The Hero Returns

Chapter 417: Chapter 417

Crunch, creak, crush—

The bones forming a tight sphere continued to compress into something even smaller. As the power behind the compression grew and as the size of the bone mass shrunk unnaturally, the impact force crushing down on Tyrant increased.

Of course, Su-hyeun didn't expect this much of an attack to cause any lasting damage to his opponent.

Wu-dududuk—

Bang—!

An arm crushed all the bones in its way and broke through the surface. Once an arm was freed, the rest didn't prove to be difficult to free. Tyrant easily shattered the bones tightening around him and escaped completely.

Dribble…

Drip, drip…

Black blood leaked from his body and dripped on the ground. Su-hyeun stared at that wretched figure and thought to himself, "It's a miracle that he's not dead yet."

Many bloody holes had opened up in the Predator's body, including not just on various vital points but even on one side of his head, which was completely gone now.

Since the sharp bone pile wrapped around him and started crushing him, such a state shouldn't be all that surprising to see. If such a thing happened to a regular person, they would've already ended up as unrecognizable fine meat paste.

Of course, Tyrant was not something that could be compared to a regular person. He was a Predator ranked among One Hundred Evils, after all.

"Even then, his defensive capability is surprisingly weak," Su-hyeun thought.

Su-hyeun hadn't even attacked directly. He merely utilized his Necromancer trait to forcibly pry away Tyrant's control over the skeletons and then, when the Predator had let his guard down, made his throne move. He then injected some of his magical energy and prana to enhance the hardness of the bones. Finally, he proceeded to crush the target using the hardened bones. That was all.

"Or maybe I've become stronger than I thought?"

It was hard to determine if this was the reason, at least not right now. Besides, the ability that best represented Tyrant hadn't entered the picture yet.

Hiss, sizzle…

All those large bloody holes in Tyrant's body began to close up. The wounds healed at a visible pace; even his complexion, pale as a sheet of paper after all the blood loss, quickly regained its original color.

Extremely high-speed regeneration—that was basically Tyrant's godly authority.

"You shouldn't expect me to die just because you managed to open up a few holes in me," Tyrant said, deeply confident of his own ability. Perhaps that was the reason why he didn't display any signs of getting flustered about the current situation. "Even I don't know how I can actually die, after all. My physical body is built in such a way that even if I want to die, it won't. It's basically the same as true immortality, the one you people often talk about."

Riiip—

The Predator suddenly ripped his own limb off while saying that. Despite having ripped off his own arm, Tyrant didn't even bat an eyelid.

He definitely didn't hesitate to hurt himself, but Su-hyeun couldn't tell whether that was because he couldn't feel pain or he simply didn't fear it.

"If you really wish to kill me—no wait—if you wish to inflict even a single proper wound on my body, you better be prepared to chop me apart into hundreds of thousands of pieces. If you do that, then who knows? I might really end up with a wound after I finish regenerating."

Step—

Tyrant stepped forward while speaking up.

Before him, though, were countless skeletons lining up. Spears, blades, and even pointy bone pieces in their hands, plus their sharp and glowing eyes all aimed for the Predator's direction.

"So, he stole my command over them, is that it…?"

Although Tyrant spoke in a relaxed tone, inwardly, he was quite surprised by this turn of events.

Controlling the dead wasn't Tyrant's specialty, true, but even then, he didn't think there would be a human capable of commanding these many skeletons with ease.

"I see that you're no ordinary Necromancer, then."

As they were all skeletons, Tyrant's virus wouldn't work anymore. Controlling viruses was an ability that only affected the living, after all.

Since that was the case…

"Just disappear, then."

Gu-wuuuung—

Tyrant slammed his palm on the ground. At the same time, the land below began quaking ominously.

Gu-gugugu…

Crack, split, craaaack—

The ground split apart, and the terrain separated. All those countless skeleton soldiers helplessly tumbled below the chasm.

Su-hyeun leaped high in the air and watched this event unfold. Luslec's information turned out to be true, after all.

"Close-quarter hand-to-hand combat, incredible regenerative power, and virus manipulation were supposed to be this Predator's specialty, right?"

For sure, Tyrant's physical strength was indeed something else. Splitting the ground apart by simply standing still and slapping it with one hand meant that his power must be extraordinary.

If speed was to be added to such power, then just one strike would be enough to easily destroy a single city.

"Well, in that case, why don't we find out how long you can keep regenerating?"

Tap—

Su-hyeun landed back on the ground and, while wielding his sword, began to leisurely walk over to Tyrant.

Tyrant also unhurriedly approached Su-hyeun, and so, when they got within 10 steps of each other…

Pa-aht—

Paht—!

In the blink of an eye, their figures seemed to have vanished.

Claaaaang—!

Kwa-woooooo—!

The ground deeply caved in as thunderous noises boomed throughout the surroundings.

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Clang—!

Riiip, craaaack—!

The defensive walls tens of meters tall that surrounded the city were crumbling down. Even if they were several meters thick, crafted with special alloys, and treated with magical defensive means, in the end, they were all useless.

The walls were ripped apart like pieces of paper and crumbled to bits after losing their balance. Among the falling debris, Tyrant was forcing his half-crushed body back up.

Swhooooosh—

POW—!

Just as the Predator stood back up, a long spear suddenly flew straight into his head and stabbed him. The flames burning on the spear quickly set Tyrant on fire, scorching him pitch-black.

Ruuumble—

Fwhooooosh—!

With Tyrant in the center, purple-colored flames rapidly spread out. In the meantime, he yanked the spear that was stabbing him in the head and threw it right back where it came from.

Whooooosh—!

Bang—!

The spear tore through the air and returned to Su-hyeun's grip. While holding the spear, Su-hyeun stared at Tyrant down below on the ground.

Wiggle, wriggle—

Buzzz, hiss…

Tyrant's body was in complete tatters. He got chopped up and punched by Su-hyeun's sword strikes and fists, causing him to fly away and crash into the defensive wall of the city. Even then, he remained undaunted as he stood back up. Su-hyeun threw the spear right back at the Predator.

Not just the spear but all of Su-hyeun's attacks so far had landed on the Predator's vital parts. Despite all that, Tyrant continued to regenerate just fine.

"But the rate of his regeneration has slowed down, thanks to my Flame."

The divine Flame had the side effect of suppressing the opponent's ability to regenerate. However, Tyrant still regenerated himself at a fairly quick rate despite being burned by the divine Flame.

This had been going on for one hour already.

As expected, this Predator was a far better sandbag than some monsters that crawled out of a dungeon. Not only was he hard to kill but Tyrant was also strong and fast, which truly made him an ideal opponent to test out Su-hyeun's newly acquired abilities.

At first, Su-hyeun had to wonder to himself. This creature was supposed to be one of the One Hundred Evils, yet wasn't he much weaker than expected?

However, now that some time had passed by, Su-hyeun became more and more familiar with his newly acquired body and magical energy reserve, which, in turn, allowed him to realize something else.

"I wasn't really in full control of my own strength."

Since Tyrant's regenerative ability was so good, Su-hyeun initially thought that the Predator's defensive capability was rather poor in comparison.

That assumption turned out to be incorrect.

Over time, he began sensing that the strength contained within his attacks was no longer the same as before. His Strength stat hadn't increased, yet not just his physical strength but even the sensation he felt when moving his body were all different now.

Magical energy and prana were responsible for this change.

"My abilities have been enhanced across the board, and skills requiring magical energy also have seen an increase in their firepower…"

As a happy accident, Su-hyeun even discovered a part of himself that he had failed to notice during this battle as well.

"I have been aiming for Gyeol all this time without realizing it."

When the battle against Tyrant began and the moment he decided to kill Tyrant, Su-hyeun began targeting Tyrant's Gyeol instinctively. Thanks to that, the Predator was getting easily chopped apart like a block of tofu.

"I guess I better take note of this, too."

All of his abilities, including Insight, Gyeol, and the breathing technique, came to him so naturally just like breathing air.

On the other hand, Tyrant was getting surprised in a completely different sense to Su-hyeun's own surprises.

"How can this be…?"

As Tyrant quickly regained his original appearance, his eyes quaked powerfully. Plenty of questions were reflected in his trembling expression.

This couldn't be right.

BOOM—!

Tyrant angrily rushed in toward Su-hyeun once more. "This can't be right—!"

Split—!

Tyrant's hand opened wide like the mouth of an anglerfish. It even changed color to pitch-black and immediately swallowed Su-hyeun up.

Squeeze—

Cruuuunch—!

Tyrant squeezed his hand hard. When he felt the sensation of crushing Su-hyeun down, he began grinning, too.

That didn't last for long.

Whooooosh—

Riiiiiiiip—!

Massive storm winds raged on within Tyrant's hand and began ripping his arm apart. Blood splattered everywhere, and the left side of the Predator's body was completely shredded apart.

Keuh-euh…

Wiggle, wriggle—

Tyrant's shredded body writhed and began coagulating as one once more. During his regeneration, though, he began stumbling back.

He seemed to have gotten weaker than before because his rapid regeneration had slowed down just a little.

The effort to regenerate must have required a lot of stamina, it seemed.

Grit—

The noise of gritting teeth even reached Su-hyeun's position. Tyrant seemed to be truly enraged right now.

"You dare to toy with me?!"

Tyrant finally realized something: Su-hyeun hadn't been taking him seriously all along.

This had been going on for a while now—Su-hyeun stopped attacking and waited when Tyrant ended up in tatters and ripped to pieces.

He was actually waiting for the regeneration to take place.

Rip, tear—

Tyrant's body suddenly split apart, and dozens, hundreds, of arms spread out to their surroundings. Then, the Predator transformed into a bizarre monstrous figure.

It was like staring at the pitch-black Asura that boasted hundreds of arms. It didn't stop there, as he even opened his maw wide and pounced on Su-hyeun next.

Ka-boom—!

Baaang, booooom—

Hundreds of arms took aim at Su-hyeun and rapidly descended on him, but he simply tutted inwardly while staring at those arms crushing and devouring the debris of the destroyed ground.

"Is this your last gasp struggle, then?"

The number of Tyrant's arms was still rapidly increasing, which, in turn, led to his size getting even bigger as well.

"So that's his original appearance, isn't it?" Su-hyeun thought.

He had been wondering about this ever since coming face to face with Tyrant.

For some reason, this Predator was too "small," but the sense of presence that the creature gave off was simply too large. Therefore, that didn't make Su-hyeun think that Tyrant's physical size was indeed small. Rather, he felt that the outward appearance of the Predator was simply a facade.

Also, the shadow extending behind Tyrant did look different from a humanoid shape.

"It's all thanks to my Insight, I guess."

As a technique, Insight would only get more useful the more he used it, and he didn't initially think he could even use it to see through a monster putting on a disguise.

Now that his suspicion had been proven to be true, he no longer felt curious about anything else. "Yup, you were a pretty nice sandbag, alright."

This would be Su-hyeun's first time encountering an opponent with such a tenacious regenerative ability.

In the past, he might have gotten flustered by this development, but now, it was a different story. Excluding that regenerative ability, Tyrant fell well behind Fafnir in every aspect even if both of them were ranked among the One Hundred Evils.

As such, Su-hyeun was able to gradually unleash his powers and fight the Predator, and Tyrant's role today was simply to act as a sandbag.

"Lastly…"

Buzz, crackle…

Su-hyeun then began gathering powerful arcs of electricity within his left hand.

"It'll be over after I confirm this one."

Gu-gugugu—

Thick storm clouds were gathering in the skies above. The speed of the clouds that were coming together was much faster than in the past as well. After he ascended to godhood and his Sage Arts evolved into the Divine Art, commanding the Somersault cloud became as natural as moving his hands and feet.

In addition, all those thick clouds that he summoned were imbued with powerful electrical currents.

[Somersault cloud]

[Zeus's Thunder Glove]

And soon after that…

KA-BOOM—!

The Somersault cloud's lightning shooting down from the sky wrapped around Su-hyeun's left hand.

Sizzle, buzzzzzz—

Soon, the arcs of electricity took on the shape of a lightning bolt—power that did not feature any physical form. Nonetheless, that power took on the shape of a spear in Su-hyeun's grip.

[Thunderbolt]