Chapter 328:
Chapter 328:
Chapter 328:
Yu-hyun was in a state of panic as the giant frost giant appeared.
It was stronger and bigger than the previous frost giants.
He barely managed to dodge the attacks of the beast that swung its arms in front of him.
The skin of the giant frost giant was as hard as that of its master, Georen, and it could deflect any weapon.
He had no more rune stones to use against the giants. And he could not see a way to defeat them without rune stones.
Uwaaaaa!!
The giant frost giants began their rampage of destruction.
Every time they swung their arms, the Guard warriors fell like flies.
‘Where is Lean? Where is he?’
It was by chance that he spotted Lean in Georen’s left hand amidst the chaos.He did not know if Lean was dead or alive, but he knew that he would soon die in Georen’s hand.
As if that was not enough, behind Ringug, who had collapsed in despair, another giant frost giant was slowly approaching.
‘No.’
If he let his guard down for a moment against the frost giant in front of him, he would die. But he could not just watch as the others died either.
He needed help. But there was no one to help him.
Their strongest forces, Frechen and Gondulbor, were dead.
‘Is this…the end?’
He had come this far, but was this really the end?
He was the first one to dig into the core of this story. He was also the first one to stand in front of Georen in the past 32 years.
But he failed.
The most important step. He could not reach the end of the story.
‘Now what?’
Grit.
He clenched his teeth.
What did it matter? He had been through worse situations than this in his previous lives.
He had suffered in the process, but he had survived until the very end.
Yes. He was not dead yet. He was alive.
He could feel pain, but he could overcome it and move forward.
He saw the giant frost giant clenching its fist. It moved slower than the others, but it was still fast enough to kill him if he did not react.
He could not block or deflect it. He had to dodge it. But his legs were trembling and he could not move properly.
That was when it happened.
Koong. Koong.
From afar, he heard heavy footsteps.
Was it another giant frost giant? No. It had shorter strides and faster speed than the frost giants.
The footsteps were coming closer to him. The giant frost giant noticed it too.
Its head turned to the side for a moment.
Kwaduk! A huge sword pierced through the neck of the frost giant.
The head of the 4-meter-tall beast spun like a top in the air and rolled on the ground.
Yu-hyun stared at the scene in awe.
“Pi…oled?”
The one who helped him was none other than Pioled, the giant statue.
She wore a mask on her head and a dress-like armor. And she held a huge sword in both hands.
Why was she here? No, how could she move in that state?
“Why are you here? The key sword? You have to protect the magic circle…”
[Mortal.]
Pioled did not answer his questions.
[You have won.]
“What…”
[I trust Lean.]
Trust Lean? Now?
Yu-hyun did not hide his anger in his heart.
“Don’t make me laugh! Do you know how many people have died so far?”
If she had given him the key sword from the beginning, how much better would it have been? Because of her petty pride and her hope for the future, people who should not have died had died.
Frechen, his subordinates, Gondulbor.
Their deaths were irreplaceable losses.
But Yu-hyun knew.
Pioled had just made her choice.
She had her own reasons and based her choice on them.
He should have been grateful that she came to help him even now.
But still…
[I’m sorry.]
Pioled apologized sincerely.
If she had made her choice a day earlier, maybe more than half of the people who died now could have survived.
Frechen and Gondulbor might have lived too.
But it was thanks to their sacrifices that Pioled could move.
Frechen’s death made Lean ignite his will, and Gondulbor’s presence allowed them to hold on until now.
[I won’t ask for your forgiveness. I will disappear after this fight.]
She wished she could stay and atone for her sins, but she had already accepted her death.
She had used up all the power that her sisters had left for her to move her flesh.
She had no place to run now that she had come out here.
[So I will open the way for you.]
Pioled ran towards another frost giant with her sword.
The giant frost giants also noticed her and came at her.
Wait. If Pioled was here, who had the key sword?
As Yu-hyun tried to check that, he finally saw a familiar face crossing the battlefield.
“Hender?”
The young man who had called him a witch, who had vowed to fight, who had mocked the people who were ready to die, and who had shouted that he would live.
He ran with something wrapped in a cloth in his arms, his face looking like he was about to cry.
He was heading towards Ringug, who was sitting on the ground.
“Ringug! Hey, you bastard!”
“Hen…der?”
Ringug looked up at Hender with a blank face. He wondered if it was a dream that Hender had come here.
“What are you doing, you stupid bastard!”
“Hender? Are you really Hender?”
“Of course I’m real, not fake! Ringug! What the hell is this situation!”
Hender glared at Ringug, even as he shed tears of fear. It should have been Ringug who wanted to cry in this desperate situation, but Ringug regained his sanity because of Hender’s tears.
“You said it! It was an honorable fight! And you would come back victorious! But what is this! Look at yourself! You’re all on the verge of death! And what about you! If you fought honorably, you should have fought bravely until the end! Wasn’t that the warrior of Gard?”
Hender didn’t want to see Ringug like this anymore.
Even if he died, he would have been satisfied if he died with a smile on his face. But this guy, who was waiting for his death with a foolish face, was not the Ringug he knew.
“Snap out of it, you bastard!”
[Mortal! There’s no time for that now!]
“I know! Damn it! Why do I have to suffer in this place! I just wanted to live!”
The reason why Hender came here was simple. When he was sitting alone in the village, killing time, he heard someone’s voice.
The voice led him to a place where no one in Gardian had ever known the existence of an altar.
And there, waiting for him with the key sword, was a huge statue.
She introduced herself as Pieldra, the youngest of the five sisters, and asked him to deliver the key sword to Lean temporarily.
Hender still couldn’t understand why he accepted such an absurd offer.
He wanted to collapse on the spot right now. But he couldn’t. He knew better than anyone that he couldn’t.
“Ringug! Where is Lean? Where is Lean?”
He had to deliver this sword to Lean as soon as possible. He came here for that.
For that, Pieldra burned her life and knocked down the frost giants and opened the way.
At that moment, the ground shook violently.
“What, what is it!”
Before Hender could panic, a frost giant burst through the ice and swung its arm at Hender.
“Hender! Watch out!”
Ringug grabbed Hender and rolled on the ground with him.
Hender came to his senses and was startled by the blood on his hand. But there was no wound on his body.
The blood was Ringug’s.
“Ri, Ringug! Hey! Wake up!”
“Hender…”
“Hey, you crazy bastard! Why did you throw yourself in front of me? Look at your wound! It’s dangerous!”
“I don’t know… I just, my body… moved first…”
“Don’t, don’t talk! Ringug! You need to stop the bleeding!”
“I’m sorry. Hender… I wanted to apologize to you…”
“Hey! Shut up! Shut up! You’re not going to die! You’re not going to die, so shut your mouth!”
Hender cried and pressed Ringug’s wound with his hand. In the meantime, the frost giant ran towards Hender again.
“Dangerous!”
Bella swung her hammer.
The frost giant blocked the hammer with one arm and threw Bella far away with the other arm.
As soon as the frost giant approached Hender and Ringug, Yu-hyun ran towards the frost giant.
Yu-hyun squeezed out all his strength and stabbed his sword into the frost giant’s neck and dragged it sideways.
Crack! The frost giant’s neck was cut off. At the same time, Yu-hyun rolled on the ground with the frost giant’s body.
‘Strength.’
He had used up all his strength just then. He had no strength left to hold his sword or stand up.
But there were still enemies left. Besides the large frost giant, some of the frost giants that had not yet merged were approaching this way.
They knew it too. How dangerous this key sword was.
“Please…”
Yu-hyun lay on the ground and lifted his head. Hender handed him the key sword with tears in his eyes.
“You’re the only one left now. Please, save Ringug, save us.”
He called her a witch, but in fact Hender had no personal feelings for Yu-hyun.
He just hated someone who looked like this. Because of Teller who looked like Kira, his parents who had passed away kept stepping on his memory.
But he couldn’t care about that anymore.
His friend, Ringug, was dying. And he couldn’t do anything.
He didn’t want to lose anyone anymore.
If the great five sisters really sent her here.
If Yu-hyun could end this nightmare.
“Please. Please…”
“…”
Sob.
Yu-hyun silently took the key sword from Ringug.
***
There was no great power flowing into him when he held the key sword.
He was only allowed to hold it, to transport it to Lean.
Only Lean could have the actual ownership of the key sword.
But Yu-hyun thought that holding the sword was enough.
If only he could deliver it to Lean.
‘Get up.’
He felt a heavy fatigue as if he had been running at full speed without resting since the fight began.
He had no strength to draw aura from the sword, or to get up from his seat, but
He still did it with his willpower.
‘Willpower.’
At that moment, he remembered a conversation he had with Seo Sumin, which he couldn’t remember when.
Yu-hyun recalled the teachings of Seo Sumin, who smiled at him and taught him the skills, as if the snow-white snowfield was a screen projected by a projector.
-What if you lose all the power you have and only have your bare body left? Can you use this Seven Horse Black Sky Divine Skill that I taught you?
-That would be difficult.
-Why do you think so?
Yu-hyun thought for a moment and gave the answer he came up with.
-No matter how much I remember the formula, the shape, and the knowledge of how to use the skill in my head, my body won’t follow.
-That’s right. Even if you try to do something with a handful of internal energy, you can’t use a proper skill. Your body may follow the movements, but in the end, there is no internal energy to support it. But is it really impossible without internal energy?
-What do you mean?
-Haven’t you seen it? How I faced the Divine Spirit with this frail body, with a flesh that couldn’t even accumulate proper internal energy. How was my power then?
-It was amazing. It was so amazing that I wondered how you could use such power.
-That’s the power of will.
Seo Sumin smiled brightly and said to Yu-hyun.
-Will transcends your physical body and even your insufficient internal energy. The human will is that powerful.
-So with the power of will, even if I run out of energy, I can pull it up?
-Yes. Even more than that. As long as you have the will to do something.
As I said, you will be able to grasp even the stars.
‘Yes. That’s right. The will to win… The unyielding will.’
Seo Sumin said that in order to learn her skills, he had to empty everything first.
He understood why she said that.
The only story that Yu-hyun held onto when he came here, [Mental Focus], shone brightly.
Yu-hyun’s vision expanded and what he saw changed.
He saw small and faint things floating in the cold air.
There were so many of them that they were more than the snowflakes swirling in the distance.
‘See. And feel. What I have to do.’
Realizing that they were the stories that formed the foundation of this world, Yu-hyun immediately moved on to the next action.
With his body that had no trace of energy left, a huge energy began to flow in.
According to his will, the stories that formed the world and floated in the air created a huge stream and flowed into his body.
The stories transformed into pure power without any conflict inside.
The power moved according to Yu-hyun’s will.
‘Seven Demon Black Sky Divine Skill.’
What flowed through his body was not the black internal energy that he usually used.
Rather, it was pure white, like the snow scattered around him.
The pure energy did not change according to the nature of its original owner, but manifested itself as pure power itself.
The white energy fluttered like petals around Yu-hyun’s body.
The first stage.
Changing Technique: Chaotic Scatter.
A flower made of letters bloomed behind Yu-hyun’s back.