abcnovels
Chapter 94:
Chapter 94:
Chapter 94:
Chapter 94
The enemy formation collapsed as I used the terrain to my advantage.
They must have decided to break through head-on, as a swarm of jade soldiers rushed towards me.
They probably realized instinctively that dragging out this fight would be disadvantageous for them.
They were right to choose brute force.
I would have done the same.
“But that’s only because I haven’t shown you my true strength yet.”
You want to fight me face-to-face? That’s exactly what I wanted.
[I activate the title of Knight of No Honor.]
I immediately unleashed the power of my title.
The translucent characters that flowed through my body wrapped around me and formed an armor.
In my right hand, I held the White Lotus that turned into a sword.
In my left hand, I gripped a shield that was created by the power of my title.
I quickly spent some points to engrave two inscriptions on the shield.
There were only two inscriptions that I could apply on the spot: shock absorption and defense increase.
That was enough to deal with them.
“Come on.”
Clang!
I banged my sword and shield together, taunting them.
They stabbed their spears at me, aiming for my vital spots.
I exhaled and swung my shield.
Clang clang clang!
The spears that targeted me were all deflected.
The ones who attacked me staggered back as their attacks bounced off.
I immediately thrust my sword into their gaps.
A jade soldier’s red eyes dimmed as his body collapsed, pierced through his armor and bones.
I didn’t stop there and pushed forward like a bulldozer.
Ting ting!
Arrows flew from nearby and bounced off my armor.
I ignored the trivial attacks and crushed them mercilessly.
The arrows shot from this close distance couldn’t penetrate the armor that was made from stories.
I blocked the dangerous attacks with the strongest shield, and finished them off with the sword whenever they showed a slight opening.
This was the state where offense and defense were one, with a sword and a shield in hand.
The goddess of victory was smiling on my side in this fight.
‘If they had some leeway, they would have kept their distance and restrained me.’
The jade soldiers had no choice but to fight like this because they knew it was meaningless.
And that was what I wanted.
In the end times, one had to be able to fight in any situation and in any way.
That was the only way to survive.
But more than that, what was needed was to create a fighting environment that was unfavorable for the opponent and favorable for oneself.
This was a skill that I had learned desperately in order to live.
I wasn’t weak enough to lose to these ghosts who only followed injected commands and stayed in their assigned places.
Crash!
A jade soldier’s body shattered into pieces as it hit the shield.
Resistance was futile.
I turned them all into guests of hell without missing a single one.
I smashed them with the shield, cut them with the sword, and crushed them with the weight of the armor.
The fallen jade soldiers turned into dust and some of them were absorbed into my flesh.
More points flowed into me than what I had spent using the inscriptions.
‘I wonder how Jia is doing right now.’
After clearing all the jade soldiers, I turned my gaze to Kwon Jia’s fight.
She was a regressor, so she should be doing well, I thought.
But contrary to my expectations,
“Huh?”
Kwon Jia looked quite precarious.
***
Clang!
Kwon Jia couldn’t handle the huge impact and her body was pushed back involuntarily.
She was losing in this intense power struggle against the giant Skeleton General.
She hadn’t been regressed for long, so she hadn’t fully regained her strength yet.
She had absorbed a lot of stories by borrowing points from Yu-hyun, but it wasn’t enough yet.
She was still an unblooming flower against the Skeleton General’s giant.
It was practically impossible to win against him head-on.
Kwon Jia changed her strategy midway.
If she couldn’t win with strength, she would try with speed.
She was much faster than the Skeleton General after all.
But he was a veteran who had lived for a long time, and he had almost no flaws.
His reaction speed was fast and his movements were swift despite his large size.
He easily blocked many attacks that she thought she had landed successfully.
‘He’s strong.’
The Skeleton General was so strong that he couldn’t be easily defeated in a one-on-one fight even by a mid-tier collector.
Kwon Jia barely held on thanks to her long experience of fighting.
If not for that, she might have already died and prepared for the next round.
‘More than anything, he doesn’t get tired.’
That was the scary part of the Skeleton General.
The jade soldiers were the same, they had no limit to their stamina since they were made of bones and armor without any blood.
They didn’t need to eat or sleep, and they never got tired no matter how much they fought.
That pushed Kwon Jia further into a corner.
[How long are you going to run away?]
Boom!
The Skeleton General stomped his foot hard, as if he couldn’t wait any longer.
The immense power from the giant spread through the ground in all directions.
The whole building shook for a moment, and Kwon Jia had to stop moving to regain her balance.
The Skeleton General took advantage of the opening and swung his sword at her.
Kwon Jia opened her eyes wide and barely ducked to avoid the blade, but her posture was greatly disrupted.
Thud!
The Skeleton General clenched his fist with one hand and swung it roughly at her.
Kwon Jia hastily raised her sword to defend, but her body flew back and hit the wall.
She frowned at the pain in her back and saw the Skeleton General approaching her in no time.
She quickly lifted her sword again.
Clang!
Their weapons clashed, and Kwon Jia’s eyes widened.
Her weapon, which had been cracked from the intense fight, broke in half at the crucial moment.
She couldn’t believe it.
She didn’t expect her sword to break at such an important time.
It was already amazing that she had fought this far with such a basic weapon.
[Now, it’s over…]
The Skeleton General didn’t show any mercy to his disarmed opponent.
He was that kind of being.
He had been ordered to protect this place, and he would eliminate any intruders by any means necessary.
The enemy in front of him was impressive, but her flesh was weak compared to her skill and her weapon was frail.
That was her downfall.
Kwon Jia leaned against the wall and slumped down.
[If you ever stand before the Great King, tell him that I sent you.]
The Skeleton General finished his words and swung his sword vertically.
‘Ah.’
Kwon Jia realized in the slow-flowing time that she had ultimately lost.
‘Is this the end?’
She thought it would be different this time.
She believed that she could change herself.
That’s why she gathered her courage and came this far.
Maybe she was too complacent.
She might have deluded herself that things would go well this time since they had gone so well until now.
But she was too hasty.
She should have prepared more thoroughly.
She should have brought a stronger weapon and built up more stamina.
She was the one who failed to do that, and that led to this crisis.
‘Now I have to…’
She wasn’t afraid of death.
She had experienced it hundreds of times already.
Death was now more like an inseparable companion for her.
The only thing that made her regretful until the end was Kang Yu-hyun, the teller who made a contract with her.
He might have been someone who understood her.
She thought she could succeed this time if he was there.
‘Will I have to repeat this hell…?’
She was tired now.
She wanted to rest.
But this damned trait of infinite regressor didn’t allow her to rest even for a moment.
Over and over again.
It trapped her in this hell and made her repeat the endless life.
“I’m not much different from you.”
She muttered as she looked at the Skeleton General swinging his sword at her.
He was trapped in the prison of death.
And she was trapped in the prison of life.
No one could escape from here.
[Die…!]
Right before the Skeleton General’s sword touched Kwon Jia’s head,
Whip!
A whip flew from somewhere and grabbed the Skeleton General’s arm tightly.
The slash that fell off course missed Kwon Jia and hit the ground instead.
The Skeleton General was furious at being interrupted at this point.
His red eyes glowed even brighter.
[Who are you!]
His cold gaze naturally turned to the intruder.
Kwon Jia realized belatedly that she was still alive and trembled her lips.
She couldn’t say anything properly as she saw Yu-hyun holding a whip and struggling with the Skeleton General’s strength.
“You, you…!”
“What are you giving up for! Snap out of it!”
Yu-hyun shouted at her impatiently, forgetting his usual polite speech.
As she met his steady and hot gaze, Kwon Jia remembered what she had done wrong.
“Did you endure all this just to crumble here?!”
“I, I…”
“Don’t you have something you want? That’s why you came this far!”
Something I want.
As she heard those words, Kwon Jia vaguely remembered what she had forgotten for so long.
A very distant past, when she ran for it but couldn’t reach it in the end.
As she repeated countless lives and deaths, she eventually forgot what her original purpose was.
Yu-hyun’s harsh scream reminded her of her goal a little bit.
‘That’s right.’
I didn’t endure all this just to stop here.
‘I have a goal.’
She couldn’t remember what it was yet.
But there was definitely something like that.
Just knowing that fact filled something in her empty heart.
[How dare you interfere with me. I’ll finish you off first!]
The Skeleton General immediately swung his sword at Yu-hyun.
Yu-hyun blocked the sword with the shield in his hand, but he was pushed back.
The corners of his shield, which couldn’t even scratch the enemy, were shattered.
Yu-hyun clenched his teeth and deactivated his shield.
He changed his white lotus into a spear and swung it at the Skeleton General.
He intended to hold him back before the others arrived.
[You fool…!]
The Skeleton General dodged or parried Yu-hyun’s spear as he closed the distance.
He was agile despite his huge size.
Yu-hyun quickly switched his spear to an axe and swung it, but the Skeleton General skillfully raised his sword to block the attack.
Clang!
The Skeleton General wasn’t fazed by the changing weapon.
It was as if he knew it from the start.
He moved his sturdy legs and slowly cornered Yu-hyun.
Yu-hyun gritted his teeth and faced the Skeleton General.
‘He’s strong!’
He understood why Kwon Jia couldn’t finish him off.
He expected him to be strong, but this was beyond imagination.
But he was only trying to buy some time from the beginning!
As he struggled with the Skeleton General, Yu-hyun shouted.
“Get up!”
Hearing his words, Kwon Jia gathered her strength and stood up.
“Grab your weapon!”
She held the broken sword in her hand as if in a trance.
“Fight till the end! If you decided to do it, don’t stop until the last moment!”
His final scream hit Kwon Jia hard.
“That’s right.”
She looked at the Skeleton General with a steady gaze.
“You’re right.”
If she decided to do it, she had to go till the end.
She tried to give up even though she wasn’t completely dead, just because she thought she might die.
That was wrong.
She had to fight.
She had to keep going until the very end.
“Because I have to see what’s at the end.”
Kwon Jia ran towards the Skeleton General. Her movement was much faster than before.
[Huh…?!]
The Skeleton General tried to turn his body as he felt something behind him, but
“Where are you looking? I’m your opponent!”
Yu-hyun, whose armor made of text was broken everywhere, held him back and didn’t let go.
[You bastard…!]
The Skeleton General’s reason cracked for the first time.
He immediately tried to shake off Yu-hyun, but Kwon Jia was faster.
Kwon Jia climbed on his back and stabbed him with all her strength with the broken sword in her hand.
Crack!
[Aaaah!!]
The half-broken sword pierced through his armor and hit his spine.
The Skeleton General screamed as if he felt pain even though he shouldn’t.
He shook his body violently.
Yu-hyun and Kwon Jia were thrown away.
The Skeleton General didn’t even try to pull out the sword stuck in his back.
He glared at Yu-hyun and Kwon Jia through the black smoke.
[How dare you…!]
As he was about to move, another unwelcome guest arrived.
Boom!
The Skeleton General’s body was engulfed in flames.
Yu-hyun turned his head.
The collectors were rushing in from the entrance where he came from.
One of them had thrown a fireball and cheered happily.
“Yeah! Did you see that? He’s nothing but a big guy!”
The Skeleton General’s figure was hidden by the black smoke from the fire.
At that moment,
Flash!
A red light exploded from within the smoke.
Yu-hyun shouted at the collectors immediately.
“Everyone, get away!”
“What?”
“Huh?”
The collectors realized too late that the Skeleton General wasn’t dead, but it was too late.
Whoosh!
The Skeleton General burst out of the smoke and swung his sword horizontally.
There was no obstacle in the building.
The sword cut through pillars and walls like tofu and sliced through the collectors as well.
“Ugh!”
“This crazy bastard!”
Six out of more than thirty collectors died in an instant.
They weren’t weak either, but they couldn’t even resist.
They felt fear towards the Skeleton General who survived their attack, as well as revenge for their comrades who were killed by him.
“This son of a bitch!”
“Kill him! Crush him!”
The collectors who kept their distance attacked him fiercely with their powerful abilities.
The Skeleton General was also injured, so he had no choice but to retreat slowly against their onslaught.
Yu-hyun wondered if they could knock him down.
But the Skeleton General was too stubborn.
[You trash. I’ll turn you all into ashes with my sword!]
The Skeleton General backed off a lot and then headed towards the stake of the Ghost Land.
Kwon Jia realized what he was doing and shouted in panic.
“No! Stop him!”
[Too late!]
The Skeleton General slammed the handle of his sword on the stake.
Crack!
The stake that was half buried in the ground was completely pushed in.
And then.
Rumble!
The Ghost Land vibrated.