D.I.O

Chapter 253

[Item: Shadow Blade

Rank AA

Rare

Description: A masterpiece sword that was created to possess extreme sharpness to allow its user to defeat an opponent with a single attack move. The Shadow Blade is made of a rare material, pure iron that was found in unadulterated asteroids or comets from the beginning of time and possesses a resistance against mana attacks from foreign sources. Thus, it is capable of destroying and negating foreign magic attacks. A capable user of this Shadow Blade will be able to cut and nullify oncoming magic spells through a single strike.]

“I see. An anti-mage weapon.”

Although the Shadow Blade was a relatively good weapon, there was no one in Merlin’s party who would benefit from using it.

If someone within the party had to use the Shadow Blade, Sungmuk would be the best candidate as he was the only swordsman, but Sungmuk already had a powerful weapon, the Divine Red Sparrow Sword.

“Anyway, this is such a high-level dungeon… To think that a guy like that was just a gatekeeper…” Ellie, who was walking alongside Arc, said while gently wagging its tail.

Although Ellie was a pet of mixed race, she had the power of a Prajna, so she was a powerful eye practitioner who could see into the essence of another being. This eye ability allowed Ellie to properly assess and recognize the Mermaid Hero as a powerful being.

The Mermaid Hero had been defeated with one blow from Merlin, but relatively speaking, the Mermaid Hero was still an unimaginably powerful being.

Moreover, since the Mermaid Hero was not the boss of the dungeon, but only the gatekeeper, the difficulty of the dungeon could be inferred as being beyond one’s expectation and imagination.

“Alright, everyone, prepare for battle.”

“… Isn’t it all underwater ahead?”

“Yes, it is, but there’s no need to worry.”

Despite Sungmuk expressing his doubts, Merlin passed by Sungmuk and entered the dungeon. Then the other party members followed behind Merlin without a word or any hesitation as if it was natural to do so.

It was indeed a natural reaction for the party members who already had a rough idea of Merlin’s overwhelming abilities.

Sungmuk soon followed suit and went into the water-filled space, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that what he was doing was absurd.

He was somewhat concerned, but he knew that he could hold his breath underwater for more than an hour and thus retain his fighting prowess and powers. So, it was not a very difficult situation for Sungmuk to fight underwater.

“Oh?”

Nevertheless, Sungmuk’s eyes grew into large saucers once he entered the underwater space.

This was because there was a huge empty space surrounding Merlin in the form of a water droplet with a diameter of about five meters.

“No problem, right?”

“Amazing,” Sungmuk spoke with a calm sense of amazement as he pulled out his Divine Red Sparrow sword inside Merlin’s water-droplet-shaped space.

Miho fell back and began to recite a spell chant while Merlin and Arc used various spells and magic against a plethora of newly appearing monsters.

[Grr…]

[Kyak!]

[Damn it! Why are these intruders so damn strong?!]

The monsters in the Seadragon’s Temple were all powerful beings.

At the minimum, they were all in the Master-level realm. Each of the monsters had a combat power of at least Level 10 or higher, and their bodies were optimized for underwater combat. Moreover, there were also [contractors] like Sungmuk scattered among the groups of monsters.

Nonetheless, the power of Merlin’s party was already beyond a level of power that the monsters and contractors could contend against.

In addition, an overpowered buff was being maintained on all the party members.

Even Arc, who was currently only a Level 14 user, was able to deal with Level 17 or higher monsters alone. So, in the case of Sungmuk and Merlin who were both Level 19, dealing with such monsters was nothing more than dealing with small nuisances for them.

Ting!

Finally, the party arrived at the dungeon’s boss room.

The party members’ mana recovery speed was incredibly fast due to the special buff effect, so there was no need for the party to even take a break.

Hence, when they finally entered the huge boss room, they saw a…

“… As expected, it’s no longer here.”

“What do you mean?”

“The original boss of this dungeon.”

“What are you talking about? Aren’t those things in front of us the bosses?” Miho, who was concocting a spell, pointed at the hundred or so Mermaid Heroes standing in front of the party members.

Merlin had been hoping for a different boss. The boss in charge of the Seadragon’s Temple should have been the ancient dragon, Zygmunt.

‘Well, I did expect that it would be like this.’

Transcendent monsters were absolutely necessary to complete the DIO system. They were not only needed to convey their enlightenment and knowledge to users but also to teach users how to fight against transcendent beings.

However, [creating] a transcendent monster was a difficult task that was close to impossible. It was true that DIO’s system was amazing, but it was not powerful enough to reproduce monsters that had reached the transcendence realm. Of course, there was nothing that Noblesse couldn’t do if they really wanted something since they possessed countless great mages within their ranks.

However, if one couldn’t even budget or fathom the number of resources that needed to be expended to maintain such a collection of transcendents, wouldn’t it be difficult to execute such a tall order?

Thus, to reduce the use of their Anyform stones, which were needed to maintain DIO, a significant portion of the monsters at the hero level or higher were covered by contractors.

Since this was also the case for hero-level monsters that were of a limited number, it was all too natural that transcendent beings were even scarcer and in shorter supply.

For this reason, the Noblesse used [free contracts] to forcefully recruit transcendents and entrusted the role of DIO’s transcendent-realm NPCs to them. These transcendents were Noblesse who had committed certain crimes or other transcendents who were not Noblesse but owed the Noblesse.

The transcendents who were recruited outside the Noblesse and who came into DIO of their own accord were usually given comfortable and respectable positions, such as Grand Master of one of the seven Holy Lands.

This was how transcendents took on the role of monsters within DIO.

However, Merlin had placed DIO’s system into an emergency mode and thus expelled all the free-agent transcendent contractors who were connected to DIO, as well as the system operators and administrators.

This was because Merlin needed to get rid of the contracted transcendents, who could freely log in and out of the DIO system, so that he could completely dominate DIO.

“In other words, transcendent-level monsters are not always present within the system like me, but they can log in and log out like users… So, you forcefully logged them out and restricted their access back into the system by placing DIO’s system into an emergency mode?” Sungmuk asked.

Merlin nodded in response. “Yup.”

Rumble!

After responding to Sungmuk, Merlin stretched out his right hand and engraved a palm print on the chest of a Mermaid Hero who had rushed fiercely toward the party thunderously.

A hundred Mermaid Heroes, monsters who possessed power beyond any user’s common sense, had been placed in the boss room in lieu of Zygmunt due to the emergency mode that Merlin had activated. Nevertheless, Merlin’s party soon killed all of them without much difficulty.

Under normal circumstances, Merlin’s party would have had their hands full contending against a hundred Mermaid Heroes. However, since they had overpowered buffs placed on them, even those powerful Mermaid Heroes were monsters that could be eliminated with just a small investment of the party members’ time.

In the end, the party cleared the boss room relatively easily and entered the dungeon’s reward room.

“This is better exercise and training than I expected. Wouldn’t it have been quite fun without the buff?”

“Don’t think about wasting your energy unnecessarily. There are still many enemies to deal with.”

Ting.

While Merlin and Sungmuk were chattering, the ground cracked with a strange sound, and a huge staff about two meters tall suddenly appeared.

Merlin could see that the staff was of the same class as Ascalon, the weapon he had seen in the reward room previously. When Merlin first entered the dungeon in the past, Ascalon had not shown up as his reward item because he had not been qualified to possess it, but the situation was different now.

Merlin checked the staff’s item description.

[Item: Hydra

SS Rank

Legend

Description: A special magic item that can store and retain three to nine magic spells. The staff was made from a refined dragon bone. The user’s stored spells may be retained within the staff for a period of five hours to a maximum of fifty hours. It is possible to release all nine spells at once to create a powerful and destructive effect.]

“… Oh, nice,” Merlin muttered after carefully examining the staff’s item description.

He was a creator of reinforced weapons and an enchanter with a good reputation in DIO, but he was still impressed by the staff’s overpowered storage function and capabilities.

The staff was an SS Rank legendary item; it was not a simple system-generated item or an item that dropped from a random monster mob. This was a treasure that had been created by dragons, so it was a magic item equivalent to a dragon’s power.

Even Merlin, who was a genius creator when it came to making magic items, couldn’t overlook items made by the Noblesse’s great mages.

“But I’m not sure if I need such an item, since it doesn’t fit me…”

If Merlin were a pure mage, he wouldn’t have such a concern, but he was a magic warrior, just like Arc.

Merlin’s power usage was maximized when he could use both of his hands freely, so the amplifiers he used were made in the form of gloves. However, what was dropped was a staff that was taller than him…

So Merlin pondered for a while.

Miho, who had been silent up till now, raised her hand and spoke up, “Hmm… Hey, Merlin… can I use that?”

“What? Although you’re a spell-casting magic user… you utilize monster power more than magic power, so wouldn’t a totem be more appropriate for you than a staff?”

“That’s only the case when I rely solely on monster power. However, right now, I’m using more magic power than monster power when spell casting, so I’m practically relearning everything anew.”

“Well, if that’s the case…” Merlin nodded and handed the staff over to Miho.

All the other drop items except Hydra were also distributed among the party members.

A Spirit Stone was given to Sungmuk, who wasn’t a user and thus could not receive stat bonuses like the rest of the party members.josei

A ring that allowed the wearer to control one’s body weight was given to Arc, and the rest of the jewels and gold were distributed appropriately among the party members.