Chapitre 54: Chapter 43: Trial, Monarch's Recollection & Immortal
A/N :
" " : Dialogue,
' ' : Thought,
[ ] : System, Akasha, Minerva,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy,
« » : Artificial Intelligence,
| | : Sung Jin-Woo's System Panels, Sung Jin-Woo's System Messages,
"Bold text" : Shadows & Deathborns.
———————————————————
Sung Jin-Woo POV
To think that this is the so-called immortal body that Kandiaru settled for. I'm honestly a bit disappointed. But he's probably been in there for decades or even centuries without any deterioration, so I guess he got what he asked for.
Thinking back on it now, if I wasn't so panicked back then, I would have noticed that he's the only one that actually looks different from the other statues. He was the only one that was modeled after an angel, and he even had six wings at that.
He stood straight from his previously hunched position, and crushed the tablet in his hands. The level of mana I'm detecting from him is pretty high, but in comparison to the robots that I've been training against, it's pretty lackluster.
I look down at the crushed bits of the tablet and sigh. From the very beginning, the rules on the tablet didn't matter. All he wanted was a human to become Ashborne's vessel.
Letting out a short breath, I pull out the shortswords I got from killing Baran. "I already know why I'm here, Kandiaru. So let's not waste each other's time." I say, then let out a crushing wave of mana.
I guess he didn't expect me to be as powerful as I am now, seeing as his smile had been replaced with clenched teeth. So it seems that he doesn't have as much control over the system as I thought. Either that, or the system sees me as more valuable than he, the administrator. Let's see which it is.
"I doubt that, but since you're here, you can have your final test, and if you're still standing by the end, I'll let you know how wrong you are." Kandiaru says, then snaps his fingers. "That will be my reward to you." As he said that, I noticed that the statues all got red eyes, and their heads snapped in my direction.
Loud thuds sound off as each of them gets off their pedestal, but I don't fret. Because I have a proper benchmark for a level of power that's actually threatening, these guys feel way too weak. 'But just in case, I'll take them a bit seriously' I think, and tey to summon my soldiers into the temple. However...
|Class- specific skills are limited for the final test.|
|Usage of various potions and the store's functions are prohibited, and status recovery effects from leveling up and quest bonuses are also prohibited.|
|You cannot exit until the end of the final test.|
What do you know. Looks like I might actually need some effort for this. I notice that even though their steps earlier let out loud thuds, their movements now are eerily silent, yet fast. Well, as fast as they could get with Kandiaru puppeteering them.
Pushing my Thought Acceleration and Parallel Processing to their limits, I use Shūndō to move around the entire room at the highest speeds I could achieve without using Mercurial Boost. As it turns out, that alone was already too much for them to handle, as I spammed Mutilation on each of them, easily ripping through their stone bodies.
"W-What?! No! No! How are your this strong already?! It doesn't make sense!" Kandiaru screamed out. I wonder why. The system gave me the mission, and it gave me the Spring of Might that I received from the materials from the Demon Castle. Unless...
No. That isn't important now. I should just destroy all these things and get this so called test over with.
I focus on doing just that, breaking their weapons, rending their bodies and reducing them to debris. But I knew that while I could push my mind, I also knew that I should make sure that I kept an eye on my Fatigue. After all, there's still that one statue left before I take care of Kandiaru.
As I thought that, I felt it, then I heard it. The grinding sounds of the gigantic statue of the Lord that was made to imitate the form of the Absolute Being standing up. Its steps let out resounding thuds that cause the room to quake, and after just a few steps, it reached where I was dealing with the some of the supporting statues.
Knowing that it wasn't going to just stand around, I quickly dispatch the closest supporting statue, and move to climb the giant statue. As I move upwards, I look down and see over 80 of the smaller statues. "Looks like he made quite a lot of them. There weren't even this many back then." I say, then activate Mercurial Boost, which at its current maxed out state, increases my speed by 100%.
I also activate Mana Armor and use Lightning Channeling to increase the damage of my attacks. And with that, I shoot downward to the smaller statues and begin smashing them to bits.
Thankfully, none of them could actually take my attacks without breaking to pieces, otherwise I might have broken a finger. Keeping an eye out for the giant statue's eye beams, I move from one end of the room to another as I destroy the smaller statues.
I hear Kandiaru grunt in frustration as he suddenly snaps his fingers once more. The head of the giant statue suddenly snapped in my direction at an inhuman speed, not that it was ever human, and fired its eye beams at me.
With my thoughts accelerated, I quickly calculate an escape route, and dash out of the line of attack. At the same time, I use Ruler's Authority to pull 12 of the statues into the line of fire, destroying them with the beams.
I activate Mercurial Boost once more, and a pleasant 'ding' goes off in my ear.
|Skill: 'Mercurial Boost' has been upgraded to its ultimate version, Skill: 'Godspeed'|
Godspeed gives me a crazy 250% boost to my movement and attack speed for only 5 mana per minute, and only requires 50 mana to activate. I activate it, and much to my surprise, I saw everything around me slow down drastically, even more than they would under Thought Acceleration.
In an instant, I reach the foot of the giant statue, then dash upwards to its face. Looking the grinning statue in the face, I return my shortswords to my inventory, then channel mana and lightning into my arm.
I release a barrage of full power punches into its face, smashing its head bit by bit. I'm not aiming to just put it out of commission, I want to destroy the absolute hell out of this thing.
After breaking out a satisfactory chunk of its face off, I grin as I'd gotten what I needed. I activate Lightning Bomb, and force 3 bombs into its face and set them off. Before they explode, I dash off the giant statue and move back down to the ground, and release another set of Lightning Bombs.
Two massive explosions go off, one destroying the head and upper chest of the giant statue, and the other destroying the remaining smaller statues on the ground.
"How?! How do you possess the power of the Monarch of White Flames?!" Kandiaru shouts at me, as he finally moves away from his pedestal. I really want to know how he doesn't know of this. Maybe Dante would know.
"Damn it! I'll take care of you myself!" He shouts, as his wings unfurl, and a wave of mana erupts from him. The stone on the left half of his face drops off, revealing a face similar to my shadows that I got from fleshbound monsters. And a notification pops up.
|An Emergency Quest has been issued.|
|If you fail to defeat the enemy within the designated time limit, your heart will stop operating altogether.|
|Remaining time: 5:00|
Seeing how little time he's giving me, he must really want me to die so that Ashborne will take over my body even faster. Too bad, I'm strong enough to finish him in less than five minutes.
His wings change form, becoming six extra arms for him to use to fight me. He dashes at me with all the arms on the left balled into fists. I slip away, and unload multiple punches onto his face, shocking him as I move even faster than him.
"How?! How don't I know of these powers?!" He shouts as he sends more punches at me, which I dodge with minimal movements. I feel a peculiar movement of mana, one that I'm quite familiar with, and some of the weapons of the now destroyed statues are pulled into all eight of his arms.
"Ruler's Authority, huh? That's still not going to be enough, Kandiaru." I say and dash to him, my shortswords in hand. He swings his weapons at me in a wild yet calculated dance. I dodge his attacks, and counter them, literally slashing off some of his arms.
I continue to dodge his blows and counter them, landing blows on his stone body and breaking his weapons. This goes on for a short while, until he's out of arms to lose.
"Hah, hah, hahahaha." He pants and goes into an uproarious laughter. "I lost. The test is over." And just like he said it, the time stopped counting down.
|Remaining time: 2:35|
"You said earlier that you knew why you were here. So why don't I give you the choice to truly know." He says and points at me, causing a notification window to pop up.
|The Data stored in your memory will be retrieved.|
|Will you accept?|
Of everything that I knew, this was the one thing I didn't really have an idea about. But I still knew that I trusted Dante and his advice, so I accepted. And, my consciousness was dragged someplace else. But just before that, I heard one last notification.
|Data was retrieved successfully.|
...
Narrator POV
As Sung Jin-Woo was plunged into the memory, Kandiaru stood up, looming over Sung Jin-Woo's unmoving body. "I don't know how you hid such developments from me, but now that means nothing. The King will return through you." They said, a chuckle beginning to creep out of their mouth.
"Hmm, I wonder how long it'll take Jin-Woo to run through the memories that Ashborne had saved for his successor." A female voice said from the door of the Temple, prompting Kandiaru to look in that direction.
There they saw her. Healthy, pale skin, white hair in a single large braid and red multi-pupiled eyes. Shiraori had bypassed the locked door to the Carthenon Temple, and was looking at him and Sung Jin-Woo with a seemingly amused face.
And beside her was Dante, with his dark supple skin, white hair, and his stark blue eyes. They were both dressed casually, with Dante in his signature red windbreaker, white T-shirt, black trousers and sneakers, and Shiraori in her white hooded dress and shoes.
"It'll take only thirty minutes. So he'll be fine." Dante said, looking at Sung Jin-Woo's entranced body. "Besides, I want to see firsthand, Kandiaru's mental breakdown." He said, smirking at Kandiaru.
"Who are you, and how did you get in here?" Kandiaru asked, pointing at the closed doors behind them. "No matter. There might not be enough, but at least you two shall be near adequate offerings to the King." Kandiaru said, not caring for either of their responses, then using their powers, they reconstructed their statues and set them on Dante and Shiraori.
But before they could register any movement, two black beams of destruction shot through the air, zigzagging around and hitting every single statue, literally annihilating them to atoms. This included even the statue of the Lord.
And before they could make any moves to even look at what had happened, they were halted by Shiraori's Evil Eye of Stasis. "That was severely underwhelming." Shiraori said, then used her Psychokinesis to open the temple doors, where Cha Hae-In was waiting.
"Ah, Jin-Woo! Is he okay?" Cha Hae-In asked, evidently worried that Kandiaru, who she saw as a highly intelligent monster, had done something to him.
"Yeah, he's fine. It seems that the double dungeon held something to help him get stronger." Dante said to her, then snapped his fingers, materializing two couches, each with a bucket of fried chicken on them. "So, you wanna watch?" He said as he sat down, projecting things occuring within Sung Jin-Woo's mind.
Although Cha Hae-In was deeply worried about Sung Jin-Woo, she felt a bit of relief, since Dante and Shiraori didn't see any reason to be alarmed. She sat on the couch closest to her, and began eating the fried chicken in a bid to calm herself down, but she had no idea what she was in for.
...
Sung Jin-Woo's Mind
He opened his eyes to find himself far up in the air, looking down at what seemed to be a massive valley that was fully occupied by monsters of all kinds. Giants, snow folk, high orcs, goblins, and more were marching, until they all looked up.
He wondered what they were looking at, the turned his face to the sky, and much to his shock, the sky was purple. He started to feel that he was not on Earth, but at the same time, he felt a bit of worry.
He knew that if all of these monsters were released onto Earth at once, all of humanity would be exterminated. But the monsters were in no way facing humans at this point.
*Crack.* The sky sported multiple cracks, and soon broke open to release countless beings with white wings, dressed in white and silver armor, wielding different weapons.
A horn was blown, its sound seemingly going over the entire world, and a battle unlike any other erupted. This was no mere battle, but a war of epic proportions, with the sounds of armor breaking, weapons clashing and flesh being penetrated by weapons.
The monsters' shouts of victory soon turned into screams and groans, as the ground was dyed red with their blood. The silver soldiers were overwhelming the monsters, seemingly about to annihilate them, but soon stopped attacking altogether.
He watched as a being clad in shadows and armor, wearing a cape as black as the abyss, rode an equine monster made of shadows, and as the being moved forward, he heard it utter a single word, one that he was extremely familiar with. "Arise."
With a shocking speed, the being's shadow expanded over the land, covering the bodies of every single monster that had perished. And from that rose those same monsters, formed from shadows, ready to once more fight the silver soldiers.
He knew what these were. After all, he has used them a considerable number of times himself. 'The Domain of the Monarch and Shadow Extraction. That means that he is the Shadow Monarch.' He thought to himself as he watched.
The monsters, now shadows, charged at the silver soldiers under the being's command. The silver soldiers tore a considerable number of the shadow army apart, but due to their new nature, the blows that once killed them only slowed them down a little.
The battle raged, and with their new undying nature, the shadow army powered through deadly blows to kill their enemies. What was once a one-sided slaughter had turned into a fully fledged war, all because of the appearance of one being.
Unable to put down the monsters of the shadow army for good, the silver soldiers soon experienced losses, that soon culminated in the annihilation of their army.
The Monarch fully believed that this was a victory for the monsters and his army, until two massive Gates opened up, one red and the other a highly bright blue, bordering on white. Out of the Gates came entire armies of beasts and demons. The red Gates let out the beasts, and the blue one let out the demons.
And the last beings that walked out of the Gates were a giant white wolf, and a demon leagues more powerful than the others. These were the Monarch of Fangs and the Monarch of White Flames, Rakan and Baran, respectively.
He recognized these armies as the demon clans that occupied the 80th to 99th floors of the Demon Castle. And he recognized many of the beasts as monsters that he himself had hunted. He also noticed the clear intent to not only attack, but also kill the Shadow Monarch, that Rakan and Baran held.
And so, another war erupted. This time, with the Shadow Monarch against both the Monarch of Fangs and the Monarch of White Flames. As more of his enemies died, he raised them to fight against those that were once their allies.
He wondered why they were fighting. Wasn't the Shadow Monarch on the side of the monsters? If he was, what could be the reason that they wanted to kill him? Could it possibly have been that the Shadow Monarch was simply a third party taking advantage of all the death around?
But as he watched the battle, it became clearer to him, this was purely an internal conflict between these Monarchs. And it was spurred on by the other two Monarchs.
The battle continued for an unknown amount of time, but eventually the armies of the Monarch of Fangs and the Monarch of White Flames were killed by the army of the Shadow Monarch. And they were defeated by the Shadow Monarch himself.
The Monarch of Fangs knew that the Shadow Monarch would have no issue killing them both for this, and feared for his life. So before the Shadow Monarch could deal a finishing blow, the Monarch of Fangs fled, leaving behind the battered and beaten Monarch of White Flames.
The Shadow Monarch didn't bother chasing the Monarch of Fangs, and instead calmly walked to the Monarch of White Flames. "We could have ended the fighting today, with our victory being all but guaranteed. So why? Why did you betray me?" The Shadow Monarch asked the Monarch of White Flames.
Panting from the exhaustion and blood loss, the Monarch of White Flames replied. "... What a waste. I could have ended you here." The Shadow Monarch asked again, this time his voice growing cold as ice. "I said, why did you betray me?" The Monarch of White Flames let out a choked laugh, and spoke.
"#$%#^#%#%@$." The words changed into a jumbled, unintelligible mess of sounds. "@$^$##." He couldn't make out the words no matter how much he tried.
But whatever they were, the Shadow Monarch understood them. Because as soon as the demon finished speaking, he used the Ruler's Authority to pull the demon into his hand by its neck. As his hand tightened, the demon continued speaking in that enigmatic language, if it was a language.
*Crack.* The demon's neck broke and its throat was pierced by the Shadow Monarch's thumb. And at that moment, he saw the eyes of the demon staring him in the face from within its helm.
He flinched and dropped the now deceased demon, letting its body crumple limply to the ground. He felt his heart begin to pound with fervor. He knew that this demon was Baran, but he wondered how exactly his perspective changed.
He then looked down and saw his hands decked out in black armor. He saw his feet, then his legs and his own chest. He then understood that he'd been using the Shadow Monarch's body as his own. He wondered if the Shadow Monarch was taking over his body.
But then he remembered; unlike what Kandiaru expected, he wasn't going to be the Shadow Monarch's vessel, but rather his successor. He felt his heart pound even stronger, and he put his hand on his chest.
And it was then that he noticed, there were two hearts beating within his chest. He was amazed at it, but before he could delve into the mystery behind the second heart, he saw four shadows on the ground that were slowly growing larger. He looked up and saw four beings with six wings each descending slowly towards him.
And right at that point, he heard the familiar ping of the system.
|Data recall has been completed.|
...
Sung Jin-Woo's body let off a powerful wave of mana, and Cha Hae-In immediately dropped her bucket of fried chicken and ran towards him.
He opened his eyes and placed his hand on his chest, still feeling the thumping of two beating hearts. But before he could continue being stuck in his own thoughts, he felt someone collide with him, then a pair of arms wrap around him.
He looked down, and saw Cha Hae-In hugging him tightly, then he let out a short breath and smiled. "I'm okay, Hae-In. I'm okay." He said as he patted her head.
He then looked up and saw Kandiaru held in still position without moving in any way whatsoever, and he saw Dante and Shiraori on a single couch, feeding each other fried chicken.
"So, how's your new heart treating you?" Dante asked him, with his gaze still fixed on Shiraori. Cha Hae-In looked up at Sung Jin-Woo, then placed her ear on his chest, and she heard the two heartbeats.
"I'm actually doing just fine." Sung Jin-Woo said, then checked the system to see the details of the heart.
|Title: Demon Hunter
Conditions have been met.
You have remembered how to defeat the Demons' King, Baran, the Monarch of White Flames.
The power has acknowledged you as its owner.
Effect: 'Black Heart': Mana +100,000|
|MP: 120,473|
"By the way, Jin-Woo. Catch." He heard Dante say, and put up his hand, catching a round object. He looked at the object and saw that it was an a necklace with two spherical black gems embedded into its pendant.
|Item: Amulet of Revival
Item Class: ???
Type: Consumable
A medallion infused with the power to revive any being, even those that seem impossible to revive.
Effect: 'Dark Raise': Bolsters all revival and resurrection abilities to guarantee raising a target.
Uses: 2/2 remaining
Restriction: Shadow Monarch.|
After inspecting the necklace, he looks at Dante, who then points at Kandiaru's static form. "You can kill Kandiaru and use it as your soldier. He might not be the most pleasant being, but he's pretty strong, even stronger than Beru." Dante said, then turned to Shiraori.
She smiled, then removed the stasis effect from Kandiaru, who looked around them, shocked that anything could have happened without them noticing. "What did you do to me?" Kandiaru said, wondering what could have happened.
"Nothing much. I just stopped you and everything about you." Shiraori said, then put her hand into her storage dimension and pulled out a cup of ice cream, which she started eating, nonchalant towards Kandiaru and their feelings.
Kandiaru then looked at Sung Jin-Woo, a d was shocked to see that he was still himself, rather than Ashborne taking over his body. "No. How are you still standing there? Your ego should have been destroyed." Kandiaru said, their mind unable to accept the reality in front of them.
"It seems that even with your opposition towards me becoming a Player, Ashborne still had more priority over what would happen to me." Sung Jin-Woo said, and it clicked for Kandiaru. Sung Jin-Woo was never meant to be a vessel, but rather a successor.
"Shadow Monarch, you... Do you think the other Monarchs will just stand by and watch?!" Kandiaru shouted, indignant at the deception. "It doesn't matter if they come at us with their full force. They'll still die regardless." Dante said in response.
"And besides, you shouldn't be worried about them coming for Jin-Woo. You should worry about yourself first." Dante said, and as if on cue, Sung Jin-Woo seemingly came from out of nowhere and slammed a fist into Kandiaru's face, breaking their jaw to pieces.
"Wait! You can't do this to me! I'm the creator of the system!" Kandiaru shouted, hoping to convince Sung Jin-Woo to not kill them. "So what? You're only its creator. It doesn't depend on you to function. So killing you won't have much of an effect on it." Sung Jin-Woo said coolly.
Understanding that Sung Jin-Woo had no intention to spare them, they tried using the system to attack Sung Jin-Woo. "If it's come to this, I'll destroy...!!" But as they tried, their sight was bombarded with notifications all with the same message.
|The System had denied the System Administrator's access.|
"What?! How?!" Kandiaru shouted out, confused as to how the system could block its creator from accessing it. "That's partly me, and the other part is Ashborne." Dante said, getting off the couch.
"I always knew that you were watching him, Kandiaru. So I hacked into your system a few different times. I gave him a mission to train under me, gave him a reward that could only be refined by the system, and I hid all of that from you." Dante's words turned all understanding that Kandiaru had about anything topsy turvy.
Kandiaru had no idea that such a thing had even happened. Better yet, they had no idea of Dante's level of power, let alone his capability to do such a thing.
"As for him gaining control over the system, Ashborne is to thank for that. He knew that you'd be pissed and try to take it back, so he gave his authority over the system to his successor." Kandiaru glared at Sung Jin-Woo, wondering how things came to this.
"Well, now that you can't do shit with this body, why don't we make it so that you can get that immortal body you wanted." Dante said, then snapped his fingers, and reality shifted to obey his command.
Kandiaru felt different. This angel statue was meant to be an auxiliary body that he could use to test the Shadow Monarch's vessel, but now, it felt like his real body.
"Well, he's all yours." Dante said, then walked back to the couch. "Thanks." Sung Jin-Woo said, then before Kandiaru could register what was happening, punched their head off, killing them.
Dante then snapped his fingers, causing a notification to pop up in Sung Jin-Woo's sight.
|Restrictions on potion usage, store access, status recovery, quest bonuses and class specific skills have been lifted.|
He looked at Dante, who lightly waved his hand towards Kandiaru's corpse. Understanding Dante's intentions, he puts his hand forward and says his command phrase. "Arise."
|Attempting to extract...|
|Shadow Extraction has failed.|
This was exactly what Sung Jin-Woo expected, but what happened next wasn't.
|Amulet of Revival senses a failed revival.|
|Forcing success of revival.|
|Shadow Extraction was successful.|
Much to Sung Jin-Woo's shock, a shadow erupted from Kandiaru's corpse, its form a shadow version of the angel statue.
|You have upgraded the shadow.|
|??? LV 31.|
|Rank: General|
|Choose a name for this soldier.|
He thought for a few seconds, then decided on a name. "Merlin." He gave it the name, as it was one of the few beings that had an achievement in magic so great, that it was called an Archmage.
"Well, since we're done here, let's move. Japan gave us a call, asking for our help after Yuri and their S Ranks failed. We agreed to help them, and we've made sure that it's you Hae-In and Jin-Ho going, so rest up for today, 'cause you're heading to Japan tomorrow." Dante said, then walked out of the dungeon with Shiraori in his arms in a princess carry.
"We should probably get going, Hae-In." Sung Jin-Woo said with a small smile, and Cha Hae-In nodded, with a small blush on her face. They took Dante's advice and rested for the remainder of the day, and by the next morning, they were prepared to head to Japan to hunt the Giants.
Chapter End.
🧷 Cover Art Submissions🧷
Word Count: 4,645
A/N: From the little we know about Kandiaru's race, they are all hermaphroditic, and since they are fully sapient, I refer to Kandiaru as they.
Also, sorry for the late chapter here and on my other work. If all goes well, I should be dropping that one's chapter tomorrow evening.
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
BasedDragonLord
BasedDragonLord Creation is hard, cheer me up! VOTE for me!
Like it ? Add to library!
Have some idea about my story? Comment it and let me know.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone