Chapter 138 - How To Be Perfectly Prepared (2)

「He's protecting it well.」

The wall lasted for 10 seconds. There were lots of things you could do in 10 seconds.

Paf-! Paf-!

Hyun used «Assimilation» consecutively. First on Ain, and then on Louise.

After feeling Hyun had «Assimilated» to her, she cautiously spoke.

「Is this how I should do it?」

「Yes, you're doing good!」

A level 200 elite monster, a spirit knight.

It was an opponent that was hard to face with Louise's skills, but she had learned how to resist opponents that were stronger than her.

Louise's job was to use her overwhelming movement capabilities to stall for time.

「Your skill needs Demonic Energy to fully show its potential anyway.」

When both souls merged, Louise went from being on the defensive to the offensive.

Louise's body also turned black.

As the small feet drew a circle parallel to the ground, its body split in half.

She had caused a physical defect in the enemy's body with just one attack.

Although the spirit knight could move even if its body was cut, that didn't mean anything at the moment.

Hyun changed rotational direction in mid-air and scratched it with their hands.

Poof-!

The spirit knight disappeared while making a sad scream.

'Good!'

Louise, surrounded by Demonic Energy, was capable of dealing higher damage than Ain.

Without her ultimate attack, not even Ain could kill a spirit knight in just five seconds.

Hyun once again «Assimilated» into TarrTarr.

「It hasn't been penetrated yet, right?」

「Yes. Although some have come through by digging through the ground, I managed to kill them all!」

「Well done.」

The duration of the wall was about to end.

Just as if a dam had been destroyed, monsters poured out.

Hyun smiled while looking at them and extended his hand.

«Black Hole».

The Death Knight's second skill.

Although it was called «Scream Absorption» they had changed the name to «Black Hole».

That was the best way to describe the skill.

[«Black Hole» Lv.5(+1)]

- Create a sphere that absorbs all enemies.

- Depending on the amount of [Demonic Energy] spent, the absorption level and range will vary.

- Absorbed enemies will receive a 99% reduced damage.

Skill Duration: 5 seconds

Woooo-

A black hole appeared in the middle of the labyrinth and began absorbing the enemies.

Hyun had spent 30 thousand Demonic Energy.

A Death Knight who just finished job ascension wouldn't normally have 30 thousand Demonic Energy because the max amount you could have was two thousand.

Only after the 2nd ascension, or when you did the 3rd one, could you normally have about 30 thousand magi.

But since the Death Knight was connected to the Shadow Linker, it could use a mind-blowing amount of Demonic Energy.

The monsters couldn't resist the pull and were dragged right into the middle of the black hole.

The fun thing was that the monsters absorbed by the black hole were all gathered in one place as if they were ghosts.

It didn't say it in the skill description, but Hyun already knew it.

「Salon, are you ready?」

"Haha, I've been waiting for this moment!"

Salon had already approached TarrTarr. The moment the skill «Biorhythm Acceleration» was applied to him, he jumped into the middle of the black hole.

According to the skill's description, you could only apply 1% of damage to the absorbed monsters.

Whether they could inflict damage to practically invincible opponents wasn’t important.

Slash-! As Salon attacked the ghostly monsters that were one on top of each other, he got tens of messages.

...

[You cannot gain more combos from 'Black Skeleton Swordsman'!]

[You cannot gain more combos from 'Stinky Ghoul'!]

[You cannot gain more combos from 'Ruby Doll Archer'!]

[You cannot gain more combos from 'Hellish Horse'!]

It took two seconds to reach two thousand combos!

A number that was the dream of all Combo Thieves… he had achieved it in just an instant.

Salon laughed like a madman while looking at his two swords.

"Hahaha, yes! This is the sensation!"

The black hole disappeared soon vanished, and all of the enemies poured out simultaneously.

At that moment, Salon shone the most.

Thanks to the effect of «Trance», he was able to eliminate hundreds of opponents as if he were using an eraser.

What was the point of having hundreds of opponents if they got eliminated the moment they got touched by the trace of light?

"This feels like playing a single-player game!"

Hyun didn't need to control Salon's body.

His combo-stacking abilities had improved significantly over the past few weeks.

Salon could easily achieve a thousand combos if the opponents were undead.

The sight of monsters being swept away felt refreshing.

«Disassimilation!»

Hyun left Salon alone and returned to Louise's body.

Pang-!

As soon as he «Assimilated», Hyun hit an empty space consecutively.

Why was Hyun doing that?

'One minute, five seconds...'

From the moment the experience dungeon started, Hyun was checking a timer that was on one side of the screen.

KAAHH-!

The elite monster, the spirit knight, disappeared as soon as it appeared.

As soon as it respawned, it got hit with tens of «Black Wind» attacks.

«Black Wind» lasted for 0.5 seconds, but Louise's speed was so fast that, even during that short amount of time, she could overlap numerous attacks.

The strategy of taking advantage of skills and overlapping them to make as much damage as possible in an instant was one of the most basic strategies of defense-type dungeons!

'There isn't anywhere especially dangerous...'

Hyun quickly checked all of the party members.

The eyes of the party had basically become his own, which was possible because the cooldown time of «Assimilation» was just 0.1 seconds.

'Oof... Finally, we're fighting as a group!'

The main point of the strategy was dividing roles.

Ain and Louise were in charge of eliminating the elite monsters; Salon and TarrTarr took care of the trash mobs.

When everyone could correctly fulfill their roles is when the hunting effectiveness peaked.

"I can't believe it... This is really impressive!"

Salon, who had already eliminated the monsters from both sides, put the swords away.

His combo counter, which was close to three thousand, had reset, but he didn't seem to care.

He knew that, when Hyun and TarrTarr's skills combined again, he would reach a thousand combos once more.

'Are the movements that allow him to stack combos easily nothing to him?'

Up until then, Salon had judged Hyun based on the physical gaming aspect.

But those past few weeks, he was forced to change his opinion.

'That's just one of his many talents!'

His ability to read the situation, the creativity to use different skills in a chain and make them work perfectly as if they were gears…

Even a tiny mistake in calculations would've made the plan end up in failure, but Hyun was able to make it work perfectly.

It was as if he was seeing a macro specialized in dungeon-clearing work.

'Eight years... He has probably gone through numerous situations like this before.'

At first, he wanted to absorb all of his abilities at once, but when he thought about it, that was a ridiculous dream.

Didn't they say that there are two types of geniuses? One that relied on their ability to analyze and the other one on their senses?

From Salon's point of view, Hyun was a genius who had both.

'It seems like all those anecdotes weren't lies.'

He could understand all those surprising tales about him on the community boards.

Salon had never thought that he lacked talent compared to others, but the story changed when the other person was someone like Hyun.

'Will I be able to catch up to him?'

That day, for the first time, he almost became depressed.

But he soon shook his head.

'No. They said he invested eight years into Asra Online... Maybe in a few years, I could...!'

He focused again and looked to the front.

If he wanted to reach his goal, he had to leave feelings like that behind.

"Eliminate the enemies! Show them the power of the Magic Country's guards!"

The NPC on top of the pillar at the center of the core pointed his sword toward the sky.

It seemed like he became motivated after seeing the monsters being annihilated.

Until then, the core's durability hadn't been damaged.

They were able to eliminate all the monsters the moment they were regenerated, so it didn't matter how much of its durability was left.

It was because Hyun had changed the defense dungeon genre to a timed attack one.

Ain and Louise attacked the elite monsters.

Salon and TarrTarr formed a group and eliminated the trash mobs.

None of the enemies were able to get close to the core from any of the four passages.

They were moving in perfect synchronization while blocking all the different factors that could become a danger.

Something like that was possible because Hyun was at the center of it.

Hyun moved through the party members to check the situation.

'It seems like we can comfortably handle a level 200 labyrinth.'

Compared to the past when, at the level 100 dungeon, they'd lost the core almost immediately, the party had improved a lot.

Except for Louise, their individual abilities probably hadn't improved that much, so that was all thanks to the party working together.

'Now that I think about it, this job is quite OP.'

The Support's higher job, Shadow Linker.

If he didn't have that job, it would have probably taken him longer to make the party work so well together.

Even if he had a good damage-dealing job, he wouldn't have been able to influence every side of the battle.

But the Support job and the «Assimilation» skill allowed him to see everything from a third-person point of view.

The huge amount of Demonic Energy that the Shadow Linker had could cover the weak points of quite a few jobs.

'I think we can recover the castle now.'

Hyun looked at the timer.

There was a minute left.

He'd cleared the level 200 dungeon numerous times, so he remembered when and from where at what second an opponent would appear.

According to his memories, when there were 40 seconds left, the enemies would launch their final attack.

"Alert! Monsters are pouring from all sides! Defend the core, even if it costs your lives!"

Dring-! Dring-!

Along with the voice of the NPC, an alarm bell spread through the labyrinth.

They soon saw a group of zombies coming at them.

Although the NPC shouted, they were able to remain calm.

They'd gone through that situation numerous times throughout the day.

「Everyone, move back.」

After Hyun spoke to everyone using the party leader's ability, everyone moved to the core.

After all four sides emptied, the NPC shouted in surprise.

"What are you doing?! Block the passageways! The core is going to get destroyed!"

While ignoring the loud NPC, Ain carefully spoke.

"Hyun, should I strike now? Without «Disassimilating»...?"

"Yes."

Louise answered instead.

It was because Hyun was «Assimilated» into her.

Fwoosh-!

The moment Ain's flames attacked her, «Shadow Shield» activated, and Louise became dyed with pitch-black darkness.

[You've reached the maximum amount of Demonic Energy you can have!]

[The attack range of «Sword of Darkness» has increased!]

'As expected. This is how it should end!'

Crack-! Crack! The NPC shouted as the core began being torn apart by the enemies.

"Defend! Defend from the front!"

Even at the shout of the NPC, Hyun let the zombies approach a bit more.

The rest of the group just silently looked at Louise.

Fwoosh!

Demonic Energy exploded.

Suddenly, a greatsword appeared in Louise's hands.

No, it was too big even to call it a greatsword.

Seeing a little girl like Louis hold that seemed a bit funny.

Boom-!

The sound of explosions was heard one after the other.

The effect of the reaction happening all over Louise's body made her turn in one direction.

Louise began rotating faster than a figure skater. The «Sword of Darkness», which was over 10 meters long, cut through space.

‘«Space Divider»…’

Suddenly, Hyun thought the technique resembled the ultimate attack he used in Asra.

[You've dealt 138129 damage!]

[Critical Hit! You've dealt 181938 damage!]

[You've dealt 132918 damage!]

[You've dealt 128173 damage!]

...

When the sword disappeared from Louise's hands, there weren't any zombies left standing.

<Core's Remaining Durability : 38%>

"Amazing! You guys are the heroes that protected the four passageways of the labyrinth!"

The voice tone of the NPC had become more relaxed.

It varied so much because it wasn't an artificial intelligence but a programmed NPC.

Ting-!

[You've cleared a Lv.200 dungeon!]

[200% bonus experience will be applied to what each person has earned!]

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