Chapter 272 – Messiah (4)
Translator: Seven
Editor: Ana_Banana
In the thick forest which reduced his visibility to about three meters, the Messiah Guild’s members were located in every direction centering around Lee Jin-ah.
Many of them were the Sword Saint’s disciples.
‘Hmph.’
And the Sword Saint himself was also there.
He stood there waiting with one of his treasured swords, the Eojang(1) Sword, in his hand.
‘It took 6 days.’
It was the moment the chase that lasted six days, came to an end.
‘What an amazing guy.’
In other words, Lee Jin-ah had evaded them for six days.
This was a remarkable achievement since he was chased by none other than the Messiah Guild’s best hunters, led by the Sword Saint and Bow God.
‘He deserves that praise.’
It was at that moment that he truly understood Cho Sung-woo’s words.
‘But that’s all.’
Of course, the Sword Saint was certain that the chase would end today.
There were two reasons for this certainty.
One was the fact that they’d already caught up.
‘The moment he stops my sword, the Bow God’s arrow will end his life in an instant.’
And the other was that the Sword Saint was just a decoy for the Bow God.
These were the reasons for his certainty.
And with that conviction, the Sword Saint no longer had any doubts in his head.
He returned his attention to the surroundings.
‘Focus on this guy.’
Instead, he focused all of his concentration and senses upon his one prey, Lee Jin-ah.
This was the Sword Saint’s talent.
From the start, he was the best at killing a target as long as he had a sword in his hand.
In other words, what he did best wasn’t to hold a sword and do fancy and flashy sword dances.
It was to kill any target with a sword.
It was his ability to predict a step ahead that made this possible.
He didn’t need to predict far into the future.
Instead, all he needed was to predict the target’s next step and move in preparation for that step.
And with the Eojang Sword in his hand, the Sword Saint had no doubts.
[Yeo Dong-bin’s(2) power settles within you.]
After putting the power of the Sword God, Yeo Dong-bin, into the Eojang Sword, before stabbing it towards his prey.
In response to this attack, his prey leaned back and twisted himself to avoid the sword.
It was a truly amazing evasion.
However, the Sword Saint continued to attack with his sword as though he’d expected this.
His sword fell down quickly like a thunderbolt, but this time, his prey didn’t evade it.
Puk!
Instead, he kicked towards the Sword Saint’s body, forcing him to stop his attack and sidestep to avoid him.
This disturbed the sword’s trajectory, causing it to only strike air.
At that moment, the Sword Saint’s eyes shook slightly.
This was proof that this wasn’t going as he’d expected.
Nevertheless, the Sword Saint didn’t stop.
The Sword Saint didn’t stop moving and attacked again, but his prey avoided those attacks easily as well.
Swish!
He easily avoided thirteen attacks.
Only then did the Sword Saint stop his offensive for the first time.
Instead, he looked at his prey with cold, sunken eyes and said.
“You… how?”
Although he was surprised, his prey, Lee Jin-ah, didn’t answer.
There was no reason to answer the questions of someone who wanted to kill you.
And from Lee Jin-ah’s perspective, there was nothing he had to say.
‘It feels like fighting against Kim Woo-jin.’
The reason he was able to avoid the Sword Saint’s attacks so perfectly was because he was on a similar level to Kim Woo-jin.
‘If it wasn’t for Kim Woo-jin, I’d probably have lost a few limbs by now.’
Lee Jin-ah was able to show such an eased expression during what should have been an intense fight against the Sword Saint, only because of Kim Woo-jin’s constant tempering.
This was something the Sword Saint would never have been able to expect.
‘Ah.’
And it was at that moment that he recalled something that he’d completely forgotten due to this unexpected situation.
‘What about the Bow God?’
He realised the Bow God had not supported him even once, although he’d launched thirteen attacks at their prey.
And that none of his students had moved to assist him.
As the Sword Saint realised something strange was going on, he heard a strange cry.
“Shiba.”
It was Lee Jin-ah.
The Sword Saint turned to look at Lee Jin-ah, who spoke in a calm tone.
“You’re here.”
Then, as he was shocked by the sudden, perfect Korean from the Russian in front of him, the Sword Saint heard a sound from his chest.
Puk!
It was the sound of his chest being pierced.
[You have been afflicted with the Curse of Balmung.]
And that sound was the last sound the Sword Saint heard before he died.
…
The thing the Messiah Guild considered most important while hunting Isaac Ivanov was the preservation of power.
If they were to catch Isaac Ivanov but lose half of their power, it would be almost impossible for them to clear the dungeon afterward.
In other words, the Messiah Guild’s top priority was to prevent such an outcome, and in order to achieve this goal, the Messiah Guild didn’t mind spending more time.
No matter how long it took, the Messiah Guild was prepared to hunt steadily and stably.
For this purpose, instead of deploying all their troops at once, they broke them into groups and placed them in various locations while constantly exchanging information, moving forward step by step in order to corner their prey.
They were basically making a spiderweb.
The groups that were located all over the dungeon floor exchanged information regularly.
Cho Sung-woo was at the center of the web.
“There’s no response from group A02.”
“We’ve lost contact with group B13.”
But now, he had suddenly received a series of unexpected reports. (TL: how exactly are they contacting each other?)
“What are you talking about? Everything was fine when we checked an hour ago, wasn’t it?”
Everything that was fine up to an hour ago had suddenly become a terrible disaster.
‘We’ve lost contact with 19 groups so far, a total of 210 people.’
210 people.
Such a large number had disappeared in an instant.
Of course, this was possible.
After all, this was a dungeon, so it wouldn’t be strange for a strange, ridiculously powerful monster to appear and slaughter the players.
‘Is it a Boss-class monster?’
Furthermore, since this was an A+ rank 8 Floor dungeon, it wouldn’t be strange if two or three boss monsters appeared on the same floor.
‘In any case, we shouldn’t have lost contact with them without a trace.’
However, the players here weren’t common.
They were all skilled individuals who would at least leave some kind of hint before they died.
They were not those who would just die silently after being attacked by a monster.
‘How the hell?’
Cho Sung-woo’s worries deepened.
Then, Cho Sung-woo received information that made him put aside his worries a little.
“A request for help has come for group C01.”
C01.
He had no choice but to put them aside after receiving a request for help from the group that had both the Sword Saint and the Bow God in it.
‘The two of them should be able to stall for time.’
This was a great opportunity to get an answer about this strange situation.
“Send reinforcements immediately.”
As he said those words, Cho Sung-woo himself began to prepare.
“I will go as well.”
At his orders, Cho Sung-woo and his men prepared as though they were about to rush into a monster’s lair.
But they didn’t know.
The existence of a Bone Dragon moving above their heads.
…
[There are 24 days remaining.]
They received a notification on the sixth day after entering the second floor of the dungeon.
It was also the notification that told them six days had passed since they trapped Isaac Ivanov in the Bifrost after their sneak attack.
The fact that the Bifrost barrier would soon be lifted caused the Messiah Guild members surrounding it to tense up.
‘The Bifrost barrier will be lifted sooner or later.’
Whether they liked it or not, the Bifrost could only be maintained for as many as six days.
And the moment the barrier dissipated, the Messiah Guild members would have to move to confirm Isaac Ivanov’s life or death.
Of course, most of them were certain.
‘He’s probably dead.’
‘There’s no way he could’ve survived.’
That the only thing they’d find was Isaac Ivanov’s corpse.
This was because the repeated attacks in the barrier over the past six days had been thorough.
In all honesty, they could have confirmed Isaac Ivanov’s death sooner.
Nevertheless, the Messiah Guild had not identified Isaac Ivanov’s corpse yet.
Not a single player had been allowed to enter the Bifrost.
This was to prevent the possibility that Isaac Ivanov would trick another player and use them to escape the dungeon.
‘He can’t be alive after all of that.’
It would be weird if they weren’t certain after this level of thoroughness.
Nevertheless, the Messiah Guild members were nervous.
‘Perhaps…’
Because of the many miracles Isaac Ivanov had created in his path to the top.
“There are 6 minutes left until the barrier is lifted.”
Park Shin-hye, who had stayed awake to constantly monitor the Bifrost barrier for six days, announced the time limit so that they would remain vigilant.
Suddenly.
“5 minutes.”
About a minute after she began her countdown.
“Huh?”
“Someone’s coming.”
A player was rushing at full force towards the place where the Bifrost was located.
“It’s Cho Sung-woo!”
It was none other than Cho Sung-woo.
The tension brought on by his appearance caused everyone to stiffen subconsciously, to the point that they couldn’t even breathe,
“There’s an emergency!”
In a loud voice, Cho Sung-woo shouted about an emergency, causing the tension to rise even higher.
It was at that moment.
Flash!
An intense light surged towards Cho Sung-woo.
When that happened, everyone turned away from Cho Sung-woo and looked towards Lee Se-jun.
‘Apollo’s Arrow?’
This was a skill that only one person in the world could use.
Under the gaze of everyone in the group, Lee Se-jun simply said.
“That’s not Cho Sung-woo.”
At those words, they turned their heads towards Cho Sung-woo again.
And sure enough.
They found the player holding the Aegis Shield in their hand.
Shortly afterwards, that player called out.
“It seems I was unable to deceive the hero’s eyes.”
All the Messiah Guild members were incredibly shocked when they heard fluent Korean from this unknown player.
‘Who is that?’
The situation was extremely confusing because those words were definitely spoken by a Korean native.
Then someone with good ears stuttered.
“Ki-, Kim Woo-jin?”
He realised that the voice was Kim Woo-jin’s voice and hurriedly shouted to the others.
“That’s Kim Woo-jin! The Poison King Kim Woo-jin! That’s his voice!”
At that cry, everyone’s attention turned to Kim Woo-jin who was wielding the Aegis Shield.
The situation became chaotic at that moment.
At a very important moment, Cho Sung-woo suddenly appeared, then Lee Se-jun attacked him, then they heard the voice of Kim Woo-jin, who was killed by Isaac Ivanov, from Cho Sung-woo.
It was inevitable that this caused everyone to be incredibly confused and placed all of their attention upon Kim Woo-jin.
That was why.
“Huh?”
“Above!”
The reason they took too long to notice the gigantic Bone Dragon diving towards their heads.
Because of this, the Dragon crashed into the group uninterrupted.
Crack crack crack!
The bones of the dragon shattered and scattered in every direction as the players screamed and flew into the air because of the attack.
Rattle!
Then these shattered bone pieces began to clump together to form Skeleton Soldiers.
[The Bone Dragon returns to the form of Skeleton Soldiers.]
“It’s Skeleton Soldiers.”
It was the moment when 300 Skeleton Soldiers had pierced into the heart of the enemy in an instant.
“Oh my God.”
“Block them!”
“Get ready!”
Naturally, the Messiah Guild’s battle formation became a mess as a result.
Looking at this mess, Kim Woo-jin then said.
“Power of the Nine Tailed Fox.”
[The Nine Tailed Fox’s powers settle within you.]
[Magic Power will not be consumed for 9 minutes.]
The moment he heard this notification, Kim Woo-jin started summoning.
[A Death Knight appears.]
And Death Knights began appearing behind him one after the other.
Before long, thirty Death Knights had made their appearance.
‘Let’s end this now.’
The final battle had begun.
(Note:
1. This is supposedly another sword from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I was unable to find the proper name for it. And since ‘Eojang’ means fishery or fishing ground, I decided to romanize it instead of translating it.
2. According to my research, he is one of the Eight Chinese Taoist Immortals, Lü Dongbin(呂洞賓), known as the Chief Leader. He is often depicted dressed like a scholar and carrying a sword which can dispel evil spirits.)
(TL: Bad news guys, I will no longer be tran-
Kidding, From this chapter, we only have about three chapters left. Two parts of the last chapter ‘Kill the Hero’, and the Epilogue and Afterword(which I will combine into one).
This is my first time completely translating a novel, and I must say I’m really excited but also sad.)
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And make sure to read on (wonder if the aggregators will copy my embed) ^-^.