People only knew the Chair as something like a powerful warrior.
A pure warrior who didn’t use anything else.
But.
That was nothing more than information the Chair’s party deliberately leaked.
And of course—
‘If it gets out that the head of an organization is someone who uses curses, there’s nothing good about that.’
So,
while hiding the fact that he used curses,
he had only shown the image of a powerful warrior.
And.
For someone whose job could only reveal its true power when curses were used in tandem,
there was a reason he could still perform as a warrior.
[Curse of Blood Boil]
[It accelerates the target’s blood flow.]
[The curse target will soon be led to death as a result, but until death is reached, they will exhibit tremendous power.]
When he saw that curse for the first time—
-What kind of trash is this....
Gangsan was dumbfounded.
‘It’s nice that you can kill the enemy over time... but they get stronger in the meantime?’
He wondered how a skill with a defect like that could even exist.
The other skills were the same.
[Curse of No Retreat]
[Curse targets cannot leave the battlefield.]
[However, the curse caster also cannot leave the battlefield.]
[Sensory Dulling]
[It disrupts the target’s bodily senses.]
[However, after the curse’s maintenance time ends, the target’s senses become noticeably more sensitive than before.]
‘Why are they all like this.’
Each effect, taken on its own, was powerful.
But maybe that was the price of that power—
curse-type skills didn’t exist with ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) only advantages.
Skills that carried pros and cons together.
When he first saw those skills,
Gangsan thought there was no way he would ever become strong.
[Rewards are granted for those who lead the way.]
‘This is....’
The first achievement he ever reached.
And after receiving the reward from it—
things changed.
‘This is a reward for me!’
An item given to the party as a reward.
But.
To anyone, it looked like something prepared specifically for Gangsan.
After that,
Gangsan gained the confidence that he was the strongest.
...However.
That confidence didn’t last long.
KIRURUK...!
‘Damn it, that freak-bird again...!’
‘That bastard alone has already taken more than ten of our people!’
‘The accumulated damage is too heavy already. I get that you’re furious, but even your blade didn’t work, big brother!’
‘We have to retreat, Chair!’
When they headed toward the [Demon Realm],
that confidence shattered for the first time.
-See for yourself what’s in the place you want to go.
‘This... is real?’
When he chased the [Cold],
he trembled in fear after seeing what was inside.
‘We can’t beat those monsters. But.’
‘At least against Awakeners... against humans, I’m the strongest!’
‘All of you versus me alone. Who’s stronger...!’
A fight he picked with subordinates he had been looking down on,
to recover his pride.
And at the end of that fight—
‘To reach for a power like this.’
With his crushing defeat,
the pride that had already been fractured was ground into dust.
And.
“Even if those bastards are stronger than me...!”
Gangsan glared at that young man
Shin Youngjun, who was trying to grind even that dust-like pride down to nothing, and said,
“In the end...!”
The pride he believed was his strongest was thoroughly destroyed.
The human mind is weak.
Living without any pride at all is harder than you’d think.
His mind needed a new place to lean.
“The one who survives to the end... is me...!”
Yeah.
For example—
even if he couldn’t defeat them,
a pride like believing he could outlast them.
A pride he never could have held before.
But.
[You have surpassed Level 30!]
[You acquire a new skill.]
A new skill gained upon surpassing level 30.
And.
-Kneel.
The power he obtained from the beings beyond that veil,
when he threw away pointless pride.
The moment those two combined—
“The one who wins at the end is me...!”
He
could grasp a new pride in his hands.
*****
CLANG...!
‘Khhk...!’
Countless Shin Youngjuns attacking together.
Gangsan was pushed back nonstop under that combined assault, but—
“There’s no way to subdue him...!”
“Even [Force-Feeding] won’t work! Those ice things absorb it instead.”
The Shin Youngjuns attacking him
were frowning too, as if stifled.
‘Hold out... I just have to hold out without getting subdued.’
With that conviction alone,
Gangsan endured the combined assault.
And then.
Suddenly.
“Fine. Let’s try it.”
“......!?”
The “Shin Youngjun” who had been hanging back from the middle of the fight.
Unlike the other Shin Youngjuns, he wasn’t wearing a uniform—
‘The main body.’
The real Shin Youngjun
was joining the battle.
Leaving the battle to the clones was safer.
If this Clone Technique was that young man’s skill,
then the moment he fell, the clones would vanish too.
So when Gangsan saw him fall back midway and start talking with Yunseong,
he’d brushed it off as him pulling back for safety.
And the fact that he joined the battle again meant—
‘That bastard’s getting desperate, too!’
That the clones’ time limit was almost up,
and he’d started forcing it to bring Gangsan down no matter what.
Gangsan was sure.
‘Not much time left. Just a little more. Just a little more time...!’
With that thought,
a smile formed at the corner of Gangsan’s mouth.
And....
in that moment.
“Hup!”
The main-body Shin Youngjun
launched himself straight at him.
‘Foolish!’
Gangsan thought as he extended his greatsword toward that main body.
‘If the main body and clones are separated like this, then even the behavior pattern is predictable.’
If the clones were the opponent,
they might sacrifice one to deal him damage.
A clone vanishing wouldn’t be a big loss.
But the main body was different.
If the main body was erased, the clones would likely be erased as well.
‘So the main body can’t help but be more defensive!’
No matter how strong he was,
he was still just a green kid whose head hadn’t even dried from blood.
Thinking that real combat experience was what decided outcomes here—
Gangsan drove the greatsword straight into him.
An attack that would tear his waist apart if it landed.
That man would try to dodge or block this greatsword somehow.
And if he blocked, the distance would inevitably open.
‘In the end, I win!’
If he could open distance like that,
he could drag out at least ten more seconds.
That was the thought behind the thrust—
but then—
CRUNCH....
‘...Huh?’
The sensation at his fingertips
was a little different from what he expected.
“You... what.”
Gangsan stared at his opponent with stunned eyes.
What was there—
“Aah....”
His own blade.
Still impaled on it—
GRAAAB....
“Damn... it hurts...!”
Shin Youngjun, gripping the blade with a blood-soaked hand,
advancing forward.
‘He didn’t dodge?’
The attack he naturally assumed would be dodged.
His reaction was a beat late from shock that it hadn’t been.
SNATCH!
Shin Youngjun’s hand
shot out toward Gangsan’s chest.
“......!”
Startled, Gangsan swung the greatsword that was still skewering Shin Youngjun.
CRRRRK...!
The blade that had gone into the middle of his abdomen ripped sideways,
tearing more than 80% of his waist apart.
A mortal wound that no normal human—and not even most Awakeners—could survive.
But....
Shin Youngjun didn’t care that his waist was being torn apart.
He kept reaching.
And that hand, in the end—
TAP....
touched his chest.
“......!”
For just that brief moment—
as the price of his fingertips touching Gangsan’s chest—
THUD!
“KHUH...!”
Shin Youngjun, with his waist nearly split in two,
was slammed into a building at the edge.
*****
“KHUK... khuk....”
With his waist cut nearly in half,
Shin Youngjun rolled on the ground in agony.
“You....”
Gangsan looked down at him and said,
“What were you trying... to do.”
He was trying to speak as calmly as possible,
but he felt chills rising up his back.
Just now—
no matter how he thought about it—
‘Even if it cost him his life... he was charging like he would reach out that hand to my body.’
If he’d panicked because he thought time was running out,
it was understandable he’d throw away his body to attack.
But the problem was the place he reached for.
‘The dead center of the chest.’
Not where the heart was.
Not where the brain was.
Not the solar plexus.
‘Don’t tell me.’
In Gangsan’s eyes, after countless battles—
it was a spot that wasn’t any vital point, so it was targeted less,
yet it was close to other vital points, so defending it wouldn’t look awkward.
‘Did he find it?’
He reached out there, deliberately.
But—
‘Even if he did, it doesn’t matter.’
Unless that hand broke through the skin.
His fingertip only barely touched the skin.
GRIND....
‘It’s fine. I’m still fine.’
He hadn’t touched what was inside—
the most important thing Gangsan had.
“KHUK... KHUHK...!”
Shin Youngjun paid for that single reach with a huge cut across his side, writhing on the ground.
“Foolish, child.”
“KHUK....”
“That reckless charge... you probably forced it because the time limit on your Clone Technique ran out, but now that it’s failed... this is the end.”
Looking at Shin Youngjun writhing in pain,
Gangsan spoke with a proud attitude.
“If you, the main body, die, then the clones you summoned will soon vanish as well.”
“KHUHK....”
“You were strong. I looked down on you thinking you had no combat skills... but that high-level dagger work, and this Clone Technique! I was certain I was the strongest Awakener... yet your power surpasses even me after I abandoned being human.”
His admiration was sincere.
He believed human power could never defeat monsters—
“You might not have even feared the beings I’ve met.”
If he’d been as strong as this young man,
he might not have abandoned being human at all.
But....
“Even so, it seems you’ve reached your limit here.”
“KHUHK....”
“In the end, this world... isn’t the strongest the one who survives?”
And so,
just as Gangsan was certain of victory—
“KHUH... old... man.”
“What.”
Shin Youngjun, with his waist split along with his spine,
thrashing in pain.
“You... seem kind of dull... when it comes to magic power...?”
“......?”
“Heh... if it were something else... it might’ve been a little hard for me.”
In those eyes...
there was still fighting spirit.
“With a dagger... it’s easy.”
“W-what....”
Gangsan, certain of victory,
had no choice but to panic at the strange sensation that suddenly rose.
“You... what did you do...!”
From inside his chest—
he felt magic power that wasn’t his own.
“A dagger is... a [Cooking Tool].”
In that moment—
GRAB!
“......!”
Shin Youngjun’s clones suddenly lunged in from both sides.
As Gangsan swung both arms to deal with the clones—
“Work.”
“......!”
“[Assistant Chef].”
In the opening made by Gangsan’s hands,
the magic power Shin Youngjun had planted in Gangsan’s chest—
[Assistant Chef]
[Invisible assistant chefs support your work.]
[The assistant chefs share the player’s stats.]
[The assistant chefs possess the trait ‘Intermediate Cooking Tool Mastery’.]
Under the domination of that magic power—
BZZZZZZZT....
“......No.”
As it tore open Gangsan’s chest—
SNATCH!
something burst out.
[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]
[Blade of Sacrifice, Victimia]
[A dagger called a living sacrifice. Victimia.]
[1. The Blade of Sacrifice is a weapon judged as a single living creature, and can be the target of all types of abilities such as buffs and debuffs. However, the ability that can be applied is limited to one.]
[2. The wearer can selectively share only the desired parts among the various effects applied to the blade.]
A small dagger with a sinister look,
caked with the old man’s blood and flesh.
It didn’t look practical.
It didn’t look artistic.
It looked like something meant for an evil rite....
[Active Ability]
[Curse – Eternal Pain]
[Applied Detail - Death Resistance]
[Not Applied - Increased Pain, Severe Pain]
The source of the immortality Gangsan had shown.
GRIP.
That ominous blade
was clenched in Shin Youngjun’s hand.
