Chapter 217: Episode 217

Episode 217

“Kill him!”

The nearby demonkin rushed in to protect Wayne.

With an indifferent expression, Yusin flicked his fingers. Wherever his hand moved, the ground rose up, flames roared, and the very air froze solid.

It was as if the entirety of nature here was obeying his commands.

“Kim Yusin…!”

Wayne ground his teeth.

He was a completely different person from the man Wayne had seen in Tanzania. In the short time they had been apart, Yusin had become even more formidable.

*How could someone change this much in such a short time? What on earth happened?*

“I owe you a lot, White Wing. Or rather, Wayne Jones.”

Yusin spoke as he crushed a fallen demonkin’s neck under his heel.

“From Tanzania all the way to Korea, our bad blood runs deep, doesn’t it?”

Wayne started to answer, then recoiled in horror. Four warps had opened above his head without him noticing, and explosive potions came flying out of them.

Yusin let out a low chuckle.

“Careful. Looks like our ‘Black Wing’ really wants you dead.”

“…Samia.”

Cold sweat trickled down Wayne’s face. This was not the teleportation ability she normally used. Something about it had changed.

*Could it be that she also learned magic from Kim Yusin?*

“You really are something else,” Yusin’s tone turned mocking. “You killed General Julian in Tanzania, and from what I heard recently, you even killed General Augustine. You’re relentless, aren’t you?”

Wayne’s smile twisted.

“I wasn’t the one who killed them. Want to know the truth? The one who actually killed Julian was—!”

Wayne felt a bone-crushing pain in his legs and whipped his head around. A Golem’s arm had shot up from the ground and clamped down hard on both of them.

“Nice one, Sol!”

There was no way he could dodge now.

With a sharp *SWISH*, Samia’s teleportation activated. It was a mutated technique that had appeared in place of her old specialty, which had been lost due to torture.

“Guh!”

An internal teleport. A metal rod materialized directly in the center of Wayne’s right chest.

It pierced clean through his heart, running from his chest out his back.

Wayne convulsed and vomited a mouthful of blood. His hands clamped desperately around the rod, but he could not pull it out, and strength drained from his arms.

*He’s going to transform now.*

Even so, Yusin did not let his guard down and instead heightened his focus.

*SHAAAAAA!*

Unlike ordinary demonkin, whose transformations were accompanied by violent physical changes, violet mana erupted from Wayne’s body like roaring flames, engulfing his entire form.

With a dull clank, the metal prosthetic arm attached to his right side dropped to the ground.

—Get back, Tower Master!

*WHOOSH!*

A violet arm flashed and came whipping in. Yusin hurriedly leapt back, but a long gash still opened along his leg.

Ea’s shields, which she had deployed for defense, had been shattered without a trace. The attack was both fast and powerful.

“Kim Yusin.”

Wayne, fully transformed into a demonkin, revealed his true form.

There was no trace of a human body left. His entire being surged and writhed as if made of burning mana.

A long snout, a whip-like tail, and a gaping mouth filled with countless triangular fangs all came into view.

And the single, grotesquely oversized arm—far larger than his already massive body—was attached to the right side where his prosthetic had been.

“This time, I will kill you without making any mistakes.”

The one-armed monster charged.

As its arm bent at impossible angles and came swinging in, Yusin activated Devastar and bolted.

*WHOOOOSH!*

The arm curved, and every tree that fell within its arc was sent flying like a bundle of straw. Hovering in the air, Yusin felt a bead of sweat on his forehead.

“This isn’t going to be easy.”

He was up against a speed-type demonkin. The way Wayne bounded across the ground on two legs like a madman while windmilling that enormous arm was extremely threatening.

Eunsol’s golems rushed in, but everyone who came into contact with Wayne’s arm was effortlessly smashed to pieces and crumbled back into sand.

*SCRAAAAPE!*

Yusin skimmed along the ground and immediately thrust out his right arm. Fireballs shot out in rapid succession, but Wayne dodged them with nothing more than agile footwork, then whipped his massive arm like a lash.

*WHOOOOSH!*

Specter appeared, embedded in the ground between Wayne’s incoming arm and Yusin, who stood his ground. Wayne’s arm slammed into the sword.

*KRAAASH!*

The ground shattered, and Specter was blasted into the air. Wayne’s arm was flung back in the opposite direction.

Yusin had cast a Glue spell on Specter’s tip, anchoring it to the ground.

Having secured a safe distance, Yusin once again conjured Fire Cannon magic circles in midair, and Wayne quickly moved to circle around him.

*Good. I’m starting to get used to his movements.*

He was getting a feel for it. Yusin fired off another Fire Cannon, and Wayne snorted, dodging it with light, confident steps.

Then, in a sudden burst of speed and a sharp change of direction, Wayne closed the distance and shot straight toward Yusin’s face.

*SLAM!*

Wayne was caught off guard.

Wayne’s body skidded backward after taking a Fireball head-on. The spot where he had been hit burned fiercely, sending waves of pain through him.

Something was off. It was not an attack he should have failed to dodge.

When Wayne lifted his head, he saw green magic circles layered in front of several of the Fire Cannon circles.

*Took me a while to make these.*

Yusin wore a satisfied smile.

The 8th Tower Master, Minerva, had emphasized the “sixth-order buff magic” over and over.

According to her, the true value of the sixth-order was not in its offensive spells, but in its buffs.

Red, the circle of Amplification.

Blue, the circle of Protection.

Green, the circle of Acceleration.

True to the nature of the sixth-order, the moment they were deployed in midair, their effects were applied instantly to every spell that passed through the circles.

The multicolored magic circles used by Baphomet, the boss monster of the 1st Floor Trial, had been nothing more than degraded versions of these spells.

“Things are going to be a little different from here on out.”

<Fire Cannon> ×100.

A hundred flames blossomed in the air. Wayne flinched and threw himself aside as the Fireballs streaked out, lighting up the darkness.

*THUD! BOOOOM!*

Wherever the Fireballs landed, the ground exploded and the underbrush caught fire. Wayne was slipping through them like an eel, dodging with impressive agility, but—

*BANG!*

“Urgh!”

Among the incoming Fireballs, some were two to three times faster than the rest.

If Yusin had attacked using only fast projectiles from the start, Wayne could have adapted somehow, but slipping sudden high-speed projectiles between slower ones made them extremely difficult to avoid.

<Flame Taurus>

On top of that, Yusin mixed in sixth-order spells in midair.

The way he freely combined three different patterns to drive his enemy into a corner was impressive enough to draw admiration from anyone watching.

After taking several Fire Cannons in a row, Wayne’s speed was steadily dropping.

*Up to this point, it’s about the same level as when I fought Blackjack.*

Still not satisfied, Yusin opened his palm.

“Jabs alone get boring, you know?”

*FWOOOOSH!*

From the magic circle blooming in his hand, a giant of searing flame emerged, its body roiling like magma.

It was Prometheus of the fourth-order.

“You think you can hit me with something that big?”

Wayne bared his teeth. There was no way he would get hit by such an obvious, telegraphed spell.

“Everyone thinks they can dodge it at first.”

Yusin summoned Specter into his hand. Then he pressed the magic circle against Specter’s blade, and the circle was absorbed into the sword as if it were being drawn in.

He gave Specter a light swing. A tail of flame trailed behind the blade, making it look like a burning sword.

“Here we go.”

*SWISH!*

Specter, held in Yusin’s hand, instantly appeared behind Wayne’s back. Wayne’s eyes went wide and he sprang to the side.

*FOOOOOSH!*

The giant of flame, launched straight ahead, chased after Wayne, while the Fire Cannons that had been waiting for Yusin’s signal rained down from every direction.

He was not just spamming spells at random. All the data Yusin had accumulated in his head about Wayne’s movements had converged into trajectories that were nearly impossible to evade.

“Ack!”

In the end, Wayne crossed his arm in front of his body and leapt into the air. He had to take a few Fireballs, but he powered through them.

When he glanced back, countless flames were turning the ground into scorched earth.

*VROOOOM!*

Then, above Wayne, who was now suspended in midair, a blue door opened.

“…No way!”

Yusin and Samia had prepared two Warp Gates: one above Wayne’s head, and one in front of Prometheus.

Prometheus passed through the warp and appeared directly above Wayne.

On top of that, Yusin conjured additional magic circles in front of the warp.

<Acceleration Circle>

<Amplification Circle>

Prometheus plummeted at a terrifying speed and crashed down on Wayne’s body.

With a deafening boom, leaves whipped about in a frenzy. Yusin shielded his face and stepped back from the hot blast of the shockwave.

“G-Gaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Wayne’s screams echoed from within the inferno. No matter how he thrashed, once Prometheus latched on, it refused to let go and relentlessly burned his body.

*Ea. Dump the rest of the Fire Cannons on him!*

—Yes, Tower Master.

Fireballs poured down from every direction. Feeding on them, the giant of flame swelled larger and larger, spewing out waves of scorching heat.

“Urgh! Guh!”

The demonkin, burning to death in the flames, glared at Yusin. Yusin did not look away and met his gaze head-on.

“Don’t think this is the end!” Wayne roared. “There are far more demonkin in this world than you can imagine! The demonkin will annihilate humanity! We will!”

With a blank expression, Yusin made a show of picking his ear.

Then he summoned Specter into his hand, leveled it straight at Wayne, and cast Wind Sagittarius on the hilt.

“I’m sick of hearing it. Just die already.”

As Yusin snapped his fingers, the spell activated.

Specter shot forward like an arrow and slammed straight into Wayne’s chest.

“Guhaaaaaaah!”

The burning demonkin, his chest pierced through, staggered and then collapsed with a heavy thud.

The light vanished completely from his green eyes.

—Life signs have disappeared, Tower Master.

“Whew.”

The stubborn thread that had stretched all the way from Tanzania was finally cut.

Yusin let out a long breath and looked around. The other demonkin had almost all been taken care of by the golems as well.

“Good work, everyone.”

Yusin clapped his hands together. Through his earpiece, the administrators’ voices came back in chorus: “Good work!”

“Head back and get some rest. I’ll just clean up a bit and return.”

* * *

The demonkin lay in silence.

The fallen demonkin’s body was growing cold on the ground.

He had not even died at Kim Yusin’s hands, but had his throat torn out by a monster in the forest. Could there be a more pathetic end?

It was infuriating.

White Wing, Clint—every last one of them had been brutally slaughtered by the Archmage.

But his mission was not yet over. The demonkin pulled a DungeonCam from where he had hidden it in his clothes and began to operate it.

This was the contingency plan for when the “first plan”—assassinating Kim Yusin and destroying the Tower—failed. Now, it was the only option left.

This method, too, would prove fatal to Kim Yusin.

Even as his vision blurred and his body grew heavy, the demonkin desperately uploaded the DungeonCam footage and hit the send button.

That was it. It was done.

FLASH!

A magic circle appeared in the sky.

He had been discovered. Even if he died here, his noble cause would live on.

“Humanity must be destroyed, without fai—!”

An Ice Javelin flew in from the air and pierced straight through his chest.

* * *

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