24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 244

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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24-Hour Friendly Market Specializing in Dimensional Items Episode 244

Episode 244. The Barrier (3)

It had been the narrowest of margins.
The instant I blinked at the cool breeze that brushed past my neck, a soft laugh echoed from ahead.
“Fast, aren’t you? Really?”
This woman, who still hadn’t revealed her true identity, wore an expression brimming with amusement.
A face that radiated profound satisfaction.
Setting aside the fact that I’d barely managed to evade her attack, what was with that expression of hers?
In a situation where we were supposed to strike at each other to the death, what could possibly be so gratifying?
“Fine then. Since you dodged my attack, I’ll tell you my name.”
The woman ran her finger along the undulating blade of her scythe, then stretched her lips into a smile.
“Asmodeus. And you?”
A pristine white finger, unmarred by calluses, pointed directly at me.
Her sharp nails seemed to pierce me even from a distance.
I swallowed hard without responding.
For the first time, my instincts were screaming loudly before this entity.
Even with Park Ji-woon, Nam Pu-reum, and Park Bo-bae present in this space, my instincts warned me to be wary of this woman alone.
“Hmm, exchanging names before a fight is courtesy in any dimension, after all….”
So I unfurled Legato into a lattice formation without hesitation, before Asmodeus could even finish speaking.
Hundreds of golden threads stretched taut in the air.
「String Dance」.
I expanded a domain that sensed all magical energy within this space.
From the cracks in the floor to the tiniest speck of dust falling from the ceiling.
The instant Asmodeus’s eyes widened and she leaped backward like a feather.
I poured more magical energy into Legato and made it vibrate with tremendous force.
Having declared my domain, the attack that could follow immediately was 「String Resonance」.
A sound wave four times denser than ordinary vibrations crashed across the entire corridor.
Walls cracked, the ceiling collapsed, and everything around me became shrouded in haze.
But.
‘…She’s gone.’
Asmodeus was no longer there.
She had vanished like smoke, without a trace.
Yet even in that moment, Legato continued to tremble, sensing magical energy.
Right behind me.
“Damn it, ge—”
I muttered a low curse and quickly twisted my body.
But in that instant, Asmodeus’s ice-cold fingertips brushed against my shoulder.
The sensation of contact was faint, yet it was unmistakable that something sinister had flowed into me.
Asmodeus, who had returned to Park Ji-woon’s side without warning, smiled gently with narrowed eyes.
Then he whispered softly while scratching the nape of Park Ji-woon’s neck.
“Ji-woon, interrupting someone while they’re speaking is rude, isn’t it?”
“…Please don’t provoke me, Asmodeus. I’m already at my limit.”
Upon hearing those words, I could see the tremendous aura radiating from Park Ji-woon’s body.
The entire 32nd Floor trembled from the overwhelming wave of power that was even difficult for Park Ji-woon to endure.
A blood-crimson hue—an ominous energy that evoked death itself.
Seo Jae-hyuk tensed immediately, instinctively realizing that the energy flowing into his body possessed the same nature.
Though Asmodeus was overwhelmingly powerful, he required Park Ji-woon as a conduit.
In other words.
‘Park Ji-woon is the source.’
The judgment came in an instant.
Seo Jae-hyuk immediately aimed Legato at Park Ji-woon.
Asmodeus could easily evade it.
But Park Ji-woon, who was already struggling to contain that power, would be different.
He wouldn’t be able to dodge Legato’s movements, which operated on a second-by-second scale.
The golden thread concentrated at a single point surged forward, aimed solely at Park Ji-woon.
“Ah.”
In that brief moment of a blink, Asmodeus stepped in front of Park Ji-woon.
Legato’s trajectory, piercing through Asmodeus’s shoulder blade, bent and embedded itself in the wall behind, followed by a thunderous explosion.
Thinking this attack had failed, Seo Jae-hyuk suddenly sensed something was wrong.
A suffocating silence.
Asmodeus’s laughter, which had been playing like background music all along, abruptly ceased.
The smile that had graced his lips, as if to say he would take it easy, vanished, leaving only an icy silence in its place.
“Touching Ji-woon…”
A hushed voice.
Not the languid, gentle tone from before.
“is not allowed.”
A voice that seemed to suppress emotion but roiled with fury.
In that moment, the air on the 32nd Floor inverted.
Asmodeus’s long hair exploded outward in all directions.
Within those scarlet eyes, something other than amusement began to burn.
A vivid rage as if Hell itself had manifested.
The blood-crimson magical power enveloping Asmodeus and Park Ji-woon deepened, consuming the surrounding light and expanding its mass.
It was darkness so dense that it even swallowed the light of Legato, an S+-rank skill bearing the epithet ‘the string that plays memories.’
It was unmistakably different from before.
Legato screamed with a vibration.
Seo Jae-hyuk immediately retrieved Legato and wrapped it around himself.
A crushing pressure poured down from above, as if it would bend my knees beneath the suffocating air.
“This is….”
Seo Jae-hyuk barely stood on his two feet, gritting his teeth as he muttered.
If this pressure came from magical force, Legato would need to read the direction precisely and move according to its master’s will.
But Legato couldn’t even sense the direction.
From above, from below, from the sides, from all directions simultaneously.
Asmodeus stretched his arms forward with a cold face devoid of any smile.
His expression arrogant, as if he had become the ruler of this space.
A terrible sense of defeat that Seo Jae-hyuk had never experienced before.
Seo Jae-hyuk gritted his teeth and pulled all of Legato together.
‘If I just kill Park Ji-woon….’
At this point, Seo Jae-hyuk had even forgotten the fact that he had stormed in here for the mission to ‘save the Dimension’.
He focused only on the being before his eyes, solely to survive this moment.
The instant Seo Jae-hyuk raised his right arm, Legato resonated in unison and transformed its shape.
All the magical waves accumulated on the battlefield by Seo Jae-hyuk thus far condensed into a single stream and stretched out long.
A colossal spear of light created by thousands of threads twisting into one.
The golden spear that pushed back Asmodeus’s darkness was leveled toward Asmodeus.
The corridor walls trembled entirely, and the cracks in the floor surged upward vertically, reaching the ceiling.
The moment Seo Jae-hyuk spotted a vortex swirling in Asmodeus’s palm, he hurled the spear forward with all his might.
A colossal strike where sound waves and magical force became one—「Eternal Symphony」.
A tremendous force that pierced through magical power, shattered barriers, and exhausted everything that stood against it shot toward Asmodeus and Park Ji-woon behind him.
The purest and strongest power among all the 「Eternal Symphonies」that Seo Jae-hyuk had ever unleashed.
As the saturation of light dyed the entire corridor white, Seo Jae-hyuk didn’t take his eyes off it for a moment.
Even now, the magical situation was sufficiently unstable.
This might be an all-out attack and perhaps his final one, but Seo Jae-hyuk harbored no doubt.
Because he had poured everything he had into this attack.
Seo Jae-hyuk kept his eyes wide open, watching the direction where Legato would strike.
Park Ji-woon blinked slowly, and he watched clearly as the light of Legato reflected on his rational face.

Boom—

A deafening roar shook the heavens and earth, so thunderous it made my ears ring.
The impact rattled the entire building, and dust billowed up in all directions.
A brief moment of silence descended.
Seo Jae-hyuk was certain his spear had pierced something.
And yet.
“….”
As the dust cleared, Seo Jae-hyuk’s expression turned glacial.
It was neither Asmodeus nor Park Ji-woon who stood directly before Legato.
‘…How?’
It was Park Bo-bae.
Arms spread wide, a shield summoned, blocking Legato’s advance.
Legato continued straining forward, but Park Bo-bae held firm even as his knees buckled beneath him.
The defense was imperfect—a thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
‘How could a mere A-rank like Park Bo-bae possibly stop it?’
This was Seo Jae-hyuk’s ultimate technique, poured with every ounce of his magical power.
Using 「Eternal Symphony」 again would require time to recover.
In other words, this was his final opportunity—and it was slipping away so pathetically.
The ‘Heart of Torrents’ that Lee Hae-won had given him was fraying at Park Bo-bae’s wrist, but Seo Jae-hyuk failed to notice.
As Park Bo-bae swayed as though he might collapse at any moment, desperately clinging to resistance, Seo Jae-hyuk’s mind raced.
Nam Pu-reum’s poison coursed through his entire body, and the tendons in his wrist throbbed relentlessly.
Asmodeus was an opponent he couldn’t face without an ultimate technique.
‘Then I have no choice but to retreat.’
He never imagined he would be forced to withdraw, but in this situation, no other option existed.
Seo Jae-hyuk leaped through the rift before Asmodeus could draw his scythe again.
…Or rather, he tried to.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
In that instant, if not for something seizing his ankle.
It was the Shadow Being.
A shadow crawling up from the floor had bound his ankle firmly in place.
“If you’ve lost, accept it cleanly.”
A cool, youthful voice.
Nam Pu-reum, who had lowered his guard while facing Asmodeus, was now hanging from a corner of the ceiling.
His injured forearm pressed against his side, his uninjured hand bracing against the ceiling as he extended the shadow toward Seo Jae-hyuk.
Seo Jae-hyuk reflexively swung Legato, severing the shadow.
But.
‘Damn it.’
He couldn’t afford to lose even that one second.
Legato shrieked a warning.
Asmodeus was already moving with precise, purposeful motions devoid of playfulness.
A crimson aura was coalescing at his fingertips.
Very quiet, very small.
It wasn’t shrinking in size.
It was converging into a single point.
All of Asmodeus’s power was being compressed into a needle’s tip—a single infinitesimal point.
Seo Jae-hyuk instinctively unfurled Legato into a spherical form.
In less than a second, threads wrapped around Seo Jae-hyuk with dizzying speed, layer upon layer.
With the golden barrier drawn seamlessly and impenetrably around him, Seo Jae-hyuk glanced sideways once more toward the Exit.
Even as he did, Legato resonated, thickening the barrier further.
Park Bo-bae and Nam Pu-reum wouldn’t be able to keep up, and Asmodeus couldn’t distance himself from Park Ji-woon.
If he simply leaped out the window now, he could seize the next opportunity to bend them to his will.
It was in that very moment—
“Sorry, I’m already inside.”
A voice that had reclaimed its languor whispered against his ear.
Seo Jae-hyuk froze mid-breath.
He was inside the barrier.
Inside the Legato sphere, behind Seo Jae-hyuk’s back.
Asmodeus peered over Seo Jae-hyuk’s shoulder, smiling quietly.
Crimson eyes gazed directly into the fallen eyes of Seo Jae-hyuk.
They were eyes that beheld something ancient.
Eyes that had witnessed everything across centuries—perhaps longer—of existence.
Seo Jae-hyuk’s lips trembled as he beheld his own reflection in those irises.
“…Was I wrong?”
It was neither a question directed at Asmodeus nor one cast upon himself.
It was simply words released into the void of this space.
Asmodeus blinked briefly, then smiled with a soft chuckle.
Then he murmured low.
“Who knows.”
That was all.
The last thing Seo Jae-hyuk saw was a sharp fingertip approaching without emotion, tearing through his chest and seeping within.
The condensed point pierced his chest and dissolved into him.
Asmodeus’s hand grasped without hesitation the heart brimming with ochre-tinted mana.
And then.
…
A blood-stained hand withdrew the heart.
Golden threads scattered helplessly into the air.
Seo Jae-hyuk’s body tilted slowly forward.
Park Ji-woon, who had been struggling even to endure, staggered forward and caught Seo Jae-hyuk’s falling form.
Even without his heart, Seo Jae-hyuk breathed, his gaze fixed on the ceiling as he leaned against Park Ji-woon’s arms.
It was a gaze that seemed to pierce beyond the ceiling itself.
The flickering lights of the collapsing 32nd Floor cast irregular shadows across Seo Jae-hyuk’s face.
And not long after, Seo Jae-hyuk slowly closed his eyes.
The death of the strongest being in a fallen dimension.
Park Ji-woon’s gaze, looking down at Seo Jae-hyuk who had met his end in silence, was complex and turbulent.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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