Chapter 81 - What's Hidden in the Tournament Arena (3)

[«Divine Magic» was activated!]

- The duration of combos has doubled.

- The amount of damage dealt by critical hits has increased by 300%.

- Attack range has increased by 300%.

- You absorb 2% of damage dealt as HP.

- You receive 500 less damage from undead opponents.

- All your stats increase by 150.

- Your main stat increases by an extra 150.

- You can use the active skill «Biological Time Stop».

[«Biological Time Stop»]

- Locks your current combo rate for 1 minute.

For a combo Thief, that set was a dream-made reality.

But in reality, gathering all set pieces was almost an impossible task. So it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it was an item you could only use in the tournament.

「From now on, you don't need to record.」

Even if the money was good, it shouldn't be uploaded.

There was a lot of information related to Asrian. And among that information, there were some that could shake up the game.

What he was doing was part of the latter half!

Hyun had no intention of releasing information about the VVIP.

「Don't upload it, understood?」

「Y-yes. Of course...!」

TarrTarr, who was overwhelmed by his stats, just nodded at Hyun's serious voice tone.

‘Good. It's been a while, so let's do it properly.'

He checked out the time.

The tournament duration was three hours in total, so there were still two and a half hours left.

Hyun once again walked toward the Virtual Historical Battle and put the hell difficulty ticket he'd bought into play.

Doom-

While making an imposing sound, the interface turned red.

'I should be able to beat it, right?'

According to the information of the Interloop, the hell-difficulty missions were created with real Asrian history as background.

The fact that there were stages that used real Asrian history was good news for him.

Hyun's knowledge covered all past and future incidents of the game.

'Since I have to use combos... I should rather fight monsters with low IQ like undead.'

One couldn't choose the same theme twice.

That's why, that time, the enemies chosen were golems.

They were low-IQ monsters created by injecting Magical Power into an inanimate object.

Because they also didn't care about themselves, it should’ve been possible to stack lots of combos.

[You've picked 'Breaking the Elian Gate'!]

[You've chosen the hell difficulty!]

[The bet points are fixed at 5000p!]

Whap-

The scenery suddenly changed. In front of them, a magnificent city of the Heavens appeared.

They could see the clouds moving underneath them.

After a while, they got a message that described their mission.

[ <The Abyss's forces on the land are currently cornered! Within two hours, destroy the golem's city, reach the core, and destroy it! The whereabouts of the battle on the land is in your hands!> ]

'As expected, it's a place I know about.'

Hyun, who was borrowing TarrTarr's body, smiled.

If you knew the map, there was no point in going straight.

'If the video won't be uploaded, I don't need to be careful. Right?'

Hyun used «Wind Barrier», one of the Support's skills, and used it to skip over an impossible route.

He wanted to take the shortest possible route.

With an Agility that reached 400 and «Wind Barrier», he could fly through the sky like the protagonist of a martial arts movie.

Boom-!

Hyun moved forward by demolishing the outer wall of the castle.

It only took him about five minutes to reach the middle of the map.

'The current speed seems faster than Ain's.'

As long as you had the set of the Mythical Assassin, you didn't need to do the initial combo stacking.

The place that started in the middle was the Plains of Silence.

Lots of golems flocked, but as soon as TarrTarr's dagger touched them, they were cut into pieces as if they'd gone through a blender.

The set had an effect that increased the attack range and critical hit damage by three times!

On top of that, there was TarrTarr's ultimate attack, «Trance»!

[Calculating a new combo record!]

[5000 combo! You've obtained the achievement ‘One Who Pioneers the Path of the Sword’!]

[Because you lack skill level, the number of combos won't increase anymore!]

[Your Agility has increased by 3!]

Ten minutes after the fight began, he reached the max number of combos.

But the message Hyun got was different.

[Your Agility has increased by 4!]

«Biological Time Stop!»

While moving through areas where there weren't enemies, he used the item's effect.

Once again, he used the «Wind Barrier» to run up a cliff that was over a hundred meters tall.

He finally reached the final part of the map.

While getting to the place where the core was, Hyun never lost the 5000 combos.

'This is the last part.'

Paf-!

The rocks that formed the boss golem crumbled as two lights cut the front.

Although the dagger was just 50 centimeters long, thanks to the Mythical Assassin's set, its attack range had increased to two meters.

The black energy that surrounded the two daggers made him look like a demon who was duel-wielding swords.

[You've received 1523 damage!]

From time to time, he received damage from an attack coming from the sides, but he didn't care about that.

Thanks to the 2% absorption that the set had, TarrTarr's HP was constantly being filled.

Now that he was dealing a mind-blowing amount of damage thanks to the effect of the combos and ultimate attack, he could recover that amount of damage in a few seconds.

Boom-!

As TarrTarr cut the dungeon's core in half, all the golems around began crumbling.

Even elite monsters over 10 meters tall became ash and scattered away with the wind.

It took him only 27 minutes to clear the hell difficulty.

[Calculating the results.]

- Total Number of Killed Monsters: 10954 (x 2.09)

- Elite Monsters Killed: 112 (x 2.12)

- Remaining Time: 92 minutes 58 seconds (x 30.9)

- Amount Bet: 5000 points

<Result: 5000p x 136.91>

[Congratulations! You've obtained 684,550 points!]

[You've established a new record on ‘Breaking the Elian Gate’ (hell)!]

[You can't obtain lucky chips on the hell difficulty!]

The surroundings were quiet once he came out after clearing the hell difficulty.

It seemed like all the users who had challenged the Virtual Historical Battle in hard difficulty had failed.

Hyun saw a few users mumbling after losing a bunch of points.

"The efficiency of this is too bad."

"Ugh, yeah. I've completely messed up this tournament. Can I even earn back what I spent?"

Because there wasn't a leaderboard that showed the hell difficulty scores, the average users didn't know about TarrTarr's success.

After looking at TarrTarr, who had an absent expression, they thought he was in the same position as them.

"Tsk tsk, it seems like he also messed up. I think I'll just go to the battle-themed one and do my last effort."

"Me too. I'll try to get to the top 30% at least."

After noticing that TarrTarr was still in front of the Virtual Historical Battle's magic circle, they gave him some advice.

"It seems like you've also lost a lot of points... It's better if you give up. While trying to earn back what you've lost, you'll lose what you’ve got left."

Of course, Hyun wasn't going to listen to them.

Paf- After choosing hell difficulty again, Hyun disappeared.

After seeing how TarrTarr ignored their advice, they shook their heads.

'To make stacking combos easier, I should pick a mission that takes the least possible time. Right?'

He only had two more hell-difficulty tickets.

Hyun was thinking of choosing only the missions where he could take the most advantage of TarrTarr's specs and skills.

'So there's one more undead mission.'

Hyun picked a dinosaur character made of bones.

Although it was also an undead, the mission was different.

If the previous goal was defending, that time it was to attack.

As soon as the mission began, Hyun moved forward.

Boom-!

The middle boss, who had tens of millions of HP, kneeled down and was defeated.

After defeating the boss, Hyun took a breath. Even while doing that, the 5000 combo didn't break.

It was thanks to using the «Biological Time Stop» skill at the correct timing.

「These... Items are too OP.」

Hyun answered at what TarrTarr suddenly said.

「It's a legendary set that consists of six pieces. In real life, you wouldn't be able to get it, even if you used lots of money. Not only that, but it probably has a level restriction of more than 300.」

Hyun mumbled while quickly going through the middle boss area and fighting against new enemies.

「Basically, this is probably the only time I'll have the opportunity to properly use legendary set items!」

Smash- Smash- Smash-!

As he swung both hands as if he were doing a sword dance, the enemies disappeared as if he'd used an eraser.

「But isn't it too bad about the 5000 combo limit? Don't you have any skill points left? Raise the «Combo» skill.」

「But I don't have any unused skill points.」

「Tsk tsk, why did you increase the critical hit damage related skills?」

Skreee-!

Suddenly, bird-type monsters made of bones came flying in their direction.

Level 300 flying monsters weren't weak by no means, but as Hyun moved his hands a few times, the bones were shattered into fragments.

Thanks to the set's effect, the attack range of the daggers was similar to those of a grand sword of the same category.

All enemies that approached TarrTarr got turned into pieces.

«Biological Time Stop»!

The cooldown of the set's skill was at 0, so Hyun used it to move to where the boss was.

Bone Dragon…

A monster with a giant body showed itself.

As soon as it appeared, Hyun made quick, consecutive attacks.

[You've dealt 105128 damage!]

[Critical Hit! You've dealt 451942 damage!]

That ridiculous amount of damage was possible thanks to having stacked lots of different buffs.

But the main reason the damage output was so high was the ultimate attack, «Trance»!

The legendary daggers had a level 300 restriction, and on top of that, there was the effect of «Trance». That's why he was able to do attacks with such high damage consecutively.

Boom-!

The sight of the Bone Dragon being defeated in just a few minutes wasn't something you could easily see.

<You've defeated the Necromancer's rebellion! Your achievement will be remembered in the Abyss's history!>

[Calculating the results.]

- Total Number of Monsters Killed: 5411 (x1.54)

- Elite Monsters Killed: 459 (x3.32)

- Remaining Time: 50 minutes 19 seconds (x25.9)

- Amount Bet: 5000 points

<Results: 5000p x 132.42>

[Congratulations! You've obtained 662,100 points!]

[You've established a new record in ‘Seal the Ancient Dragon's Soul’ (hell)!]

'So, as time goes on, it becomes less efficient. Huh?'

Hyun smacked his lips after looking at the points obtained.

It took him 40 minutes to clear the mission.

It took him a lot more time than the mission in which he had to defeat the golems. Yet he gained less points.

Hyun had already cleared the most effective missions, so maybe that was an obvious result.

'Well, I guess there's nothing I can do about it... Since I can’t repeat the same mission twice.'

It wasn't that he hadn't retried the same mission because he didn't want to. It was that he couldn't.

If one wanted to do the same mission, they had to wait until the next tournament.

But since your points were reset, it just didn't make sense.

Hyun looked at the remaining time.

'I guess this is going to be the last one.'

Hyun looked at the missions left in the Virtual Historical Battle.

There was one left that seemed good.

[ <Iluna Moon Invasion> ]

Iluna was one of Asra's moons, and it was where one of the fiercest battles between the Heavens and the Abyss had taken place.

According to history, the battle had ended with the Heavens winning.

From the Abyss's point of view, it was one where you had to die if you wanted the mission to end.

[Prepare for a counterattack from the Heavens!]

As soon as it started, TarrTarr was standing on top of the moon where the eclipse was going to take place.

He looked up at the dark sky.

Light pillars caught Hyun's attention.

Just like during the Count's Quest, the light pillars were beamed toward the space.

And inside the light beam, one girl had her eyes closed and hands together.

'Praying...?'

Judging by the silhouette, the girl looked like a Priest.

Just because it was Hyun, it didn't mean he knew every little detail about Asrian's history, so he didn't know the name of the woman that was praying.

He guessed that she was probably a saintess.

As the woman kept praying, the lights of Heaven kept getting stronger.

Suddenly, the light pillars pierced space, opening a void.

The doors of Heaven had opened.

Dolls that had wings made of light began descending.

Every single doll was a puppet of the angels; they were all over level 300.

The surface's monsters looked up at the sky and their fighting spirit was ignited.

That was a chance to experience what they said was one of the fiercest battles between the Heavens and the Abyss.

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