Chapter 81 – Those Who Can Succeed Will Succeed, No Matter What They May Attempt

In the level 28 dungeon.

It’s been a long time since I’ve entered this place, but since I’ve grinded this dungeon to the point of becoming tired of it, there wasn’t any reason to be excited.

The only thing I was looking forward was the power of the transcended skill being showcased on the lizardmen.

I quickly ran to the center of the dungeon as fast as possible.

Around me, I could hear their sounds.

“KURURU!”

“KEREK!”

Following the path I took, hundreds of lizardmen showed up.

If it was for hunting, I would have ran all the way to the end of the dungeon to gather up all the monsters, so I could clear the dungeon as fast as possible.

However, I was here to test out the skill’s power, so I only gathered roughly 1/3rds of the lizardmen instead.

Then I proceeded to use my main skill, Meteor.

Before the ascension, only one meteor would exist above my head.

However, now there were three meteors when I looked above.

Taking in the sights, I couldn’t help but grin.

The meteor was giving off intense black flames eagerly, almost as if asking me to hurry up and choose the target it was going to destroy.

If that’s the case, I should definitely grant that wish.

Massive meteors struck the exact location I aimed towards.

Not one, but three.

I didn’t aim them all in one place, but instead spread it out amongst the condensed groups of lizardmen in three different places.

It didn’t seem to me that only the number of meteors increased.

I could feel the change in its destructive force.

My Mana Shield had never shaken this much before when I put such a huge distance between me and the monsters like now.

No matter how many Meteors I’ve spammed before, the flames and the shockwave never reached me.

The blast felt like it was enough to tear the earth in half.

Its destructive force consumed every bit of flesh and blood of the lizardmen.

After seeing the ruined dungeon, I was speechless.

Such destructive force with just one cast of a skill…

“Ha…. Is this… the power behind Transcendence…?”

I wasn’t concerned about the bloodstones in front of me in the slightest.

I could only keep exclaiming how insane this was.

Just like that, I stood there until the flames from Meteor Call burnt itself out.

Recovering from the shock of awe, I wanted to confirm the effect of Wild Beast on the Formless Sword Aura.

When I took a step further into the dungeon, a single lizardman popped out.

Since physical attacks didn’t work, he should receive zero damage from this.

One was enough, since I just wanted to see the effect of the skill.

-slice!

“KURAL!”

Butcher’s Sword cut directly through his body.

As expected, he didn’t take any damage, continuing to swing his halberd at me.

I didn’t stop there however, and continued to swing my sword that was covered in Formless Sword Aura until the Wild Beast skill activated.

“KURUHHH!”

“What’s that noise?”

There were no monsters that roared the Fear skill like that in this dungeon.

However, I definitely heard someone’s or something’s howl.

My inquiry didn’t last long.

As I heard the Fear skill, I could see that my body was glowing red.

On top of that, the speed at which the sword aura swung was increased to the point where it couldn’t be compared to the previous one.

That wasn’t the only thing that was surprising.

Lizardmen had 100% physical damage resistance.

As I said before, I couldn’t deal any damage to them using Formless Sword Aura.

But if that’s the case, the lizardman should still be in front of me.

Instead, where the lizardman was supposed to be, a red mist took his place.

This had occurred only in a span of seconds.

My body cooled roughly 1 min after the activation.

Wild Beast allowed me to obtain massive amounts of attack speed and power for a brief amount of time.

It seemed that Wild Beast empowered the 100% physical damage Formless Sword Aura to do magical attacks as well.

If I was able to activate Wild Beast with Formless Sword Aura during a 1v1…

They would only leave a bloody trail of mist, just like what happened to this lizardman.

****

After defeating all the monsters in the dungeon, I headed outside.

The transcended skills I tested were strong beyond my expectations.

No one but me could transcend their skills.

Even those lucky enough to obtain Essence of Transcendence, they would think of it as a defective item, using it like a decoration at best.

One could not raise his or her skill level to 200 when an individual’s mana usage was limited.

I didn’t have a method to test out the transcended Mana Shield.

After confirming the strength of these two skills, I headed home.

Following my daily routine, I stored my armor on one side of the room.

Then I proceeded to put the sword next to the drawer, and headed to the washroom to shower.

However, while I was taking a shower, I kept hearing odd noises.

Almost like the sound of sparks flying during friction between metal.

I was able to focus on the sound because of having incredible physical abilities from my stats and being an Awakened.

I felt as though the source of the sound was from my room.

It happened the moment I ended my shower faster than normal and opened the door to my room.

“…..”

The sight in front of me was more confusing rather than amazing, since I couldn’t understand it.

The Butcher’s Sword that I obtained and brought home had sparks flying out of it.

Was it due to the special ability the sword had?

That probably wasn’t it. The ability was to steal 5% of the butchered target.

The catch was that it only worked on humans. Awakened only, to be exact.

“How could this be hap…. Oh?”

It came to me as I looked at the dresser, wondering if it would catch on fire.

“Ah ha!”

I found out the reason why Butcher’s Sword was letting out sparks.

It was due to the blades that I obtained from slaying Joker, Asura’s Twin Blades.

No one could use these blades other than the one who obtained it.

So despite being a weapon with massive attack power, it was completely useless to me.

Perhaps if I used the side with the odd jagged claw as a kitchen knife, it might be useful.

The scene in front of me, however, was that the twin blades shoved in the corner was being evaporated into energy and seeping into the Butcher’s Sword.

I definitely confirmed it with my eyes, but I still couldn’t understand why.

Why did this happen?

Maybe it had a hidden ability to absorb the stats of all weapons?

To confirm that, I brought out a M/F ranking sword that I got from Jong Ho earlier on.

Then I proceeded to put it next to the Butcher’s Sword.

I was really hoping that it would absorb this as well.

However, there was no change to the sword.

While that was happening, the twin swords were completely absorbed, and now jagged teeth similar to that of a shark appeared on the backbone of the sword.

This was just a speculation, but the weapon it absorbed was from the Unknown Dungeon.

Perhaps weapons that lost their owners would be absorbed by other powerful weapons in order to find new masters.

I immediately used Eye of Insight on the sword.

I was extremely curious as to how much stat it had gained.

-Butcher’s Sword-

*Strength +2200+350

*Dexterity +150

*15% increased strength

*Two handed sword

*Absorbs 5% worth of stats from fallen foes

“Is it a trend for high level weapons to steal stats?”

It wasn’t a stretch to wonder so.

It had more than half the stats that Asura’s Twin Blades had added onto itself.

The addition effect of % increase for strength and dexterity wasn’t added, but to obtain 500 points of stats wasn’t anything less than a steal.

That amount of gain in stats could only be obtained via 100 level ups.

I had shoved it in the corner of the room because it was difficult to get rid of it, but to think that it would become such a boon to me.

Moments like this only confirmed the old saying that ‘those who can succeed will succeed, no matter what they may attempt.’

“How can I sleep peacefully if things turn out like this!”

****

The next day.

Lee Ho Geun had the entire force assemble in the lobby once more.

Today was the day.

This was the first time Ghost had made the call for emergency deployment.

They were worried that a nonsensical situation like yesterday would occur again.

However, almost as if to make fun that worry, it didn’t take long for Ghost to appear.

On top of that, he was completely different from his usual looks.

A staff and a short sword was in each hand.

Armor that glowed golden covered his body.

Until now, no one had seen him equip for battle before.

Ghost had always worn stretched out T-shirts or baggy clothes in general.

His armor was always in his office.

That wasn’t all there was to it though.

His expression and even the way he walked was that of a different person.

Ghost stopped walking, and spoke with a serious expression.

“Is everyone gathered?”

To his question, vice leader Lee Ho Geun gave his report.

“Yes! All 481. We have finished gathering everyone.”

“Good.”

He looked towards the 8 different squadrons of radical faction members.

Due to his fierce expression, none could even swallow their spit, continuing to stand at attention.

The brief silence was broken by him continuing on.

“We are taking this path to Paju.”

“Yes! Leader!”

“Yes! Leader!”

The lobby was filled with the sound of hundreds of radical faction members sounding off.

The scene was similar to that of soldiers receiving their orders for deployment.

When the ringing of sound had stopped, he spoke.

“The opponent is a single person. But you cannot underestimate him due to that. I hope you can understand that well, seeing how I’m mobilizing everyone, nearing 500 members.”

“….”

“Please give us your orders, leader!”

“Current time is 13:00. 2nd meetup location is Paju. Assemble at 20:00. Do not use Warp. During the next 7 hours, each squad is to arrive there without drawing attention. We stake out the 2nd location from 1km away. Dismissed.”

Giving a short, simple, and clear order, Ghost left the building.

Each squadron leader also moved out in sync.

Just like that, a mission that was their first and what could be their last began.

****

It’s been a while since I visited the level 34 dungeon located in Paju with Jong Ho and Ho Jin.

It was to show them the transcended skills and to put them in the Balrok ring.

They said that they were already going through the level 23 hunting grounds to defeat ghouls.

Only 3 weeks ago, these guys were hunting at the level 13 dungeon in a 6 man group.

It was almost enough to wonder if this is what people meant when they mentioned about turning around their life.

I hunted for two hours with them after they had visited me at 6pm.

I didn’t mind at all, but I had to drag these two along, who kept saying that they felt bad and wanted to go home.

In between the runs, I kept charging up the ring.

“Hyung-nims. The rings are done charging. You can use without worry.”

“Hm… It would be great if shields could be put in there too. What a shame.”

“I know right. I don’t know why only attack skills can be put in.”

Even while the two complained about the ring, they had smiles on their faces.

“Ah! From now on, you must use defensive skills when you use Meteor.”

“Oh, I got it. When we saw it before, we could tell it wasn’t something to joke about.”

“Thank you for doing this every time for us, Mr. Min-Cheol.”

“No need to thank me. You two should get going. I’ll see you two out up to here.”

It happened when I was trying to escort them out from the dungeon entrance.

-shrrrkk

“C… Crazy. What is this!”

“KUHAAA!”