526
“Oh, you’re awake now?”
The first voice I heard was Arcana’s.
Lee Haneul wasn’t visible, but judging from the empty potion bottles around, she must have given me some first aid.
“What happened?”
“What do you mean? I ‘luckily’ found Wolfie. If you sleep outside like that, your mouth will freeze stiff~”
From what I gathered, the situation was simple.
While the other guild members were exploring the trial, she had also wandered around places she hadn’t been to out of curiosity, but she didn’t find anything particularly interesting.
So, she was climbing the trial faster than others, and just before passing the 73rd floor, Se-un dropped from above.
‘Turik must have helped.’
Arcana found Se-un purely by luck.
I really couldn’t grasp the extent of her great fortune.
‘No, isn’t this me being lucky in this case?’
A brief doubt arose, but it wasn’t something to worry about right now.
Because Se-un’s mind was filled with the conversation he had with Ruin in the mental world until just now.
“Take a break this time~ You’ll get sick if you overdo it.”
“I was going to.”
“Ah, can I play with Ruin for a bit after a long time?”
She used to play with Ruin whenever we arrived at the residence, so even though I felt a bit uneasy, I shone the stigma [a unique mark or symbol, often associated with supernatural power] just in case.
Uung…….
“……Later.”
“Aww, that’s too bad~”
Ruin clearly expressed his refusal.
It’s not that the power of the stigma was completely blocked, but it seems he doesn’t want to show himself privately in situations other than battle.
“If Wolfie is going to stay, I should stay too~”
“Do you have something to do?”
“I’m just as busy as Wolfie, you know? It’s my first time handling an independent stigma, too.”
A stigma with a strange pattern shone on her thigh.
Misfortune. No, a stigma that seemed closer to being an evil omen.
Even though it looked simple, Se-un saw it as a stigma with tremendous potential to interfere with causality itself.
And personally, I was curious about the ability of that stigma.
How far could it withstand that causality in a battle in a situation where thorough misfortune struck?
So…….
“I might hang out with you a bit.”
“Oh my, really?”
I thought it wouldn’t be bad to cross swords with Arcana.
“I need to get better quickly for that time~”
* * *
Five days after Se-un entered Diablo’s residence.
As the guild members gradually began to arrive after finishing the trial’s攻略 [Korean term for ‘conquest’ or ‘completion’], a rough collision sound was erupting in the center of the residence.
Clang!!
“As expected, I can’t beat you with strength alone~”
Se-un and Arcana crossed swords and scythes.
Se-un’s sword was subtly blocking the intersection of the scythe so that Arcana couldn’t retrieve her weapon, pushing her away.
She wore a relaxed smile, gave up resisting, and let go of the scythe. Se-un also tried to retrieve his sword after her, but.
“Hehehehe-”
Joker.
Instead of her, a black and white Joker was holding the scythe in front of Se-un.
The Joker copied the movement that prevented Se-un from pulling out the scythe, and instead, held Se-un’s sword tightly, making an annoying laughter.
In the meantime, the spade card she took out turned into a sharp sword and aimed at Se-un.
Sreuk.
“Hehit-?”
Se-un also let go of the sword in his hand and spread his palm wide open.
– Through internal energy, the fourth form of Tae-eul Flashing Water Palm, Swallow Goose Flight, is enhanced.
Clang!
Se-un’s palm soared quickly like a swallow and struck the side of the sword.
The palm technique enhanced with the Supreme Divine Art was a quick fist that focused on speed rather than destructive power, but it shattered the sword.
The opposite palm that followed chased her movement, but it wasn’t Arcana standing in that place.
“Hehehehehit-”
The Joker, whose whole body was excessively colorful, laughed.
Even though his right shoulder was twisted and went over his back due to Se-un’s palm technique, he didn’t seem to feel any pain.
“Do you know that?”
The Joker’s bent arm.
Perhaps because the shoulder was bent excessively, the joint broke and the bone pierced through the flesh.
The blood droplets that sprang from the wound were accurate as if they were aiming.
“I found out in the last trial that I can put a ‘stigma’ on my Joker too~”
“Keuk.”
It flew towards Se-un’s pupils.
Thanks to quickly closing his eyes, he was able to prevent blood droplets from entering his eyes, but Arcana’s attack poured in, taking advantage of the gap where his eyes were closed.
Misfortune, or bad luck.
Her stigma subtly twisted causality even during the battle.
When moving her feet, a hard rock happened to stick out in that spot, hindering her movement, or the weapon she was taking out of the Myriad Treasure Vault got caught on something and stopped, or, like now, blood splattered into her eyes.
That minor misfortune gathered and reversed the tide of battle.
Even so, the battle wouldn’t be overturned by misfortune alone.
“And when it comes to swordsmanship, I’m not one to be outdone either?”
Her power wasn’t just the power of misfortune.
No, in the first place, that stigma was a power that arose after meeting Se-un.
Her pure martial power, which had once reigned as a high ranker before that, was enough to stand against Se-un even without relying on luck.
‘Clover J.’
The person contained in the J of this card, originally called the club, is one of the Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot du Lac.
He was a swordsman also known as the Knight of the Lake.
Clang!!
Just like Se-un used Mammon’s treasure, Lancelot’s power was imbued in her body.
The card turned into Arondight, a treasure known as Lancelot’s weapon, and collided with Apelion, which Se-un had drawn.
A strong blow that I thought I wouldn’t have been able to withstand if it wasn’t Durandal or Apelion that blocked the attack just now.
In the meantime, strange laughter was heard from behind and beside Se-un.
“Hehehe-”
“Hehehehit!”
The black and white and colored Jokers swung their great scythes at Se-un.
His eyes were closed by the blood droplets that sprang up, Ana’s powerful sword strike was in front, the Joker’s attack was behind and to the left, and even when he stretched his foot to the only remaining gap on the right, the ground that was dented by the battle hindered his quick movement.
The moment his balance was momentarily broken.
Se-un manifested the magic he had finished casting for this moment.
– The Treasure Vault of Greed has been opened.
[ Anti Magic Shell ]
– A counter magic that interferes with the surrounding mana, breaking and prohibiting magical phenomena below the caster’s level.
Chichit-
The card magic she uses.
No, those were already transformed and transformed, so they weren’t techniques that could be called magic, but in the end, all of them were phenomena created by applying mana.
If you forcibly shake the surrounding mana, all those phenomena will scatter.
“Hehe…….”
The two Jokers disappeared, leaving only a faint smile.
“An 8-circle magic swordsman, don’t you think you’re being too much yourself?”
The Arondight she was holding returned to its original form as a card and fluttered to the floor.
I immediately thrust the spear forward, but she had already jumped up and left the spot.
“I roughly know what it feels like.”
The stigma of misfortune.
It’s not perfect yet, but I could roughly grasp how that misfortune works.
Even the roadmap of the journey to grasp the weaknesses of any opponent hasn’t found her weaknesses or gaps yet.
However, she wasn’t an impossible target to攻略 [conquer].
A battle that only considers the worst variables.
And if it was an overwhelming power that didn’t rely on luck, I could 충분히 [sufficiently] 攻略 [conquer] her.
The moment Se-un was about to continue the battle in earnest, shining the stigma in crimson.
“Se-un!”
A familiar voice was heard from afar.
When I turned my head, Diablo’s vice guild master, Yoo Seo-ah, was running towards this way.
‘I thought she would have arrived first.’
Yoo Seo-ah, who hadn’t shown up until the other guild members arrived for some reason, finally appeared.
Besides, even from a distance, her condition wasn’t normal.
“……Are you okay?”
“Yes? Ah, this?”
Se-un waved his hand to cut off the battle with Arcana and approached her.
All the equipment she was wearing, except for the sharp twin swords, was broken and shattered.
Her steps seemed a little precarious, and her left leg was bruised blue.
“I can endure it somehow. At first, I was treated with the potion made by Haneul, but later it became difficult.”
Even Kang Han-cheol, who was following behind her, was even worse.
His armor was nowhere to be seen, and only his lower body was barely covered with tattered pieces of equipment, and all the exposed bare skin was bruised blue.
Some parts were already undergoing necrosis [tissue death].
It would be incredibly painful just to move one step at that level, but Kang Han-cheol was looking down at Se-un with an indifferent face.
“It’s a sparring. I’ll participate too.”
“……What happened?”
“Well, somehow Han-cheol and I started攻略 [exploring] the same dungeon.”
Yoo Seo-ah started explaining as if she had been waiting.
Since Lee Haneul hadn’t arrived at the residence yet, Se-un temporarily used recovery magic to treat their frostbite.
However, Se-un unknowingly stopped the recovery magic and was surprised while listening to the explanation.
“Eight Cold Hells?”
“Yes, the first was Albuta Hell, and the one I found on the 83rd floor was Nirabuta Hell. The name is a bit difficult, right?”
Se-un also knew this dungeon well.
That’s because the dungeons Se-un is攻略ing [exploring] now are the Eight Hot Hells.
If it’s the Eight Cold Hells, it was a dungeon that was exactly opposed to the Eight Hot Hells.
‘I couldn’t find those places either?’
Even before the regression, when I explored all areas of the Demon World using the Compass of Journey, and even now, when I roamed the Demon World without hesitation with overwhelming power.
Based on the memories before the regression, I found the Eight Hot Hells, but I couldn’t find only the Eight Cold Hells.
So, I thought that the Eight Cold Hells wouldn’t exist even in the Demon World.
For Yoo Seo-ah and Kang Han-cheol, who aren’t even searchers, to find that hidden dungeon.
– The constellation, ‘Spider Wearing a Crown,’ is elated.
– The constellation, ‘Old Man Riding an Alligator,’ boasts that there is nothing that can be hidden under his feet.
It seems that the two demon kings have helped in some way.
‘Is it a place that can only be found with the help of constellations?’
– The constellation, ‘Crow Lowering Its Head,’ pretends not to know.
– The constellation, ‘Hungry Prince,’ whistles, saying that there isn’t much to eat in the Eight Cold Hells.
Looking at the reactions of the demon gods, it seems that my guess was correct.
I wondered why Leviathan didn’t tell me, even though Mammon or Beelzebub didn’t, but maybe if her power was restored…….
– The constellation, ‘Snake Surrounding Envy,’ worries about you, saying that the Eight Hot Hells alone are difficult enough.
Wouldn’t she have sent a message like that?
“So, was there any progress?”
“Yes!”
First of all, I urgently treated all the parts that were necrotic due to frostbite.
Still, it would be much better to receive detailed treatment from Lee Haneul, so I postponed Kang Han-cheol’s sparring.
When Go Chang-seok comes, I’ll have to receive all new equipment.
Then, Yoo Seo-ah, who nodded at Se-un’s question, took out the sword from her waist.
The center of the long sword and the short sword.
It was a sword commonly called a short sword, and it was similar in size to the sword she usually used.
Above all, the chilling coldness flowing from the blue blade was proving that it wasn’t an ordinary weapon.
“It’s a sword I got from Nirabuta Hell. I also got a material called Hellish Ice, so I’m going to ask my grandfather to make it when he comes!”
“Good.”
When I checked, it was an S+ grade weapon.
It is said to be a weapon containing the cold air of the Eight Cold Hells, and it seems that it can create the ultimate sharpness by extremely refining the cold air.
“Ah, and this too.”
Then, she took out two seals.
As soon as I saw them, I realized.
Although they are different from what Se-un obtained, these were also symbols that could be said to be the core of the Eight Cold Hells.