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Chapter 361. The Player Slaughterer (3)
“What a sight.” The Butcher was entranced when he saw the number of clones filling the mosque to the brim. There were 3,748 in total. That was almost the same amount as all the clones he had ever made in his life.
‘Unfortunately, this is the end.’ The clones had stopped increasing in number an hour ago. His innate ability belonged to manticores, but it seemed that this was the maximum number of clones he could make.
‘Still, if I absorb all of them… Mm.’
He licked his lips and looked up at the sun peeking up from the horizon.
“Come to me,” he whispered.
Shaaaa.
The 3,748 clones dissipated into smoke, filling the mosque with a hazy mist. The Butcher gently waved his hands, bringing in the abundant smoke to inhale through his mouth, nose, and ears.
“Gah!” He convulsed and gnashed his teeth. Blue veins protruded all over his body, and sweat dripped from him like a downpour. After ten minutes of that, the Butcher let out a smooth, light breath.
“Haaaa.” His blood-red eyes were half closed, and he slowly raised his hand.
“...”
He waved it through the air.
Baaam!
The mosque’s floor cracked, creating a straight line that sliced through several other buildings ahead of it.
“Ha, haha…Gahahaha!” The Butcher grabbed his stomach and laughed at the top of his voice. He looked down at his hand with great excitement.
‘Yes, power. This is the power I wanted.’
This incredible power would let him stand against the whole world, just like his master, the Heavenly Demon.
“...What a shame.” He felt a deep sense of disappointment. If he could hold onto this power forever, they wouldn’t even need to make a second Fiend Association.
‘I can only maintain it for about a day.’
However, even though it was disappointing, it was more than enough for the job. Kim Woo-Joong? Shin Sung-Hyun? No matter who he faced, he was confident that he could take them down quite easily.
The Butcher slowly closed his eyes.
‘A good opponent is coming. Just in time.’
A powerful presence was quickly approaching him.
‘Specter.’
If that bastard hadn’t kept destroying his clones, the Butcher would have been able to make his move much earlier.
“I don’t like you.” He made a swift swipe through the air in the direction where Seo Jun-Ho was coming from.
“So die.”
***
As Seo Jun-Ho dashed to the mosque, his temples suddenly rang, warning him that his life was in danger.
“...!”
He unsheathed his sword on reflex and struck the mysterious force.
“Ahh! W-what was that?” The Frost Queen exclaimed with surprise. She noticed it a second too late.
Seo Jun-Ho looked down at his tingling hand with amusement. “This is pretty excessive for just a greeting.”
Seo Jun-Ho could sense that the Butcher was still at the mosque, even after the latter created so many clones. It was about two kilometers away from his current location. The fiend had merely sent his demonic energy out, but even at that distance, it was strong enough to stop Seo Jun-Ho in his tracks.
“Seeing as how I can’t sense those thousands of clones anymore, it looks like he has absorbed them,” he said.
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” the Frost Queen asked.
“Of course, it’s dangerous.” However, if all Seo Jun-Ho wanted was to be safe, he wouldn’t have come here in the first place. And if he ran away now, the entire city of Baghdad would be in danger.
‘No. The surrounding cities and countries might receive an attack as well.’
Seo Jun-Ho’s job was to make sure that the Butcher couldn’t take a single step away from here. As such, he continued on his journey to the mosque.
When Seo Jun-Ho arrived at the mosque, he felt an incredible amount of demonic energy.
‘Compared to the Heavenly Demon’s power from last time… The Butcher is about two levels below that.’
Seo Jun-Ho was a little nervous. Though he had killed the Squadron Leaders before, this was his first time facing an Executive of the Fiend Association. On top of that, the Butcher had already built up a notorious reputation as ‘the Player Slaughterer’.
“...”
The fiend was waiting for him in the middle of the vast mosque.
“Wow.” The Butcher was impressed when he saw Seo Jun-Ho.
‘That’s the hero of humanity, Specter. He really is strong.’
Specter wielded a completely different energy than the one he felt from his clones with their dull senses.
At the same time, the Butcher was relieved.
‘If I hadn’t absorbed 3,748 clones, I could have been the one in danger.’
Finally, he understood why the Heavenly Demon spoke of Specter so highly. However, aside from that, there wasn’t really any other reason. It was simply because Seo Jun-Ho was a ‘special’ person.
“To think that someone so young is so powerful… How old are you again?”
“Shut it, you dirty fiend,” Seo Jun-Ho—apparently 27 years old in his own words—snapped. He was still going through an identity crisis about his true age.
“Pffft. I’ll be generous and let it slide. A barking dog never bites, after all.” Usually, the Butcher would instantly kill someone who dared to say something like that to him. But right now, he was feeling merciful. He didn’t need to concern himself with the words of a dead man walking. “The Heavenly Demon misses you very much. I should gift your head to him as a souvenir.”
“Who said I’ll give it to you?”
“Your will does not matter. I’ll take what I want.” Such was the mindset of a fiend who abided by the law of the jungle.
The Butcher reached into his Inventory and retrieved his weapons. His favorite tools to use whenever he killed people had always been a hook on a chain and a short cleaver.
“Any last words?” he asked.
“Where is the Heavenly Demon?”
The Butcher thought for a moment, but he kept his mouth shut. Even though Seo Jun-Ho was about to die, there was no need to tell him something like that.
“Why won’t you say it? I asked you about the location of that cowardly bastard who ran away because he was scared of me.”
“...” The Butcher frowned at Seo Jun-Ho’s provocation. The Heavenly Demon was someone who was somewhat respected even in the Underworld. Despite the enormous power the Butcher had right now, he still wouldn’t dare try to fight his idol. “You aren’t cute anymore. You should watch your mouth from now on.”
Seo Jun-Ho clicked his tongue. The Butcher’s lips weren’t so loose after all.
‘Looks like I won’t be able to get any more information. I’ll just use Confession of the Dead once it’s over.’
He opened his Inventory as well. Just as he started pondering which weapon to use, a dormant weapon started to vibrate furiously, as if it was scolding him for not taking it to a fortune teller. It was the spear as azure and white as ice.
“...” Seo Jun-Ho quietly retrieved the Sword of Ambition and said, “Let’s begin.”
“Really? I like your spunk.” The Butcher smirked and started swinging his chain.
“Oh, my bad. I wasn’t talking to you.”
“He was speaking to me.”
Crackle!
In an instant, the Frost Queen froze the mosque’s floor.
“...!”
No matter how skilled a Player was, they needed time to adjust if the battleground suddenly changed.
‘Time to adjust to the new environment.’
However, someone was moving around freely, and it was the one who changed the battleground.
Chisss!
Midnight Sun covered Seo Jun-Ho’s whole body, and he made ‘climbing irons’ made of ice at the sole of his shoes.
“...The only thing you can do is use petty tricks like this?”
“Why don’t you try out these ‘petty tricks’?”
“Hup!” The Butcher let go of his spinning chain, swiftly throwing the hook. It was covered with several layers of powerful demonic energy, and it struck the ground.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
‘Idiot.’
It felt like he was destroying a construction site with a wrecking ball rather than nullifying the tactic.
Seo Jun-Ho dodged each strike and forcefully kicked off of the ground. His climbing irons dug into the ice with a crackle.
“...!”
He suddenly flew toward the Butcher like a bullet with his sword raised.
Shiiiing!
The Butcher quickly raised his cleaver and blocked the attack, but the ice under his feet made him slide all the way back.
“Ugh!” He dug his cleaver into the ground in an effort to regain his balance, but the grand tower of icicles in the air started falling on top of him. The Butcher grinned with bloodlust and cried out. “Hah!”
The icicles shattered like glass when the sound waves infused with demonic energy swept past them. He watched as the ice crystals scattered into the air.
“So, is this how you fight?” asked the Butcher. As the fiend slowly got to his feet, there was a small amount of joy and a great amount of disappointment in his eyes. His opponent’s tactics weren’t bad, and the way Specter used the slippery surface was pretty effective. Most Players would have instantly died from this attack.
‘But he’s still a human…’
It felt like there was a difference between their weight class. Seo Jun-Ho’s tricks could easily be taken apart by someone with more magic power or demonic energy.
‘His fighting style is similar to mine.’
To be precise, Specter’s fighting style was like his fighting style before he absorbed his clones. After all, the Butcher was the type to plan and direct every single move in battle.
‘But that doesn’t matter...’
It seemed cute in the face of absolute power.
“It seems that you haven’t experienced this one before, so I will show you.” The Butcher tossed his cleaver aside. Holding his hook in one hand, he started gathering his demonic energy.
Vrrrr!
The demonic energy was so powerful that the air itself trembled. The strong vibrations shook the mosque.
“This is what real power looks like. It can’t be overcome with techniques.”
“...!”
The Butcher threw his hook, and it flew toward Seo Jun-Ho. However, it wasn’t just one hook. The demonic energy made it multiply, filling Seo Jun-Ho’s vision.
“One two three four—no, impossible! There are a thousand hooks!” The Frost Queen exclaimed sarcastically.
“Only a thousand?” Seo Jun-Ho laughed weakly when he recalled those hellish days in Another World. “Sorry, if you want to defeat me, you’ll need a million more.”
Slice!
His sword danced elegantly. Every time it swung, the hooks infused with demonic energy fell to the ground in vain, one by one.
“...He blocked them all?” The Butcher couldn’t believe it.
‘I thought he was the type to resort to petty tricks because he wasn’t skillful enough to win in a head-to-head battle?’
Specter’s fighting style wasn’t the same as him? The Butcher felt a deep sense of betrayal.
Swoosh!
Seo Jun-Ho caught the final hook with his hand and squeezed it hard.
“Ha… Okay. So that’s what it is…”
The Butcher had been bamboozled. Specter was different from him. He wasn’t just a tactician—he seemed very confident in a head-to-head fight as well.
‘But you chose the wrong opponent…’
The Butcher had absorbed 3,748 clones. He knew that the only ones who could overwhelm him with pure strength were the Heavenly Demon and Charbork.
“You’ll soon resent yourself for getting so carried away.” The muscles in the Butcher’s arms swelled as he swung his hook. “Hup!”
Bang! Bang!
He broke through the ice and burrowed his feet into the ground as he started pulling as hard as he could.
“What?” On the other side, Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes went wide as he looked down at the hook in his hand. He looked like he didn’t know what was going on.
“Hup! Hup!” The Butcher pulled the chain so hard that veins popped on his forehead. However, the hook didn’t budge even an inch from Seo Jun-Ho’s hand. Rather than in Seo Jun-Ho’s hand, it felt as if it were anchored on the ground.
‘Is he playing with me?’
No, the Butcher was expending too much energy for it to be a mere prank.
The Frost Queen observed the fiend for a moment before asking, “Contractor, are you using your full strength?”
“Um… No.”
It did require effort to hold, but he wasn’t using his full power.
‘I know that my stats had increased a lot after I cleared the 4th Floor, but it shouldn’t be to this extent…’
“Status window,” he whispered, confused.
He started trembling.
[Seo Jun-Ho]
Level: 195
Title: Bringer of Spring (+4 more)
Strength: 695 (+60) Stamina: 649(+30)
Speed: 633 Magic: 657
Two of his stats were much higher than they should be. His Strength and Stamina had increased tremendously.
‘How…Wait, is it…?’
He quickly checked his message log.
…
[Title ‘One Who Perseveres (S)’ has been activated. Strength increased by 30.]
[Title ‘One Who Perseveres (S)’ has been activated. Strength increased by 30.]
[Title ‘One Who Perseveres (S)’ has been activated. Stamina increased by 30.]
…
‘One Who Perseveres!’
It was the Title he had received after killing the 4th Floor Master Erebo. Seo Jun-Ho knew that the Title would increase his stats the longer a battle went on.
‘But I thought it would only increase them by a few points. I never thought it would give me so many points.’
According to the log, it seemed that his stats would increase approximately once every three hours. The stats were likely chosen at random, but even with that, its effects were still top-notch. It seemed that it didn’t receive the S-Grade rating in vain.
‘Wait, then…’
Seo Jun-Ho watched as the Butcher pulled as hard as he could on the chain, and the scene looked like they were playing tug-of-war. Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes curved into crescents upon seeing that.
“Cute.”
He seemed like a cat who had discovered a fun toy.