Genius Blacksmith’s Game - Chapter 292

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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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The Genius Blacksmith’s Game
The Beacon (6)
[I shall annihilate all evil!]
The Blood King froze in shock.
A great blade inscribed with the characters for “Royal Sword of Evil Annihilation.”
The moment it swung through the air without even touching him, he felt the illusion of his body being cleaved in two.
A pain unlike anything he had ever experienced.
The cut was so clean, so perfectly executed, that his body seemed to split apart in a phantom vision before pain could even register.
[80% of HP is deleted.]
A critical wound dealt in a single strike.
He understood now why Hyeon-su could dare to challenge him.
He had advanced beyond the castle gate, preserving this for such a moment.
‘The means by which he could slay the demon Gremory.’
Yet the Blood King laughed.
“Kekeke!”
This was his killing blow.
Because he believed only in this, he could afford such arrogance.
I thought him a king in the making, but he is merely a fool ignorant of variables.
Glug, glug—
[Wherever blood flows, the Blood King does not die.]
Blood streamed around him like a river.
With this blood, the Blood King could restore his HP to 100%.
Moreover.
[HP drops below 24%.]
Hyeon-su was exhausted from reaching this place and battling the Knights.
His potions were also on cooldown.
He intended to absorb the blood flowing toward him and recover instantly, delivering despair to his opponent.
“Behold, this is my——!”
The Blood King could not finish his words.
“Your what?”
Wherever blood flows, the Blood King does not die.
That assumption had been broken.
Evil Annihilation correctly deletes 80% of HP.
But for one like the Blood King who commands blood itself, the outcome could differ.
So I had conceived of this.
If the Royal Sword and Babylon were combined, there should be an advantage to the combination.
‘Could it delete 100% of HP?’
That would be a balance-breaking ability.
‘Then perhaps it deletes an additional 10% of HP?’
That was certainly possible.
Yet my understanding of the Artifact’s effects had grown astronomically, so I anticipated this.
‘Perhaps….’
[Evil struck by Annihilation cannot regenerate or use potions for 20 seconds!]
He might not be able to regenerate.
The Blood King’s face contorts.
The man who transformed his advantage into a weakness.
Draped in a brown coat, wielding a broad blade with a thin edge, his presence suffocates me.
“Flame.”
Whoooosh—
A small ignition engulfs him, burning fiercely hot.
[Blood King’s HP drops below 20%.]
[HP drops below 24%.]
Now both of us stand on equal ground.
I remind myself once more.
[The Blood King does not die wherever blood exists.]
Twenty seconds granted to me.
Taaaat—
I push off the ground and surge forward.
Hundreds of blood spikes pierce toward the bewildered Blood King.
Paaaaaaat—
Simultaneously, telekinetic force erupts.
I raise my left hand, sending all those crimson spikes skyward.
Kuwhaaang—
In that instant, a massive blood sphere detonates with direct impact.
“Got you….”
Ignoring him, I accelerate, drenched in blood.
Puhwaaak—!
[17 seconds remaining.]
[16 seconds remaining.]
I exchange blows with the panicked Blood King.
My HP drops faster with each direct hit from the blood explosions.
Yet, as the Sword King taught me.
‘Based on observing those like Lucifer, Bahala, and Kabel.’
I strived to make their techniques my own.
Thus I move in an instant like Kabel, slashing like a phantom.
Scritch, thud—!
[12 seconds remaining.]
“Blood King’s Sky.”
Puuuuuuueng—!
I’m struck by his counterattack and launch skyward.
Yet Hyeon-su’s Sword already bore the immense power of the Evilbane Royal Sword coalesced within it.
“Sword Rampage.”
Crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-!
Whatever it was, it poured forth like a Bell.
[Blood King’s Shield]
Screeeeeech-
A shield forged from blood with 740% defense power—that which even negates any defense itself—guards against sixty-odd blades.
Screeeeeech-screeeeeech-
[9 seconds.]
“Ugh!”
The Blood King staggers, cut by several blades.
In this moment, the Blood King realizes something.
Most of the power he can exert is locked in cooldown.
Believing himself victorious, he rejoices.
Whoooosh-
In the end, the Sword summoned by the Blood King pierces Hyeon-su from behind.
“Ugh!”
[7 seconds.]
Yet Hyeon-su grits his teeth.
As his HP plummets, I see my own blood flowing down my tan coat.
[HP falls below 10%…]
[You possess Asthenium.]
I will not lose.
I will not hand Lucifer back, and I will use the Blood King as a stepping stone.
‘Atlas is in danger.’
To protect Atlas, and moreover to make it an independent nation.
My tan coat, now stained crimson with blood.
Whoooosh-!
As I swing it wide, blood droplets scatter across the Blood King’s face.
Splash-!
“…Tch, coward!”
[2 seconds.]
[Blood King’s HP falls below 4%.]
The Blood King, his vision obscured, is flustered.
But in 2 seconds, complete recovery becomes possible.
Already above his head, a soccer-ball-sized crimson orb capable of regenerating him has condensed.
There is no twist.
In the end, my victory.
Confident, I wipe the blood from my eyes in that instant.
Crash-crash-crash-crash-
I encounter Hyeon-su, whose expression sends chills down my spine.
“….”
He grips his sword tightly with both hands, his face twisted in genuine fury.
Hyeon-su knows this is a game.
But he is a man who devoured tens of millions of people who believed in him, becoming stronger in the process.
A creature who sought to grow even more powerful by consuming the very knights who lived to protect him.
A wretch who, rather than repent for his sins, declared he would kill me and then seize Lucifer by the throat once more.
[Master Craftsman’s Pride]
A situation where defeat is inevitable.
The aura of unyielding pride momentarily freezes the Blood King in place, rendering him unable to move.
[0 seconds.]
Already, he faces a moment when recovery is possible.
Yet Master Craftsman’s Pride and the power of ‘Overwhelming’ prevent even a single fingertip from moving.
‘All I need is to spill blood….’
But he cannot move.
Master Craftsman’s Pride.
Overwhelming.
And.
[Rather than break]
His sword, clenched between gritted teeth, accelerates with blinding speed.
Kwakwakwakwakwakwakwak—!
[-1 second.]
The Blood King, struck by the tremendous impact, gains no time to absorb blood.
[-2 seconds.]
He slashes indiscriminately, and in his final moment, he clamps his teeth, attempting to absorb blood.
But before that.
Skaaaaagh—
Hyeon-su’s blade tears through him diagonally.
As the Blood King’s consciousness grows distant, he speaks.
“…What was my sin.”
He questions in the moment of death.
A candid confession about to follow.
“Born weak, desiring strength—why was that wrong….”
Kwazaaaagh!
“….”
Hyeon-su did not even permit his final words.
“A demon’s spawn has no right to speak.”
A being guilty of sins beyond redemption.
Hyeon-su feels adrenaline surging through his veins.
That adrenaline, released through his battle with the Blood King, sets his heart ablaze.
And it made me anticipate something else.
The Blood King was a king.
One of the kings leading the current era.
Of course, he was merely the most insignificant of the Five Seat Kings.
No, rather, those sitting upon those thrones might even feel displeased if called a king of the same Five Seats of Power.
[The First King falls.]
And today’s anticipation was different from usual.
Normally, I would wonder how many levels I would gain.
What treasures I would obtain—but this time, I anticipated something else.
[Chain Quest: Blood King completed]
Where the fallen Blood King had stood.
A tremendous light began to burst forth from that place.
That light began to spread across the entire Enya Kingdom.
[Purification begins.]
Hyeon-su, anticipating a new reward, walked toward somewhere.
*
*
*
Sword Master Lysen and Prak, heir of Spear Heaven, recalled Hyeon-su’s words.
‘You must not enter the kingdom. If the 200,000 troops and the Enya Kingdom Army truly clash, we may be annihilated.’
Lysen and Prak had ordered them to unleash only arrows and magic.
But the situation changed rapidly.
[Command of the Blood King]
The Enya Kingdom Army, which believed itself to be a million strong, could not emerge from the castle to attack them.
But by the Blood King’s power, all the troops were transformed into thralls and descended upon the 200,000, and among them were ordinary civilians.
“How…!”
Lysen was bewildered, watching civilians who didn’t even know how to fight rushing at him merely to bite and claw.
Lysen was a person of strong conviction.
In any wartime situation, he would not strike down civilians.
The problem was the real army mixed among the civilians.
Even those soldiers had lost their reason and swung their weapons indiscriminately without fear.
“Krraaaagh!”
“Grrrhhhgh!”
“Sword Master!”
“The enemy’s momentum is fierce!”
Thousands of our allies fell in an instant.
The reinforcements sent from the Fraham Kingdom faced the same situation.
The Enya Kingdom Army, which had been paralyzed by fear, terror, and overwhelming pressure and unable to charge, transformed into thralls and unleashed indiscriminate attacks.
“Ughh!”
The 200,000 troops were in crisis.
The Enya Kingdom Army had always been far superior to an army of two hundred thousand.
And Sword Master Lysen, having shoved aside a civilian once more, opened his mouth to command their deaths before the words caught in his throat.
“….”
It was because blood tears were streaming down the faces of the civilians.
“Krraaaaaaagh!”
Before those who had lost reason and attacked against their own will, Sword Master Lysen’s expression turned hollow.
Meanwhile.
Lucifer, walking toward the outside of the castle and cutting down all who stood before him, felt it.
‘I cannot purify them all.’
There were far too many.
Even with the Enya Kingdom’s collapse, they numbered close to a million.
It was impossible for twenty thousand soldiers and himself to cut them all down.
Especially when the faces were familiar ones he had to strike.
‘Is there nothing I can do…?’
Then.
Whoooooosh—
Light erupted from where the Blood King stood.
That light spreading toward the heavens was so beautiful and magnificent, even Saint Aria could see it.
That tremendous light soon exploded with a thunderous roar from above—BOOM—
And with it, crystalline formations of light, like frozen snow, began to descend across all of the Enya Kingdom.
The moment those light crystals made contact.
[Purification begins.]
Those who had become thralls against their will.
Those who had refused their humanity at the Blood King’s hand and lived half-lives of torment.
The common folk who had lunged to bite at soldiers.
The knights who had raised their blades with anguished cries to cut down the military.
“….”
“….”
“….”
All of them stopped.
It was instantaneous. The clash of weapons ceased, and a brief silence resonated through the air.
[You may find rest.]
Human life is beautiful precisely because it is finite and brief.
Their hearts trembled as they came to understand the anguish of infinite time.
And.
[You may continue to live.]
If death terrified them, they were shown that even their remaining years could be lived.
They uttered no words.
To those they had sought to attack, they whispered their apologies.
Then.
Thump, thump—
Footsteps echo toward those wrestling with the choice between rest and survival.
Lucifer, who had descended to the base of the castle wall, witnessed it.
A man in a brown coat stained with blood, his left arm cradled in his right hand, limping on one leg, walks toward the castle wall.
One million soldiers of the Enya Kingdom Army fix their gaze upon him alone.
Thump, thump—
Barely in his early twenties.
A young, inexperienced man stands atop the castle wall and surveys them all.
Lucifer beheld it.
“….”
In the eyes of the one million Enya Kingdom soldiers watching him—gratitude, respect, and exultation crystallizing like frost.
And the one million people of the Enya Kingdom understood.
The king was dead.
Therefore, they knew what choices lay open before them.
“Let some of you find peaceful rest.”
To him, who grants comfort without coercion, children unable to hide their joy cry out with cheers.
“Let others forge new lives.”
Those who chose life over death could not help but regard him with eyes different from the others.
They had no king now, and they needed a new place to call home.
If they lived, they would walk alongside him.
He speaks from atop the castle wall.
“But if you live, then live with all your might.”
Those words resonate through them like a tremor.
In the silence that follows.
Roooaaaaaarrrrr—!
A cry rings out, heralding the birth of the great Atlas Territory.
In this moment, whether destined for rest or for life, all raise their voices in acclamation for him alone.
A vibration spreads through Hyeon-su’s chest as he surveys them.
[Those who live shall serve you.]
A new era was dawning.

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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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