Chapter 13

Chapter 13.

 

CLACK! THUNK!

At first, it looked almost ridiculous.

It kept moving and stopping like some kind of mime.

But Lee Ha-kyung quickly realized something was off.

‘Its movements are incredibly precise. They look like something straight out of a swordsmanship manual.’

The attacks that had started out slowly grew faster and faster.

Then, the moment the distance between them closed—

Bone Breaker’s speed suddenly surged.

FWOOOOSH—!

When it thrust its sword forward, it sounded like a fighter jet screaming past.

The charge was savage, but Lee Ha-kyung dodged it with ease.

Bone Breaker immediately stuck to him.

Then the metal club came swinging down wildly.

CLANG!

In the end, Lee Ha-kyung had no choice but to block.

A groan slipped from his lips.

“Kh!”

The weight in his grip was tremendous.

If he underestimated this place just because it was a low-rank dungeon, he was going to regret it.

Lee Ha-kyung hesitated for a brief moment, then tilted his head.

‘Why is it this strong?’

A barrage of dozens of attacks came at him right after that.

BANGBANGBANGBANG!

Amazingly, Lee Ha-kyung managed to block only half of them.

The rest landed cleanly all over his body.

There was a reason no one bothered clearing this dungeon.

Bone Breaker’s close-combat skill was beyond extraordinary.

Lee Ha-kyung figured out why almost at once.

‘It does not breathe at all. The gaps between attacks are insanely short.’

Undead monsters were usually painfully slow.

But Bone Breaker was different.

Now he understood why Raiders held their entrance test here.

Lee Ha-kyung calmly dealt with the assault.

‘It is incredibly fast, and it hits hard. But… I can handle it.’

That was thanks to his artifacts supporting him at exactly the right moments.

[Reactive Magic Armor Activated]

[Cloak of Command Activated]

[Tyrant’s Bracelet Activated]

WHIRR—

Before he knew it, his Abyss Refinement had extended to four meters.

And it was wrapped in dark crimson flames.

That was thanks to Reactive Magic Armor converting impact into mana.

Lee Ha-kyung took the hits he needed to take.

Blocked the ones he needed to block.

And kept pushing forward.

Minor injuries were nothing to worry about.

The Tyrant’s Bracelet would heal them cleanly.

Lee Ha-kyung slashed upward with all his strength.

KWAHHH—!

The metal club turned to powder in an instant.

Bone Breaker shattered into pieces as well.

CRASH!

The bone-shaped chunks of metal collapsed in a pathetic heap.

[You have defeated Bone Breaker, Guardian of the Dungeon]

[Reward granted: ‘Blue Shard’]

Lee Ha-kyung watched Bone Breaker’s end with a calm expression.

‘As expected… the reward is not much.’

All the guardian had dropped was a single bright blue shard of metal.

It was used to craft equipment for awakened ones.

And there was no need to check. It was obviously low-grade.

With the reward in hand, Lee Ha-kyung moved to keep going.

He was about to head for the top floor of the Tower of Judgment.

Then cheers erupted behind him.

“Woooow! We cleared it!”

“I do not know who you are, but thank you so much!”

They were the awakened ones taking the Raiders Guild entrance exam.

They had probably mistaken Lee Ha-kyung for someone on the same team and were celebrating.

A few of them, however, looked grim.

They knew he had challenged the Tower of Judgment alone.

Naturally, Lee Ha-kyung had no intention of simply letting them pass.

‘They stepped aside for me at the auction, so I suppose I can offer a small favor in return.’

Thinking of Choi Hyun-ki, Lee Ha-kyung let out a faint laugh.

Then he simply went up the stairs.

CLANK! CLANK!

A moment later, Bone Breaker returned to its original state.

The awakened ones who had been rushing in triumph were immediately met with a rain of club strikes.

BAM BAM BAM!

“Aaaagh!”

Their screams rang out one after another.

Smirking, Lee Ha-kyung continued toward the top floor.

“No way you are getting a free ride.”

But standing in the final boss’s place was someone completely unexpected.

A man over two meters tall, his shirt hanging open.

A greatsword resting across his shoulder.

It was Ma Do-hyuk.

For a moment, Lee Ha-kyung could not help thinking this.

‘What? Why is he here…? Do not tell me this is a trap.’

Was that really such a strange thought?

The timing was far too perfect to dismiss it outright.

But soon, Lee Ha-kyung sensed that something was wrong.

Ma Do-hyuk’s face was far too expressionless.

It was as though he had no emotions at all.

Like a mannequin.

Lee Ha-kyung casually tossed out a question.

“I thought you were busy breaking into The Void. What brings you to a shabby place like this?”

“……”

Ma Do-hyuk did not answer.

He only stared at Lee Ha-kyung and tightened his grip on the greatsword.

It looked like he meant to fight.

Then, as the distance between them narrowed a little more,

text appeared before Lee Ha-kyung’s eyes, clearing up his confusion.

[You have encountered Mirror Shade, Boss of the Abyss Dungeon]

‘Mirror Shade. So that is the name. I can guess what it means.’

If this was not a trap—

and if the boss took the form of the last person to clear the place—

then Ma Do-hyuk’s sudden appearance made sense.

A meaningful smile touched Lee Ha-kyung’s lips.

“So I get to cross blades with Ma Do-hyuk, at least indirectly.”

Awakened ones with a certain level of fame rarely had reason to fight one another.

Most of them belonged to guilds.

And they usually spent their time in abyss dungeons.

Still, a duel with someone strong was always nourishment for growth.

Lee Ha-kyung drew up Abyss Refinement.

FWOOSH—!

A gray-white blade extended two meters.

Now that his Refinement Rank had reached Stage 2, the hazy shimmer was gone.

But the power was surely much greater than before.

Normally, Stage 2 was a level only people with over ten years of experience could reach.

To achieve it in his mid-twenties filled him with quiet satisfaction.

Suppressing that sense of accomplishment, Lee Ha-kyung stared at Mirror Shade.

Then the greatsword came hurtling toward him in an instant.

FWOOOOOM—! BOOM!

Lee Ha-kyung threw himself aside on instinct.

Instead of blocking or deflecting it, he chose to evade.

The reason was simple.

Cold sweat ran down his back.

‘At least in raw attack power, it is almost on par with the real thing.’

Each blow felt like it carried nearly half the power of Soul-Sever.

The fact that a casual swing could be that strong—

even Lee Ha-kyung, who had endured countless hardships, found it alarming.

Mirror Shade launched into a mad flurry of attacks.

WHUM! WHUM! WHUM! WHUM!

The sound of the blade slicing through the air was deeply threatening.

Its speed was just as terrifying.

An all-out offensive that ignored defense completely.

That was the trademark of Ma Do-hyuk, the Abyss Beast.

Lee Ha-kyung could not see any opening to counterattack.

All he could do was quickly widen the distance.

‘It feels similar to Bone Breaker. There is no rhythm to it at all. But… is Mr. Ma Do-hyuk not like that too?’

A relentless, storm-like assault.

It matched Ma Do-hyuk’s fighting style perfectly.

And yet, it felt strangely different from what Lee Ha-kyung knew.

‘It feels unrefined. Is that because it is fake? If it were copying him perfectly, it should not feel like this.’

Once he focused solely on evasion, it was not completely impossible to manage.

Then, at the moment Ma Do-hyuk leaped slightly into the air for a downward strike,

Lee Ha-kyung’s eyes changed.

‘This is it!’

It was a movement quite different from the Ma Do-hyuk he had seen in the Fusion Abyss.

It looked flashy, but it inevitably created an opening.

After all, jumping left him defenseless in midair.

Lee Ha-kyung countered at once.

Ignoring the greatsword crashing down as if to split his skull—

he snapped his karambit upward in a vicious slash.

For a brief instant, their bodies crossed like a picture.

SHHK—! CRACK!

The gray-white blade pierced Ma Do-hyuk’s abdomen.

Meanwhile, the greatsword stopped dead against Lee Ha-kyung’s wrist.

More precisely, he had blocked the attack with the Tyrant’s Bracelet.

Lee Ha-kyung was surprised.

‘Its defense is better than I expected.’

The Tyrant’s Bracelet did not even have a scratch on it.

On top of that, it lacked the usual metallic property of transmitting impact.

It felt as though it had absorbed the shock entirely, just like Reactive Magic Armor.

That made his next move much easier.

“Haaah!”

SHHK—!

Lee Ha-kyung ripped the karambit back out with brute force.

Gray liquid came gushing out of Ma Do-hyuk’s abdomen.

Honestly, Lee Ha-kyung thought the fight was over.

No one stayed fine after having their stomach completely pierced.

But Ma Do-hyuk did not care in the slightest and moved straight into his next attack.

FWOOM—! CRACK! THUD!

“Ggh!”

The greatsword, carving a bizarre trajectory, struck his arms and legs in rapid succession.

Chunks of Lee Ha-kyung’s flesh were torn away.

Blood streamed down him.

A moment of carelessness had led to serious damage.

Of course, Lee Ha-kyung did not panic.

He had a monstrously powerful artifact.

[Tyrant’s Bracelet Activated]

[Your body is recovering rapidly]

SSSSSS—

Fresh flesh filled in instantly.

The bleeding stopped at once.

Lee Ha-kyung shook his head.

“Right. You are not human, are you?”

Then again, the real Ma Do-hyuk probably would have acted the same way.

His nickname was the Abyss Beast, after all.

A hole through the abdomen was probably not the sort of thing he would worry about.

Lee Ha-kyung gave a bitter smile.

‘Making a mistake here of all places. I still have a long way to go.’

That was enough self-reflection.

He turned quickly.

SSSSSS!

The gray-white blade extended to five meters.

Then, a lightning-fast slash swept past Ma Do-hyuk’s neck.

WHIRR—!

A white line cut through the air with a sharp hiss.

The skill that was practically Lee Ha-kyung’s ultimate.

Soul-Sever had been unleashed.

Unlike usual, he had deployed it lightly, almost casually.

Even so, the power exceeded imagination.

The blade, packed full of soul force, tore through space itself.

It severed Ma Do-hyuk’s greatsword and neck at the same time.

“Grrrk!”

THUD! CLANG!

The figure collapsed limply.

A moment later, Ma Do-hyuk’s body turned to sand and crumbled away.

For just a second, something unusual flashed through Lee Ha-kyung’s eyes.

‘Even then, the defensive movement was perfect.’

It was a response good enough to remind him why Ma Do-hyuk was called the Abyss Beast.

Lee Ha-kyung recalled the skill Ma Do-hyuk had displayed in the Fusion Abyss.

“What would it have been like if I had fought the real one?”

He probably would not have won as easily as this.

Mirror Shade was only projecting Ma Do-hyuk from the past.

Just then, a system message appeared before Lee Ha-kyung.

[You have completed the qualification trial of the Tower of Judgment]

[The final boss learns the movements of the last person to clear it]

[The difficulty of the abyss dungeon increases]

SSSLLIDE! THUNK!

Mirror Shade, which had turned to sand, began restoring its body.

Soon, it changed into Lee Ha-kyung’s exact appearance.

“Ah… so that is how this works.”

Lee Ha-kyung let out a low sigh.

The dungeon had already been difficult for no good reason.

Now it really seemed like no one would ever come here.

Not that he cared much.

‘It only drops low-grade crafting materials anyway.’

Besides, this probably was not the only way to gain access to The Void.

Shrugging, Lee Ha-kyung turned away.

He did not think much of it.

Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine this place would one day become sacred ground for awakened ones.

A long time later—

“Lee Ha-kyung, you rotten bastard! There is a limit to kicking the ladder out from under people. If you make it this hard…”

“I am going to lose my entire fortune just trying to earn entry permission. Damn it.”

From the top floor of the Tower of Judgment, cries of despair rang out without end.