I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 75

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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 75. Butterfly

Inside the rattling carriage.

Krash watched the Armed Princess before him, her bewilderment laid bare for anyone to see.

“…Are you out of your mind? You clearly know my real name, so you must be a World Eroder. Which one? Which mad bastard without a shred of sense is wearing Balheim’s skin and thinking he can wage war against me? Are you the one who got disarmed by me?”

A woman obsessed with weapons, wrapped head to toe in arms.

But examining the performance of each weapon individually made it easy enough to gauge just how dangerous she was.

Especially her primary arsenal—the Thirteen Demon Weapons—held so many lethal pieces that the moment even one was drawn, Krash couldn’t guarantee his own survival.

‘Still, I wonder how she moves with such agility loaded down like that.’

Krash had seen her fight firsthand, and he sucked his teeth at the memory.

Right now, constrained by the carriage’s tight quarters, she was carrying everything on her person—but outside, in open ground, her combat style would shift entirely.

“You talk too much.”

So Krash had no intention of letting this drag on.

She was already mistaking him for a World Eroder anyway.

He’d play it aggressive.

“Abandon the Thunder Stone and get out.”
“What?”

The Armed Princess gave an astonished reaction.

But even so, she didn’t rush forward with an attack.

It was her natural temperament—caution incarnate.

‘This bastard’s got something up his sleeve.’

World Erodeers, by and large, each possessed one unique ability or another.

The Hellfire from moments ago had stung a little, but it wasn’t something she couldn’t handle.

But if he harbored a different ability, she honestly sensed it would become a headache.

What troubled her most, though, wasn’t anything else—it was the World Erosion power emanating from Krash.

It was faint.

The power she felt was faint—far too faint.

‘Unless.’

He was concealing the full extent of his World Erosion power so skillfully that she couldn’t perceive it in its entirety.

‘Maybe I should pull out one of the Demon Weapons instead.’

A way to finish this quickly flickered through her mind.

‘No. There’s no gain in showing my hand first when I don’t even understand the situation yet. I can always do it after I’ve figured things out.’

And there was something else that bothered her — the fact that Krash belonged to Balheim.

She wanted nothing to do with anything connected to a Balrog.

The world was just full of things she despised.

And so she drew the axe from her back.

To make that dream come true, she absolutely had to bring this new child called Urushio into her fold.

“The way you’re running your mouth like that — I see you’ve got no survival instinct whatsoever.”

So she made her decision.

First, she would strip bare every move her opponent had to offer.

Watching the armed princess, Krash maintained an outwardly composed expression while exhaling silently within.

‘The bluff worked.’

If she simply charged at him intent on killing, mindlessly and without restraint, there was nothing Krash could do about it.

The gap in ability between the armed princess and himself was far too wide.

But that remark was his only chance to seize the advantage over her.

‘The nature of the 8th Layer.’

Krash glanced sideways at the window, where the outside scenery rattled past in a blur.

‘If I can satisfy that condition.’

Then the armed princess would have no choice either.

From here on, everything would depend purely on his ability to endure.

He’d never intended to face someone of this caliber from the start, but there was nothing for it.

If he had to fight, then fight he would.

Whoosh—

In that moment, the armed princess moved first.

With her first step forward, what came at him first was the axe.

An axe technique of a caliber entirely different from her bouts with the butcher’s hounds descended upon Krash.

‘The Exploding Axe.’

The moment Krash recognized what the weapon was, he didn’t meet it head-on — he immediately retreated.

Boom!

With the explosion came black smoke that filled the carriage in an instant.

The Exploding Axe’s effect was simple: blast and smoke.

A simple effect, but in the confined space of the carriage, the smoke was devastatingly effective at obscuring vision.

Through that veil of smoke, a lone silver sword—bare of ornament—suddenly pierced through and shot forward.

‘A sword that moves freely. The Star Pearl Sword.’

Rather than meet it directly, Krash twisted his head and narrowly dodged the blade.

And simultaneously, he intercepted the spear that flew in alongside the sword.

Clang!

“Mm?”

Through the smoke, the eyes of the Armored Princess narrowed.

Krash had reacted as if he’d predicted her attack.

“You’re using something strange.”

The silver sword weaved through the smoke and returned to the empty scabbard hanging at her waist.

“And it seems you know something about my weapons too.”

Well, of course.

‘I’m the one who collected and catalogued every last weapon of yours after you died.’

Such was the curse of the errand boy.

So instead of answering, Krash opened his Sixth Sense.

“Damn, that’s annoying.”

In that moment, her spear began thrusting out wildly.

The crimson Aura wrapped around the spear bared its fangs with lethal intent.

So Krash, relying on his Sixth Sense, deployed a blunt, nearly predictive defense with grim determination.

Each time, sparks of Hellfire scattered and slowly began to cling to her.

His arms throbbed with pain.

Even though his Moon Resonance Body allowed him to constantly push his physical limits through Hellfire Erosion, keeping up was becoming overwhelming.

But he couldn’t afford to merely defend.

The Armored Princess was still uncertain about Krash’s true identity.

Before she could confirm that he was the weaker one, Krash had to press the advantage however slightly.

Crash!

In that instant, Krash’s blade met the spear’s shaft.

Then immediately, descending along the shaft, he drove his blade toward Crimson Garden.

“Ha!”

With Crimson Garden’s sharp cry, she released the spear and her hand flew to her waist.

In a blink, two daggers drawn in a cross formation clashed against Krash’s blade.

Clang!

The Hellfire erupting from the impact flared and scattered through the air.

But Crimson Garden paid it no mind.

Krash’s Hellfire could not deliver a fatal wound to her.

She knew this well, so she poured strength into both arms without hesitation.

Crack, crash!

As Crimson Garden’s arms extended, the force transmitted through the daggers sent Krash’s sword flying into empty air.

Her strength was so overwhelming that Krash nearly lost his grip entirely.

Without missing the instant when Krash’s blade hung suspended, Crimson Garden immediately thrust both daggers forward like a viper’s strike.

Her target was Krash’s throat.

By the moment the daggers arrived, his throat would be crushed to pulp.

“Hup!”

Seeing this, Krash poured Hellfire Erosion sharply into his right arm, the one gripping his sword.

The surging power of Hellfire Erosion broke through its limit in an instant, accelerating his arm downward.

Boom!

But what Krash had struck was none other than the carriage floor.

Between the scattered Hellfire.

Crimson Garden’s body dispersed like a serpent shedding its skin.

‘Extinction Fang.’

Krash recognized what those twin daggers were.

At the same moment, he released his sword from his right hand and swung his left arm behind him in a wide arc.

‘Black Hood.’

As his left arm swung, a blade materialized in his hand.

Then the Extinction Fang that appeared behind him collided with Krash’s blade.

Clang!

Refusing to yield ground, Krash forced more Hellfire Erosion into his legs, holding his position with stubborn determination.

Crimson Garden’s eyes twisted viciously at the sight.

The strike had been aimed squarely at his throat, yet he’d blocked it far too easily.

“Damn beast!”

Crimson Garden immediately drove her left knee upward.

Whoosh!

In that same instant, the Star Pearl Sword leapt from its sheath at her waist.

Once more it flew toward Krash of its own accord, just as before.

Krash abandoned the test of strength, yielding to her power as he retreated.

Simultaneously, his sweeping blade met the incoming Star Pearl Sword.

But this time, the Star Pearl Sword didn’t return to her—it wheeled about again, targeting Krash anew.

Such was the nature of the Star Pearl Sword: strike it, and it attacked again.

As Krash moved to evade it, Crimson Garden—who’d already hurled the Extinction Fang into the air—was already swinging the Exploding Axe.

The Exploding Axe, broad as a two-handed weapon, swept horizontally with such reach that the cramped carriage offered almost nowhere to escape.

‘Damn it—she won’t even let me catch my breath!’

Boom!

The moment the Exploding Axe met Krash’s blade, a detonation erupted and sent him tumbling across the floor.

Caught in the blast radius, his vision swam for an instant.

Yet his Sixth Sense screamed at him.

Roll again. Now.

Crack! Boom!

The moment Krash rolled away, the Exploding Axe crashed down where he’d been, detonating in a burst of flame.

But Crimson Garden had no intention of stopping.

As Krash tumbled across the floor, she bore down relentlessly, raising the Exploding Axe again and again, determined to finish him.

“Look at him scramble. I hear even worms can squirm when you step on them!”

With that taunting remark, she drove the Exploding Axe down one last time at the spot where Krash had been, then released it from her grip.

Then, in one fluid motion, she drew a massive blade from her back and raised it high overhead.

“Let’s see if this one runs away too.”

The moment Krash saw it, his mind sharpened.

That damned woman.

In that instant, her great sword rose to strike the carriage ceiling before descending upon Krash with devastating force.

Crash!

Where the enormous blade came down—massive enough to touch the far wall of the carriage—

Krash barely managed to raise his sword and meet the great blade head-on.

Tremor, tremor—

His arms shook visibly, betraying just how hard he was straining to withstand this blow.

A great sword that could freely increase and decrease its size and weight—the Formless Great Sword.

And true to its nature, Krash felt a weight that threatened to crush and shatter him at any moment.

Just like before, he’d wanted to conserve the second stage of Hellfire Erosion as much as possible.

But if he gave ground here, the princess would catch on.

‘Damn it. Even bluffing is killing me.’

Before he could be crushed flat, Krash immediately drew forth Hellfire Erosion.

Clang!

The surge of power from his heated body was so violent that even the princess couldn’t react for an instant.

Krash’s force lifted the Formless Great Sword briefly into the air.

In that gap—

Krash poured every flame of Hellfire Erosion into the Black Sword as he raised it for an upward strike.

Whoosh!

In the moment the flames surged fiercer than ever—

“Hah!”

With a sharp intake of breath, Krash immediately drew the blade downward.

A crescent of hellfire swept toward the princess.

She judged at once that she couldn’t simply block this, so she released the Formless Great Sword and raised her wrist.

A strange chain-like pattern erupted from her wrist, coiling before her like a shield.

Crash!

Within the roar that burst forth and the rippling of Hellfire—

Krash felt both arms trembling from the backlash of Hellfire Erosion.

At the same time, the smoke flowing from his mouth was so scorching it felt as though it burned his throat.

Sweat dripped steadily down his face.

In the span of this brief exchange, Krash had brushed with death more than once, and now a sickening vertigo overtook him.

If he’d made even a single mistake, Krash would be a corpse by now.

‘Eye Puppet.’

So Krash summoned the Eye Puppet and forced down the surge of tension coursing through him.

Instead, he kept his expression as relaxed as possible, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

He needed to appear as a World Eroder concealing hidden reserves of power.

At that, the armored princess before him—chains clattering as she drew them back with her arm—twisted her eyes into a cruel grin.

“You were holding back. That’s it.”

Convinced that his last assault had been just a glimpse of his true strength, she laughed with cruel delight.

“But that’s not nearly enough to touch me.”

Krash, breathing hard, heard those words and began to laugh softly.

“What is it, little one? What’re you smirking about?”

Watching her make no attempt to hide her displeasure, he raised the Black Sword slowly.

True to its reputation as a paragon of durability, the Black Sword had weathered the assault without so much as a scratch, its jet-black form unmarred.

He’d have to thank Crimson Garden for procuring a blade like this.

Tick, tick-tack—

Krash’s eyes darted across the carriage, tracking the Hellfire spreading hungrily through its wooden frame.

Roughly five minutes left.

“Sua Delpia—or should I say, Butterfly.”

Krash spoke her true name with a contemptuous smile.

“In heat, are we? Stop your mewling.”

Twitch—

Her ears and tail, flushed with the heat of her rage, shot upright with a sudden snap.

“You bastard!”

Watching the armored princess’s fury, Krash let his eyes burn crimson within the Hellfire.

All the while harboring thoughts of how satisfying it would be to throw a cat from a moving carriage.

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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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