Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 47
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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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47
“Yang Sang-heon, take Bae Na-young and Paul and fall back.”
No matter how much their levels rose or what items they’d acquired, two D-rank Hunters were useless to me now. Truth be told, I wasn’t even certain I could stand against this elf who called herself a Master. But retreating wasn’t an option I could afford to consider.
Yang Sang-heon bit his lip in frustration. He hoisted Paul onto his shoulder and dragged Bae Na-young backward. She understood she couldn’t help, tears streaming down her face as she withdrew.
“You won’t escape this place alive anyway. Once I’ve dealt with you, I’ll bring far greater forces than this small contingent and slaughter every last one of those who obstruct the Bridge Gate’s creation.”
“So you’d destroy us to save your own world?”
“Why should I concern myself with a primitive civilization that can’t even properly wield magic? It’s impossible for you, but given time, we can even topple a Destruction God.”
“Don’t expect me to go quietly just because of your circumstances.”
Once I confirmed Bae Na-young and Yang Sang-heon had retreated, I charged at Helen.
As Helen swept her hand through the air, dozens of invisible spatial distortions materialized, all targeting me. Their power, number, and reaction speed far exceeded anything Paul had demonstrated.
But I could read Helen’s hand movements, her gaze, and my heightened senses told me exactly where each attack originated.
I wove through the gaps in the barrage at high speed, yet Helen never lost sight of me, scattering dozens of spatial warps along my trajectory.
My zigzagging evasion was so rapid that dust clouds erupted in my wake.
Finally, I closed the distance and hurled an aura-clad fist straight at Helen’s face.
Something felt wrong. Helen stared directly at my incoming punch without flinching. She didn’t seem startled—so why wasn’t she dodging?
In that instant, my body was yanked backward as if seized by invisible hands, and my fist cut through empty air.
Pain shot through me. Looking down, my right foot was mangled and twisted.
“Impressive speed. But you’re not fast enough to reach me.”
Helen raised her hand again to finish me.
I tore my right foot free from the spatial distortion through sheer force, instantly regenerated my severed right arm, and swung it in a blur.
Even Helen’s eyes widened in surprise. A spherical barrier materialized around her. I channeled aura into my fist and fired it forward, just as I had against Paul.
The aura projectile struck the barrier and detonated, but unlike with Paul, the blast’s shockwave dispersed only outside the shield—Helen remained completely unharmed. Her technique was clearly on an entirely different level than Paul’s.
“Stubborn vitality. Such rapid regeneration. You’re like a lizard.”
Helen hovered serenely within her barrier, looking down at me with disdain.
“Damn it…”
“Don’t worry. All of Earth’s humans will follow you soon enough.”
As Helen gestured, spatial distortions engulfed my arms and legs, and my body began to compress.
I couldn’t die like this. I had to find a way. Fortunately, she was toying with me instead of simply snapping my neck in one motion. My mind raced at lightning speed.
‘Wait… that’s…’
And then I saw an opening.
Drawing on the lung capacity I’d honed in the Deep Sea, I inhaled deeply and transformed the blood in my mouth into a fine mist, spraying it toward Helen.
“How filthy!”
But the spatial barrier blocked it, and the mist fell harmlessly around Helen.
“I was going to toy with you a bit longer, but that’s enough. Die.”
Helen pulled her hand back for a final attack.
“Cough…”
And Helen coughed up blood.
“What is this… what’s happening…”
The spatial distortions crushing my limbs dissolved.
“What else? Poison.”
As I fell to the ground, I channeled energy into my limbs and regenerated my body back to its original state.
“I should have… been able to block it.”
“There was dust on your pants.”
“D-dust?”
Her expression suggested she thought I was spouting nonsense.
“When my attack hit your barrier earlier, particles scattered and got through. That told me you weren’t completely sealed off from the outside world. If you were completely isolated, you wouldn’t be able to breathe or talk to me. And whether the microscopic droplets of my highly concentrated toxic blood would seep through that gap was a gamble—but it paid off.”
“You vermin…”
“Right. You lived because I didn’t go all out from the start, you bastard. Thanks to that, I’ve exhausted all my tricks.”
Helen collapsed to the ground.
“If you surrender quietly, I’ll spare your life.”
Helen’s information would be valuable.
“Am I… really going to die like this?!”
Even as she spat blood, she cursed. She’d inhaled poison I’d concentrated to lethal extremes—she should have died instantly or lost consciousness, yet she endured. Her body and willpower were far from ordinary.
There was a chance she could recover, so I reached out to restrain her.
“I’d rather die than be captured.”
Helen grasped a large yellow gem embedded in the pendant around her neck. In that instant, light poured from the Bridge Gate and flooded over her body.
Faced with this incomprehensible phenomenon, I leaped backward to create distance.
Helen, who had been lying on the ground, slowly rose into the air.
“Because of you… everything has fallen apart. If I’d had just a little more time, I could have grown strong enough to fight the Destroyer God.”
Helen’s skin cracked like parched earth, and light blazed through the fissures. It looked as though her body was filling with light and shattering under the pressure.
“Why should we die to buy your time? Go attack the Destroyer God directly instead.”
“Foolish human. Don’t you understand that we must win for Earth to survive?”
“What if we all die in the meantime?”
“That’s unavoidable. But now it’s all ruined anyway. Still, I’ll at least take you with me as a companion.”
“Did you forget what just happened to you?”
“Do you see this light? I receive infinite mana from Telus—I am invincible.”
“You look like you’re about to die though?”
“Yes. I’m dying soon. After centuries of life, to fall to someone like you… But before that, disposing of you will be easy.”
Helen raised her hand.
And I turned and ran at full speed.
“Wh-what?”
Helen stared blankly at my fleeing form.
“Y-you bastard! Don’t you dare run!”
Helen cursed, but there was no reason to listen to someone about to die. She’d been stupid enough to say it all out loud.
Helen’s attack came flying from behind.
I sprinted at maximum speed, dodging the assault and widening the distance between us.
Suddenly, I sensed a distortion in space ahead. I slammed on the brakes and skidded across the ground, bringing my body to a halt.
And from that space, Helen appeared. Paul could only teleport a few meters, but Helen had traveled hundreds of meters.
I pivoted and ran in the opposite direction.
“You cowardly rat!”
Helen ceased her spatial distortion and unleashed torrents of energy that resembled auras from both her hands—raw and unrefined. Those uncontained energy masses spiraled outward like dozens of lightning bolts, writhing and branching in all directions.
It stood in stark contrast to Jung Min-gi’s cutting technique, refined to its absolute limit and beautiful in its precision, yet the destructive force of those lightning-like attacks was incomparable to mere electricity. Wherever the lightning bolts struck, rock shattered and earth inverted. It was a power on an entirely different scale from the area-of-effect magic of an A-rank mage who had come to hunt trolls not long ago.
I concentrated my mind and observed the attacks pouring in from all directions. Time seemed to slow. I scanned my surroundings for any opening and bolted toward it.
Zigzagging as I ran, I evaded the larger attacks, but I couldn’t dodge every single one of the rain-like barrage. A small branch-like tendril of lightning split off from a massive bolt and grazed me—flesh tore from my shoulder and back.
Abnormal destructive power. Helen was channeling that infinite energy through her entire body, so she couldn’t possibly sustain this for long.
Just a little longer. Just a little more. With that thought, I pushed my muscles—evolved multiple times and now far beyond human limits—to their breaking point. Despite possessing a powerful mental fortitude skill, pain wracked my entire body, though it paled compared to what I’d endured in the submarine.
My body was regenerating the torn sections, but before they could fully heal, another attack grazed my arm, shredding it to tatters. A direct hit would obliterate me without leaving even fragments.
I gritted my teeth until they nearly cracked and poured all my strength into my legs. Forgetting to breathe, I fled from Helen at maximum speed, dodging her attacks with desperate determination.
[Agility increased by 1.]
[Agility increased by 1.]
[Agility increased by 1.]
[Stamina increased by 1.]
Timely stat increases—like rain breaking a drought. I pushed my speed even higher.
“Uaaahhh!!”
Helen, furious at the sight of me weaving away, let out a scream of rage.
And then lightning poured down on a scale incomparable to anything before. The sky filled entirely with lightning—a magnificent spectacle. If it weren’t falling toward me, I would have wanted to watch it slowly, admiring its beauty.
Until now, I’d managed to find small openings and slip through, but this deluge of lightning completely surrounded me.
There was no escape.
I curled my body into a ball and defended with my aura. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for impact, praying I wouldn’t die.
“Kyaaahhh!!!!”
No impact struck my body—instead, I heard Helen’s scream and snapped my head up.
Bae Na-young and Yang Sang-heon, whom I’d told to flee, had returned. Bae Na-young held her wand. Helen’s skin was peeling away, and the attacks she’d been pouring toward me scattered, revealing an opening.
As I dodged and looked at Helen, her eyes had clouded over—she’d been hit with Blind. Attacks were dispersing in all directions. She’d cast both Blind and Corruption simultaneously—I didn’t know when she’d become capable of double-casting.
Helen continued flailing, scattering attacks wildly in all directions even as her skin peeled away. A mage of her caliber should have been able to resist mental attacks, but her mind was on the verge of collapse, so she couldn’t resist Bae Na-young’s Blind.
“Die, all of you!”
The problem was that even without sight, those mad attacks still spiraled outward in every direction.
Torrents of excess energy branched out in all directions. The density of what came toward me had certainly decreased, but those energy surges were also heading toward Bae Na-young and Yang Sang-heon.
Yang Sang-heon stood trembling, sword in hand, protecting Bae Na-young. A small tendril of lightning shot toward him. He blocked it with his sword, but as it split, a smaller branch curved and struck his armor. He writhed in pain but didn’t die. If it hadn’t been the armor Jae-in made, he would have died from just a graze.
No time to waste. I kicked off the ground and charged at Helen. When her attacks had been concentrated on me, there was no opening, but now there was.
I ran at full power, expelling aura from my feet. The propulsion from my feet launched my body in a straight line toward Helen. I was prepared to spend every last bit of my life force without reservation. If this failed, there was nothing after.
Lightning rained down randomly, tearing through my body in multiple places.
I gathered all my remaining life force into my right fist, condensing it into aura, and drove it straight into Helen’s chest. In that moment, Bae Na-young’s Blind and Corruption effects wore off.
Helen, unaware of my approach, only looked down at her chest after my fist pierced her heart, staring at my arm that had run through her.
My own appearance was equally ruined from the lightning. Half my face was burned, and there wasn’t a single intact spot on my entire body.
Crack.
A massive fissure split vertically across Helen’s right forehead, through her eye, and down to her jaw, spilling brilliant light and luminous liquid. From there, cracks spread across her entire body, pouring forth light and that radiant fluid.
“I… the Empire… must protect…”
The light pouring from the Gate toward Helen ceased.
[Level increased.]
[Level increased.]
[Your level has increased.]
The luminous liquid that had poured from Helen’s body moments before had lost its radiance, now staining the ground a deep crimson. It was Helen’s blood. In her form, sprawled and drenched in gore, there remained not a trace of the beauty she had possessed in life.
It was a fitting end for an elf who had sought to commit mass slaughter for the sake of her own survival.
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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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