I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 89

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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 89. Exposed

Krash tore forward, cutting through the Black Forest like a blade through silk.

The rainwater streaming along the forest evaporated the instant it touched his body.

Even the fierce black downpour couldn’t hold its form in his presence.

Crimson Garden had taken flight, drifting lazily above.

Yet despite her unhurried glide, the mass of dark clouds gathering beyond the forest carried an ominous weight.

-It’s coming.

The moment Crimson Garden transmitted her warning,

Crack—

A sharp, crackling sound split the air, and Krash came to a dead stop.

Boom-crack-thunder!

In that instant, a bolt of lightning plummeted from the clouds and struck the ground just ahead of him.

Before the brilliant flash that lit the entire landscape, Krash’s eyes burned quietly to life.

“Harpass.”

The moment he spoke that name, lightning cascaded from the clouds once more.

But Krash drew Ureoseong without a moment’s hesitation.

As the Aura poured into the blade and took its form, he swung it directly at the falling bolt.

Boom-clash-thunder!

With the explosion from Ureoseong, a dark streak of lightning split the descending bolt clean in two.

Krash’s Raionè had met the Century Erosion and detonated.

Having cleaved the lightning, Krash exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

At the same time, heat erupted from within his body, and he dropped low.

Crack-spring!

The ground warped beneath him as his muscles coiled like springs.

Boom!

He kicked off hard, launching himself high into the sky.

In the air, Krash steadied himself and fixed his gaze on the clouds above, where lightning continued to gather.

“How long do you plan to hide in those clouds?”

As electric light coated the blade of Ureoseong like a sheath, it became one perfect weapon.

Shortly after, the moment Krash drew forth the full power of the Melting Flame Erosion he had poured into the scabbard, pushing it to its peak—

Crack!

Along with the shattered scabbard of Raioner, Krash’s blade descended toward the roiling storm clouds.

Boom-boom-boom-crash!

The tempest of Black Flame, colliding with the belated lightning, swallowed the thunder whole and shattered the clouds to pieces.

Ever since entering the Demon Realm, he had been absorbing Century Erosion continuously.

Krash exhaled in wonder at the vastly greater power of his Black Flame compared to before.

At the same time, the moment he expended the Century Erosion, its power refilled his body instantly.

It was not unreasonable to say that Krash received an endless supply of Century Erosion power so long as his body could withstand it.

Perhaps that was why he felt a vitality unlike anything before.

He had come to face Harpass head-on knowing this truth.

But this exceeded even his imagination.

And yet, somewhere deep in his mind, a crimson bloodlike aura churned of its own accord.

‘Madness.’

The stronger the power of Century Erosion became, the more that madness crept insidiously into his thoughts.

At the same time, a fierce urge to kill welled up within Krash.

“Haah.”

Krash, falling through the torn clouds, exhaled a ragged breath.

It made him understand anew why Demaris, who had created the Extreme Blood Poison, had gone mad.

The mental corruption wrought by madness was severe.

In even a moment of lost focus, a sensation surged through his entire body as if to tear apart everything around him.

‘Eye Doll.’

So before the madness could intensify further, Krash forcibly suppressed it using the Eye Doll.

The turbulent emotions gradually began to subside.

For now, the Eye Doll was sufficient to maintain control.

But the reality was clear.

‘I must obtain the Thousand Kill Star.’

Without strengthening the Eye Doll further with the Thousand Kill Star, he would eventually be consumed by madness.

“This works out well.”

At least now he knew how much he could command the Century Erosion within the Golden Realm.

He’d pinned down its limits roughly as well.

Krash lifted his head, a sense of progress settling through him.

At that moment, a massive black bird-creature emerged from between the torn clouds.

A humanoid body of staggering size, crowned with a head that evoked a black raven.

Wings that dwarfed even its sprawling frame.

Legs tipped with talons sharp as a bird of prey’s—cruel and gleaming.

This was Harpass, the territorial lord of the Eastern Region.

A six-star Erosion Beast.

The kind that could only be hunted by an order of knights typically led by a Master-rank intermediate commander.

Krash had only just stepped into the realm of Expert-rank supreme.

By any reasonable measure, Harpass was an opponent he could not defeat.

And yet, matchups existed everywhere.

Within Century Erosion, as long as Krash’s body held out, he drew power from it infinitely.

Beyond that, he had ruthlessly mastered only those secret techniques that let him exceed his own limits.

What did that mean?

Simple.

Krash was, without exaggeration, optimized for fighting World-Eroding Species.

His goal was not to crush people beneath his heel and seize the strongest crown.

It was to prevent the collapse that Century Erosion would begin.

Boom!

The moment Krash’s feet touched earth, Harpass’s wings unfurled.

The wings were so vast that for an instant, the sky seemed to turn to night.

Then it happened.

Black feathers began to cascade from those spread wings.

The dark rain obscured them, made them nearly invisible.

But Krash was different.

Snap!

His Lightning Perception activated, perceiving every feather in the deluge of dark water.

As black flames surged atop Ureoseong, Krash’s blade moved.

Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!

With the blade’s cry echoing ceaselessly, the black flames rippled and swayed.

With almost prophetic precision, Krash’s sword cleaved through every feather.

Countless severed feathers embedded themselves into the ground.

Save for the spot where Krash stood, the earth bristled with black feathers like a dark thicket.

Yet not a single feather pierced the ground beneath his feet.

“Kee-eee-eee-eek!”

Harpass shrieked in irritation and wheeled through the sky in a violent spiral.

Harpass’s true target was Nisroch.

In the ordinary course of things, he would have simply passed Krash by without a second glance.

But the moment Krash appeared, Harpass found himself unable to look away.

Here was Krash, absorbing the power of Century Erosion in real time, growing stronger by the moment—prey too tempting to ignore.

If he devoured this one, how much further could he evolve?

With that thought, Harpass became utterly fixated on Krash.

It was an ancillary effect of Extreme Blood Poison, designed to lock his hunting instinct onto Erosion Beasts.

And that fixation manifested in action at once.

He ceased his wasteful barrage of feathers and began rotating through the air at tremendous speed.

Lightning erupted from his body, wreathing Harpass in crackling electricity.

His feathers bristled like a porcupine’s spines, each one now a razor-edged blade.

Crackle, crackle-snap!

In that instant, Harpass shifted course.

Diving downward, he vanished into the Black Forest in a heartbeat.

Silence fell over the woods.

Nothing but the patter of rain reached Krash’s ears now, no insect chorus.

Just moments before, Harpass had been deafening, shedding feathers ceaselessly.

This sudden quiet felt almost unnatural in its stillness.

Whoooosh—

With the black rain pouring down, the wind that swept through bent the dark trees slowly in its path.

Their movements conjured the image of spectral figures, casting an eerie, desolate atmosphere.

Krash’s ear twitched ever so slightly—standing as he was on the sole patch of ground untouched by feathers.

Splash!

In that instant, Harpass appeared.

Wings folded, feathers raised like blades, Harpass spun his body and dove toward Krash.

At the same moment, Krash’s blade moved in concert with his Lightning Perception.

Clang! Crack!

Krash’s sword and Harpass collided, a violent shower of sparks erupting between them.

Krash staggered back two full steps from the impact.

In that instant, Harpass vanished once more between the trees.

He was fast.

So fast that even Krash’s Lightning Perception could barely keep pace.

And that blow—even with the Melting Flame Erosion, it had been enough to drive Krash back.

The creature was cunning as well.

It exploited the terrain, attacking only from positions where it held the advantage.

This was the signature of Harpass, master of the Eastern Region.

Those who had hunted him in ages past had all met the same end: death.

Krash exhaled quietly amid the swaying Black Forest.

The flame-force of the Melting Flame Erosion dwelling in his body grew more intense by the moment, as if undergoing tempering.

Harpass was undoubtedly faster than him.

But there would be one opening.

Just one gap—that was all he needed to shatter the creature.

Krash’s sixth sense penetrated deeply into everything around him.

Beyond the trembling trees, he felt Harpass’s presence barely within reach, moving through the forest at near-sonic speed.

Despite the high-speed flight, Harpass did not collide with a single tree.

It was masterful aerial technique.

And still the creature grew faster.

As if determined to end this in a single strike.

It accelerated relentlessly, as though intent on overwhelming Krash’s sixth sense.

And at the moment when the high-speed assault reached its crescendo—

Krash’s back foot scraped hard against the ground, driving backward.

Crack!

As Krash twisted his head to the side, the sound of foliage tearing filled the air.

Along with that resonant cry came a single black feather, sharp as a blade.

Whoosh!

And with almost no delay, Harpass revealed his true position—directly opposite the side where Krash had pivoted his body.

Using his high-speed movement, the moment he hurled the black feather from the undergrowth,

he had already flown in the opposite direction and made himself visible.

A velocity that transcended the speed of sound itself.

Harpass sensed victory within his grasp.

If Krash tried to dodge the feather, his wings would cleave the man in two.

If Krash tried to block the attack, the feather would lodge itself in his body.

The former would end everything in that single moment.

The latter would merely mean taking longer to kill wounded prey.

Either way, a mortal wound was inevitable.

When Harpass let out the eerie laugh befitting a nightmare bird,

‘Melting Flame Erosion.’

Krash’s left hand—the one not holding a sword—extended backward.

Simultaneously, his upper body spun to face Harpass in an instant.

He had chosen the latter option that Harpass had anticipated.

The second stage of Melting Flame Erosion, now activated, shattered the limits of his flesh and surpassed his original speed by an unfathomable margin in that single instant.

As a result, Krash managed—barely—to turn toward Harpass.

‘One second.’

Only a fleeting moment.

Within Krash’s accelerated mind, time felt as though it had frozen.

Between the soaring black flames, the golden blade of Ureoseong revealed itself.

Even Harpass, having transcended the sound barrier, now felt slow in comparison to Krash.

At that level of accelerated cognition, Krash’s body moved in perfect synchronization with his mind’s commands, drawing the blade forward.

Thwomp—

In an instant, the extended blade lunged toward Harpass’s throat, baring fangs.

With a speed so absurd that even Harpass could not react, the black blade met no resistance as it pierced through his feathers and drove home.

As the throat flesh began to tear, Harpass’s pupils dilated enormously.

He had realized that he could not follow Krash’s movements at all.

But was that really any reason to think he wasn’t an Erosion Beast?

Even as his throat tore open, Harpass unfurled his right wing.

He meant to rend Krash to shreds before the boy could claim his neck.

Rip!

But before the wing fully extended, something hurtled through the air and lodged itself in the feather spine.

The result was that Harpass’s wing never reached Krash — it snapped instead.

Horror flooded Harpass’s eyes.

What had struck the wing was a feather — one that Harpass himself had thrown at Krash.

In that split second, Krash had seized the incoming feather with Black Hood, and drove it through his enemy’s wing.

Clang!

The instant a single second of time elapsed.

Something severed with a sound like splitting wood, and Harpass’s body tore through the rain-drenched air, shattering a tree in its wake.

Crash!

He had been flying so fast that even headless, he continued onward for some distance before finally stopping.

An instant later, Harpass’s severed head rolled belatedly across the ground.

His eyes held one emotion clearly: he had never imagined he would die here.

“I knew it would come to this.”

Krash drove Ureoseong firmly into Harpass’s skull, as if delivering a finishing blow.

Crack!

A Six-Star Lord of the Eastern Region fell to a boy.

Krash exhaled sharply, heat radiating from his breath.

Channeling Melting Flame Erosion had taken its toll — the aftereffects came on for a moment.

But in the Demon Realm’s unique environment, he could feel the power replenishing itself.

‘In the Golden Realm, I won’t lose to anyone.’

A thread of confidence began to take root.

Krash, who would soon face Century Erosion at its most violent.

Melting Flame Erosion was the supreme technique with which to stand against such power.

‘I can hold the line.’

When Krash clenched both fists with conviction—

Krash had poured all his focus into the fight with Harpass.

Crackle—

Only then did he realize, belatedly, that someone had drawn near.

“Krash?”

A voice tinged with surprise rang out.

Krash turned his head toward the sound.

There, hair the color of his own drifted softly through the air.

Lilish Balheim.

His sister stood watching the scene unfold, eyes wide with shock.

‘That bastard Reblian.’

Did he really alert Lilish in the chaos of that skirmish?

But he’d never expected that Lilish, who was already engaged with Nisroch, would arrive here so quickly.

Krash’s expression darkened.

How in the world was he supposed to explain this situation?

That he—the one known as a half-rate hunter—was taking down a six-star Erosion Beast alone.

But Krash’s worry didn’t last long.

Because the words that followed from Lilish’s lips froze him solid.

“How are you using Ignis…?”

Charlotte couldn’t recognize it, nor the Chief Steward, nor anyone else.

Velkin’s Ignis—fused with Century Erosion into Black Flame and therefore unrecognizable to all.

Yet Lilish had seen through it.

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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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