Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 121
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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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121
Cherub pressed me flat against the ground with some arcane force, then glided toward me with leisurely grace.
Without even moving his wings, he drifted forward with silken smoothness.
“Surely you don’t believe that wretches like you could possibly withstand my power?”
Cherub slowly drove the blade he held into my back.
The sword met only slight resistance before piercing my body as easily as a knife through tofu.
“Oho… you endure well.”
I felt my organs and bones being severed. If not for my formidable mental fortitude skill, I would have lost consciousness already.
“But you cannot stop me. That you can even perceive my existence as a higher-dimensional being is only because we permitted it. Your defiance—you insignificant creatures from the lower dimensions, so numerous yet so worthless—is utterly repugnant to us.”
Cherub slowly dragged the blade across my flank, cleaving through my body. My spine snapped, my organs were sliced open. Yet I absorbed the life force from my surroundings and regenerated.
“Hah… for a lower-dimensional lifeform, you are certainly remarkable.”
He seemed surprised by my regenerative capacity.
“Let us see just how long you can survive.”
He withdrew the blade and drove it back into my back. Again. And again. And again.
My regeneration began to falter under the onslaught of countless wounds. I had lost too much blood; my body no longer obeyed me.
“Now, let us end this.”
He slowly brought the blade to my temple.
“Do not grieve. You will become the fertile soil of the new universe.”
The blade slowly pierced through the armor encasing my head, then ground against my skull. I could sense his contemptible nature—he could have ended this in a single blow, yet he savored the prolonged agony.
None of my offensive abilities had any effect on him. I could find no way to resist.
My armor, my skull—these were not things that should break so easily.
Eres must have trained me to prepare for such circumstances, but my own dullness in failing to master those lessons made me want to retch.
I could see Bae Na-young, Yang Sang-heon, Hong Long, and Akiko lying motionless.
I had to rise.
I could not fall like this.
If I died here…
The moment the blade pierced my skull and touched my brain.
The world turned white.
An endless expanse of white space.
‘Am I dead this time?’
As I looked around, a woman with blue hair appeared.
I couldn’t see her face, didn’t know who she was, yet somehow I felt an overwhelming sense of warmth.
“Who are you?”
The blue-haired woman said nothing, merely waved her hand as if telling me to go back, and I was thrust backward through the white space, bouncing out violently.
Her face was obscured by light, impossible to see clearly, but as I was ejected, it felt as though she were urging me to be strong.
[Skill Acquired: Elevation of Existence (EX)]
Consciousness returned, and my vision gradually cleared.
“Huh?!”
Cherub’s blade could no longer pierce through my head. Fortunately, the sword had only just reached my brain through my skull.
The force that had been crushing my body and shattering my bones vanished. Or rather, I could still feel it, but now it was merely a light pressure.
I grasped the blade of light embedded in my head and wrenched it free with raw force. Using that momentum, I planted my hand on the ground and pushed myself upright.
“How…? How is this possible?! You’re a being from a different dimension, yet you resist my strength?”
The status window was typically unhelpful—I rarely understood a new skill’s function immediately. But this time, the difference was unmistakable.
I could now perceive not just my own dimension, but higher-dimensional beings as well.
Just as an ant cannot overcome a lion, and a horse cannot fly through the sky, a lower-dimensional being cannot stand against a higher-dimensional one—it’s an absolute law. No wonder I’d been helpless until now.
“I don’t fully understand it yet… but one thing’s clear. I can finally hit you now, can’t I?”
I clenched my left fist tight.
Cherub yanked the blade from my right hand in shock.
As the sword withdrew, it carved through the armor on my palm. But that was all. Unlike before, my flesh didn’t slice open like tofu.
I pulled the blades free from the backs of both hands.
“Well… let’s trade blows for a while.”
It was time to repay what I’d suffered.
“Ha! You dare boast after merely setting foot in my dimension?”
His wings spread wide, and the surrounding angels’ energy was sucked toward him. But he didn’t merely borrow their strength—he drained them completely, leaving them withered husks.
“How grotesque.”
Still, I was fortunate. He’d absorbed every angel who might have aided my still-dazed comrades, sparing me that concern.
Cherub, empowered by absorbing his own kind, doubled the size of his blade of light.
Then he swung the sword, now as tall as himself, straight at me.
Whoosh!
I spewed a cloud of toxic mist directly into Cherub’s face as he charged.
“What…? What is this?!”
Startled, he veered aside, his balance wavering.
I surged forward and drove both blades into the opening.
Cherub shrunk his massive sword to retrieve it, then enlarged it again, using the blade to parry both of my attacks.
Whoosh!
I unleashed another spray—a special cocktail of frigid air and blood—directly at his face. From experience, arrogant beings like this always reacted sharply to such tactics.
“You blasphemous wretch!”
As expected, he recoiled in disgust, and I pressed forward, slashing with both blades.
I pursued him relentlessly, blade after blade.
“You fool!!!”
Cherub pivoted mid-air the way Eres had during our sparring match, shifting direction and speed unpredictably to strike at my back.
With only one foot in the higher dimension, such an attack was still beyond my ability to counter.
Using that mobility, he evaded the mist and poison I unleashed, circled behind me, and swung his blade.
Cherub’s sword aimed for my head. Too late to dodge, I raised my arm to block.
His blade pierced the armor and sank into my arm. Empowered by the sacrificed angels, the sword severed more than half of my limb—but not enough to cleave it completely.
“What?!”
“It won’t cut clean through, will it?”
If his attack was merely this strong, the fight was simple.
I aimed my right-hand blade at his heart.
Cherub tore his sword free from my arm and launched himself backward into empty air. In the moment he recovered his blade, he thrust forward again.
I advanced without dodging the Cherub’s blade.
“What?!”
Its eyes widened as the sword pierced my abdomen, but I pushed forward and drove both blades from my hands into its chest.
“Krraaaaaaagh!!!”
It swung its arms and knocked me back. As I was pushed away, I detached the blades from my hands and left them embedded in its body.
The Cherub grasped the sword lodged in its chest, yanked it free, and hurled it to the ground.
“Filthy vermin… know that you won’t die a pleasant death!”
“Is that what you’re saying to yourself?”
I summoned blades from both my hands again.
Its sword blazed with light as it thrust toward me. When I didn’t dodge, it withdrew and swung horizontally instead.
I blocked with my arm against my body, but its full-powered strike severed half of my forearm and upper arm, the blade embedding itself. Without yielding, I drove my sword into the Cherub’s flank.
“Kragh!”
No matter how the Cherub moved in zigzag patterns and attacked with fluid grace, my counterattacks—completely disregarding defense—continued to lodge my blades in its body. Soon there was no time to extract them, and the Cherub resembled a porcupine.
It had absorbed countless Angels endlessly, but no more emerged. The Angels in the vicinity had already vanished, leaving it unable to absorb further, and its strength was waning. Meanwhile, I still had energy coursing through my body, and there was much more I could absorb.
The moment the Cherub grasped the sword embedded in its abdomen with trembling hands to pull it free, I charged again.
I moved in with the intention of blocking its horizontal sword swing with my arm.
Boom!
“Kugh?!”
A massive violet mana sphere exploded behind the Cherub.
It couldn’t inflict a grave wound on the Cherub, but it was enough to break its concentration.
Seizing that moment, I drove both blades into its ribs.
“Krraaaaaaagh!”
I left the swords in its body and spun around, seizing its massive wings from behind.
“Krahahak! Let go! Let go!”
It thrashed, but the Cherub was a higher-dimensional being whose attacks were merely powerful. Now that we stood on equal ground, my strength far exceeded its own.
I pushed my back with my feet and pulled the wings.
Riiiiip!
The flesh of its shoulder blade tore, and blood erupted. As the wing was torn away, its screams intensified.
Crack!
Both of its wings were ripped from its back, and blood sprayed forth like a fountain.
The Cherub fell to its knees. The wings had been the source of its power—now it lost the radiance from its body.
“Don’t die just yet. While I’m at it, tell me—what benefit did attacking us bring you? The Destruction God isn’t your god, is he?”
“Kugh… why should I answer such things? When my father descends, you will all perish.”
“I’m tired of hearing about that father of yours. He can’t come anyway, can he? Since the wings seem to be the source of power, I burned half of them getting you out.”
“…”
“I didn’t expect you’d tell me easily anyway.”
Bae Na-young and her group approached. Yang Sang-heon still hadn’t regained consciousness, but fortunately everyone else was safe.
“Don’t push yourself.”
I placed my hand on Bae Na-young’s shoulder.
Bae Na-young’s gaze toward the Cherub burned with ferocity, as if she had suffered at its hands.
“Get away from me! You filthy witch who consorts with demons—don’t you dare lay a hand on my body!”
Cherub writhed like a worm, and with each convulsion, my blade buried deeper into his flesh, blood gushing forth in violent waves.
Just as Bae Na-young had kneaded Angelus’s mind, she now tore through Cherub’s consciousness.
I had worried, but whether from his weakened state or the loss of his wings, his mind crumbled far more easily than I’d anticipated.
Consciousness drained from Cherub’s eyes, and all resistance ceased.
“So, why did you attack Earth?”
“The Heavenly Kingdom… purchased immunity from the Manager. In exchange for serving as their mercenaries and eliminating obstacles, they promised to shield us from the Destruction God’s assault.”
“The Manager?”
The entity the Succubus Queen had spoken of. The one whose identity even Eres didn’t know.
“The one who commands the Destruction God. A mindless monster that drifts through the cosmos consuming whatever it encounters—the Destruction God itself. They decide which worlds are consumed and which are spared.”
“If the Destruction God is truly such an anomalous existence, why bother sending monsters first? Why not simply devour everything?”
“The Destruction God cannot consume dimensions where the will to survive still burns. It feeds only on decaying worlds, so the Manager sends forces to cleanse them first. But your resistance proved far too fierce, so we were dispatched.”
“Where do these Managers reside?”
“They dwell at the Dimensional Boundary. A place no one can reach. Since we’ve failed, they will send not expendable conscripts or mercenaries, but their true armies.”
“Let them come. I’ll slaughter them all.”
“You don’t understand… what comes next…”
He collapsed to the ground, eyes open in death. There was more I wanted to ask, but he’d lost too much blood. It was strange he’d survived this long at all.
“Akiko! Where are you! Akiko! I’ve come to save you!”
Takahashi came rushing from the distance.
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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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