Copying Runes to Become the World's Strongest - Chapter 23

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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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Chapter 23
‘I can read them?’
Hyeonjun stared straight at the villain. The message that had floated up before his eyes was still there.
Clearly, it was saying that humans, too, could be subjects of Discernment.
‘It showed up on Mom too. Wasn’t that just because of her illness?’
Hyeonjun activated his skill.
[Activating .]
[Hidden information will be revealed.]
[A gap exists between you and the target.]
[Discernment will take time to complete.]
Right after he used the skill.
Messages flickered across his vision in a rush, then vanished.
Soon, a System information window filled the space they had left behind.
[Information]
– Name: Kim Donggeun
– Age: 51
– Trait:
– Circuit Rank: D
– Stats
Strength: 11
Agility: 1
Stamina: 1
Mana: 1
Mental Power: 1
[Skill: Discernment in progress…]
The words Discernment in progress blinked like a game loading screen.
Hyeonjun was rather taken aback.
The information was far more detailed than what he’d gotten when he used it on his mother.
It was almost too much.
‘Is it because he’s an Awakened?’
Name and age were a given, but there was also Trait, Circuit Rank, Stats, and Skills, the kind of details you’d never know unless the person told you.
[Skills]
– Trait Skills: , Discernment in progress…
The skill information began to update.
‘Can’t I see the skill descriptions?’
What on earth was this Greatsword skill, anyway?
As if it had read his thoughts, a semi-transparent information window popped up anew.
[Greatsword ]
– Summons a greatsword. When the summoned sword is used, Strength increases by 10. Only one sword can be used at a time.
‘Even this?’
Hyeonjun checked the next skill as well.
[Sunbo ]
– Instantly advances forward at high speed. Maximum distance: 1m. Cooldown: 1 minute.
‘He must be good at close combat.’
On top of that, his Soul Circuit’s rank was D, one step above his own.
His stats were low, but the difference in rank alone created a considerable gap.
Could he make up for that gap with Primordial Will?
‘Of my stats, Agility is probably the closest to his.’
His Agility had only just reached 100 the day before.
With the remaining attempts and today’s Copy allotment, he’d put everything into Strength, bringing it up to 17.
He was far behind the opponent, so even considering the nature of a greatsword, it was best to avoid a head-on fight whenever possible.
‘Let’s just try.’
He had a rough grasp of the enemy’s information.
A battle plan had more or less taken shape.
‘For starters, I’ll open with a surprise attack.’
Hyeonjun drew a dagger from his waist. After going in and out of the hunting grounds every day, he never went anywhere without a weapon.
‘This is probably the only chance I’ll get to hit him.’
I have to deal as much damage as possible with the ambush. Only then will it be easier to drag this out.
Thud.
Hyeonjun pushed off the ground with all his might.
The villain’s eyes slowly turn as he senses the presence.
His face is plainly flustered.
He seems to try to dodge away in a hurry, but.
The tremendous thrust produced by Primordial Will and 100 Agility Stat was faster than he expected.
Shing!
Bang!
At the same moment the dagger bit into the bastard’s side, Hyeonjun’s body slammed straight into his opponent.
Hyeonjun sprang up at once and backed away.
Through the dust that had risen, he could see the opponent’s silhouette writhing.
“Shit… what the hell was that all of a sudden…?”
Even as the man muttered, Discernment kept running.
-Trait Skills: , ,
-General Skills: , , ,
The skill Discernment came to an end.
Hyeonjun thought that everything Discernment could reveal had ended there.
But.
-Weakness: While Discernment is active…
‘What’s this now?’
Weakness?
Is it talking about a weak point?
It looks like that’s exactly what it means…
“So there was a rat hiding here…”
Hyeonjun started and lifted his head.
As the dust kicked up by the impact settled, the figure that had been hidden came into view.
The middle-aged man with the wretched, ruined appearance from before was gone.
In his place stood a warrior, a translucent blue armor wrapped around everything but his head, a massive sword resting on his shoulder.
“If a surprise attack does this much damage, I’d guess that’s late E-Grade…”
He tied back his shaggy hair and flicked his tongue over his lips.
“Did I scare you there or something?”
Villain Kim Donggeun curled up the corner of his mouth. He was smiling, yet an overwhelming killing intent seeped through that smile.
Hyeonjun swallowed hard.
“With all this Terror Crackdown nonsense, my plans got messed up right from the start and I was in a rotten mood. Good timing, though. I’ll play with you a bit, then kill you right about when the other side wraps up.”
“…The other side? There’s more of them somewhere else?”
“Ah, you don’t need to know. The one who’s about to die doesn’t need to know.”
The moment he finished speaking, he charged straight at Hyeonjun.
Even holding a greatsword, his speed was terrifying.
Whoosh!
Hyeonjun instantly held his breath and dropped low.
The greatsword, swung with force, sliced horizontally across the space just above his back.
A gust of wind followed the blade, and his hair whipped back.
“Hahaha! Quick as a rat, aren’t you!”
Hyeonjun dashed off, still bent at the waist.
He nearly stumbled, precarious, but he barely steadied himself and put some distance between them.
‘Good thing this place is wide.’
The space where the corridor meets the hall.
No matter which direction the attack came from, there was plenty of room to dodge.
‘Dodging isn’t as hard as I thought.’
The speed reads clearly to my eyes.
The path of the attacks is clear to me, too.
I’m confident I can dodge any of them.
‘No, I think I could go beyond simple evasion and counterattack as well.’
Even when I dodged the earlier attack, I had plenty of room to spare.
I just judged that gauging the opponent’s strength came first, so I didn’t move rashly.
‘There’s a chance.’
I didn’t think I could win.
Instead, I planned to keep him pinned here for a while longer.
‘He seems to be thinking of escaping from here, but there’s no way I’m letting that happen.’
The opponent charged again.
Hyeonjun stared straight at him, like a matador waiting for the bull.
The greatsword trailed behind him.
The movement of his arms and legs.
The direction in which the creature’s gaze was pointed.
Every bit of it was a signal, the basis for predicting what came next.
Hyeonjun moved his body based on the clues etched into his mind.
Hyeonjun charged forward, running head-on toward the rushing Kim Donggeun.
As the distance between them narrowed, Kim Donggeun’s movements shifted.
‘What?’
It didn’t feel like simple running.
A hesitant motion, like someone gathering themselves for something.
Hyeonjun quietly eased off his speed.
The next instant, Kim Donggeun’s body lunged forward with a jolt, as if he had teleported.
At the same moment, the greatsword came slicing in on a diagonal.
The path was unexpected, and Hyeonjun barely dodged by throwing himself aside.
‘So this is Sunbo.’
It was as if he had covered that one meter without any proper windup at all.
If he hadn’t been aware of it beforehand, he would have been caught helpless.
“Are you just going to keep dodging?!”
Kim Donggeun exploded in frustration.
Facing an opponent he had judged to be low-ranked, with the fight dragging on in a tense, can’t-quite-catch-him stalemate, his head had clearly started to boil.
“Come on, then.”
Hyeonjun flicked his hand, taunting the creature.
“You little rat…”
Kim Donggeun ground his teeth and kicked off the ground again.
Hyeonjun ran toward him once more.
‘Sunbo is on cooldown.’
So this time—
I’ll aim for a counterattack.
“Yaaaah!”
The two of them charged at each other once again.
Just before the two runners crossed paths.
Kim Donggeun swung his greatsword with a battle cry.
Hyeonjun slid straight through.
Chaaak!
Thanks to the dust and debris kicked up by the explosion, Hyeonjun glided smoothly along the ground.
Feeling the friction heat against his backside, he pressed his foot into the ground to brake the end of his leg.
At the same time, he twisted his upper body around.
Kim Donggeun’s back, fully exposed and defenseless.
‘Where should I stab?’
Mana Armor.
If I just stab at random, I won’t be able to land a proper hit.
‘Damn it. I should have thought of this first.’
There isn’t much time left.
Any moment now, he’ll turn around.
Hyeonjun kicked off the ground for the time being.
‘Just attack anywhere and see what happens.’
That was when it happened.
[Discernment is complete.]
[The target’s weakness has been revealed.]
Red dots appeared on Kim Donggeun’s back.
‘So that’s the weak spot?’
Hyeonjun forcibly twisted the path of the dagger he had thrust.
The sharp dagger, which had been aimed at the upper body, lunged toward a red dot near the waist.
Kak!
Blue light sparked like embers.
The tip of the blade bit straight through the inside of the armor.
‘It broke through?’
Mana Armor pierced by a single strike.
Hyeonjun was momentarily taken aback, but he made his decision quickly.
He gripped the dagger tightly in both hands and twisted it with all his strength.
With a slight sense of resistance, a piece of the armor shattered.
Crack! Crack!
Starting from the broken spot, fissures raced across his entire body in an instant.
Hyeonjun pulled back his dagger and retreated.
Bang!
The instant after, the greatsword came crashing down where he had been standing.
Had he been a second slower, it wouldn’t have been the ground that shattered, but his head.
The thought sent a chill down Hyeonjun’s spine.
‘Its destructive power is no joke.’
It might be slow, but in sheer strength, this was no ordinary opponent.
“You. You’re not some ordinary creature, are you.”
The smirk vanished from Kim Donggeun’s face.
Hyeonjun said nothing and simply studied the man.
More precisely, he fixed his gaze on the red spots scattered across the man’s body.
Some were large and deep, while others were small and faint.
‘So the big ones mark weak points across that entire area.’
Deeper color seemed to mean a more lethal weakness.
‘Rather than aiming for a single vital point, I should strike at whatever position I can reach at the moment.’
According to the skill description, Mana Armor had a cooldown of one hour.
That meant the man had no armor now.
The only thing to watch out for was a sudden approach using Sunbo.
“Are you ignoring me? Well, a rat with no manners makes the hunt more fun.”
Kim Donggeun bit into his own hand.
Blood trickled out.
At the same moment, his entire presence changed.
His pupils reddened.
Veins bulged grotesquely beneath his skin.
A faint red aura, pale in its glow, rose from his body.
‘Berserk Transformation.’
According to the skill description, it temporarily and explosively boosts all stats.
But its duration is short, and that’s its drawback.
There’s no fixed time limit, but since it draws on life force as its fuel, using it for too long will kill you.
Whoosh!
In an instant, Kim Donggeun’s figure vanished.
The moment Hyeonjun registered it, the man’s greatsword was slicing toward his face.
Whoosh!
Hyeonjun barely dodged the attack.
‘Fast. But not so fast that I can’t keep up.’
Speed and strength had risen dramatically. Yet that didn’t change the man’s fighting style at its core.
‘Still simple and straightforward.’
He was faster, and that was all.
For Hyeonjun, who could read the path of every attack, Berserk Transformation wasn’t much of a problem.
‘Unless he’s fast enough that I can’t react at all, or changes the sword’s path midway.’
With a greatsword, that was impossible.
The man’s arm moved again.
Predicting the path, Hyeonjun turned his body in advance.
As expected, the greatsword swept past right in front of him.
Bang!
A deafening roar that rattled his eardrums.
Hyeonjun stepped aside without so much as a flicker of expression.
In just two steps, he took up position behind him.
‘A small, deep spot.’
Hyeonjun drove his dagger into Kim Donggeun’s back with all his strength.
The sharp blade vanished beneath the man’s body.
The dagger pierced straight through his back and sank into his heart.
“Die…!”
Hyeonjun didn’t stop there.
Just as he had when he broke the armor, he twisted the dagger.
“….”
Kim Donggeun blinked.
His blood-red eyes, swollen with Berserk Transformation, turned toward his own chest.
There was nothing to see.
But a strong sense came over him that something inside had been destroyed.
“How⋯⋯.”
What had just happened?
From start to finish, he couldn’t make sense of it.
Squelch!
He felt something tear free from behind him.
Kim Donggeun reached back, feeling along his spine.
His fingers came away smeared with a dark, crimson blood, the kind you rarely see.
“⋯⋯Huh?”
In that instant, his vision flipped over.
He tried to hold on, to somehow stay upright.
Thud.
Thick blood had already spread across the floor without him noticing.
Kim Donggeun’s body collapsed into it.
Hyeonjun looked down at him and caught his breath.
Eyes brimming with wariness.
He still held the dagger, refusing to let his guard down.
“⋯⋯”
Kim Donggeun didn’t move.
Hyeonjun nudged him with his foot, prodding once, then again.
Then he checked for a pulse.
‘Is he dead?’
When I think about it, of course he is.
A dagger driven into the heart and twisted—who could survive that?
Still, I could hardly believe I’d beaten a D-Grade Awakened.
‘I actually won?’
Emotions surged within him.
The thrill of victory lifted his mood, but it didn’t last long.
Hyeonjun’s cold gaze drilled into the back of Kim Donggeun’s head.
‘He should have died in far more agony.’
Too peaceful an end for a villain.
He should have suffered several times, no, dozens of times over, the pain he’d inflicted on others.
That was what a villain deserved.
‘If there’s a hell, I hope he suffers there for the rest of his life.’
Hyeonjun wiped the blood from the dagger and slid it back onto his waistband.
-Hyung!
Just then, a familiar voice echoed through the basement.
Hyeonjun flinched, then let out a short laugh.
‘I shouldn’t be making such a loud noise in a place like this.’
Looks like there are no other villains around, so it’s not a big problem.

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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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