I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 15

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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 15. The Unchanging Man

If Charlotte’s secret art could do it, maybe… The thought kept creeping back into his mind.

Yet deep down, there was still a knot of something he couldn’t untangle.

Thud!

The footsteps of Cheon-an-gwi, heard once more, left him no time for further deliberation.

“If we fail, we both go down.”
“Yes, so you’ll need to keep its attention on you until I’m ready.”
“Damn it all.”

In the end, Belokin had made a gamble with Krash.

Forget everything else. First: survive.

That was all he could focus on.

Thud!

The intervals between footsteps had grown shorter without him noticing.

It was proof that Cheon-an-gwi was nearly upon them.

“I’m beginning.”

In that instant, Krash drew the blade he’d brought with him.

His eyes closed, and moments later, an Aura began rising slowly from Krash’s entire body.

Krash’s mind sank into the realm of Divine Sword Unity—where spirit and blade became one.

Watching this, Belokin’s pupils trembled violently.

The downpour of rain. The murk rising to his waist.

And the tightening presence of Cheon-an-gwi on top of it all.

Despite these countless obstacles, Krash’s mind had entered a state of absolute focus in a single instant—and Belokin had felt it.

‘What kind of concentration is this.’line>

How could it possibly be this sharp?

Belokin suddenly felt the violent pounding of his own heart.

Something ominous was creeping up through his gut—a gnawing sense of dread.

And moments later, his premonition proved accurate.

A blue Aura blossomed above Krash’s blade.

At first, it was only a handful of light.

But as the Aura layered and accumulated across the sword’s surface, it sent a chill of shock through Belokin.

The volume of Aura was certainly not large.

Merely the level of Expert Lower Grade, nothing more.

Yet the quality itself transcended all measure.

A transparent Aura that he felt he could never reach even after decades of training dwelled wholly within Krash’s single blade.

That height of mastery swept away Belokin’s thoughts in an instant, confounding him all the more.

No matter that Krash had learned secret arts from Charlotte—how had he achieved something like this?

His heart began to hammer in his chest once more.

This cannot be.

It cannot be like this.

It cannot……

“Sir.”

In the moment his limbs went numb and the color drained from his face—

Krash’s voice reached him.

In Krash’s bright blue eyes dwelt nothing but stillness.

“I ask your aid.”

And Belokin, only now grasping what that request was, raised his hand.

“Y-yes.”

The instant Belokin wove Ignis into Krash’s Aura—

Blue flames erupted with a clarity that transcended anything he himself had conjured.

The searing fire seemed ready to consume all it touched, and before it, Belokin felt infinitely small.

Thump-thump!

In the torrent of rain, Cheon-an-gwi now became starkly visible.

The Cheon-an-gwi, grown to an absurd size beyond all reason, carried terror in its very stride toward them.

Could he truly hold the line long enough?

That was the moment he thought it.

“Sir, it will be fine.”

Krash’s voice came to the anxious Belokin.

“There is more time than I anticipated. You need not draw its attention.”

And upon hearing those words, Belokin felt something heavy drop away inside him.

Krash must have spoken out of concern for him, yet those words felt as though they were saying he was not needed at all.

All he had done was grant Krash a divine skill—a gift of godly power.

Even that strength belonged to divinity, not to Belokin himself.

Then what was he doing here now?

The thought consumed Belokin’s mind entirely.

Krash’s blade rose slowly above his head.

Belokin’s gaze lifted with it, following the sword’s arc.

The blade, sheathed in Ignis, burned brilliantly even as torrential rain cascaded down, never dimming its luminous fire.

That flame burned far fiercer than it ever had in Belokin’s hands, throwing his drenched, bedraggled form into sharp and pitiful contrast.

That blade would surely cut down Cheon-an-gwi.

The power packed within it was unmistakable, absolute.

But what would become of him the moment that blade fell?

Belokin had done nothing against Cheon-an-gwi.

He had only tumbled about pathetically and fled.

Yet Krash, wielding his own strength, had cut the creature down.

That meant—

That was—

Wasn’t that saying he was beneath Krash?

The youngest one, trapped in Cheong-song-gwan.

If he stood below that youngest, what place did he have in Balheim?

“Ah… ah…”

Belokin’s lips, turned a sickly blue by the rain, trembled violently.

Rather, let the blade miss.

Do not bring down Cheon-an-gwi.

In that moment, Belokin prayed with such desperate fervor he forgot even the will to live.

And as if to shatter his final hope, despair fell from the sky.

One stroke.

In the instant Krash’s blade descended, for the briefest moment.

The torrential rain ceased.

Splash—the deluge returned!

And when the rain began pouring down again with its delayed fury.

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!

A sharp sound of splitting tore through the air.

The moment Belokin’s vision stretched forward, he saw it: Cheon-an-gwi split diagonally in two.

The creature offered no resistance as it was enveloped in flames that began at the diagonal cut, collapsing piece by piece.

In that instant of witnessing the kill, Belokin’s heart crumbled alongside it.

Thump.

Belokin sank to the ground without thinking.

The whole world was pointing to a single truth: he stood below Krash.

“You’re safe now.”

In that moment, Krash’s voice reached his ear, clear and distinct.

As if sensing the master’s death, the rain began to slow, and the swamp itself started to shrink.

When sunlight broke through the clouds and fell upon Krash’s face, Belokin saw it blazing with an almost unbearable brightness.

It was no longer the face of a penniless vagrant.

It was the radiant face of one moving forward.

And by contrast, Belokin’s face lay hidden beneath his own small shadow.

“Ha… hah.”line>

A hollow laugh spilled from his lips.

Slowly, Belokin began to rise.

His mind was a tangled mess of thoughts.

Yet one fact remained clear.

Krash had surpassed him.

And the most worthless creature in Balheim was himself.

The moment that truth settled, Belokin drew his sword.

Krash was exhausted from that last strike.

It had been an all-out blow, and even Belokin could sense it plainly.

“Die.”

Without hesitation, Belokin swung his blade toward Krash’s neck.

His broken face twisted into a grotesque grin at the thought of killing the younger man who would drag him down.

Clang!

But what his blade met was not the severing of the younger man’s neck—it was the sound of steel striking steel.

“Hah, heh.”

In that instant, laughter that sounded forced, barely contained, reached Belokin’s ears.

The moment his gaze turned toward Krash’s face, Krash looked back at him with a terrible smile.

“Belokin, I’m grateful you haven’t changed one bit.”

Though he couldn’t grasp the meaning of those words, Belokin understood something else.

That something dark and black was rising from Krash’s body.

“What—”

Startled, Belokin was just recovering his blade and attempting to summon Ignis when it happened.

No flame rose from his sword at all.

When Belokin’s eye widened at the realization, Krash gazed back at him and laughed with mocking delight.

“Looking for this?”

In that moment, black flames blazed forth from Krash’s sword, riding a dark current.

Belokin’s eye flew open wide as he recognized it—Ignis.

“What—you! What have you done!”

As Belokin cried out in panic, Krash shook the water from his wet hair once, and then—

with perfect casualness, he swung that blade toward Belokin.

Shriek!

Caught off guard by Krash’s use of Ignis, Belokin failed to defend against the unexpected assault.

“Aaaaagh!”

His chest split open, and he tumbled across the ground, engulfed in black flames.

“Belokin, you know what? When I was very small, I wanted to get along with my brothers.”

While he screamed in agony, Krash trudged steadily forward.

He was moving toward where Cheon-an-gwi waited.

“But no matter how hard I tried, you despised me. All because of that pitiful pride of yours.”

Then Krash cut off one of the creature’s cursed fingers, joint by joint.

“You were never the type to make choices like that.”

And before Belokin could cry out, Cheon-an-gwi’s fingers thrust into his gaping mouth.

“Ugh, aarrgh!”

As Cheon-an-gwi’s fingers shoved deeper into his mouth, Belokin let out a scream.

Yet Krash simply looked down at him with cold indifference.

After a moment, Belokin realized his last remaining eye was fading from sight.

Upon understanding this, he thrashed about all the more desperately, but it was already too late.

His eyes, his nose, his mouth—all of it had completely vanished.

“Gack, urrk!”

A strangled sound rattled from his throat.

Desperate for breath, he began writhing across the ground.

“Painful, isn’t it?”

Krash spoke without even a hint of a smile as he watched Belokin suffer.

“When you scarred my face, I rolled on the ground just like you.”

That day, when Belokin had burned his arm.

And eventually scarred his face so badly that Krash could not open his eyes until the Holy Maiden healed him.

Which was why Krash offered him no mercy.

As Belokin’s breathing grew more labored with each gurgling sound, and finally ceased altogether,

Krash exhaled softly and looked up at the sky.

The clear sky, now that the rain had stopped, was a blue so vivid it felt obscene.

Yet no matter how the clouds parted, his own heart would never be that blue.

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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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