Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 185

185. Death Will Follow (4)

As the level-up notification appeared, Hyun-woo finally reached level 50.

And as if on cue, he mastered his ultimate skill.

Hyun-woo felt an unfamiliar power surge through his body.

He gently placed the limp Renian on the ground. Wiping the blood from his mouth, he tried to assess what had changed.

Nothing seemed different.

Except that Renian was no longer by his side.

Yet, Hyun-woo felt neither profound sadness nor burning anger.

Why?

Had his emotions been worn down to the point of numbness? Or was it simply because, as a skeleton, he had no eyes to shed tears?

Or perhaps…

The Iron-Blood Troop Captain advanced toward Hyun-woo. The sheer size of his hammer was twice Hyun-woo’s height.

It felt like even the heat radiating from it could reduce him to bone fragments. If he still had skin, it would be searingly hot.

“If we must determine who the ultimate victor is…”

Hyun-woo reached out with his skeletal hand.

“Isn’t death too brief to be called ‘ultimate’?”

And then, the end began.

***

The first change occurred in Hyun-woo’s spine.

Black smoke billowed from the scratched and cracked vertebrae.

The smoke rapidly enveloped Hyun-woo’s fleshless body. Soon, black smoke emanated from every inch of him.

As if scorched by the dark fumes, Hyun-woo’s remaining flesh and bones blackened.

The black smoke then consumed Hyun-woo’s face. A bubbling mist poured from his completely blackened mouth, spreading thickly across the floor.

The black mist began to blanket the hilly area.

A sudden night descended upon the monsters.

In the impenetrable darkness, the monsters panicked, swinging their weapons wildly. Screams and shouts echoed in the fog before abruptly ceasing.

The black mist swelled, growing to the size of a storm cloud.

The centurion, a member of Ardan’s conquering star and leader of the Iron-Blood Army, was taken aback by the sudden darkness.

But he was a vanguard, accustomed to facing the fiercest heat.

The centurion fiercely ignited flames to push back the black mist, letting out a defiant roar.

The black mist momentarily recoiled, as if intimidated by the flames.

The centurion believed his show of force had worked.

But when he glanced around, he realized he was already completely surrounded by the black mist.

Before he could conjure more flames, the centurion was submerged in the darkness.

In the all-black world, only his burning limbs were strangely visible.

Thud.

The centurion heard footsteps approaching in the darkness.

Refusing to stand idle as the enemy closed in, the centurion roared and charged forward, swinging his hammer to crush the small figure he believed had created the black mist.

But his hammer was stopped in mid-air.

The centurion sensed something was wrong with how the hammer was caught.

The hammer was halted above his head, at its highest point.

There were no monsters taller than him in this hilly area.

In that instant, the centurion felt the fire in his heart turn to ice.

Something is there.

Within this black mist, something far larger than himself existed.

It had snatched the hammer as effortlessly as if it were a child’s toy.

A cracking sound echoed in the darkness. Something rained down on the centurion’s head.

It was the head of his hammer, shattered into pieces.

Ardan’s Iron-Blood Army does not retreat. The centurion chose to drop the hammer handle and charge toward the unidentified enemy in the darkness.

No, perhaps it was also a form of escape. The centurion simply couldn’t bear to feel fear.

Something pitch black materialized in the darkness. Pillars of fangs engulfed the centurion.

With a light crunch, as if chewing on a snack, the centurion’s upper body vanished.

The black mist crawled and spread across the hilly area.

All the monsters on the battlefield witnessed the mist’s advance. Everyone sensed a shift in the situation.

Along with intense fear, a primal urge to flee overwhelmed them.

Soon, several orcs threw down their weapons and began to run. Even the ghouls forgot their insatiable hunger.

Only the mindlessly shuffling undead continued to wander, drawn toward the black mist.

As if sensing a crisis with the appearance of this terrifying being, new entities emerged on the horizon.

The deep-sea angler of Yordan, the starving star, appeared, sweeping all the monsters into its gaping maw.

The flock of weeping crows, the attendants of Berd, the wailing star, merged into a single mass, darkening the sky in a circle.

*If any of you can fight this beast and defeat it, you will be promised power.*

The attendants, heeding the whispers of the stars, plunged into the black mist one after another.

And none of them returned.

The ultimate victor is not war, nor famine, nor even death.

It is the remaining ashes and the cold that lingers after the flames have died.

Exhaustion.

Entropy.

It was the end itself.

The monsters gazed at the materialized end wandering in the darkness with fearful eyes.

A beast with razor-sharp features howled in the darkness of unfathomable depth.

It was a cry that made the world feel like it was spitting blood.

“The promised, time, has come!”

Ultimate.

Beast of the Apocalypse.

“The beast, promised, to the end!”

The sky rippled and distorted like the surface of a pond disturbed by a thrown stone.

The bubble-like world of illusions and the space of reality shook as if on the verge of tearing apart.

The atmosphere raged, and the ground trembled violently. Even the clouds were torn asunder and scattered.

Within the dark fog, purple patterns emitted a ferocious light.

It was a light like a star.

It was heat like a star.

“All, the, living things, in the world!”

Crack, crack.

With a rough sound, the beast’s body swelled larger and larger. The monsters held their breath, witnessing the birth of a new star.

A distorted being was emerging.

A being that is nothing.

A hollow being that can be nothing and will be nothing was writhing.

“Like a swarm of locusts, come to devour, everything!”

But not everyone was merely watching helplessly.

In the distance, yellow eyes had been silently observing the beast for a long time.

He had no intention of allowing the wildcard he had been monitoring for so long to trigger another catastrophe.

[Ghaul, the Shattering Star, is watching you.]

The beast’s howl abruptly ceased.

***

Crack.

With a sharp cracking sound, the outer shell made of crystal shattered. The crystals that fell to the floor broke apart and scattered.

The sight of the broken crystal fragments sparkling in the fading black mist was beautiful.

The beast took another step.

With each step, its entire body beautifully shattered, as if shedding its skin.

And finally, a person emerged from within with difficulty.

It was Hyun-woo.

Crystal moss still clung to his body, but it soon fell away like dead skin.

Hyun-woo staggered and knelt on the floor, vomiting.

Black blood with a disgusting smell formed a puddle. Hyun-woo roughly wiped his mouth and looked around.

The battlefield was silent. Only a bleak wind was blowing.

‘Is it over?’

His body had been hacked to pieces, like a corpse prepared for dissection, but now he couldn’t find a single wound.

Hyun-woo felt strange seeing his body so clean, as if he had been resurrected. But the muscles all over his body were screaming.

It was because he didn’t know how to deactivate his ultimate skill, so he had no choice but to maintain it until his mana was completely exhausted.

No, while the ultimate skill was active, his consciousness itself was faint.

‘It’s like I really became a beast.’

His consciousness moved as if controlled by another entity.

The black mist moved like his limbs, and everything within the mist was clearly visible, as if he could reach out and grasp it.

Hyun-woo felt infinitely huge in the mist, to the point where he couldn’t even estimate his size.

In other words, even though his form had changed, Hyun-woo didn’t even know what he looked like.

The beast’s body that had wrapped around him had transformed into crystal moss over time. There were hardly any fragments left that hadn’t shattered like glass.

‘I think I shouted something while I was transformed.’

No, was it even a transformation in the first place?

No.

Hyun-woo thought it was more like he was riding on the body of some colossal beast.

He could project some will onto the beast, but ultimately, it moved as it desired.

With the will of that beast, which was both black mist and sharp crystal.

‘But what did I say?’

He thought he had said something about the beast of the apocalypse.

Then nausea surged from his stomach again.

This time it was much more intense than before.

Feeling as if his intestines were about to spill out of his mouth, Hyun-woo vomited again.

Something large flowed out.

Hyun-woo’s expression hardened when he saw what had fallen to the floor with a thud.

Something shining white in the black puddle.

It was none other than Renian.

Hyun-woo had been forced to use his teeth to kill Renian, as his jaw was the only part of his body he could properly control. But this Renian looked perfectly unharmed.

However, it was slightly different from its original appearance.

While the original Renian had been more colorful, this Renian was a pale white, emitting a subtle, almost sacred light.

And unlike the asexual original, it now possessed more feminine curves.

No, is it really Renian?

Maybe it’s a fairy-like being similar to Renian. Then, suddenly, the fairy opened its eyes.

The fairy, blinking its eyes, opened its mouth.

“Woong… Butler?”

“Renian.”

Hyun-woo sighed in relief and reached out a hand, placing it in the mud.

Its tone was strange, but it was a minor change compared to everything else that had happened. Could it be related to mastering the ultimate skill?

Hyun-woo asked Renian.

“Were you expecting this to happen?”

“Of course. Fairies are beasts promised to the end.”

Hyun-woo was startled and turned his head at the voice that suddenly came from behind him.

A fairy wrapped in black smoke was clinging to his back, seemingly out of nowhere.

No, this one was also Renian.

This Renian was also different from the original appearance.

It had short hair and looked more like a boy.

“Are you… Renian too?”

“Of cooooourse. Master. Then who else would it be? Who else would have the name of harbinger of the apocalypse?”

Renian had split into two.

Hyun-woo didn’t know how to process this.

First, Hyun-woo decided to distinguish them as Blackened Renian and Whitened Renian for convenience.

“Is the split over with two? Is there anyone else who will come out?”

The Renians were just staring blankly at each other. Hyun-woo took that as a no.

It was already difficult enough to accept that there were two Renians.

“How are the two different? Why did you split?”

“Well. Wouldn’t it mean that if good things are twice as good, they are twice as good?”

“Was it because the fairy was absorbed into the master’s body, discarded the waste, and only the remaining pure things came out?”

“Correction. The fairy appeared to fill that lacking guy. Plus minus zero. Actually, it wasn’t very helpful, was it?”

The two didn’t seem to get along very well.

The Blackened Renian moved smoothly along Hyun-woo’s skin in the form of black smoke.

The Whitened Renian was closer to the original Renian, but the Blackened Renian seemed unable to leave Hyun-woo’s body.

Hyun-woo thought the Whitened Renian’s words made sense.

The appearance of the Blackened Renian reminded him of the black mist that appeared when he activated ‘Beast of the Apocalypse’.

If the Blackened Renian is the usual form of the Beast of the Apocalypse, then the Whitened Renian may be a separate form that has shed it.

It’s just a delusion in my head.

I feel like I don’t know what’s going on anymore.

Hyun-woo rubbed his aching head and decided to wrap up the situation at this point.

“I roughly understand the situation… Then how are the two different? Do you have any purpose you want from me?”

At Hyun-woo’s question, the Blackened Renian shouted as if pleased.

“Together with the fairy, let’s kill all the living things in this world and drive it to destruction!”

Okay. This one is an evil and crazy cannibal fairy. Then this white one is…

“No, Master! Just make the lowly pigs and dogs obey under your feet and make them slaves forever!”

It was also an evil and crazy cannibal fairy.

It seems a little less evil.

…No, is it really less evil? Instead, isn’t it more vicious?

But I think I know the character roughly.

Doomsday fanatic and crazy dictator.

The original Renian seems to have been somewhere in the middle.

‘Why not? He says he is the beast promised to the end.’