204. And I Was Busy Already

Jurassic slammed down on the ground and continued the attack.

The crowd was positive that he had won.

They were busy seeing with their own eyes and admiring the majesty of Jurassic, who would become the new king of the festival.

It was then.

“O… Over there!”

“Huh!”

The crowd looked once more at the battlefield and cheered.

“Wow! Demon! Demon!”

“Kyaa! Demon!”

The place where everyone was looking at was Demon.

Demon had revealed their glowing silver form from the other side of the battlefield.

After hesitating for a brief moment, Jurassic stopped his attack and looked in the direction where Demon had appeared from.

Until just a moment ago, he had confirmed his target and had been attacking them.

Even if his vision was clouded by thick dust, it wasn’t as if he had continued a pointless attack.

But now he saw that his target was standing over there without a scratch on their body.

“Whew…”

“Kuha! Looks like the warm up is over for both of us.”

“…”

As if this situation was amusing, Demon was licking their lips.

Jurassic took a deep breath and fixed his posture.

The situation was the equivalent of seeing a ghost, but there was not any shock on his face.

It was almost as if he was proving that there was a reason why he was talked about amongst the nobles.

Taking a defensive stance to protect his whole body with his shield and sword, he waited for Demon to attack.

It was unlikely that Demon was fast enough to fool his eyes.

So he thought that it was some trick that he had pulled.

That’s why he was not making any sudden moves.

As Jurassic had hoped for, Demon moved.

Demon’s body was parallel to the floor of the battleground as they charged forth.

Their appearance was that of an arrow flying towards its target.

“Hah!”

“…”

Jurassic focused his strength on the hand that was gripping the shield in order to prepare for the incoming attack.

However, Demon passed right by him and stopped on the other side of him.

Min-Cheol and obviously the crowd as well were looking at the situation with confusion.

It wouldn’t have been strange if they were trading blows in a heated melee right now, but instead Demon had passed his opponent without attack, much less making any contact.

Was it because they had failed the attack they had planned? Was it possible that they had miscalculated the trajectory of their attack and flew past?

For Min-Cheol, it was very frustrating.

He was waiting for Barub, no, Demon to show their true strength.

While it was true that he was hoping that Demon’s real identity wasn’t Barub, if that was the case… There was a saying that if you’re going to get punished, it’s better to get it over with quickly.

If this Demon went at it with everything they had, then it wouldn’t be difficult for me to recognize them.

I didn’t know what kind of strength that they had come to Hell with, but there was no way I could forget their killing intent after all.

Because of that, Min-Cheol was even selfishly hoping that their opponent, Jurassic, would hold out a bit longer.

It was then. This proved that the thought that Demon had failed their attack was wrong.

“Uaaaaa!”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Something that no onlooker of the battlefield could understand happened.

Even Millions, who had seen through everything so far, was looking at the situation with great curiosity.

It was clear that Demon had gone past Jurassic and made quite the distance between each other.

There was no contact and no movements that suggested an attack.

However, Jurassic was letting out a crazed roar and swinging his sword and shield with great haste.

He didn’t flail through thin air out of madness, but each movement was followed by a massive shockwave.

It was almost as if he was fighting an invisible enemy.

“Kuha! I wonder how long you can defend against it.”

“Ahhh! Argh!”

Seeing him struggle, Demon jumped at his opponent again.

Even though they could just directly attack their opponent who was showing a strange behavior, instead of doing so, they did the same thing again.

Not only that, but the expression of that dignified elder seemed to be filled with amusement.

The deep wrinkles meant joy, and I felt the desire of wanting to splatter blood all over the battlefield in how those corners of the lips that slightly went up.

Demon, who landed on the other side of his opponent, undid the silver glow strengthening of their body.

As if the battle had already been over, they were showing their back to the opponent and slowly walking towards the exit.

The announcer shouted in shock.

“T… The festival isn’t over yet! Please return to the bat…”

The groan of steel echoed throughout the battlefield.

Jurassic’s giant shield had finally given away.

Seeing Jurassic receiving the attacks without a recognizable source while holding onto the remaining shield handle was almost pitiful.

It didn’t take long before even his sword lost all durability, and you could say he was now in a completely unarmed vulnerable state.

He was using his arms and legs that would not cause his death if they were lost in order to barely defend against the attacks.

It was tough to even classify this as an attack.

No one knew who was attacking him, and we weren’t even sure where those attacks were coming from.

The only thing that everyone could only but guess was that this was Demon’s special ability.

“Urgh…”

The attacks did not stop.

The attacks that caused massive shockwaves when blocked by his sword and shield now attacked Jurassic’s form directly.

The armor that he was wearing had crumpled like paper, losing its function for quite some time.

Jurassic, who was slowly dying in the battlefield, had his blood splatter about.

The arms and legs that were having difficulty barely blocking those attacks had already been blown apart, and his eyes were slowly clouding.

The crowd seemed to finally catch on what was going on, and were very welcoming of the battle, filled with merriment.

Eventually, Jurassic’s form became like ground beef to the point of being unrecognizable, and it seemed that he was holding onto the last embers of life with just his mental fortitude.

It was then.

Demon, who had taken their place in front of the exit, lifted up their hand and closed their open hand into a fist.

And then.

“Urk!”

A massive explosion came from Jurassic’s form.

Almost as if there were explosives within his body, his body had blown up at the same time Demon had made their signal.

The battlefield was filled with dust and a mist of blood thick enough to make it nearly impossible to see.

There was not even a chunk of flesh left of Jurassic.

Confirming it firsthand, the announcer shouted with excitement.

At the same time, the roar of the crowd alight with passion came forth, and Demon left all that behind and walked through the exit.

“Hunting dog Jurassic! Unable to continue combat! The winner is the wild beast Demon!”

“Wow!”

“Demon! Demon! Demon!”

“Millions! Millions!”

“Kyaa!”

Despite having faced countless deaths, Min-Cheol was positive that this wasn’t a pleasant scene.

Humans cannot become used to pain. They cannot adapt to it.

After all, it comes in new forms each time.

A normal person would feel pain just from just watching such a horrific scene.

They would only see that people were dying for the amusement of nobles.

However, it seemed that this wasn’t the case for the crowd gathered here.

Only a couple minutes ago, that was a person who thought and breathed like everyone else here.

How could they be this happy when this person had lost his life in the most horrific manner possible.

This wasn’t the only reason why Min-Cheol was worried.

It was because he wasn’t able to confirm the identity of the wild beast.

Barub wasn’t an idiot.

As an absolute god who was in charge of all the worlds, they were an existence who didn’t lack anything for that job.

However, for the human Min-Cheol, they did things that he could not comprehend at all.

Min-Cheol had also taken measure to hide his powers by copying the skills of a Protector using mana, and to have his artifacts worked on to have their appearances changed.

These were measures thoroughly taken with Barub in mind.

It was to make sure that I would not be spotted by them, and while it was annoying and cumbersome, it was out of necessity.

It was the same for Barub.

There was no way that they could just ignore their competitor, Min-Cheol.

Even if Min-Cheol did not know of their altered powers, since they knew that Min-Cheol wasn’t just any ordinary person, they could not afford to be careless.

However, there was no way to avoid using abilities that were never seen before.

Unlike Min-Cheol, they could not imitate skills using mana, and they did not have any chances to obtain information due immediately having to participate in the Festival of Blood the moment they arrived at Hell.

And just like that, Min-Cheol had to retreat with only the benefit of obtaining the status of a noble.

He wasn’t sure that the wild beast was Barub. Also he wasn’t sure how to overcome the difference in strength if it really was Barub.

Unlike Min-Cheol, Barub had obtained a massive amount strength by winning in the fight against Jurassic.

They had obtained combat capabilities and power worth the 10 different opponents they had taken down so far in one go.

To compare with how they were at the start, they now had twice that power.

There was a massive gap now between them and Min-Cheol.

Unlike Min-Cheol, who had just recovered his original strength, Barub now had twice what they had started with.

The amount of power contained in that 2 was incredibly large.

The amount of power Min-Cheol currently held was massive already, but twice Barub’s power would be hard to even imagine.

Not only that, but as time passes, that gap would further increase, and this was a situation where if Min-Cheol didn’t come up with another plan, it would be impossible to close said gap.

Min-Cheol opened the return scroll and promised himself.

While he wasn’t able to confirm Barub’s identity for sure, he had decided to consider the wild beast as Barub.

From now on, I was going to research into the opponents that they would be fighting while the festival continued on.

I already had Dump look into the previous opponents for me.

The idea was to get a rough estimate of how much they’d grow.

My goal for growth would be Demon, and I planned to grow strong enough to defeat them.

The fact that they used special abilities, and even the method of fighting that was oddly unsettling.

In Min-Cheol’s heart, Demon was pretty much confirmed as Barub at this point.

There really weren’t any solutions right now.

That’s why he decided that he needed to do all that I could do to grow stronger.

He knew that just hunting wasn’t enough to close the gap.

However, unlike Demon, who was imprisoned after the festival was over, Min-Cheol was able to use 24 hours a day freely.

He did not even feel hungry or sleepy.

Thus, it meant that he could hunt without rest, and could try other options alongside it.

It would be difficult to ignore the values once held as a human, but considering that only 70 days were left, even working the entire time didn’t feel enough for Min-Cheol.

With an exhausted heart, Min-Cheol ripped apart the scroll, and returned to Dump’s residence.

****

While observing the Festival of Blood, the sun had set, and Dump had already returned home.

“S… Sir Guardian.”

“What is it?”

Dump was shaking like a leaf.

On top of that, his lips had gone beyond pale into blue, and there were big and small wounds all over his hands.

Did a thief rob his home?

Grabbing Dump’s shoulders, I asked this man wobbling helpless man a question.

“Please calm down. I can only help you if you explain things step by step.”

“Ah… Aha…”