I Just Subscribed and It’s the Best Hunter of All Time - Chapter 192
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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 192.
Jung Han-sung set aside all other questions and voiced his most pressing concern.
The male Ranker held up a single finger.
“A thousand years.”
He spoke with a deeply satisfied smile.
“Exactly a thousand years.”
At those words, Cho Cheon-woong and Maria’s expressions hardened, as did Jung Han-sung’s own.
It was inevitable.
A thousand years was an incomprehensibly vast span of time.
Korea itself, the nation where Jung Han-sung currently dwelled, had existed for scarcely two hundred years.
The male Ranker delighted in their reactions and continued speaking.
“Over those long millennia, countless souls have entered this place. But precious few have ever left.”
He leaned forward.
“Though the probability of escaping alive isn’t entirely zero, in truth, having come this far, you’d be wise to abandon such hopes.”
“You’ll dispose of us, then?”
“Dispose? What a callous word!”
The male Ranker spoke with exaggerated theatricality.
“You shall become part of my collection, taking your place here. Behold.”
As he spoke, he gestured to one side. On cue, the adjacent wall trembled and slowly ground open.
What lay revealed within were corpses—preserved with meticulous care, perfectly maintained against decay.
As a Necromancer Commander, Jung Han-sung recognized them instantly: they were all crafted undead.
Unable to suppress his curiosity, Jung Han-sung asked.
“You command spatial magic, temporal magic, and necromancy all at once?”
“Indeed! It seems your perception is sharp, having penetrated this far.”
The male Ranker spoke thus, then placed a hand upon his chest.
“Now that I think of it, I’ve never introduced myself! My name is Kaltar. I am the master of this Fortress.”
Kaltar spoke these words and made a casual gesture with his hand.
A soft whisper filled the air.
The undead arrayed along the wall began to rise and walk forward.
Jung Han-sung observed them with keen attention.
‘Their quality is exceptional.’
The caliber of undead could be gauged from their movements alone—revealing the creator’s mastery.
Though these undead were clearly ancient creations, their movements were nearly indistinguishable from those of the living.
This spoke to meticulous craftsmanship and undeniable skill.
And there was one more intuitive method to assess their caliber.
“Such malevolent aura….”
Maria furrowed her brow, murmuring softly.
She too had sensed the intensity of the killing intent radiating from these creatures.
Each undead emanated a suffocatingly dense malevolence.
As if the combined killing intent of hundreds of corpses had been compressed into singular forms.
Naturally, such a concentration of malice couldn’t have gathered on its own—Kaltar must have orchestrated it.
“I believe we’ve exchanged pleasantries sufficiently. Shall we begin?”
Kaltar’s expression brimmed with anticipation as he flicked his hand.
The undead rose in unison, raising their weapons.
At the sight, Jung Han-sung lifted one hand.
A sharp crack split the air.
“Grrrrr!”
Thunder Wolf emerged first, his form materializing. The undead Jung Han-sung had brought with him stepped forward to meet the threat.
It was unfortunate that he couldn’t bring the undead he’d painstakingly crafted, but it mattered little.
A deep hum resonated outward.
As Jung Han-sung extended his hand toward the undead, dense mana flowed from his fingertips, drawing into them like a vortex.
“Grrrrgh.”
The undead’s skin hardened further, their muscles swelling with newfound power.
It was a reinforcement spell—one that strengthened the undead.
The effect was extraordinary, yet I’d rarely used it until now for a simple reason: once activated, the undead became nearly impossible to resurrect afterward.
I was drawing upon all their strength at once, burning it in a single moment.
It was regrettable, but without it, the enemy’s undead would overwhelm us in moments.
Cho Cheon-woong stepped forward without waiting for instruction, raising his weapon.
“Hnngh!”
As he channeled his ability, his body transformed into a deep ashen gray.
He was drawing upon every ounce of his power. Maria, too, stepped forward with grim resolve etched across her face.
With everyone positioned, Jung Han-sung fixed his gaze on Kaltar and spoke.
“You plan to simply watch from the sidelines?”
“Perhaps such talk would be better saved for after you’ve faced my collection?”
Kaltar replied with unshakeable composure.
He seemed utterly confident in his undead.
And truthfully, they were formidable specimens.
Yet Jung Han-sung found his opponent’s leisurely stance, hanging back from the fray, deeply unsettling.
Especially knowing that Kaltar wielded not merely necromancy, but spatio-temporal magic as well.
Thus, Jung Han-sung’s lips curved upward as he spoke.
“That’s your assumption.”
Lightning erupted across his entire body in a deafening roar.
The world bleached white as electricity consumed everything. Jung Han-sung shot forward in a straight line toward Kaltar.
Kaltar’s eyes narrowed—the first crack in his composure—as he extended one hand.
In that brief instant, Jung Han-sung perceived an immense concentration of mana gathering in Kaltar’s palm.
So his personal combat prowess was formidable as well.
But Jung Han-sung pressed forward without hesitation.
A thunderous boom.
Before Kaltar could release his power, Jung Han-sung’s body surged forward once more, accelerating beyond its previous velocity.
Before Kaltar releases his energy, Jung Han-sung’s body accelerates once more.
Kaltar’s reaction came a beat too slow—he hadn’t anticipated that Jung Han-sung could move faster than this.
Crash!
My blade found its mark against Kaltar’s body. Yet I felt no triumph at the strike.
The moment steel met flesh, I knew the wound would not be fatal.
‘Remarkably durable.’
When a blade cuts through human flesh, it should feel like slicing cloth. But Kaltar’s body was hard as metal itself.
No matter how rigorously one trains the body, there are limits without a special ability like Cho Cheon-woong possesses.
Take myself—my blade cuts through flesh easily enough. I can only defend myself because I wear armor.
Yet this man wore nothing but simple cloth, no armor whatsoever, and his body was extraordinarily hard.
At best, I’d merely delivered a shock to his system.
“Tch.”
Exactly as expected.
Kaltar, sent flying backward by my blade, rose to his feet with a click of his tongue.
From his manner alone, I could tell the impact had been far from devastating.
“Impatient, aren’t you? I would have entertained you without such haste.”
Instead of his previous irritating tone, Kaltar spoke with a sharp edge to his voice.
Clearly, having my blade touch his body displeased him greatly.
Perhaps that’s why.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Rather than leisurely raising his hand to gather mana as before, Kaltar created dozens of black spears with merely a flick of his fingers.
I sensed malice emanating from those spears. They appeared to be a form of dark magic.
‘Magic I don’t recognize.’
Surely it did more than deliver mere physical impact.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t identify the spell precisely. I’ve focused my study of dark magic almost exclusively on necromancy.
Screeeech!
Kaltar seemed eager to let me experience its effects firsthand, launching the spears toward me immediately.
But I evaded them all by channeling my movement technique.
The spears moved at tremendous speed, yet posed no real threat to me with my accelerated perception.
“Gaaahhh―!”
Boom!
Meanwhile, behind us, my allies clashed fiercely with the undead.
Seven undead in total.
Each one possessed exceptional strength.
Even excluding Cho Cheon-woong, Maria, and Thunder Wolf, my forces numbered over ten, yet numbers meant little here.
The gap in ability was simply too vast, no matter how enhanced my soldiers were.
Crash―!
One undead took a mace strike and flew clean through the opposite wall.
This was merely a casual swing, not a full-power attack.
Yet the undead survived only because it had undergone enhancement.
Had I not chanted the reinforcement spell, that undead would have been pulverized into fragments upon impact.
“These cursed monsters!”
Meanwhile, Cho Cheon-woong and Maria pressed forward in a desperate struggle.
They faced nearly equal numbers of undead—the problem being seven creatures against two fighters.
Straining themselves to their limits, they’d managed to dispatch three undead, but four remained.
“Auuuuuuu―!”
In the thick of that brutal combat, Thunder Wolf leveraged his characteristic speed to shift the advantage where he could.
Though he struggled in one-on-one combat against an undead, at least he could evade their attacks—a considerable help nonetheless.
“You shouldn’t be looking away now, should you?”
And through it all, Jung Han-sung continued his duel with Kaltar.
Spears still cut through the air around them.
None had struck me yet, but with each passing moment they grew increasingly threatening.
‘The movements are becoming more erratic…’
I sensed a shift in the spears’ behavior.
Their trajectories, their patterns—growing steadily more intricate. At first I’d dismissed it as imagination, but after one grazed past my head, I knew the truth.
‘Are they learning on their own?’
The spears were undeniably attacking with greater sophistication as time passed.
There could be no other explanation.
‘Could it be…’
A possibility crystallized in my mind.
Kaltar, noticing the shift in my expression, spoke with evident amusement.
“Ah, so you’ve finally grasped it? Correct. These spears are spirits under my command. Each possesses its own will.”
He flicked his hand, and a spear spun sharply in place. In that instant, another lunged at my back.
“They move independent of my direct control—which makes this possible.”
Kaltar raised his opposite hand.
A sphere of intense mana rotated there, coalescing with terrible power.
I sensed him gathering the energy, but the spears’ interference prevented me from responding immediately.
Whoooosh!
The completed sphere shot toward me in a straight line.
I realized this wasn’t a matter of simple evasion.
The compressed mana was extraordinary.
‘Even if it detonates in empty air, it’ll devastate everything around it.’
I gripped my blade tightly.
Rather than dodge, I charged straight toward it.
Screeeee!
The spears tried to intercept me, but I ignored them and accelerated further.
Just before collision, I swung my sword.
Crack!
The blade cleaved through the sphere.
As it split, the mana within surged outward in a violent release.
But I would not allow it.
Whoooooosh!
I began absorbing the mana that erupted outward.
It was far from a simple task.
This wasn’t natural mana, but rather mana that another had refined and weaponized for attack.
Yet I swallowed it down with sheer force of will.
The energy I’d consumed began tearing through my body with devastating force.
But controlling such savage power was the most familiar thing to me.
Noticing something, I swung my blade toward Kaltar, whose brow had furrowed in confusion.
To release the absorbed energy all at once.
Craaaaaash―!
In that instant, a deafening roar shattered the air.
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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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