A Disaster-Level Assassin Has Been Freed

Chapter 110: Limit (2)

Kang!

Kagagak…… Kwang!

Peoeong!

A valley filled with yin energy.

Though it was a dark place where not even moonlight shone, numerous flashes of light flickered in all directions as if lightning was striking everywhere.

It couldn't be helped.

Harang, and the 29 assassins facing Harang, were all powerful individuals who had reached Graduate level. A grayish-white light emanated from the weapons of all of them, who wielded Aura Swords freely.

Pshk-!

“Keu…… Heo…….”

Of course, not all thirty lights were eternal.

Harang, quickly getting behind his opponent, pierced his heart with his sword. With a sound like air escaping, thud, the 29th-ranked swordsman collapsed, and aura no longer emanated from his sword.

Death.

It was one of the most common sights in the village, so Harang felt the illusion of having returned to the past.

‘Calm down. Right now, I’m just receiving the help of black magic.’

Harang, resisting the mental contamination, quickly looked back. Pyu pyu pyut, the figure of 7th-ranked Cecilia, shooting hidden weapons at lightning speed, came into view. Grayish-white aura was embedded in each of the blades flying towards vital points all over his body, but even more dangerous was the Aura Sword of the 5th-ranked, soaring up from beneath the ground like a mole.

Tadadang-!

Woooong- Kwaaang!

Harang, deflecting the hidden weapons by rotating his sword twice, imbued his feet with ample aura. As he kicked away the 5th-ranked's sword, utilizing the element of fire to its maximum, Kwaaang! With a sound, his body soared into the air.

A sly smile flickered across the faces of over twenty Godok. Harang's figure, exposed alone in mid-air, looked like a mouth-watering prey. However, there was something they were mistaken about.

While they were looking at Harang, Harang was also looking at all of them.

Shwaek-

Shwaek-

Shwaeeek-!

Seogeok, seogeok, seogeogeok!

Harang's vision, soaring high into the sky, clearly captured every move of his peers in his senses. It was a super-sense awakened while teaching the Eddy Mercenary Corps.

In his accelerated thoughts, as if time had stopped, Harang drew up the aura of wind and added the dark attribute. Secretly shot Shadow Wind claimed the lives of three Godok.

Tadadadadang!

Teong-!

The attacks that flew in immediately after bared their fangs fiercely, but Harang's defense was flawlessly perfect. Deflecting all the attacks that rained down as he plummeted to the ground, Harang, Teong! With a sound, soared into the sky again, and once more, a dark wind swept through the arena. Accordingly, the bodies of the lower-ranked Godok crumbled helplessly.

After repeating this several times, only ten remained in the arena.

Harang, facing his peers from 2nd to 11th rank, slowly walked forward, and the lower-ranked Godok, including Hagio, showed expressions as if overwhelmed by his presence and took small steps backward.

At this rate, Harang's victory would be confirmed more anticlimactically than expected.

Finally, the 3rd-ranked, Gael, the only one capable of a direct confrontation with Harang, revealed himself.

Wooooooong-!

The aura of water surged.

The aura of wood that bloomed from it summoned flames, and the ash conceived from the flames gathered to forge Gael's sword as hard as steel.

Accordingly, water droplets gathered again, and the five auras continuously nurtured each other, establishing themselves as one colossal aura. It grew without end.

‘He’s an absurd fellow every time I see him.’

A genius who showed a better understanding than himself when it came to the five elements.

And yet, a peculiar fellow who showed no talent for the dark attribute, the basis of Godok.

If I had to say, he had qualities more suited to a knight than an assassin, so it wasn't easy to overpower him in a direct confrontation. If this were the real village, I would never have fought like this.

However.

‘Why am I fighting this battle now?’

Harang asked himself.

It wasn't a difficult question. Grin, showing a fierce smile once again, Harang raised his sword and glared at Gael.

I will win.

I will seize victory in the field he is most confident in and use it as a stepping stone for growth. That was precisely the reason I had walked into the ‘Valley of Trials’ myself. Harang, having steeled his resolve, nodded and shouted.

“Come!”

“I shall do so.”

3rd-ranked Gael, charging forward with courtesy even in an illusion.

His peers from 4th to 11th rank, standing quietly behind him as if respecting him.

And finally…….

Pshk-!

“Keoheuk!”

“Eum……!”

2nd-ranked Maya, who had hidden behind the charging Gael and followed, then at the decisive moment, thrust her attack from an unexpected direction.

It was impossible to predict.

Harang's creativity wasn't good enough to anticipate a sword piercing through Gael's back.

“Keollok, Kuheup! Maya, you…….”

“Why? Do you think you could have inflicted this much damage by fighting Harang head-on? I don't think so.”

“Damn it…….”

Thud.

Maya sneered at the dying Gael.

She licked the blood-stained blade with her tongue and glared at Harang. More precisely, observing the deep gash on his abdomen, she commanded the Godok from 4th to 11th rank.

“That guy, he’s poisoned. He’s a monster, so he’ll detoxify quickly…… but anyway, now’s our chance. Charge.”

“……”

“……”

“……”

“You don’t want to? If you don’t, then let’s all die together like this. Surely you don’t think we’ve won with just this?”

“……Damn it.”

“Damn it all.”

Woooong-

Woooooong-!

The Godok, alternately looking at Gael's corpse and Maya, readied their stances again. And they began to approach with cautious steps.

Harang let out a chuckle.

He felt that it wasn't for nothing that Gael was 3rd and Maya was 2nd. He thought the current situation was much trickier than when Gael had charged with his five attributes.

And.

Hwaaaaaak-!

“……And I’m angrier now too.”

Kwaaaaang-!

The ground collapsed.

Was it because this was not reality but a mental world? The scenery changed with a single stomp. Harang, launched with such colossal force, flew towards Maya, who had a surprised expression.

Ppeoeoeoeong-!

Maya burst like a leather pouch full of water, and the Godok from 4th to 11th rank were torn to shreds, caught in the aftershock.

Amidst the 29 peers who were swept away in an instant, Harang quietly muttered.

“……Somehow, I don’t think Maya and I can become friends, right?”

That possibility seemed high.

Seeing how things had turned out even in this mental world where everything was a fabrication, he felt that he and that fellow would probably find it difficult to live under the same sky.

Having thought this far, Harang slumped down and looked up at the sky.

A dark scenery where not even moonlight entered, just like at the beginning.

Thinking that it was familiar yet somehow sad, that he missed the warm twilight of the Commercial City Marzen, he was waiting for the ‘Valley of Trials’ to be broken…….

Kung

Koong

Koong-!

A loud noise came from far away.

Harang's head naturally turned. His eyes were full of bewilderment as he had thought everything was over, but that was resolved shortly.

“……”

The village's general manager.

Exuding a presence even more horrifying than that of the Godok from 2nd to 30th rank combined, he was approaching Harang, transformed into a 15m tall giant.

‘This is a bit much.’

It wasn't entirely incomprehensible.

This place was not reality but a mental world. If I had to say, it was a place that could be called my own dream. To nitpick whether the height of a being appearing in such a place was unrealistic or realistic was just a waste of time.

Hadn't I myself displayed monstrous strength enough to change the scenery with a single stomp?

That meant…….

‘If I just set my mind to it properly, I could defeat even that being, like a monster from mythology, in a single blow.’

That was right.

If the battle with his peers was a place to prove the ‘growth of his swordsmanship’, then the battle with the village's general manager, which would begin now, could be called a place to prove the ‘growth of his mental strength’.

Of course, this was not an easy task.

A being whose weakness he had never seen even once from childhood to adulthood.

The strongest, worst, invincible manager who seemed capable of massacring all the village members without breaking a sweat was the opponent right before his eyes.

It wasn't easy, even in a dream, to dispel the fear that had matured deep in his heart for over 15 years, so Harang couldn't help but tremble.

However.

‘I can do it.’

Swish, Harang took his stance.

The appearance of the approaching manager became even more horrifying. Six eyes, eight arms, lava and frost blooming from various parts of his body met to emit a steam of death. It was suffocating. In his gradually fading consciousness, Harang recalled Ulrik’s words.

‘Don’t think of it as acting. Approach it with the feeling that you are truly the best, the strongest…… like self-hypnosis. No, forget even the word hypnosis. It’s natural, the fact that I am the best is common sense in this world…… You have to think of it as that natural for a natural and majestic presence to emanate.’

A statement that some might dismiss as the nonsense of a swindler.

However, Harang didn't think so. To survive in the rough and sinister Kalbaron, he must have devoted his all to polishing his ‘appearance of being someone’.

Although the beginning might have been a lie, the end could be said to have reached a level so great as to cloud even the eyes of himself, the village's 1st rank…… a level that could truly be called the realm of ‘Peerless Technique’.

“Ssshp.”

Harang took a short breath. And he gently closed his eyes. Then, he saw Ulrik's face.

Not the head rolling around wretchedly after being severed, but his friend with the serious and weighty appearance from when they first met.

He muttered with a smiling expression.

To forget fear.

To forget terror.

What made him tremble was not an external threat but a disaster of his own making, so if he could just fully control his own mind, there would be nothing more to fear.

“……!”

Immediately after, Harang's eyes opened.

Then, an extremely gruesome scene came into view. The height of the manager, whose appearance was worse than a demon from hell, now surpassed 15m and was heading towards 30, 50, 100m.

The mountains and rivers trembled at his majesty, as if a whole mountain was moving.

However, Harang was not.

Unlike before, his breathing was not ragged, and the sweat that had been trickling down had long since stopped. His heart, which had been as turbulent as a pond in a downpour, had also become as calm as a clear mirror and still water, and as a result, the form of the Aura Sword that extended from it was impeccably smooth.

“Good.”

There was no hesitation.

A serious smile.

A weighty presence.

Displaying a majestic presence similar to Ulrik's, Harang raised his sword. And from bottom to top, he calmly swung down at a speed that was neither too slow nor too fast.

─────────!

Immediately after, the world collapsed.

Amidst the mental world shattering into pieces like glass, Harang showed a faint smile.

The fear he hadn't been able to overcome even after leaving the village.

The eternal nightmare that had made him swing his sword like mad every night…… yet he still couldn't overcome.

Harang, finally freed from it, muttered.

“Finally, I’m free from the village.”

Harang, who had broken the shackles of his soul.

New strength began to dwell in his body.

***

“……What is it?”

Black Magician Vivian frowned and looked at Harang.

The mental attack had already been broken. Nevertheless, the black-haired young man stood still with his eyes closed, maintaining silence as if rooted to the spot.

‘Well, does it matter?’

It was rather good. Vivian continued to take out the contents of her pouch and shape creatures, and after a short time, over 100 combat dolls had surrounded one swordsman. Keeping a considerable distance, she nodded.

“This should be enough.”

She was right.

If one were to pick the two most important things in a fight between a Magician and a swordsman, what would they be? Distance, and time.

To defeat a Magician who had prepared for battle with sufficient time while maintaining a safe distance, at least three swordsmen of the same level were needed.

Therefore, Black Magician Vivian’s mind was in a much more stable state than when her concealment was first discovered by the fellow.

‘No matter how great a swordsman that guy is, he can’t change the current situation…… Good. After slowly draining his strength, I’ll ask him plenty of what I want to know…….’

However, her leisurely thoughts were soon to be brutally cut short.

Flash

Harang, the black-haired young man, who had collected his enlightenment and finally opened his eyes.

The Black Magician, staring directly at the crystalline lightin his eyes, muttered in a foolish voice.

“His realm…… has risen?”