I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 117

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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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Episode 117. The Third Stage of Annihilation Erosion

Haring, hearing Krash’s shout, stretched out her leg a moment too late.

Krash had no choice but to seize her arm and pull her back while swinging the Lioneer.

Whoosh—

The Black Flame’s slash tore through space, striking Juyo’s right arm.

The explosion that followed sent Krash and Haring reeling backward in a sharp retreat.

Yet even through the billowing smoke, the darkness pouring from the Crystal Skull continued to stretch toward them.

Krash quickly tucked Haring against his side and bolted from the spot.

There was good reason—he recognized exactly what that darkness was.

‘Night.’

He’d moved to suppress Juyo’s connection to the God of Night as swiftly as possible.

But somehow the conditions had aligned, and the God of Night had begun to stir.

‘Damn it.’

His luck seemed to run particularly thin in situations like this. Krash’s brow furrowed sharply.

“Put me down.”

Haring’s voice reached him in that moment.

She wore the expression of someone deeply affronted at being carried about like a sack of grain.

The moment Krash released her, Haring landed with the grace of a falling cat and moved to stand beside him.

“I was in a hurry.”
“I know.”

Well, that was something.

Krash fixed his gaze forward as she spoke.

The Crystal Skull that had rested in Juyo’s right hand had turned pitch black.

At the same time, starlight began to shimmer slowly in the eyes of the black skull.

The character of the surrounding space had shifted entirely.

It felt as though they were trapped within night itself, gazing up only at the star-strewn sky.

Haring’s hair stood on end, her lips pressed into a thin line.

Krash’s own reaction was equally unwelcoming.

He understood what this sensation meant.

When a god reveals itself in the human realm, mortals are seized by an impulse beyond comprehension.

And that impulse is infinite reverence toward the god.

But Krash knows better.

“A nameless god is just Mental Interference.”

This is a psychic attack.

Whoosh!

Flames ignited deep within Krash’s body, forcibly rousing his consciousness.

He could repel the Mental Interference of a nameless god with Ignis, burning his own flesh as a shield—unlike what a superior god might inflict.

Physical shock was the surest way to reclaim one’s senses.

“Haring, use a poison on yourself—something you can still detoxify.”

Krash offered the counsel to Haring, whose hair still stood on end, frozen in paralysis.

At his words, Haring too belatedly triggered Manbok Tusal.

“Ugh.”

Blood dripped from her lips as light flickered back into her eyes.

Pain lingered, but her body obeyed her commands.

Haring’s gaze slid toward Krash.

Manbok Tusal was a forbidden art—poison and antidote deployed in a single breath.

To break free from the Mental Interference moments ago, Haring had wielded a potent toxin.

Her clouded mind hadn’t the clarity to calculate the precise dosage needed to wake herself.

As someone schooled in poisons, she’d had no choice but to use a strength that made her swallow her own saliva in shock.

Yet she could detoxify herself. No problem there.

Krash, on the other hand, could not.

He had to absorb the shock with his body alone.

‘To break free from Mental Interference, he must have given himself at least as much impact as I did.’

Yet his face remained utterly unchanged.

‘…Are all Balheim soldiers like this?’

As Haring regarded Krash with wonder,

Krash fixed his attention on the skull before him.

Then, with a hollow rattle, the skull’s jaws ground open.

“Dare to trespass in my tomb. Brave little grave robber.”

Every word that fell from his lips sent a creeping sensation across Krash’s skin, as if fine hairs were standing on end.

But separate from that fear, Krash’s eyes were slowly beginning to open.

The God of Night had referred to Krash by name and called him a grave robber.

Another word for grave robber.

Thief.

And the skill Krash possessed.

Black Hood.

The God of Night knew about the god with whom Krash had made a contract.

＊ ＊ ＊

Black Hood.

He had been not so very much younger when he first met the god who had granted him this skill.

Contracts with gods, people said, were always extraordinary.

The skill bestowed by a god was a power beyond the human.

A skill that transformed into something entirely different depending on how one wielded it.

So many had always yearned to possess such a skill themselves.

But not everyone in the world was blessed with such fortune.

Crash!

And Krash, too, had been among the unlucky.

Beaten senseless in a mock duel, Krash tumbled across the floor.

Sixteen years old.

It had been barely a month since his enrollment at the academy.

Like others, he had been unable to enroll at the standard age of fifteen.

So he had trained a year longer than everyone else, with desperate intensity.

And through sheer stubbornness, he had managed to gain admission to Rahelern Academy despite his meager talent.

Compared to the prodigies, he was hopelessly inadequate—but with training, he could reach the standard of an ordinary knight.

But ordinary knight level.

At Rahelern Academy, that was useless trash talent.

‘Damn it. You know you can’t do that—stop wasting your strength.’

Inside the training grounds of the Martial Arts Arena.

Krash heard the contemptuous glances and voices directed at him.

‘Ptui.’

He spat the blood pooling in his mouth.

His condition was an absolute mess.

What was happening now was a mock bout.

In that mock bout, Krash currently held the last-place ranking.

‘Don’t you feel ashamed, bearing the name of Valheim? And you can’t even fight with dignity.’

Had he injured one of his eyes?

His vision darkened on one side.

Krash squinted and stared at his opponent through the narrowed eye.

A classmate.

A male from Poseus in the Four Kingdoms, one year younger than himself.

Derek Orman.

One of the Four Houses of Poseus, called the new golden standard, and someone whose name was thrown around everywhere.

Krash knew it well.

He was only able to set foot in Rahelern Academy thanks to the name of Valheim.

These creatures standing before him were beyond anything he could manage.

But this was all he could do.

‘Shut your mouth, you vermin!’

Krash gripped his sword and swung it at him.

Crack!

The spear shaft that came flying struck Krash’s jaw upward, and his consciousness scattered.

Watching Krash tumble across the floor, Derek clicked his tongue.

‘If your skill is lacking, at least fix that pathetic mouth of yours.’
‘Derek! Stop fooling around and come over here! Arthur is doing a mock bout!’
‘Really?’

The children rushed along in a crowd.

Krash lay alone on the ground.

The sky was damnably high.

‘It hurts.’

He felt a dull ache from being struck across his body in multiple places.

Krash followed the professor’s instruction and made his way to the Infirmary.

Rolling around somewhere every day had made the Infirmary a place he knew all too well by now.

Outside the Infirmary.

Children’s voices echoed through the air.

Each pursuing their own dreams, the students were brimming with excitement.

Not yet in their twenties despite being called adults.

All of them were living out their youth in full.

But Krash sat alone in the Infirmary, tending to his own wounds while the nurse was away.

There’s no paradise in a place you run to, or so they say.

Even at Rahelern Academy, where he had fled from Balheim, Krash was alone.

‘Damn it.’

A curse slipped from his lips.

Krash ran his fingers through his dark blue hair as though trying to tear it out.

If he came from an ordinary family instead of Balheim, he wouldn’t be treated like this.

But this hair color and the name Balheim clung to him like a permanent label.

And they never would come off, not in his whole life.

‘If only.’

If he had even one skill.

Krash covered his face with his hand and dragged it upward.

What was the point of thinking about it now?

He stepped out of the Infirmary, bandages still wrapped around him.

‘That kind of treatment’s going to make it worse.’

In that moment, Krash heard a voice.

When he turned his head, he found someone sitting on the windowsill of the Infirmary.

Inside the darkened Infirmary.

Sunlight pouring from above cast a shadow across the girl’s back.

A face so pale it barely seemed human.

And above it, long black hair swayed with the summer breeze.

The distant cry of cicadas fading behind her.

When the girl’s gaze met his, she smiled—a smile that seemed to captivate.

The girl in clothes he’d never seen before spoke.

“No matter how I try to treat it, it’s already infected beyond repair.”

A girl whose name he didn’t even know.

And she, of all people.

Was the god who had given Krash the Black Hood.

Krash stood with a rigid expression before the skull in which the God of Night dwelt.

Krash knew nothing of why the god had given him the Black Hood that day.

The god had said nothing about him, and had not shown himself once since.

He only sensed the god’s presence whenever he felt the power of the skill the god had granted him.

This was a form of contract entirely different from all others.

So Krash had always wondered.

Who exactly was the god who had given him the Black Hood.

“God of Night, do you know who the god I made a contract with is?”

When Krash asked, the hollow eyes of the skull gleamed red.

“It seems you don’t even know what entity you’ve joined hands with.”

He knows.

This creature—it knows.

Krash’s eyes shone with a different kind of light.

He had never expected the moment to resolve the question he’d carried all this time would arrive like this.

“I’d like to have a conversation.”

Krash made the proposal first.

The God of Night’s night was necessary, but matters concerning his own god were equally important.

So he wanted to try speaking with him somehow, if possible.

The skull fell silent for a moment after hearing Krash’s proposal.

Clack-clack-clack!

Then abruptly the skull began moving its teeth against each other.

Krash realized the God of Night was sneering at him.

When Krash’s expression twisted, the skull that had been clicking its teeth in laughter for a while suddenly stopped.

“Why would I speak with you, a grave-robber who disturbed my rest?”

Damnable creature.

From the very start, he had no intention of engaging in conversation.

In that instant, the night trembled around the God of Night.

Then, the Erosion Inspector Juyo, who had lost consciousness moments before, was suddenly on his feet.

Though “on his feet” was hardly the right way to describe it.

His head had been devoured by the pitch-black night and was nothing but hollow emptiness.

“How amusing. That someone coveted my power would grant me the means to wield it anew.”

Between the arm gripping the skull and Juyo’s severed arm, a viscous darkness poured forth.

The darkness flowed together, reconnecting, restoring his arm to its original form.

Whoosh!

In that moment, the Black Flame descended upon him once more.

With a single gesture, the God of Night erased the approaching Black Flame.

Then, as the skull’s hollow gaze turned toward the space where Krash had been, it found only emptiness.

Krash had seized the opportunity and fled immediately.

“Pathetic.”

The God of Night’s hand extended forward.

Darkness spilled from his grasp and began to seep directly into the ground beneath.

“Let us see you flee freely within my Tomb.”

Boom, boom, boom!

The resonance of something vast stirring began to radiate from everywhere at once.

The Invasive Species, corrupted by the God of Night’s darkness, had begun to move as one.

What they hunted were all those who had entered this Tomb.

Soon, all the intruders would be torn to shreds by their fangs, now further strengthened by the power of night.

Yet the God of Night had overlooked one thing.

Tap—

With the sound of approaching footsteps, the God of Night’s gaze turned backward.

Clang!

In that moment, a golden blade surged toward the skull, striking before it with a violent crash.

The hollow gaze within the God of Night’s skull flickered.

The one who had thrust the sword at him was none other than Krash.

He had thought Krash was fleeing—but he had not fled at all.

Krash had merely feigned a retreat.

“A skill.”

The God of Night recognized what Krash had done.

It was precisely as he suspected—Krash’s ability to veil his presence and form came from Haring’s skill.

Haring’s skill: Invisible.

It was this very skill that had allowed him to approach the Erosion Inspector from behind.

Yet Krash stood alone—Haring was nowhere near him.

The Crystal Skull, sensing that Haring was moving independently while cloaked in Invisible, ground its teeth.

“Tricks.”

The Crystal Skull let out a contemptuous laugh.

It was meaningless, all of it.

For even Krash’s sneak attack had failed to penetrate the barrier that protected it.

In that instant, black pillars erupted from beneath the ground.

Pillars that blinded the eyes in darkness the moment they made contact.

Krash retreated, evading them.

Smoke began to seep slowly from Krash’s lips.

The World Erosion dwelling within his body blazed, and Annihilation Erosion began to manifest.

Seeing this, the God of Night’s eyes flared with intensity.

From the moment they had first met, he sensed it.

The power flowing from Krash’s body was unmistakably World Erosion.

“You grave-robber. You’ve laid your hands on something you should never have touched.”

Krash did not answer.

Instead, he tempered his flesh, pushing ever onward.

His burning body was already entering the second stage of Annihilation Erosion.

Yet Krash felt it was not enough.

‘Even at this level, I cannot overcome the God of Night.’

A nameless god he might be, but a god he remained.

The divine power pouring from the skull far exceeded Krash’s own.

Trivial, compared to the full strength of his true form.

Yet it overwhelmed Krash nonetheless.

‘There were only two ways to survive this.’

One was for Haring to succeed in the task he’d entrusted to her in his absence.

The other was to smash that Crystal Skull, imbued with the God of Night’s power.

Neither was simple.

But if it could be done, he was resolved to do both.

So then.

“Crimson Garden.”
—A sigh.

The moment Krash called out, Crimson Garden’s disapproving exhale spilled forth.

“I’ll have to use the third one.”
—Can you handle it?
“It’s my specialty.”

As he spoke, Krash drew the Lioneer down to his side.

At the same time, drawing in his breath, he cleanly severed one of the curses he’d been maintaining.

Krash’s eyes flooded crimson, and his mind along with them.

—You bastard, keep this up and your brain will rot away.

A soft thud.

That was the moment.

“Hm?”

The God of Night sensed that the air around him had changed entirely.

And he understood what had shifted it—and around whom.

From a boy who stood with the Lioneer lowered to his side,

quietly exhaling smoke from his mouth.

‘What is—’

The skull’s eye sockets flickered slowly through the darkness.

Then, the moment the God of Night perceived something,

an explosion tore through the air.

Juyo’s body—and with it, the body inhabited by the God of Night—crashed through the Tomb’s wall and tumbled away.

He flew all the way to the corridor on the far side of the Tomb.

The barrier forged from the power of night shook violently.

At the same time, the skull’s eye sockets wavered for the first time with something like confusion.

Because he still didn’t understand what had just struck him.

Tap, tap.

Something fell from the shattered wall with a soft sound.

When the God of Night’s gaze turned toward it, Krash was there.

His pupils blazed crimson, and a red aura rippled around his body.

At the same moment, Krash’s Lioneer gleamed a brilliant scarlet—utterly transformed from before.

The God of Night’s eyes widened.

What Krash had just done remained incomprehensible to him.

Smoke curled from between Krash’s lips.

Simultaneously, the explosive force pouring from his body transcended anything that had come before.

The curse Krash had just erased.

It was none other than the Eye Doll.

During training with Crimson Garden, Krash’s Eye Doll had once collided with another curse and cancelled it out.

As a result, two forces within Krash’s body had simultaneously run amok.

One was the madness of World Erosion.

The other was the murderous intent of Heavenly Killing Nature.

When the two monsters began to writhe wildly against each other.

Krash discovered something entirely new.

The madness and the murderous intent of Heavenly Killing Nature were similar, yet incapable of coexisting.

Perhaps because of this, they collided and clashed with each other, neutralizing one another like walking a razor’s edge.

Two monsters that would ordinarily devour his mind were instead checking each other, their power divided.

The moment one side’s weight tipped heavier—it would be finished.

Krash’s mind would be consumed immediately.

Yet the force born from those collisions flowed entirely into Krash’s body.

The power of World Erosion, amplified dramatically in a single explosive moment thanks to the madness.

The physical strength forcibly drawn forth through the murderous intent that Heavenly Killing Nature possessed by nature.

The instant these two forces took root within Krash.

Krash beheld a new realm.

The third stage of Annihilation Erosion.

Annihilation Asura.

‘Ten seconds.’

Krash had reached his apex—his strongest hour.

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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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