Chapter 399

Whoosh!

Nothing could stop the spearhead wreathed in Force—not leather that could deflect bullets, nor flesh and bone harder than steel.

Puh-puh-puk!

Big targets came with a bonus. The spearhead punched through the Lycanthrope’s chest and skewered the monsters packed close behind it like meat on a spit.

“Krrgh, k-kek.”

Its wide eyes held a mixture of confusion and indignation.

Its gaze seemed to protest: Why me, out of all these monsters? I never crossed the death line you drew.

“No.”

I quietly pulled on the shaft.

Scrape. The Lycanthrope’s claws raked across the ground as I dragged it over to my side of the spear.

“You crossed it. Just now.”

“……!”

That was far enough. I yanked the spear free at lightning speed and swept it horizontally across the monsters before me.

Whoosh, KRAAAASH!

Blue flames scorched the air as they surged forward and swallowed the monsters.

Those still alive burned to death screaming, while those already turned undead crumbled to ash.

Ding. Ding. Ding……

System notifications announcing my kills rang out without pause.

How many had fallen to that single strike? Dozens? A hundred?

Rather than count them one by one, I chose to keep moving. My goal had never been to kill some fixed number of monsters.

Annihilation.

Humans and monsters had been locked in this fated struggle to kill or be killed for decades.

Only one species would be able to survive here today, and I would not be the one to fall.

Thud.

I stepped over the spear embedded deep in the concrete. At the same moment, countless monsters retreated as if by prior agreement.

One step. Two steps. Three.

No matter how far I walked, the distance between us did not shrink. For every step I took, they backed away by just as much.

“This is insane……”

Behind me, the Skeleton Warlord muttered as if groaning.

One human was overwhelming an army of thousands of monsters.

Even if this sight wasn’t enough to fill a page in human history, surely it deserved at least a paragraph.

“W-Where are you going?”

“Keep a good eye on those two. I’m not going far anyway.”

More precisely, there was no longer any need for me to go far.

The guest had already arrived. There was no reason to go out and meet him.

He’s finally here.

My guess had been right. The monster army parted left and right like the ebbing tide, revealing him in the distance atop a skeletal horse made entirely of black bones.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.

He wore pitch-black full plate armor, and a vivid red glow shone beneath his low-set helmet.

He was far smaller than a large monster like an ogre, but the mana pouring from him was immense and powerful.

System

Lv. 135 Death Knight Lord

Level 135. It was a number I had never seen on any monster I had faced before.

As the Death Knight Lord approached, slowly gathering speed, a thought occurred to me.

Can I defeat him?

My battle with the Western Heaven Demon Lord in Murim had been a desperate struggle with my life on the line.

If the Western Heaven Demon Lord had intended to eliminate me from the very beginning, if the Heavenly Power Demon had not passed his internal energy to me, if I had not experienced that miraculous recovery from leveling up, if Jeok Cheongang had not awakened and saved me at the critical moment, I would have died three or four times over.

But in the end, I had survived—and grown stronger.

That was when a question had begun circling endlessly through my mind.

How strong am I now?

The System said my martial arts realm and stats had risen.

I had distributed my stats and fought battles just as I always had, but aside from gaining Force, I wasn’t sure what had changed.

I had no real sense of how much stronger I had become.

At some point, it had all become easy and natural.

And now—

Clatter, thud-thud-thud!

As I watched the Death Knight Lord shoot toward me like a gust of wind, I realized the answer.

The immense mana cascading from his body like a waterfall did not shake me in the slightest. That alone told me.

I am……

Whoooooosh!

The wind vanished, replaced by a flash of light. The Death Knight Lord and his skeletal horse charged as one, and the sword in his hand moved.

Dense darkness gathered around the blade and came crashing down, yet the sight unfolded so slowly before my eyes that a single certainty surfaced in my mind.

I am stronger than anyone else on this battlefield.

In that slowed-down world, I thrust out White Flame.

Blue-white flames surged along the spearhead and devoured the darkness.

A roar like the sky splitting apart rang out.

KRAAAASH!

The ground within a radius of several hundred meters¹ caved in, and the hospital that had stood firm for decades collapsed.

Compressed air erupted in layer after layer like a sonic boom, battering and hurling away everything around them.

And at the center of it all stood two beings whom no one else could approach.

Whoosh, whoosh-whoosh-whoosh! KABOOM!

Several times—perhaps dozens—in the blink of an eye.

Whenever blue-white flames and pitch-black darkness collided and mingled, deafening roars and devastating destruction followed.

No human or monster could see the movements of the two beings.

They existed on another level, clashing within a world and time all their own.

Swish!

The silver-white spear in Jin Taekyung’s hand slashed down through empty space.

Blue-white flames tore through space as they poured downward. But the Black Knight did not retreat. He swung his sword.

KABOOM!

The instant the surging mana collided with the flames, the tremendous pressure shattered the Black Knight’s skeletal horse.

But the erasure of Nightmare—his loyal steed and an A-rank monster—was nothing compared to what came next.

Whoooooosh!

A thrown spear with no preparatory motion whatsoever—a veritable flash of light.

The Black Knight twisted aside on instinct. Tremendous heat grazed his chest and tore into the ranks of monsters behind him.

KRAKAKAK! KABOOM!

The spearhead punched through dozens of monsters before slamming into the ground, where it blasted out a massive crater with a thunderous roar.

Before the monsters caught in the aftermath could even scream in terror, Jin Taekyung was already moving toward the Black Knight.

Sshk.

A single step, without sound or presence.

By the time the Black Knight noticed, Jin Taekyung had erased the dozens of meters² between them and reached his target. A fist shot toward the Black Knight’s chest.

“Get lost.”

“……!”

Boom!

Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist. Heat hotter than lava slammed into the armor.

The Black Knight was hurled away at tremendous speed, but he flipped in midair and righted himself. At the same time, his hand tightened around his sword hilt and swept the blade out with tremendous force.

Whoooooosh! Shh-shh-shhk!

Black mana became dozens of lightning bolts that shot toward Jin Taekyung. Each one possessed earth-shaking power.

But Jin Taekyung was already gone.

KRAKABOOM!

Jin Taekyung burst through the cloud of pale dust and extended both hands.

The sword had already changed direction and was slashing down toward the crown of his head, but he caught the blade between his palms as if clasping his hands in prayer.

Empty-Hand Seizes the Blade.

His hands, wreathed in blue flames, and the blade, laden with immense mana, trembled between the two beings.

One blocking. The other pressing forward.

Their fierce deadlock brought the relentless exchange to a momentary halt—until an unexpected intruder broke it.

“You! Human!”

A Death Knight appeared with a shout and brought its mace down toward Jin Taekyung’s back.

Boom!

The Death Knight never even realized when or how it died.

Jin Taekyung’s heel sliced through the air like a blade and blew its head apart, helmet and all.

Thud.

Yet futile though its erasure had been, the attack was not entirely meaningless.

The Black Knight’s red eyes flashed, and the sword in his grasp unleashed more mana than ever before.

The tiniest of openings.

The instant in which Jin Taekyung diverted his internal energy to kill the Death Knight was enough to shatter the balance.

Crunch! Slash!

Blood sprayed into the air.

It was endlessly red—human blood, proof that the Black Knight’s sword had cut across Jin Taekyung’s chest.

A single certainty flashed through the Black Knight’s mind.

It’s over.

Then, in the next instant, Jin Taekyung’s flame-wreathed fist slammed into the Black Knight’s side.

Crack!

“……!”

The Death Knight Lord’s body jerked.

Like any undead monster incapable of feeling pain, he made no sound, but I could read the question in the red glow visible through the slits of his helmet.

How?

Yeah. That was exactly what his eyes were asking.

I answered flatly.

“You think you’re the only one with armor?”

Boom!

This time, it was the Flame Divine Palm.

Already cracked from the repeated blows, the Death Knight Lord’s armor shattered into fragments.

“That hurt, you son of a bitch.”

Crack!

I seized his gauntleted wrist, twisted it, and snapped it.

I had no idea how much attacks like these mattered against an undead monster, but it was enough to make him drop his sword.

Clank.

The moment the sword hit the ground, the Death Knight Lord was met with a merciless barrage.

Boom! Crack! Bam!

I planted my foot on his instep and unleashed punch after punch.

Shoulder. Arm. Side. Chest.

The Death Knight Lord took dozens of blows in the blink of an eye. He tried to counterattack, but it didn’t matter.

Thud!

“……?”

“Don’t look so surprised. My armor’s pretty useful too.”

I had the Fire Dragon Armor.

Never thought I’d use it here.

The Fire Dragon Armor was a divine weapon I had obtained after defeating the Western Heaven Demon Lord.

It had been so severely damaged during the battle in Murim that it was still repairing itself, but even at a restoration rate of roughly fifty percent, it had done its job admirably.

Though I nearly died because it couldn’t block the strike completely.

My vision had swum when the sword cut me.

But I had suffered this much pain more times than I cared to remember.

Besides, it was nothing compared to the pain endured by those who had died before me.

“This is…for the people you killed today.”

I put all my strength into a punch and drove it into his face.

A Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist at the eighth level smashed apart the helmet that had withstood everything, revealing his face.

The balance had tipped. One blow. One final strike would be enough to take his life.

“And this is……”

At that moment, my raised fist stopped dead.

I blinked through eyelids clotted with blood. For just an instant, time seemed to stop when my gaze landed on someone’s face.

It was unfamiliar, yet familiar.

With deathly white skin and glowing red eyes, he looked exactly like a certain hero I had seen in a holographic video.

“……Lei Fei?”