The Hero Returns

Chapter 366: Chapter 366

Act 6

Immortality—a cheat-like skill that not only steeply increased the physical abilities but also restored all abnormal physical statuses and spent stamina—was like an extra life for Su-hyeun. No, wait—maybe it was even better than having an extra life.

In a way, an extra life would only prove to be useful in case he died, but Immortality allowed him to escape from the jaws of death.

As such, Su-hyeun tried his best not to use this skill if it was at all possible.

He feared that if he relied on it a little too much, then he might end up mistakenly thinking that he really did have an extra life and become too dependent on the skill's effects.

But at this moment…

"I don't have a choice if I want to break through it."

Su-hyeun activated the Immortality skill, steeply enhancing his physical abilities.

Tsu-wuwuwu—

This enhancement wasn't reflected on the stats themselves, but it was obvious, considering that the enhancement wasn't permanent in the first place. At least from how it felt to Su-hyeun, the effects of that "steep" increase came across as quite similar to how one or two stats of his had gone up at least a point or two.

And to the current Su-hyeun, a point or two increase in his stats would result in a truly enormous transformation.

[One Sword Cutting Through Everything - Cutting the Sky]

Su-hyeun grasped the sword with both of his hands, and without stopping his forward motion, he hacked down with his weapon.

This slash contained an enormous weight and an incredible amount of magical energy.

Whoooooosh—

Kwa-boooooom—!

The darkness now given a physical form was torn apart mercilessly. Even though Su-hyeun was attacking the especially weak part, the path he carved out in an instant was still humongous.

"What the…?"

For the first time in this fight, the predator began panicking.

In the meantime, the distance between them was halved, and so, the predator hurriedly waved both of its hands around and gathered the darkness from the other parts to confine Su-hyeun.

Chwa-ruk, chwa-rururu—

Fwoooosh—!

The darkness possessing a physical form confined Su-hyeun and shoved him back in the opposite direction. At the same time, the tips of the darkness transformed into sharp spikes and targeted his throat and other vital parts.

Rumbleeeee—

Piiit, pi-pi-pi-pi-piiit—

His blade, now heated up by the divine Flame until it changed its color to purple, began cutting everything down near his vicinity, and right at that instant, his figure suddenly became a single line as he rushed toward the predator.

His speed was so fast that naked eyes couldn't chase after him. Su-hyeun swung his sword and created a path for himself, and in an instant, he got very close to the predator.

"This bastard…"

The predator, still waving its hands in a dizzying manner, watched on as its eyes opened wider in shock.

"He can tell where the path lies?" the predator thought.

Su-hyeun easily weaved in and out of the way as if he knew where to go already whenever the predator moved its hands. Not only that but he also moved at a much faster speed than before.

The distance had rapidly closed up—close enough that he was practically right in front of the predator's nose.

"For now, I'll create some distance and then…"

[Teleport]

Giii-iiing—

The predator's figure gradually grew faint.

"Teleport" was a movement magic spell meant for traveling long distances. However, the predator wasn't trying to get somewhere far from the place, and as such, the activation time required by the magic wasn't that long.

If the distance between them had closed up, then the predator just had to open it up again.

It had been thinking that to itself, but then, its figure suddenly became distinct again.

"What is the meaning of—?"

Split—

[Third Eye - Neutralization]

An eye had opened up in Su-hyeun's forehead.

It was the neutralization skill.

When neutralizing the opponent's skill, Su-hyeun needed to spend several times greater magical energy than what the opponent had spent to activate their skill. The neutralization skill's magical energy expenditure wasn't very good, in other words.

That was why Su-hyeun didn't resort to using it often, but in a situation like this one, the story would be rather different.

"It looks like my insurance paid off beautifully." Su-hyeun thought about what to do if the predator tried to create more distance between them at the last second.

All thanks to him learning magic from Ellid, he now had some level of knowledge on magic, so he had an adequate grasp on how magicians would react when their safety net of distance had been lost.

If the distance had closed up, they would resort to casting teleport-type magic to create more distance and then start bombarding the opponents with other attack spells. That was the fundamental method of attack for magicians.

Even if one was a high-ranking magician, the fundamentals of this method didn't change all that much.

That was exactly why Su-hyeun had readied the neutralization at the last second, and he was perfectly on target.

Chwa-aaaaaah—!

Keuh-euh-euh…

The predator still managed to physically create some distance, albeit a beat too late, and hurriedly clutched at its chest.

A wound so deep that its internal organs were visible was now inflicted on its torso. The predator tried to cover the wound with its hand, but blood continued to stream from there.

Shu-wuwuwu—

It activated healing magic right away, but the spell couldn't display much of an effect, and that was because of the influence of the divine Flame loaded on the blade.

The divine Flame was power at complete odds with the darkness. On top of that, the burn wound caused by it naturally made healing difficult.

Wobble—

The predator's body wobbled.

As the wound was deep, the creature's concentration also fell off a cliff. Su-hyeun rested his sword on his shoulder and began walking toward the predator once more.

He spoke up, "You kept using an ability featuring a ridiculously defensive-minded nature. And as I thought, your weakness is with lack of durability. If that wasn't it, you'd have been more attack-minded during the fight itself."

"You merely got lucky, so stop with your bull—"

"To say that I got lucky, well…"

"…!"

Su-hyeun's figure seemingly teleported right in front of the predator, and the latter's eyes shot open wide in shock, and right at that instant, Su-hyeun's sword approached the predator's throat.

Pah-aht—

Slice—

"I've got you again, haven't I?"

Keo-uh-uh…

The predator's neck was severed halfway.

There was a shallow wound on Su-hyeun's shoulder as well, which was a result of him forcibly carving out a path so that he could reach the target much faster than before.

However, it should've been clear to anyone watching who had suffered more among the two.

Unlike the predator whose neck had been half-severed and was now dangling precariously, Su-hyeun's wound was so shallow that only a handful of blood drops fell from there.

On the other hand, the predator was desperately clutching at its dangling neck with one hand while ungainly stumbling backward.

"Hmm…"

Su-hyeun rested the sword on his shoulders at an angle once more.

At this rate, he no longer needed the effects of the Immortality skill to deal with this predator.

First of all, the net of darkness being controlled by the grievously injured predator was now so full of holes that even naked eyes could tell how one should go about breaking through it.

The battle was basically over at this stage, and Su-hyeun wasn't the only one thinking that.

"Looks like it's over, isn't it?"

Indeed, even Luslec who was watching on from a distance was thinking the same thing.

And the predator seemed to be thinking the same thing as well because the way his eyes urgently darted around was remarkably different from earlier.

"I must…escape," it thought.

The predator activated its powers in order to cast Teleport one more time, but for some reason, the spell didn't want to activate.

"How come?"

"Why do you think I went to so much trouble in the first place?" Su-hyeun asked while scanning all those flames he had laid out in the surroundings. "You thought I simply wanted to prevent you from walking out of here?"

"…It can't be."

"You'll face a lot of problems if you were planning to break out of here. These flames aren't as simple as they look, you see."

The divine Flame possessed the qualification of godhood, and when a territory was created using this skill, it granted a certain side effect of stopping any magical influence from leaving its boundaries.

The Teleport spell was definitely the greatest evasion magic out there, but even if it was some other space-traversing skill and not this powerful spell, Su-hyeun still wouldn't have been able to chase the predator down as he hadn't mastered any magic to counter such things.

Since that was the case, he simply had to stop all possible avenues that the predator could use to flee from the place. He believed that once this creature decided to hide somewhere, tracking it down again would become exceedingly difficult.

"That's why you should just die quietly here."

Su-hyeun's sword rose up high.

[One Sword Cutting Through Everything - Earth Divider]

Swiiiiiish—

His sword then descended while leaving behind a thin line. No sounds were made. It was a clean cut.

Sliiice—

Then, his sword returned to its scabbard.

Tumble—

Finally, the predator's severed head tumbled to the ground.

[The system is collapsing.]

[In sequential order, you will return to where you were originally from in 10 days' time.]

Messages rose up one after the other, but these were not coming from the system set up by the predator. Indeed, they belonged to the system given to Su-hyeun by the tower of the trials.

[You have passed the 104th floor's trial.]

[You have acquired 50,000,000 achievement points.]

[Magic count has risen by two points.]

[Reflex has risen by one point.]

[Your flesh has taken a step beyond the realm of humans.]

[You have acquired a qualification of godhood.]

[Will you transfer to the next floor?]

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The rumor had spread around quickly.

It said that people had begun disappearing one by one.

This rumor started off as some kind of a spooky ghost tale, but eventually, it took on a different story as it continued to spread around. According to the new account, the system had collapsed, and they were being sent back to their original worlds.

Everyone already knew that the system had collapsed, but the ones spreading the more accurate "rumor" were actually none other than Su-hyeun and Luslec.

"But why did we have to spread around such a rumor, when it's super annoying to do so?"

Luslec returned after completing the task while scratching his head, annoyance evident in his gesture.

Su-hyeun initially asked the ones residing in the imperial palace to spread the rumor and later on even asked Luslec for his help.

The intentionally-spread rumor quickly propagated. Although the special privileges granted to the emperor or the grand duke ranks no longer applied, the weight carried by each and every word Su-hyeun said was still undeniable.

"Isn't it so much better this way? Rather than being worried about not knowing when you'd disappear next, you'd feel hopeful that you'll soon return to your homeworld instead."

"That's true, but the people would've found out by themselves eventually, anyway."

"It's only a couple of words to let them know, and it also doesn't take long to inform them."

"Well, yes. That's also true…" Luslec continued to grumble in a small voice as if he was still annoyed by the task and then he shook his head.

It seemed that he just couldn't understand the reason for Su-hyeun's considerate action, judging from how openly annoyed he looked even now.

Of course, he still humored Su-hyeun's favor despite his complaints.

He had done that several times by now.

"You said that you're my fan, didn't you?"

Currently, Su-hyeun was sitting on a sofa located inside a spacious room.

Luslec made a slightly embarrassed face and smiled faintly. "Ah yes. I did."

"In that case, can you answer me truthfully if I ask you some questions?" Su-hyeun sounded surprisingly tense.

He found it somewhat difficult to bring this topic up. He feared that, with how it was with the administrators, Luslec would also choose not to answer Su-hyeun's questions.

In all honesty, he didn't have high expectations from the get-go.

However, the reply coming from Luslec now who was sitting across from Su-hyeun was much simpler and straightforward than he anticipated.

"Yes, of course. You can ask me anything."

"…?"

"Why are you making a face like that? You were the one who said you wanted to ask me some things." Luslec became less enthusiastic and retorted back after seeing Su-hyeun's strange facial expression.

He wasn't wrong here, though. To think that a person asking first was now making an expression that said, "Now that's unexpected," when the other party replied he would comply.

Maybe Su-hyeun was the strange one here.

"No, well, I thought that you might find it difficult to answer me, you see, so I was wondering if I should keep pressing you for answers or try to convince you first."

"It's not like my tongue would wear out for talking a lot, so why should I find it difficult, anyway? If you're curious about something, you can ask me anything. What would you like to know first? My birthday? My hobby? Maybe my favorite food?"

"I'm not interested in your personal information, though," Su-hyeun ended up chuckling without being conscious of it.

But that made asking difficult questions that much easier. Luslec probably had a good idea already of what Su-hyeun wanted to ask him about.

As such, Su-hyeun was able to ask while feeling less burdened by the weight of the topic at hand. "The predator asked me if I was a hound. Initially, I didn't know what it was talking about, and I couldn't be bothered to reply anyway, so I glossed over it, but now…After giving it some more thought, this one person came to my mind."

"And that's me?"

"It's good that we're on the same wavelength. Yes, that's right."

The person Su-hyeun thought of when the predator brought up the matter regarding the hound of the gods was Luslec.

For some reason, Su-hyeun felt that Luslec was similar to him in some ways.

"Are you really the hound of the gods?"