The Hero Returns

* * *

KA-BOOM—!

A loud commotion could be heard coming from a distance. It was the noise of thick “flesh” being blown apart combined with the surface of the World Tree’s branch being broken and stripped apart.

In other words, it was the sound of Sun Wukong fighting hard while wielding his Ruyi Jingu Bang.

“He still prefers to fight raucously, doesn’t he?” Su-hyeun softly tutted away.

No matter how many times he had witnessed Sun Wukong’s fights, Su-hyeun always found them rather raucous.

Su-hyeun began wondering if Sun Wukong really had changed his fighting style after checking out his battle against some other participants several hours ago, but as it turned out, that assumption missed the mark by a wide margin.

Indeed, Sun Wukong simply fought like that earlier because he figured that would be the most effective way to go about it.

Kiii-reeek, kiii-reeeek—

Su-hyeun observed the fights unbothered as parasites began showing up near his position—this was his goal, after all. That was why he had been riding around on the Somersault cloud for a while now to attract the parasites from far away and bring them to a single location.

These parasites weren’t the same as other monsters in that they weren’t really “outside,” as they were. They used the venom in their bodies to melt down the branches of the false World Tree and dug deep under the surface to suck up the tree’s nutrients.

Therefore, there was no point in simply swinging around his sword indiscriminately. Unless these creatures showed themselves out of their holes, he couldn’t hunt them down with the storm winds roused up by the Palm Leaf. It was just as well since this type of wide-scale game hunt was his specialty, after all.

“Well, I guess this much is enough,” he said before raising his hand.

Shu-wuwuwu—

When he did, the huge gloomy clouds that had gathered overhead began showing some reaction.

“Slam down…”

FLASH—!

“Somersault cloud.”

KA-RUUUUMBLE—!

The lightning bolt shooting down from the clouds rammed into the parasites below.

The bodies of these caterpillar-type parasites were mostly made up of venomous substances and moisture. Maybe that was the reason why they received a nastier battering from being struck by lightning rather than getting burnt or sliced up by a sword.

Simply put, Su-hyeun had found a way to deal far greater damage at a lower cost to his magical energy reserve.

[You acquired 545 points.]

[You acquired 479 points.]

[You acquired 334…]

Right afterward, messages announcing his acquisition of points floated up one after the other.

Su-hyeun watched the parasites fall to the ground one by one and nodded in satisfaction. “Well, that’s quick and simple.”

Accumulating a lot of points was what the trio—Su-hyeun, Sun Wukong, and Luslec—decided to accomplish first and foremost.

[Accumulated points: 9,456,770.]

[Remaining time: 04:01:13.]

Su-hyeun had already amassed quite a lot of points, thereby shooting past the necessary point minimum of one million a long time ago. As for the 8.4 million extra points in his possession, they would probably be linked to the additional rewards awarded after the mission itself.

Also…

[Current ranking…]

[1st: Sun Wukong]

[2nd: Kim Su-hyeun]

[3rd: Luslec]

[4th: Reoric Dusa]

[5th: Grang Lou]

…

The names of Sun Wukong, Su-hyeun, and Luslec were recorded one after the other on the official ranking list, and all those listed in the rankings had their names displayed right above their heads in crimson letters.

After the 12th-hour mark arrived, the names of the participants had appeared in red letters above their heads.

“It’s so obvious, isn’t it?”

This display seemed to openly tell them to fight.

Just as Su-hyeun suspected, the first half was about hunting the parasites down, while in the latter half, the mission’s topic had switched more toward the participants battling each other to steal away accumulated points.

The ranking was compiled according to how many points one currently possessed, but that wasn’t the end of the story. The names were even displayed openly to indicate who possessed how many points.

In other words, the mission was designed in such a way to encourage everyone to aim for an instant reversal of fortune by attacking the participants with lots of points.

“Well, thanks to that…”

Giii-iiiing…

Su-hyeun turned around after sensing this heavy pressure bearing down on his shoulders.

“I get to fish out guys like that one, so there’s that.”

Pa-bababak—!

BOOM—!

Dozens of arrows flew in and stabbed into the very spot where Su-hyeun had been standing, and right at that same moment, his figure pounced and flew in a direction.

“What the fu—?!”

“What kind of reaction is…?!”

His opponents this time were two individuals. One of them was a magician capable of casting gravity-type magic, while the other one was an archer-type fighter that dealt with bows and arrows.

These two seemed to have formed a team.

“They aren’t what I’m looking for.”

Whoooosh—

Smack—!

Pow—!

Su-hyeun’s scabbard flew out and landed one blow each to the heads of the two. The impact force caused their eyes to roll over, and they limply crumbled where they stood.

Plop…

Thud…

[You acquired 493,882 points.]

[You acquired 402,122 points.]

“They were small fries.”

It seemed that this duo was thinking of defeating him and snatching away a ton of points in one go. They probably planned to flee if their sneak attack didn’t work because their skills weren’t all that great for a pair of people daring to brazenly attack him.

“Did something happen on your end?”

That voice belonged to Luslec.

“Did a fight break out over there?”

Right after that, Sun Wukong’s voice came to Su-hyeun.

Luslec transmitted his voice through the marble in Su-hyeun’s possession, while Sun Wukong sent his voice through “Voice Transmission” that used his Dao energy.

“No, nothing happened this side.”

“Ah, really?”

“I guess it was another small fry.”

The trio maintained a certain distance from each other while moving around. The reason for that was simple: to sweep everything away. They would eventually run into predators or whatever was also out there if they did that.

The points would naturally accumulate while they continued to hunt down the parasites, anyway. Besides, if one of their own team members fell into danger somehow, they could rush to each other’s aid almost instantly.

“This place is far bigger than I thought. I figured we’d run into one quite easily, but this…”

“I think this place is about a quarter of the world you’ve been living in, Mister Su-hyeun. It’s not that large, in other words.”

“That’s already big enough, though. I’m not sure if we will ever run into them at this rate.”

All three of them possessed an ability to command a legion—Su-hyeun with his trait of Necromancer, Luslec with his necromancy technique that controlled souls, and Sun Wukong with his cloning technique.

Their abilities were rather specialized in hunting-type missions like this one. They could hunt down the parasites in all directions, so their comparative advantage versus the other participants was rather obvious.

Without a doubt, the predators must be searching for Su-hyeun’s team even right now, or so Su-hyeun thought. Somewhat ironically, however, the predators hadn’t made any moves yet.

“It looks like one of them is quite smart.”

Luslec agreed with Su-hyeun’s suspicion.

“Well, one of them was supposedly forming a team, after all. Maybe it’s a perfectionist, which sounds rather odd.”

A predator was basically a walking lump of avarice. It wanted to become even stronger by devouring a world, which would, in turn, allow them to become a complete god later on. That’s what those creatures were after.

And such powerful desires were bound to overcome one’s reasoning. However, every once in a while, you’d find some individuals possessing powerful mental strengths capable of suppressing such desires. Which meant that…

“A predator that’s a lump of avarice and possesses an even tougher mental strength than its own desire,” Su-hyeun pondered.

Just how tough would its mind be, then?

Su-hyeun abruptly recalled what Ellid told him.

“The most important things in magic are one’s will and spell formulas. Those are the beginning and the end of all magic, and one’s will is a result of one’s strong mental strength.”

Those were the very first words Ellid said when he started teaching Su-hyeun magic theory.

One’s strong will came from one’s strong mental strength, which sounded rather plainly obvious, and possessing a stronger mental strength would result in greater firepower of a spell even if the spell itself was the same as what the weaker individual used.

“If that predator is proficient in magic-type abilities…”

Su-hyeun then recalled the second predator he had run into. That creature was different from the first one in that it preferred to fight while relying on magical abilities.

A small sigh escaped from Su-hyeun’s lips. “I guess it’s going to get troublesome, then.”

Normally, he wouldn’t be this worried. He was the natural enemy of all magicians, after all.

Even though he did learn quite a bit about magic, Su-hyeun’s fighting style still shined the most when he went for close-quarter combat. He had been focusing most of his training in the ways of countering magicians to prepare for his battle against Fafnir, after all, thus, the equipment adorning his body, plus all the skills and habits he had acquired over the years. Everything he had was dedicated to fighting magician-type enemies.

This was also the reason why he could quickly come up with a way to defeat the predator during the last trial.

Even if that’s the case, Su-hyeun didn’t exactly enjoy the absolute advantage over the magicians. The sole creature that did defeat Su-hyeun was Fafnir, after all.

“…Hmm?”

While using his Sage’s Eye to look around, Su-hyeun’s vision caught a rather disharmonious scenery out there, and the moment he confirmed that, Sun Wukong’s voice reached him.

“Hey, little bro, do you see it?”

“Yes.”

Sure enough, Sun Wukong too seemed to have discovered something similar to what Su-hyeun was seeing.

“Should we avoid it?”

Luslec’s voice came after that, but that only triggered Sun Wukong.

“You mad?! Of course, we go and say hello.”

“I somehow knew you’d say that.”

For some reason, Su-hyeun thought he could hear a soft sigh in Luslec’s reply, which wasn’t surprising, really. Luslec was the type to not enjoy anything that might prove to be too annoying. Although his personality seemed cruel and merciless, that didn’t mean he actively enjoyed fighting.

“Yup, it’s going to get annoying, for sure.”

Su-hyeun was the same as him, though. He would’ve preferred to avoid any unnecessary fighting if possible.

“Besides, it doesn’t seem like one or two people, either…”

The location in front of him, as seen through the Sage’s Eye, was dyed in a pitch-black aura. Meaning, ominous magical energy had completely blanketed the area.

The same story applied to both Luslec and Sun Wukong. Just like how there was a group waiting for Su-hyeun to walk into their trap, there seemed to be other groups also lying in wait for Luslec and Sun Wukong.

“I guess I’ll have to get a bit more serious now.”

Su-hyeun leisurely walked forward, feigning complete ignorance, and that’s how he willingly walked into a trap lying in wait for him.

* * *

A single leaf of the World Tree was as big as a small-sized city, and this was where dozens of participants were hiding while holding their breaths.

“He’s coming,” a participant named Nahuru who was acting as a temporary leader of this group quietly said while staring at one person, making sure not to get detected by him, and raised his hand.

At that signal, dozens of participants held their breaths once more and cautiously roused up their magical energy.

[Kim Su-hyeun]

The name written in crimson letters was floating over the head of their opponent who was leisurely walking toward their position from afar.

Kim Su-hyeun was currently second place in the points ranking. If they could defeat him here, then there wouldn’t be a need to wander around and hunt those parasites down with great difficulty. To them, his defeat would mean that they would acquire, never mind three or four hundred points but, millions in one go!

“He doesn’t seem to have noticed us yet. Just a little closer. A little bit closer to us and then…!”

Nahuru’s raised hand began twitching, and the moment he swung his hand down would mean that this operation would commence.

Step, step…

Su-hyeun’s steps gradually slowed down, and the distance narrowed.

“One hundred meters, no, just 50 more…”

Nahuru held his breath. He then also began cautiously rousing up his magical energy and counted down inwardly while sharpening all of his senses to their extreme.

The distance gradually closed up, and just as Su-hyeun’s foot reached the very spot that Nahuru was thinking of…

“Now—” Nahuru, about to lower his hand, came to a stuttering halt. “Huh?”

Su-hyeun had vanished from their view and the spot where he was standing until a second ago.

And on top of that…

“Dammit!”

Scwwwhing—!

Nahuru quickly spun his body around and swung the shortsword that he held in his hand.

CLANG—!

At the same time, his shortsword shattered into thousands of pieces to scatter everywhere.