Chapter 88. Ouroboros (4)
Hansoo started to pull out the energy from within his body atop of the giant scales.
The scales beneath his feet were clashing around like waves as they smashed Hansoo’s ankles like blades.
‘…Damnit. Faster.’
Hansoo, who had withstood the Ouroboros’ attacks with the formless armor of the relic and the Thousand Soldiers Armor clenched his teeth and then smashed down towards the scale beneath his feet with huge amounts of energy.
Boooooom!
The attack Hansoo let out smashed apart the scales and then ruthlessly ripped apart the inner flesh.
Chiiiik
The nerve which had appeared between its spines was the size of a large lake but it could not handle the powerful energy Hansoo was letting out.
As the giant nerve started to burn up, it started to smash its body towards the World Tree as if it was getting enraged.
In order to smash the bugs on its body.
Booom!
As its body smashed onto the World Tree, a force which felt like a meteor smashed onto its body.
‘Kuuh.’
The parasites on its body started to madly fall down onto the ground.
The force which was smashing his whole body made him think of the already made decision.
‘Should I have taken them instead.’
Hansoo then thought of the things that Sangjin had probably eaten by now.
The others didn’t know but Hansoo knew that Miyamoto had the Fragments of Seven Souls as a trait.
Since the trait’s victim, Sofía Vargera, told him after she came up.
— He’s a damnable guy. We didn’t know anything about it and were always thankful to him.
Sofía Vargera.
One of the Seven Departed Souls.
And the person who had found the last hidden person in despair.
Sofía found Miyamoto’s treasure vault and then figured out everything.
She then killed the lady who mustered up a small amount of remaining strength to beg her to kill her, took everything, smashed apart the control of Miyamoto and climbed up.
Gangtae, who had heard this story, grinded his teeth as he spoke,
— The ownership to that is ours. once you return to the past go retrieve it. miyamoto this bastard… we gave those things to him to use properly.
He knew of the location of Miyamoto’s treasure vault because of this.
Objects that the strong people who had the ability to raise the Six Pillars left behind while asking him to protect their family.
And objects that Miyamoto had considered the most dangerous and had hidden away separately.
Of course their worth was amazing.
Since it had risen Sofía, who was talented but late, all the way up into the Final Brigade.
Objects that were hard to get even up above since they were growing ones.
And one of them was very outstanding out of these items.
— Goddamnit! if i knew that was such a skill then i wouldn’t have given it! I thought a better one would come out up here!
Kangtae surprisingly obtained a solo numbering skill while roaming around the Tutorial and the Red Zone.
Hansoo who was thinking of that skill looked in between the Roots which had turned into chaos.
***
Hoooong
Keil Ross, one of the clansmen of Hecarim thought of the orders he had received.
— Kill the rest of the guys who had clashed between the 4th and 5th root from yesterday. Also kill off all the newcomers who have a connection to us that we used yesterday as well.
The work itself was easy.
Since 15 Tracking Teams had been sent out in order to kill off a few newcomers.
But the environment was the problem.
‘Damnit. What am I doing when keeping my own life is hard enough.’
Keil, who was searching for the targets on his own, frowned as he saw the parasites falling from the sky.
‘This won’t do. I should at least have some fun when I find them instead of just killing them off.’
Apparently the asian girl called Mihee was famous for being pretty.
If they were a newcomer then the special toxicity of the otherworld shouldn’t have seeped in yet either.
It will be fun playing around with her.
He found his target in the distance after running for a bit.
He then showed a conspicuous color.
‘Huh? Did no one really find them yet?’
This wasn’t his area so he thought that others had already found them and were enjoying them.
But the girl called Mihee was still running around the battlefield with a small group of people in order to find a way to live.
‘My luck is really good.’
Right as Keil laughed and was about to run over, he felt a chill run down his back.
4 years since he had entered the Otherworld.
Keil knew, even without having a skill, that if he ignored this feeling then he will lose his neck.
Keil then froze his expression as he looked at the location where the aura came from and not at Mihee.
He then laughed.
‘Gosh. Did my perception rust quite a bit?’
He knew that fool over there quite well.
Since that guy was part of his targets this time.
‘Was he called Sangjin?’
The guy who had a ragged cape around his body was glaring at him with a cold expression.
Keil, who had gotten so annoyed to the point where he didn’t even want to open his mouth, pulled out a short sword, bit his pinkie to let out some blood and then started to write a character out.
He then threw it towards Sangjin.
The blood on the dagger drew out a strange symbol in the air.
The moment the strange dagger landed in front of Sangjin, a 2m wide black sphere appeared with Sangjin as the center.
It then compressed everything into a small dot.
Kushushushuk!
Keil made a satisfied expression at the area which head been destroyed.
‘This is it.’
But Keil frowned.
Since something had flown over through the dust.
And Keil’s alertness exploded as soon as he saw Sangjin.
He could only do so.
Everybody could only get cautious once they saw the artifacts strung around his body.
And even more so if they wouldn’t even get scratched by his <implosion sphere>.
‘Goddamnit!’
Keil urgently poured out skills as he backed off but he could not dodge it all as the tip of Sangjin’s long sword cut him.
‘Damnit. Where did this guy gain such artifacts… Anyways I need to prepare for more attacks…’
While Keil got flustered and prepared himself for his next set of attacks, he looked at Sangjin who wasn’t chasing him anymore and then made a confused expression.
Why didn’t he charge and attack him?
‘So scrubs can only do so much huh.’
Keil laughed coldly.
He should’ve tried to get as much out of the surprise attack he had achieved but it seems that he didn’t from fear.
Keil who was landing while laughing had his view tilting as he fell over.
To be precise, not the view but himself was falling sideways.
“Uh? Uhhuh?”
Keil, who had freaked out and then checked his body, made a expression of disbelief at this right leg which had rotted and was shriveling up.
‘No way! It just barely scratched it!’
He then fell into despair at the purple mana reinforcement that was eating into his body.
He then realized it.
Why he had found the Mihee girl first.
It wasn’t that he had found her first.
The people before him had met the same fate.
‘Damnit…’
Kyle closed his eyes while looking at the sword flying towards his neck.
***
‘To leave behind such a thing…’
Hansoo mumbled as he thought of the skill Kangtae had left behind.
Actually Miyamoto’s rewards were a bit awkward for him.
Since they didn’t have much meaning to him who was using the relics.
And the skills were very high quality but not quite good enough for him who could only fill up seven.
But one thing, that thing was different.
<lord of the dead>.
A solo numbering skill which allowed one to raise the people whom they had killed as spectres during the night and use the skill <death> during the day.
The solo numbering was something that was determined after it had grown to the purple stage.
So Kangtae wouldn’t have known how good of a skill it would be at the Red Zone level,
No, he had actually gained other artifacts and skills so easily so he felt that better skills than this would come out so he had just left behind the worst of the useful ones he had.
A skill which was created entirely from luck which couldn’t be laughed at.
This skill was something that even he could not ignore.
But Hansoo shook his head.
‘This isn’t… Something I will use.’
It wasn’t suitable for him to use because of its burden to use against humans.
No, in order to use this properly then they had to raise the people whom they had killed in large numbers.
Since the true might of this strength was shown at night.
If they could raise the dead during the day then the skill’s ranking would’ve went up even more.
Anyways, they will be walking around and advertising that they were human killers.
‘It’ll be chaotic.’
And because of this, in the case he retrieved this he would need to give it to Enbi Arin who he was going to recruit as a Punisher in the Orange Zone or to somebody else.
Since the main goal of this place was the Five Calamities and since there was a higher chance of clashing with people up above.
But he had gained a punisher that was not part of his plan and he was doing quite well so it was better to use it now and raise him.
‘If I raise him well starting from now then he’ll be better than Enbi Arin. Anyways, I should do what I need to do.’
Kiiiing
The powerful energy in Hansoo’s hand dug down into the nerve.
Like a giant lake evaporating from powerful flames, the mana wave that came out of Hansoo’s hand melted down the nerves.
Kududududk
‘It’s done.’
As the 1st nerve that he had taken responsibility of melted down, Hansoo quickly launched a red carrier pigeon that signaled him having completed his objective.
Pudududuk
One carrier pigeon after another started to flow up from kilometers ahead.
Which meant that everyone had completed their objectives.
‘Good.’
It was now way more dangerous.
Since they had to cross over the body of the Ouroboros which was raving crazily and burn down the final four nerves.
Booooom!
Hansoo looked at the giant body which was thrashing around as he hid between the scales.
A force which felt like being hit by a giant race of the Abyss hit Hansoo’s body.
It would’ve been dangerous if he hadn’t hidden quickly.
‘As I expected… the force is the greatest since it’s the most dangerous place.’
If they hadn’t burned down the eight nerves at the same time then it would’ve been faster and more dangerous than this.
A much slower but still extremely formidable strength and speed.
‘Quickly… we must burn down the remaining four.’
He wanted to dig into the inside but it would take a long time for him to get through the harder inner scale and the hundreds of meters of thick muscle.
The World Tree might even get destroyed by the thrashing Ouroboros.
‘Never.’
Hansoo clenched his teeth and then dodged the scales which stood up in order to chop him apart as he started to quickly run in between those things.
***
‘Hook. Hooook.’
Sofía, who had barely managed to burn down the nerve, clenched her teeth.
She had been sent to the safest location because she was the youngest.
If Hansoo’s location was the end of the whip, the fastest part, then the location she was at was the start of the whip, the slowest part.
But her whole body still felt like it was getting smashed apart from the Ouroboros which was thrashing about.
‘I need to borrow strength.’
Sofía used the soul fragment that Miyamoto had given her that she rarely used because of her pride.
Kiiiing
Suddenly eight different protective skills surrounded her body.
Sofía, who had checked her body which had gotten rather safe, thought of Hansoo in the distance as she make a bittersweet expression.
‘Damnit. I would’ve gotten stronger if I went up too… I shouldn’t have gotten entangled with Miyamoto back then.’
The one thing Sofía counted as both her strong and weak point.
She was extremely competitive.
She directly accepted Miyamoto’s offer at the single word that she was able to get stronger but then as if the world was proving nothing was free, it became harder for her to go against Miyamoto’s saying.
— Going up? I cannot allow you to. You must take care of the Akuma here.
She managed to live with the pride that there was nobody who became as strong as her in 3 years but the newly appeared Hansoo lit the fire in her mind again.
‘I… I can get stronger.’
But Sofía shook her head and then threw away these thoughts.
This wasn’t the time to focus on such things.
They needed to kill the Ouroboros quickly.
Since she also wanted the least amount of people to die.
She wasn’t dumb to the point where she would lose sight of her goals after getting swept up by her competitiveness.
Sofía clenched her teeth and then pushed the skills of the soul fragment Miyamoto had given her as she started to run.
The fragment of the soul slowly started to take over Sofía’s body.