Level -99 Archmage - Chapter 72

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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 72. The Uninvited
Crack!
Yi Hyuk-soo thrust his blade through the Fugitive’s Sigil, piercing it clean.
Whoooosh!
The moment the Sigil shattered, the Fugitive’s body crumbled to dust and scattered on the wind.
《The “Merciless Chaser” has destroyed the Fugitive’s Sigil.》
《You gain 300 Contribution Points immediately.》
《You have completed the Secret Quest “Swift Resolution” by destroying five Sigils in rapid succession.》
《250 additional Contribution Points are awarded.》
Five Fugitives pierced and felled in a single strike.
Despite the massive Contribution Points he’d gained, Yi Hyuk-soo’s expression remained taut.
“……The Fugitives are forming groups.”
There was no other explanation.
It was now four hours into the second night, and the creatures that had done nothing but flee suddenly began coordinating attacks against him.
Doppelgangers.
They wore human shape, yet they were monsters.
Abominations that mimicked humanity while murdering it.
Yi Hyuk-soo felt no hesitation killing things that were not human.
‘Not a single Abyss monster will be left alive.’
Every creature he killed meant one fewer that might breach Earth’s defenses.
To protect his mother, the surest path was total annihilation of the Abyss’s monsters.
Yet as time wore on, a growing sense of discord began to surface.
‘…The Doppelgangers are becoming increasingly human.’
They had surpassed mere mimicry of human form.
The Doppelgangers learned the knowledge, thoughts, and language of those they replicated.
With each new target copied, they grew incrementally more human.
A far cry from their bestial origins.
Or perhaps—evolution was the better word.
In just four hours, they spoke like humans, moved like humans.
Who would have imagined creatures so animal could now coordinate pack hunts against the strong?
They had formed collective units and acquired intelligence.
Like ancient mankind hunting massive beasts in coordinated tribes.
The Doppelgangers were gradually driving their prey into the corner.
‘The balance between human and Doppelganger is collapsing rapidly.’
Within a few more hours, the roles of “Chaser” and “Fugitive” would reverse entirely—there was no doubt of it.
This was no careless speculation.
Certainty.
An 11.1% survival rate would become reality.
Of one million participants, perhaps one hundred thousand—maybe fewer—would live to see dawn.
The number might be even lower still.
“……They’re here again.”
Yi Hyuk-soo clicked his tongue and gripped his blade.
Another pack was closing in from a distance.
“Strong human. We will kill you, and we will learn.”
“We will consume the strong, and we will surpass the strong.”
An X-shaped Sigil burned on each chest.
All Fugitives.
Seven Doppelgangers had converged to hunt him down.
He didn’t know how they’d found him—how they even knew of him.
‘A collective intelligence? Are they sharing information?’
Too many pieces didn’t fit.
They knew him without ever having met.
And unlike before, they hadn’t attempted to replicate him.
Because replication had failed.
The true problem lay in what came after that failure.
‘What cannot be replicated must be hunted. Must be consumed.’
……They meant to devour him.
They had come in numbers to hunt and feed.
Cannibalism.

It seemed this was the second method by which Doppelgangers replicated their targets.
Of course, whenever they found him, Yi Hyuk-soo destroyed every Sigil they bore.
He left none alive.
Yet information that ought to be incommunicable seemed to be flowing to them ceaselessly.
There was only one conclusion.
‘When you destroy a Sigil, its location is shared. Along with information about the target whose Sigil was destroyed.’
No matter how much he turned it over in his mind, that was all it could be.
At least it seemed the information wasn’t being exchanged in real time.
Rather, it felt as though a certain amount of information was shared whenever a Sigil was destroyed.
Not everything.
If all the information had been shared, they would have hunted him far more decisively.
Against a solitary Yi Hyuk-soo, there’d be no reason to wage a meaningless war of attrition.
Or would there?
Was the attrition more meaningful precisely because he was alone?
Because they knew the gap in power, were they trying to wear down his stamina slowly?
Had the Doppelgangers already evolved to that degree?
None of it mattered.
Looking at the Doppelgangers surrounding him on all sides, Yi Hyuk-soo spoke bleakly.
“I’ll kill every Fugitive.”
Fugitives—monsters of the Abyss wearing human masks—all of them would simply be slain.
* * *
Kim Byung-han intended to be the protagonist of the “second night.”
There was no other way to redeem his previous mistakes and shame.
The most important thing was information about the Fugitives—the Doppelgangers.
Since no information had been provided, he’d have to uncover it himself.
“Can you lot replicate every human?”
Kim Byung-han asked the captive he’d taken prisoner.
A Doppelganger wearing the form of a thick-featured man.
A very strong specimen.
He’d barely managed to capture this individual by sacrificing every other prisoner he’d previously taken.
He’d nearly died in the process.
‘It’s worth 2,000 Contribution Points. So the Fugitives have ranks too.’
A single Sigil from an ordinary Fugitive yielded only 100 Contribution Points.
But this creature’s Sigil was worth a full 2,000.
Just as he’d suspected.
The Fugitives clearly had ranks among themselves.
Naturally, capturing higher-Grade Fugitives would yield greater Contribution Points.
And that wasn’t all.
“If the Level gap is too great, replication becomes impossible.”
The Doppelganger answered.
It could speak human language with surprising fluency.
All the previous captives he’d taken couldn’t communicate properly at all.
Thump-thump.
His heart raced.
Following the rule that captives absolutely obey the Chaser bearing their Sigil, the Doppelganger answered Kim Byung-han’s questions dutifully.
‘Information is power.’
Fortune had fallen into his lap.
With this creature, he’d reach the pinnacle on the second night.
Kim Byung-han painted another golden future in his mind.
“If the Level gap is too great, replication becomes impossible? Then how many Levels of difference can you tolerate for replication?”
“It differs by individual.”
“And you?”
“I can replicate up to a 5-Level difference at most.”
His answers were terse, but the information flowed readily.
Five Levels difference, then.
High if you measured it one way, modest if you measured it another.
“What’s your current Level?”
“16.”
“Hmm, interesting.”
Higher than he’d expected.
Given that Kim Byung-han’s Level was currently 19, he fell squarely within the ‘Replicable Range’.
If he hadn’t captured this creature, the Doppelganger would’ve been wandering the Abyss wearing his face by now.
The thought alone made his blood run cold.
‘I didn’t get rewards from the Tower of Pride, but I gained massive experience instead. Because of that, my Level rose high enough that the Doppelgangers couldn’t replicate me.’
The mystery of why, unlike other humans, the Doppelgangers hadn’t been able to copy him was finally solved.
The Tower of Pride had bankrupted, denying him its rewards, but in exchange he’d reaped a fortune in experience.
It was what you’d call a explosive Level-up.
A blessing in disguise, in other words.
‘In the Abyss, a high Level really is everything.’
This moment proved his thinking was far from wrong.
In the Abyss, Level was an absolute metric.
The higher it climbed, the more gifts it brought — an ever-expanding bounty.
‘As time passes, the gap in Levels will only widen.’
Those with low Levels would inevitably reach a ceiling they couldn’t break through against those with high ones.
Humans were still in their infancy, and cases where Level differences were overcome happened often enough, but as time wore on, the disparities and discrimination born from Level would become starkly, brutally apparent.
Yet his curiosity wasn’t satisfied.
“So you’re saying—you can keep raising your Level through Replication?”
“That’s correct.”
“But what if there’s no stronger human left to replicate? You can’t get any stronger then?”
“It doesn’t matter. Even replicating something that has what I lack, I accumulate experience and my Level rises.”
Indeed.
Even replicating a weaker existence would do the trick.
Simply by replicating something that possessed what he lacked, experience accumulated, Levels rose, and strength increased.
“There’s still got to be some kind of cap Level, right?”
“There isn’t one.”
“……There isn’t?”
Insane.
It felt like his skull had been struck by a hammer.
So what he was saying was…….
‘They can grow infinitely?’
Kim Byung-han realized the number of captives wasn’t what mattered.
How well he ‘cultivated’ a single captive was far more important.
If he raised this creature properly, there was every chance he’d become the final victor of the second night.
“Is there any constraint on how strong you can get? A limit to how many things you can replicate, something like that?”
“Unless you’re a ‘Lord’, it all resets after a day passes.”
“Resets?”
“All the information, memories, Levels of everything you replicated—it all vanishes as if it never was.”
“You mean you turn back into that slime form you started as?”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm…….”
A variable.
Though thinking about it, it made perfect sense.
There was no way the Abyss would be crawling with limitless monsters growing infinitely without any restrictions or constraints.
Kim Byung-han pressed further.
“So if you become a ‘Doppelganger Lord’, you don’t reset?”
“Correct.”
“……And how does one become a ‘Doppelganger Lord’?”
“By reaching Level 80 before the reset occurs.”
“…….”
Kim Byung-han went slack-jawed for a moment.
The ‘Orc Master Kankun’ he’d faced in the Tower of Pride had been Level 83.
You had to reach the level of that monstrosity who’d annihilated everything single-handedly just to become a ‘Doppelganger Lord’?
“……Is that even achievable in one day?”
Disbelief made him ask again, and the Doppelganger answered.
“It is.”
“How?”
“By becoming the last Doppelganger.”
The last Doppelganger?
An ambiguous answer.
‘So the one Doppelganger that survives longest in this Abyss can become a Lord?’
He posed similar questions several more times, but never received the answers he sought.
The creature only repeated that same phrase: the last Doppelganger.
‘If I could just keep turning this thing into a Doppelganger Lord and dragging it around with me…….’
He indulged the fantasy for a moment.
Master of a Doppelganger Lord?
Invincible.
There would be no rivals.
Not merely in the second night’s Abyss, but in every Abyss he would face ahead, he could stand at the very summit.
Gulp.
Kim Byung-han swallowed hard.
The mere thought of walking around with a monster like Kankun was enough to set him ablaze with excitement.
* * *
《You have succeeded in the Secret Quest ‘Destroy the Fugitive Shelter’!》
《You have acquired 20,000 Contribution Points.》
《’The Covert Traitor’ has destroyed 10 of the Fugitive’s Sigils.》
《You have acquired 40,000 Contribution Points.》
《You have broken through 100,000 Contribution Points for the first time!》
《You have cleared the Hidden Chain Quest ‘The Highest Place (1)’!》
《You have acquired 30,000 Contribution Points.》
Messages cascaded endlessly across his vision.
‘A tenfold rewards event, and I’m the only one enjoying it.’
The tenfold rewards event had begun.
A grand event unfolding in this Abyss for Park Chan-woo alone.
The tenfold amplification was extraordinary.
The moment he purchased the Masterpiece Map, he had set out, and in just over an hour, he’d already surpassed 100,000 Contribution Points.
‘Sixty thousand points just from destroying a single shelter.’
A place concealed in shadow.
Shelters that provided refuge for Fugitives!
‘Once you find them, destroying them is simple.’
The difficulty lay only in locating the Shelters.
But the Masterpiece Map showed the positions of every Shelter marked upon it.
He had destroyed one of them using the Heavenly Punishment spell.
‘I had no idea there were ten Doppelgangers hiding inside.’
Twenty thousand points for destroying the Shelter itself, and the remaining forty thousand came from the ten Doppelgangers that had been concealed within.
Fortune had favored him.
Yet something puzzled him.
There were multiple Shelters, and the Fugitives themselves had the task of finding these Shelters on their own.
Never would he have guessed that one Shelter alone could harbor ten Doppelgangers.
Did the Doppelgangers share information with one another?
It didn’t matter either way.
Park Chan-woo moved some distance away from the destroyed Shelter.
Shortly after, another group of Doppelgangers appeared around the ruins of the devastated Shelter.
“Was this the work of a Chaser?”
“There’s no information at all.”
“How did they even discover the Shelter?”
“It looks like they destroyed it with powerful magic.”
The group of Doppelgangers circled the area, their heads tilting in confusion.
This was the moment his suspicion was confirmed — the Doppelgangers were sharing information about the Shelters with one another.
The Doppelgangers circled the surrounding area, attempting to uncover the truth.
They remained entirely unaware of Park Chan-woo’s presence.
It was an opportunity.
While they were all gathered in one place.
“But weren’t there supposed to be six of us?”
“Why does the map show seven?”
“Wait. Where’s the one…….”
‘Heavenly Punishment.’
《The Heavenly Punishment descends from above!》
Crash-boom!
Park Chan-woo drove the Heavenly Punishment down upon the Doppelgangers’ heads.
《’The Covert Traitor’ has destroyed 6 of the Fugitive’s Sigils.》
《You have acquired 24,000 Contribution Points.》
Heavenly Punishment was a mid-range spell.
Because they’d gathered in one place, he’d been able to finish them cleanly.
Once the six of them exploded, no further swarms of Doppelgangers came seeking him out.
Park Chan-woo shrugged and continued searching for Shelters.
《You have destroyed the second Shelter.》
《Seven Fugitive Sigils have been destroyed along with it.》
《You have acquired 48,000 Contribution Points.》
《You have destroyed the third Shelter.》
《Six Fugitive Sigils have been destroyed along with it.》
《You have acquired 44,000 Contribution Points.》
《You have become the first to surpass 200,000 Contribution Points!》
《You have cleared the Hidden Chain Quest ‘The Highest Place (2)’.》
《You have acquired 60,000 Contribution Points.》
Contribution Points beget Contribution Points.
They were multiplying like compound interest, spiraling madly upward.
While others were desperately scraping together one hundred Contribution Points, Park Chan-woo had accumulated nearly three hundred thousand with the lightness of a casual stroll.
How many more Contribution Points could he gather before the night was over?
‘At least ten million.’
That much, surely, would make the Lord of the Moon take notice.
The methods of acquiring Contribution Points were endless.
Naturally, his plan to amass ten million points was proceeding without a hitch.
Whiiiiiine!
That was when it happened.
A siren blared from all directions.
《Warning!》
《The Uninvited has entered the Night Abyss!》
《The Uninvited cannot be seen.》
《Their presence cannot currently be confirmed.》
《Find the Uninvited.》
《If you identify and pinpoint their existence, you will be awarded 1,000,000 Contribution Points.》
“…….”
Park Chan-woo stared at the message that had appeared unbidden, his brow furrowing.
‘Could it be talking about me?’

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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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