Chapter 29. Central Island (2)

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Hooong.

Hansoo stared at the Podao flying towards him expressionlessly.<Eripan’s Podao>

A colorless artifact that increased cutting powers.

It was a pretty good one.

Cutting was considered a skill so it was something that required both Physical and magic resistances.

But Hansoo stared at the sword expressionlessly.

It was easy to dodge.

But Hansoo just charged at it.

It wasn’t always good to dodge.

If you dodge then your balance will fall apart which will slow down your counterattack.

And if you had the confidence to block it completely then it was even less necessary.

Of course, resistances acted as something that reduce the damage but not as a shield.

It didn’t make one invincible even if it was at the colorless level, so getting a severe hit can’t have no damage.

If it had only that then he probably couldn’t have beaten the Carnivorous beast.

However, that was only when you get hit properly, in a situation where you can see the attack clearly it was actually hard to even purposely get hit properly.

‘I can see it all’

Perception that had reached the colorless stage couldn’t even be compared to the previous.

A more perfect battle foresight came into his head than what he had when he fought the Carnivorous beast.

Kududududk

Hansoo deflected the side of the blade perfectly with the ring on his finger.

Tong.

And at that moment the <Power Destruction> of Nurmaha’s ring activated and destroyed the Cutting magic on Eripan’s Podao.

“Uurk?”

Even before the enemy could get surprised, Hansoo’s fist had even pushed back the enemy’s blade.

Then the sword which was dispelled of the cutting magic couldn’t penetrate through his physical resistances.

Tumble.

Sacrifice your own flesh to break its bones.

A battle style that he had learned while progressing through the abyss.

You can’t attack if you focus on dodging.

Then the enemy will live longer and this will in turn cause your few remaining friends next to you die.

As long as you don’t die then you needed to kill them in one strike.

You can’t kill if you are afraid of getting hurt.

Since as long as you survive, you can just heal it back up.

One shot one kill.

His battle style, which he couldn’t utilize due to his lack of resistances, started coming back as his resistances and Nurmaha’s ring was set up.

Since he had blocked it was now time for the neck.

The blade moved at an extreme speed towards Gukjin’s neck after he had lost his balance.

“Uaauuuhhh…”

Gukjin felt like his soul was about to depart as he saw the blade that felt like it would cut his neck in two.

The damnable increased perception and agility was showing the blade flying towards his neck clearly.

‘Oh right. I shouldn’t kill them.’

Hansoo came to his senses as he spun the sword around.

A podao that he had attained in the floors below.

This was also a colorless artifact.

It wasn’t an amazing artifact but if he hit them like this then their heads would get crushed without resistances.

He deactivated the skill on the blade edge and even turned the direction of the swing towards his abdomen.

It wasn’t that the abdomen was safer but he had an artifact that he picked up earlier <Abdominal Bandage of Revival>

It won’t destroy his intestines since he had even drained the strength from the strike.

Puuuk!

“Kuuaaak!”

‘It’s rather tiring trying to not kill.’

Hansoo frowned but he had to do so.

If he carefully whips them then he could send them to the battlefield after healing them.

He had to let loose a little bit.

This was not the Abyss

‘I need to save them. They are precious resources’

The event in the Central Island was a bit different than the ones so far.

It was not something that could be cleared by flying about alone.

He had to use as much as he could.

He had settled down about the half but the cloud snack’s duration still had around 8 minutes left.

‘…It’s a little wasteful to smoke the whole thing’

But Hansoo threw away his regrets.

Since he could raise all his runes to colorless stage by tomorrow.

Which meant this “guy” won’t be needed anymore.

Hansoo loosened up a little and then charged at the 15 people who were staring at him in fear.

***

“…hmm.”

Jimin, who had been standing next to Yerin, gulped her saliva.

The thirty over there could go up against a clan if they combined their strength.

But they weren’t even opponents for him.

He wasn’t even dodging their attacks.

She had thought that he was crazy but she knew now.

That he had the confidence to ignore all those attacks.

‘How high are his resistances…’

She had learnt of resistances by chance from a skill.

It was so hard to raise that the person with the highest resistances only had around 30.

But they had realized that it was better to raise perception and agility to dodge than resistances so they gave up raising them.

Since it wasn’t that the resistances absorbed all the damage if they raised it.

But her thoughts changed completely after seeing Hansoo fight.

There was no outstanding stat out of strength, stamina, agility or perception.

But his defense, ability to control his body and battle perception were at a level of a different dimension.

A battle tactic that was minimized in order to cut the opponent’s neck in one strike.

Approach by dodging and charge whilst blocking with the body until they got into range, then kill them in one shot.

Physical similarities weren’t important.

No, it was the exact opposite.

If the 4 great stats, which were strength, stamina, agility and perception, were similar to him then you would the instant you stand in front of him.

‘What the hell is that ring also. Where the hell did he gain something like that.’

Jimin mumbled as she looked at Hansoo who had beaten down all thirty of them even before he finished the cigarette.

There were no deaths.

But the ones alive couldn’t even meet their eyes with Hansoo.

Jimin could figure out why that was the case.

‘They probably felt like their necks had been sent flying’

Those guys probably felt like their necks had been cut off.

Since they would’ve felt like that if they were in their position.

‘Damnit.. That’s just unfair.’

Jimin made a complicated expression.

It wasn’t something that could be solved by raising stat, getting better skill, having psychic powers or having better artifacts.

She had realized that it would merely be pearls on a pig’s neck if you couldn’t melt them down into your own battle style.

She probably wouldn’t be able to display half the battle power of Hansoo even if she had the same amount of stat, skill, psychic powers and weapon.

And Yerin, who had been standing next to her, had the same complicated thoughts.

‘What exactly is his psychic power? Did he use a skill?’

She had thought that other than psychic powers like hers, no one would be able to be her opponent.

Since the rate at which one person getting strong could not compare with the strength of 50 or 100 people getting strong.

This was a huge misconception.

‘It exists’

An existence that could crush a clan in a headfirst clash alone.

Whilst everybody was looking at Hansoo with complicated expressions, Hansoo shouted around after staring at the half smoked Cloud snack for a while.

‘I should solve everything before I burn up the Cloud snack’

“Starting tomorrow the Semi-Basement Union and the Clan Unions will form an alliance then fight and defend on rotations. This is my opinion and is not the answer so if you have any objections, come out now to talk. If it’s reasonable we shall talk it out. Objections?”

But of course there wasn’t anybody who could come out.

Of course they could probably win if all one thousand of them charged at him.

But no one had such thoughts.

But from the start, the Semi-Basement Union was a group formed by people whose greediness had advanced a bit far.

They knew that the people going first would be crushed to bits so who would go first.

And talking things out.

The one thing they wanted to suggest was this.

Let them hunt a few days more below without rotating.

The blade will come flying at them instantaneously and they knew from the way he fought that the ones who went first would get crushed.

And the clan unions behind wouldn’t stand still either.

They were already on bad terms.

‘This is indeed much more comfortable’

It was faster and more comfortable to crush down thirty of them as an example instead of going against all of them.

Hansoo, who had trampled upon the masses in one shot, turned around towards the Clan Unions as he spoke.

“Let’s talk for a bit”

“…hmm?”

They were all anxious as they looked at Hansoo.

Honestly they had a bit of confidence in suppressing the Semi-Basement Union if they went crazy until now.

Since the people who had been gathered from understanding were like crumbs unlike them who were like a compact mass.

But if that guy acted as the centripetal force and ate all of Semi-Basement Union then they could not look down on him.

No, his battle force was very burdensome to them from the start.

Hansoo chuckled.

“Don’t worry. I don’t have any thoughts of becoming a leader”

He hadn’t tied them together in order to become a king.

It was better to leave things like that to people with appropriate traits.

The thing he needed was his own sphere of influence.

‘First I will put down the basic rules and system’

If these guys fall apart then he won’t be able to roam around because he would be defending.

‘Of course it won’t last long but.’

Hansoo mumbled as he walked towards the Clan Lords.

***

“Hmm…”

Guktae, who was one of the twelve clan Lords, smiled in contentment as he saw the view in front of him.

‘That guy called Hansoo. He really did something admirable’

All the ruling powers within the castle were divided around the twelve clan Lords.

Hansoo’s words were simple.

— Being a leader is impossible without your psychic powers. Feed the useful ones as much as you can and get them into your clans while leaving the others under your command.

And at those words the others started to hurriedly absorb the remaining Semi-Basement Union’s people.

If there was only one clan then they probably wouldn’t have gathered this hard.

Since they wanted to fill them up with as many elites as possible.

But they couldn’t ignore anybody in this place because they were just mediocre roamers.

They had to decrease the amount of mediocre roamers and increase the number of their clans people in order to not get pushed back.

And in result the number of people in the clans had multiplied to about 1100.

Everyone had recruited people under their clan up to their limit.

So about 800 people were left.

And these 800 people were also divided fairly into the clans.

And after this, every clan had about 90 clansmen and about 70 normal adventurers.

A number that the clan could control.

And after they had completed this process, they agreed to continuously defend and hunt in rotations.

And when the runes and the system that everybody had to keep and follow were set up, Hansoo let go of his influence.

He was nowhere to be seen during hunts and had participated during defense but he didn’t have any interest in being a leader.

— That’s not something I’m good at. I can’t catch up to something built with you guys’ psychic powers as base.

‘Well yeah…’

The psychic powers they had was the strongest point out of all the charisma, power and decision making abilities.

‘Though I want to use non-clan membered a bit more…’

Guktae didn’t like the fact that he had to treat normal adventurers and his own clansmen the same way.

But he couldn’t do anything.

Since they had set up fair distribution with rules clearly and the fact that the Semi-Basement Union had still existed.

‘Tsk. It would’ve been much better if those 30 had been killed then’

They couldn’t treat them recklessly since the 30 who had been beaten down acted as the main leaders and looked over interchanges.

Since they might move to another clan and the fact that the number 800 was still a very burdensome number.

‘It somewhat feels like raising a worker’s association’

Whatever happened there were some leisure now.

Though it was only a bit.

‘Hmm… then there’s no reason to send them all to defend’

The 1900 gathered here were not grouped stably.

Since there was always friction between clans to clans and clans to Semi-Basement Union in order to gain a bit more.

‘I should prepare a little’

Guktae, who had completed his thoughts, went into action immediatly.

***

Yerin spoke with a cold expression.

“As I saw it the people assigned to defend didn’t do so. Didn’t your clan have responsibility of the Northeastern side? A few undeads had gotten past the other defense lines because you took out of the defenders to hunt”

Guktae, one of the clan Lords, smiled leisurely as he spoke.

“Oh come on. Miss Yerin. Listen to me for a bit. There’s quite a lot of leisure lately yeah? Is there a reason for all six clans to defend the walls?”

Some of the clan Lords nodded at those words.

Yerin grinded her teeth.

‘lot of leisure my ass’

These were people who were secretly pulling out defenders during waves to hunt.

She could have ignored them if they defended their spot properly at least.

Since they tried to defend without casualties with small numbers their lines had been pushed back and because of that there were damages to other clans as well.

Guktae laughed at Yerin as he spoke again.

“And look. We have some leisure now but does it make sense that the fairy is leaving us so comfortably like this? The demons are nowhere to be seen yet. We need to prepare for that moment and get stronge…”

“You are talking about some interesting things. Include me too”

Hansoo smirked as he entered the room of Lords and at that moment the expressions of a few other Lords and Guktae froze.

‘Well. Two days. It’s lasted a while if it’s this much’

But it was better to solve anything before the real start of the battle on the third day when the demons come out.

‘Kang Hansoo… This bitch. He was nowhere to be seen but why did he have to come now’

Guktae, who had been looking at Hansoo with a slightly anxious expression, shook his head.

It was said that they had to keep the rules no matter what but who could argue him for only this much?

And they had gotten strong in the past few days and their numbers had increased to around 160 from the 50 in the past.

He had also hunted but it seemed like his artifacts didn’t have much change and two days of getting stronger won’t change much.

Their situations were different from the past.

‘You raised us up like this. Let’s see what you’ve got to say’

There was no reason to back down.

Guktae calmed down as he started to look at Hansoo with a cold expression.