Ch-64
—
This meant the creature was someoneâs rightful successor.
*âWhat on earth is âDimension Slashâ?â*
That wasnât the only thing puzzling me.
Dimension Slash?
Was it actually cutting dimensions?
But I soon shook my head.
There were plenty of skills with grandiose names.
Still, names *this* overblown were rare. Dimension SlashâŠ
âDimension Slash.â
Seeing is believing.
Kyakyak!
The moment I spoke, the thing swung its scythe.
And thenâ
Slicc!
âŠThe warp that âWillâ had created was cut clean through.
Kyakyakyakya!
The moment it tasted the joy of cutting something once, it went wild, swinging the scythe indiscriminately.
Krrng! Kurururung!
ăThere is no dungeon master maintaining the connection.ă
ăAll âdimensional linksâ sustaining the dungeon have been severed.ă
ăThe dungeon has begun to collapse.ă
The dungeon itself was being buried.
From the far end, a black void devoured it as if compressing it into nothing.
It was the Abyss.
Serengeti opened her mouth, dumbfounded.
â…If the warp is cut, doesnât that mean we canât get out?â
âMm, guess weâll have to use the teleport book.â
I never imagined Dimension Slash would be a skill that literally severs warp connections.
And it even caused the dungeon to fully collapse.
It was disorienting to witness a skill I had never seen in my lifeâbut spacing out would only end with being eaten by the Abyss.
With no other choice, I halted the spirit and opened the teleport book.
Fwoosh!
The moment I opened a warp through the teleport book, the dark flames flickering over the creatureâs entire body changed to blue.
A sudden change.
This thing⊠did it have some kind of special reaction to warps?
âYou must *not* cut this one.â
Kyakyak.
It nodded its head.
*
*
The shadows waited at the dungeon entrance.
A Demigod-Trait Dungeon.
If the target emerged from the dungeon, they planned to ambush him instantly.
The sudden attack would leave him no time to reactâor so they thought.
Krrung!
âThe dungeon is collapsing.â
âAll of a sudden?â
Dungeons do not collapse simply because they have been cleared.
Especially trait dungeons like thisâthey are designed to continually accept challengers.
Yet this dungeon was collapsing.
And it wasnât collapsing in some normal, shattered-to-pieces wayâ
It was being eaten from below by the creeping rise of the Abyss.
âItâs the Abyss!â
âWe must retreat. The boundary is being consumed.â
The Abyss was flooding in.
It resembled the phenomenon of city collapse.
When all the warps that connect a floating city malfunction, the Abyss rushes in and erases the entire city.
The shadows made their decision.
If the Abyss had begun, the entire regionâincluding the dungeonâwould be swallowed.
But when they reached the warp, they could only panic.
âThe warp isnât working!â
âWhat about the other warps?!â
âSame here!â
âThey were functioning perfectly just moments agoâwhy all of a suddenâŠ?!â
Every warp was broken.
But why?
Just moments ago, when they arrived, the warps worked perfectly.
âThe teleport book! Didnât you bring a teleport book?!â
âT-the teleport book doesnât work either.â
âWhat kind of bullshit is that?!â
The leader of the shadows bit his lip.
Even the teleport book didnât work. This had never happened before.
When the warps fail and the Abyss sinks an area, there is only one method of escape:
*Kill the ruler of the Abyss.*
You must defeat the Abyss itself and its ruler that swallowed the region.
But Abyss Rulers were, without exception, monstrously strong.
âIf itâs a weaker Abyss Ruler, we might surviveâŠâ
The shadows were not weak.
Against an average Abyss Ruler, they could hunt itâthough with considerable sacrifice.
Then glowing text surfaced before their eyes:
<< After 10 minutes: Abyss Elite âHybrid of Black Scalesâ will appear. >>
<< After 20 minutes: Abyss Super-Elite âHybrid of Dragon Scalesâ will appear. >>
<< After 30 minutes: Abyss Ruler âHybrid of Divine Fleshâ will appear. >>
The shadowsâ eyes trembled violently.
Of all things, one of the most notorious Abyss RulersâHybrid of Divine Flesh?!
*âWeâre completely screwedâŠ!!!â*
[Notification]
Tap, tap.
The master sat in his chair, tapping the desk with his finger, frowning.
No word from the shadows.
A whole day had passedâstill nothing.
The fact that there wasnât a single daily report meant something had happened.
â…Did he take care of the shadows?â
Impossible.
Even if Randolph performed unbelievably well and kept achieving absurd feats, there was always a limit.
Upon completing Main Quest 6, the strongest he could possibly be was around level 8.
Even if the rewards had been upgraded thanks to the Constellations, the highest-tier items available at this stage wouldnât exceed ancient-grade.
âCould he be stronger than that?â
Level 8 was already an optimistic estimate.
The master himself had been only level 7 when clearing Main Quest 6.
And even that was accomplished through heavy power-leveling and equipping every treasure available.
If one wanted to grind levels solely to reach a specific quest like Gracia did, it required tremendous time.
But Randolph had only been a player for three months.
Honestly, reaching level 8 within three months was already a miracle.
Furthermore, if he had only leveled, his stats would be lackingâthere wasnât enough time to raise every stat to its maximum while leveling that fast.
Therefore, impossible.
âThere must be a collaborator. Someone very powerfulâŠâ
He altered his thinking.
If Phantom had an allyâŠ
Someone strong enough to wipe out the shadowsâŠ
Then it became possible.
The master assumed Phantom was being assisted by at least a 2-Star Transcendent.
Players with 2-Stars or more were exceedingly rare.
Yet the master knew every single 2-Star+ individual.
The only remaining possibility was the NPCs of Pangaenia.
âSupposedly they exist in the Empire and Yan Kingdom. Iâve never seen them myself.â
Both were extremely inaccessible even for players.
Only rumors existedâno one had ever confirmed them.
Would they help Phantom?
Inconceivable.
Or perhaps the shadows were simply struggling and still alive.
âMa-master! All shadows have been found deadâŠ!â
ââŠâ
The master clamped his mouth shut at the report delivered as the door opened.
It was confirmation. Every last shadow was dead.
If they had died while ambushing Randolph, their real bodies wouldâve died as well.
And they were dead.
All of them.
Total annihilation of the shadows.
Years of cultivation gone in an instant.
Twenty percent of his real-world power vanished overnight.
If this leaked, other factions would seize the opportunity to invade.
âDamn it!!â
Bang!
The master slammed the desk, splitting it in half.
âThis fuckingâ!!!â
Even then, his fury wouldnât subside.
How could it?
Cracks had begun forming in the empire he created.
*
*
The Knightâs Garden.
Since returning to the city of Marquis Weiser, I had been âon break.â
âMy heart feels wonderfully at peace.â
Even though I had utterly crushed Will in battle, fighting that thing was mentally exhausting.
Hence, rest.
Emotional stability was crucial.
There were many things I had to do.
Kyakyak!
I watched the creature wander everywhere like an overly curious animal.
The Celestial(heavenly) spirit in the shape of a tiny reaper.
After cutting all the warps in the Demigod-Trait Dungeon, even it had changed.
ăLv.2ă
ăCelestial (Heavenly) Spirită
ăRightful Successoră
ăDimension Slash (Lv.2)ă
Its level had risen.
Even though it hadnât hunted anything.
Its experience-gain mechanism was clearly very different from normal spirits.
âA being that cuts warps and sinks citiesâŠâ
Cutting warps at will and sending whole cities into the Abyss?
Hearing the description, one would call it a ridiculous, abnormal creature.
I stroked my chin.
What is a warp?
The single method connecting the continents.
All the continents floating in the sky were creations of Pina, the Goddess of the Sky.
Leah, the Earth Goddess who created the continents, had been slain by Destruction and split into thirty-two stars.
As the continents were about to perish, Pina lifted the remaining ones into the heavens.
But the sky continents were not connected.
The only thing that could link them was the warp.
âIf something isnât connected by warp, space is devoured by the Abyss.â
Simply floating the continents wasnât enough.
Without warp, continents could not exist.
âThen⊠is this creature a species born from the Abyss?â
It made sense to think it was born to counter the warp.
From the Abyssâ perspective, the warp must be an annoying shield preventing its spread.
A species born to destroy that shield was entirely plausible.
The Abyss contained countless unknown things, after all.
Kyakya?
After wandering like a cat for a while, it rubbed its belly.
âHungry?â
Kyakyak!
It was very hungry.
But could a skeleton even eat something?
Spirits devour the contractorâs mana.
But my mana had long since transformed into Star power.
And it didnât seem interested in Star power.
ăâ???â desires *Honor*.ă
Ah. So it eats honor.
Well, when it was born, it devoured all the âtainted honor.â
What if that had been âsinâ?
âIf I had to feed it sin regularly, that wouldâve been horrifying.â
I would have to accumulate sin every so often just to feed it.
I would probably become an enemy of the entire continent and end up wanted everywhere.
Honor was a relief.
âEat as you will.â
Kyakyak!
Smiling as if overjoyed, it swung its scythe over my head.
I felt something above my head get sliced off; the creature gulped down the shimmering haze that drifted up.
ăâ???â has consumed 30 Honor.ă
ăRemaining Honor: 746ă
âŠIt eats *thirty*?
Thirty honor was enough to complete two substantial honor quests.
Surely it didnât eat this much every day?
Kyakyakyakya!
It rubbed its face against my cheek, then resumed excitedly roaming around.
A very amusing creature.
âI should give it a name.â
I couldnât keep calling it âthis thing.â
Naming was essential for forming a bond.
After brief thought, I nodded.
âHel.â
Kya?
âYour name is Hel.â
Not in the sense of hell, but from *Wilhelm*âHel.
Kyakyakyakya!
âŠIt seemed pleased.
Thankfully, it was a very positive creature.
ăâ???â has been named âHelâ.ă
ăBond with âHelâ has increased.ă
ăTip: The higher your bond, the more your spirit will act according to your intentions even without commands.ă
With the naming done, only one thing remained.
*Unboxing.*
It was time to receive the rewards.
Eleven rewards that appeared upon clearing Main Quest 6:
ăExtreme-True Saberă, ăRobe of Radiant Honoră, ăAbsolute Nihilityă,
ăArmor of the Corrupted Kingă, ăCrown of the Corrupted Kingă,
ăRound Table of the Corrupted Knightsă, ăStarwalkeră,
ăStaff of Original Sină, ăSatyrusâs Terroră,
ăSpear of Impurityă, ăEdge of the Labyrinthă
I reviewed them one by one.
Not a single one had an ordinary name.
Extreme-True Saberâstarting with a weapon two stages beyond the limitâand everything else was of the highest possible item tier.
âI needed a bow anyway. Good.â
To clear the next Main Quest, I would need a ranged weapon.
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