WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Damned Transmigration ◈

Chapter 86: Struggle 1

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There were various builds within the Melee Beast Mage, or druid, concept, but Agwi's current form was unmistakably that of a Blade Storm Druid.

Blade Shield and Storm's Blessing were among the many defensive spells available to fragile mages.

Both skills dealt magical damage to enemies who came close, but conventional mages only dabbled in them at low levels. They were not skills worth investing in deeply.

A conventional mage focused on overwhelming ranged firepower, killing enemies before they could approach. If that was not possible, they either stopped enemies from closing in or used an escape skill. The further one progressed into the late game, the more wasteful it became to invest in defensive skills that damaged nearby enemies.

That was why Blade Shield and Storm's Blessing were neglected in conventional mage builds. For melee druids with Art of the Empty Fist, though, there were no better staple skills.

Even if they learned close-range magic, druids were ultimately hybrid magic warriors, a mix of warrior and mage. No matter how one built that sort of hodgepodge character, their stats would fall short of a conventional mage's or warrior's.

But once they sealed their equipment slots and gained an abundance of additional stats, druids finally earned the right to exist. With those stats, they could brawl while grinding enemies apart with Blade Storm, then unleash powerful physical skills and close-range magic. That was a Blade Storm Druid.

It did have weaknesses. No matter how much resistance they stacked, their main approach was still taking hits and enduring them while brawling. They could not do much against conventional mages or ranged warriors who flew around and bombarded them from afar.

That weakness could be covered in the game. Overpower the enemy with levels, overpower them with stats, and if that still was not enough, bait or skip patterns to create a damage window.

Yuri naturally knew a Blade Storm Druid's weaknesses well. When countless players had challenged the Hall of Fame for first place in droves and moved on, leaving the top rankings stagnant, it was Lee Su-hyeok who had shaken up the number-one spot by posting guides for all kinds of builds. Naturally, those guides included ways to deal with bosses that were extremely unfavorable matchups.

The terrifying part was that this was not a game.

No, it would have been horrifying even in a game, so horrifying that there would be no answer.

Putting it in game terms, his opponent was higher level than Yuri. Needless to say, his stats were higher too. On top of that, the matchup was atrocious. Yuri was an evasive melee warrior. If he could use Eternal Thirst, he would at least have life steal, but he could not use Eternal Thirst right now.

On the other hand, his opponent was a Blade Storm Druid that brawled at close range and poured out damage. Hit and run? Could Yuri really strike someone who had blocked Purple Lightning Flash at its absolute fastest head-on, then escape? To create an opening, he would have to plunge into close combat and gamble on a lucky punch with Sacred Flame Release. While he waited for that chance, Agwi's Blade Storm and a druid's close-range firepower would turn him into a rag.

[Uh... what do we do?]

Lacey asked hesitantly. She had obsessed over becoming a conventional lightning mage, but she was far from lacking in game knowledge.

Seronis did not have PvP. Still, humanoid bosses were everywhere, so it was not hard to imagine. The matchup between Yuri, a melee martial artist, and Agwi, a Blade Storm Druid, was terrible. That would have been true even at the same tier. With a difference in tiers as well, there would not even be an opening to exploit.

An opening.

‘Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil.’

That flame burned and devoured everything else. If the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil could burn and consume even Agwi's Blade Storm, it could serve as an opening.

Other than that... Lacey, a conventional mage, could bombard him with magic while Haryeong supported them with hidden weapons. She was a close-range assassin, but her hidden-weapon techniques should still be exceptional.

[Haryeong.]

Yuri had reached the same conclusion. This was already beyond the point where they could talk their way out of it. He took Black Fang from his waist and offered it to Haryeong.

[What does this mean?]

Haryeong's gaze turned cold as she stared at Black Fang. She did not want to imagine what it meant for Yuri to return the dagger she had given him in a situation like this.

[Are you planning to die?]

[No.]

Yuri still did not want to die.

[While I hold him off, watch my back. If that bastard targets Lacey...]

[If that's the reason, I understand.]

Black Fang passed into Haryeong's hand.

[The sixth tier.]

Yuri bit down hard on his lip and sent Lacey a Voice Transmission.

[How long will it take you to reach it?]

Thoom! The tremors outside shook the world. As if answering them, Agwi took a step. Craaash...! The black Blade Storm wrapped around Agwi's enormous beastly body reduced the walls tangled around them to ash.

[...Five minutes.]

Lacey answered haltingly. She had believed she could reach the sixth tier whenever she wanted, but she had never actually done it. Rising to the sixth tier right now was unknown territory for her.

‘Five minutes...’

Fist Wolf's spar with Moonlit Reveller had lasted five minutes. Even then, Moonlit Reveller had gone easy on him. If Moonlit Reveller had intended to kill him from the start, Fist Wolf would not have lasted five minutes. He might not even have lasted one.

No, he might have died in a single strike.

‘What if I just tell him that I'm UrMumSpammer?’

It might get them out of their immediate predicament, but what came afterward would be the problem.

‘If I really join the Sect of Chaos.’

Could he still remain as close to Haryeong as he was now?

He would certainly become Estor's outright enemy. Estor, the heir of the Orsia Family, despised cultists.

There was no need to mention Lorelia. She was a priestess of the Sect of Order, with the nickname Order Injector. If Yuri became a cultist, she would find him somehow and kill him.

And Elena?

“...”

Becoming a cultist meant cutting away everything Yuri had built in this world. Even if he only thought about escaping this situation without actually becoming a cultist, the moment he revealed himself as UrMumSpammer, he would become connected to Agwi and the Sect of Chaos. Even if he escaped for now, he would inevitably cross paths with the Sect of Chaos again.

‘Five minutes.’

It was not a length of time Yuri had ever thought of as especially long, but the next five minutes would be horribly long. Right now, Yuri was confident that he could kill dozens upon dozens of third-tier martial artists, two tiers below him, within five minutes.

Yuri had many things he did not want to lose.

[I'll try to hold out.]

With that, Yuri stepped forward. He had to make Agwi lower his guard. Rather than kill Yuri in one blow, Agwi had to want to torment him for as long as possible and play with him.

To do that, Yuri had to throw this body into the flames of death. He had to struggle desperately, burning fiercely without dying in those flames.

Yuri's protective force aura flared like fire. The initiative naturally belonged to Agwi, but Yuri did not hesitate as he rushed him.

Bang!

He thought he had charged, but he was in the air.

Was this what it felt like to get hit by a truck? A brief blank passed through his thoughts.

He had charged. He saw a fist. He tried to dodge, but his timing was off, so he had no choice but to take it. That was what he had tried to do, but he had not taken it cleanly.

His original plan had been to catch Agwi's fist and redirect it to the side.

Instead, Yuri's body had been sent flying into the sky.

‘My arms...!’

He twisted his body in midair and regained his posture. Other than a numb tingling, he could not feel his arms at all, but thankfully, they had not been crushed.

‘If I hadn't drunk that elixir, my arms would have been torn off.’

The elixir had benefited not only his inner power but his body as well. As Yuri slowly fell, he condensed his force aura outside his body.

Crackle!

A large sphere pulsing with electricity formed in front of him.

He cast the second spell of the Heinderga Magic Formula, Exploding Thunder Orb, using the force aura of the Art of the Violet Lightning Flash. With external mana frozen under the current conditions, adapting force-aura techniques was Yuri's only means of ranged attack.

‘A Force Orb?’

Agwi's eyes gleamed.

No, that was not a Force Orb yet. Yuri had simply gathered force aura into a sphere. Still, it was a technique on the path to forming a Force Orb, and not something a fifth-tier martial artist could use.

“Hmph.”

Agwi waved his hand as if swatting away a fly.

At that moment, hidden weapons surged through the opening created when Agwi swung his arm. They were magical hidden weapons that had been purchased in bulk from the alchemy workshop yesterday.

Boom!

Explosions blocked Agwi's view. Their power could not threaten Agwi in the slightest, but the loud blasts and thick smoke obscured his vision for a moment.

It was not much use.

The beast's eyes behind the mask saw the world clearly through the smoke. The incoming Exploding Thunder Orb was shredded apart by the Blade Storm around Agwi's body.

Crackle!

Lightning force burst out the moment it was torn apart and swept over Agwi, but that too could not threaten him.

“What a pathetic trick.”

Agwi snorted and sneered. To him, all of this was nothing but a light amusement. That bastard who had gone on about being Cloud Dragon rather than Thunder Cloud was just an earthworm he could crush to death whenever he pleased.

It seemed they wanted to stall until reinforcements arrived outside, but that was meaningless too. Agwi also needed time. The Soul-Eating Tree needed time to harvest souls drunk on happiness, and the Rift needed time to finish forming.

Judging from the force hammering at the Pseudo-Sacred Domain, it would not collapse before the Soul-Eating Tree harvested the souls and the Rift was complete.

Their desperate struggle was nothing but entertainment for Agwi. In fact, he hoped they would struggle more desperately. That way, the wait would not be boring.

‘Don't break too easily.’

Exploding Thunder Orb had vanished fruitlessly, but Yuri did not stop. Running around would not create any opening, and if Yuri ran, Agwi would target Lacey.

Yuri approached Agwi again.

He had not even gotten that close when his instincts sent out a chilling warning.

Clang, clang, clang!

Sharp blades slashed and carved through the air in front of Yuri.

He could not approach at all. Was this what it felt like to encounter a Blade Storm Druid that brawled mindlessly in reality rather than in a game? Yuri could not even get close properly. Agwi did not need any other attack. He could massacre a crowd simply by standing among them.

Even so, Yuri had to get close. As a martial artist, he had to force his way in, strike, and break through if necessary.

A sharp headache pierced him as Yuri opened his eyes wide.

Blade Shield was fourth-tier shared magic, while Storm's Blessing was fifth-tier shared magic. Magic distributed under the name of shared magic only went up to the sixth tier, and there were only a few sixth-tier shared spells.

Once someone reached the sixth tier, they had already established their own unique magic, so there was no need to learn more shared magic. Considering that, Storm's Blessing was among the highest-tier shared spells.

Agwi was a saint. He had recreated the Blade Storm Druid build from the game. But there was no way someone who bore the title of saint had not improved that build further, so those two spells could not be simple shared magic.

Even so, they remained within the framework of magic.

Mana was suppressed in this space, but Agwi was not bound by that. Yuri's eyes saw the mana around Agwi constantly shifting and becoming magic.

The spell formulas were too advanced for him to understand. Yuri did not hope to understand them. What he wanted was to read the trajectory of that troublesome magic that combined offense and defense. If he could anticipate the instant mana passed through a spell formula and became the phenomenon known as magic, then respond with the flames of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil, he might be able to burn and devour the magic before it manifested.

‘But Blade Storm has already been cast and is being maintained.’

For now, it was impossible to read every trajectory of those random slashes one by one. He also could not respond by simply seeing them, as the Fist King had.

Yuri wanted to fire Exploding Thunder Orbs from afar and destroy even part of the blades, but the force-aura spheres he wielded had not yet gained more power than his fists.

That was because he could not yet imbue the force aura separated from his body with Intent.

Yuri gritted his teeth and concentrated the force aura of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil into both fists.

If he could not break through with a ranged attack, he had no choice but to suffer with his body. He had prepared himself for that from the beginning. Yuri boldly faced the storm of blades with Fist of the Rending Cloud.

Craaaack!

The moment he thrust his fists forward, his force aura was cut and torn apart. His force aura was destroyed before the flames of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil could burn the blades.

But it was not destroyed immediately.

Despite the vast difference in power, the flames held out a little. It was not enough to scatter the Blade Storm, but that little time gave Yuri a momentary reprieve.

Moments continued one after another.

Do not stop thinking or moving. Make them perfectly one. A small mistake would immediately lead to a fatal wound, or death.

The blades that had shredded his sleeves into pieces finally reached Yuri's body. At the perilous instant before they could cut him, he changed the movement of his fists. He tried to draw the blades after his movements, but there were too many of them.

When Yuri had fought the countless hands summoned by the Withered Crone, he had held an absolute advantage. He had dodged and redirected all of their attacks.

That was impossible against Agwi.

Just as he barely dodged, he was caught.

Slash!

Blood spurted from the first cut across his forearm, but Yuri's expression did not change.

He had fought countless times before earning the alias Thunder Cloud. There had been many times when he had nearly died, and injuries too numerous to count. He was used to this much pain.

He was cut again and again. Droplets of blood scattered through the air, minced apart and vanished.

Agwi casually dragged one foot back.

It was a taunt, declaring that it did not matter how much Yuri was willing to be injured in order to approach.

And it was true.

Both of Yuri's arms were soaked in blood, yet he had not managed to scatter a single blade properly. Watching from a short distance away, Haryeong unconsciously bit down on her lip.

Five minutes? Had even one minute passed yet? At this rate, Yuri's arms might be maimed beyond recovery.

That grotesque wolf monster was only holding back enough to leave Yuri maimed as it toyed with him. If the monster changed his mind, Yuri would die a second later.

‘Would it be better if I approached too...?’

Haryeong was confident in her ranged hidden-weapon techniques, but the blade defense surrounding that monster's body was too solid. Even if she threw every hidden weapon she had, breaking through the monster's blades would be difficult.

The elixir had strengthened her body and inner power. Would it not be better to approach as Yuri had and share his injuries?

The moment she made that judgment, Agwi's eyes abruptly shifted.

Haryeong had not moved yet, nor had she revealed any killing intent. Agwi had looked this way simply because of Lacey's silence.

Lacey had her eyes tightly shut, concentrating. She was trying to overcome the wall of the sixth tier where she had remained for years. The mana around her did not move, but Lacey's thoughts gradually expanded, and her Soul Power swelled.

‘What is she planning?’

Was she trying some great magic she could not attempt at her current tier? They had to attempt something like that to overcome this situation, but Agwi considered it meaningless. Even great magic beyond her tier would pose no threat to him.

It might be entertaining to leave her alone and give her a greater sense of despair, but he wanted to see her face twist right now.

Slash!

Agwi's swinging claws became a massive slash that swept toward Lacey.

Haryeong concentrated her protective force aura and received the slash with the crossed Twin Fangs. It was an attack filled with unmistakable killing intent and enough power to carry it out.

Unable to withstand it, Haryeong's body flew backward.

Lacey stood in the slash's path.

Bang!

Haryeong barely twisted her body to avoid colliding with Lacey, but she was slammed into the tangled maze.

Her back and organs throbbed with pain, but Haryeong immediately stood. She had nearly died just now, yet Lacey remained standing without the slightest movement.

Haryeong, who had planned to support Yuri in close combat, had no choice but to change her mind again.

Lacey was meditating in such deep concentration that she could not respond to outside attacks. Until Lacey crossed the wall before her, Haryeong had to stay at her side and guard her completely.

Tingle.

At the wordless killing intent, Agwi bared his fangs and smiled. Cloud Dragon. The sight of him swinging his blood-soaked arms to block the way was so pathetic that it was difficult not to laugh.

Agwi snickered, focused Blade Storm on Yuri, and strode forward.

Countless blades surged toward Yuri.

Defense had become offense. Every attack was directed at one place.

‘Me.’

The slashes of the Blade Storm, which had been randomly cutting through the surroundings, converged on Yuri.

That was better for Yuri instead.

‘I can't focus only on Blade Storm.’

His opponent was a druid, a Melee Beast Mage. Blade Storm certainly made up a major part of his damage cycle, but a druid with Art of the Empty Fist as a penalty skill dealt high damage even through beast-form close-range attacks and magic. Yuri did not know whether Agwi possessed a penalty skill like Art of the Empty Fist, but priests in this world gained power by prohibiting themselves from something and swearing oaths to their gods.

‘Even his physical stats alone are beyond mine.’

If Yuri only guarded against Blade Storm and Agwi's claws or another spell struck him, he would die. He could not stop thinking. He had to consider not only the present, but the future.

This was a situation where dying would not be strange. At this rate, he would die.

Yuri did not want to die.

He was doing this because he did not want to die.

To survive, he had to fuel the flames. Devour the blades and turn them to ash. Make the flames burn brighter.

Something felt like it was creaking out of place.

Was it because his abused, blood-soaked arms were screaming? But both arms felt light. He could not even feel pain. That should have been impossible, but Yuri had become so immersed in the moment that he could not feel it.

The verses of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil flowed through his mind.

‘I am the fire that carries out heavenly punishment.’

Become an asura that annihilates evil. Fill your fists with heavenly punishment.

The fire in his chest was hot. The emotion he had felt in his dream itself became flame.

Yuri drove his body into the oncoming blades.

Footnotes:

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