guys were one of the stronger people.

Since they had put up the number of runes, they weren’t around the level where they would all fall from just a fear.

“Wow… Be almost got wrecked”

While one of them was still shaking as if he couldn’t catch his balance yet, something unexpected happened.

As if something ran up the stairs like a tank charging from the front.

Kudududududk

“Uuk!”

“Uaaaaak!”

It probably wouldn’t have worked but they were all in a state where their balances were off from the unexpected attack.

They couldn’t hold onto the thin stairs and had all fallen after being hit by something.

Bududuk

“Kuak!”

Their legs didn’t break since they barely caught their balance due to their increased perception and agility but they couldn’t clear up their mentality for a while after falling from a height of 10m.

Suyeol then felt a chill as he looked at one corner.

Krrrrrrrrr

The beast was drooling while staring at them.

While blocking the entrance to the stairs above.

And even had an happy expression.

Suyeol realized something from that expression.

‘Fuck… this bitch. It wasn’t that it didn’t know that we were approaching it’

It wasn’t that the monster didn’t know.

It feigned its ignorance and waited until they came into the range of his fear perfectly

‘Kang Hansoo this bitch. He should’ve told us something like this earlier!’

Hansoo probably knew all about this.

How could he not tell them about this.

No, that wasn’t the important part currently.

‘Fuck… what made us all fall?’

Suyeol hurriedly looked up.

And then made a dumbfounded expression as he saw Sangjin run up the stairs crazily while covering his ears.

‘Did that dumbass just…’

It seems he had been blocking his ears alone.

And that was the reason why he was somewhat immune to the fear.

The guy who was pretty much in normal shape had charged up from the front as he pushed them off.

They had no way of countering it when they were pushed back in terms of stats and had even lost their balance.

‘Is that crazy bastard trying to run away alone?’

Suyeol felt like his soul was about to escape his body but he quickly regained his senses.

There wasn’t much of a problem because he was going to fight with Hansoo anyway.

If Hansoo fought from the front and they support from the back, it will still go according to his plans.

Suyeol shouted loudly as he moved around slowly.

“Hey! I came to help! Let’s combine our strengths and end it quickly!”

And then a voice from above, the top of the stairs where they had come from, was heard.

“Why should I?”

And then the 10 looked up at the sky in panic.

‘…When did he get there’

Hansoo, who was fighting the beast like a maniac just until then, had already climbed up that far.

To the entrance of the altar at the top.

Suyeol desperatly shouted.

“What are you talking about? To not kill something that you almost killed already?”

And then Hansoo shook his head.

“I was about to but it failed. Because of you guys. Now his health is going to regenerate.”

The beast’s attack was something that even he was barely dodging.

These guys had no possibility of dodging.

And if that happened he would devour everyone below, recover his health instantly and cause Hansoo to fall behind on stamina.

Why would he fight in such a situation.

The beast goes for the weaker ones first.

If guys like these guys come he could just simply go out and come back in.

No, it would be easier. Since the ground would be littered with runes.

‘Though there was something I didn’t expect’

Whilst Hansoo was watching somebody outside the altar, Suyeol, who had become desperate, shouted out.

“You… You maniac! Then isn’t it bad for you too! If this guy breaks the altar apart after getting healed…”

“I think it’ll be alright”

“…what?”

“Didn’t you guys come into become sacrifices on your own accord? I will send praises for your samaritanism”

“Fuck…”

They understood the situation finally.

That there was enough sacrifices inside the altar to make the beast fall asleep.

Hansoo had earned 24 hours.

Hansoo could just start all over tomorrow after exiting and sleeping for a day.

He would be able to defeat a foe a second time whom he had already defeated once.

Grrrrrrr

Suyeol made a expression filled with despair as he looked at the beast slowly approaching him.

And then the beast ruthlessly charged at the 10 of them.

Grrrrrrr!

“Uaaaak!”

“Aaak!”

“Kyaaak!”

And soon the altar was filled with roars, screams and plosives.

***

“Hoo.”

Hansoo, who had bit on the cloud snack that he was smoking before, slowly walked up the rest of the stairs after hearing the screams that came down from below expressionlessly.

And he had met with Sangjin who was waiting at the top expressionlessly with the look of stupidity from before nowhere be to seen.

Hansoo, who had gazed at that Sangjin, chuckled as he opened his mouth.

“Why did you do that?”

And Sanjin’s eyes became deeper at those words.

Then soon after he opened his mouth.

“Because I finally realized what I needed to do in order to be of a help to you”

Sangjin mumbled as he listened to the screams of the people whom he had thrown in.