Murim Login - Chapter 424

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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 424
A deafening roar tore through the air!
The azure-flamed vortex consumed everything in its path.
Crumbled concrete and skeletal steel frames laid bare. Corpses of humans and monsters scattered throughout, intermingled in grotesque heaps.
The superheated inferno incinerated and melted countless things.
All except one.
– Blink.
Everything but him.
Beep.
– Skill,
[One-Flash Slash]
has been activated!
–
[Qi]
has been completely depleted!
– All things demand a price. Despite your critical injuries, you have expended excessive power.
– Status Abnormality,
[Exhaustion]
has been inflicted!
–
[Strength]
,
[Stamina]
,
[Agility]
have temporarily plummeted!
I felt strength drain from my entire body. The system notifications piercing my ears, the cries of the Skeleton Warlord in my inventory—none of it reached me clearly.
My body felt heavy as waterlogged cotton, and within my frozen mind, a single thought circled endlessly.
‘That was my last chance.’
Why? Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I suspect?
The Arch Lich had said it plainly—he had been watching me through familiars planted across the Battlefield.
Then I should have accounted for the fact that I had used One-Flash Slash against the Liches and Death Knights on the way here.
Even without certainty, I should have harbored suspicion.
‘Fool.’
A bitter laugh escaped me. I had sworn I would never be careless again, yet in the most critical moment, I committed the gravest mistake.
The absence of choice is no excuse. Combat is judged by results, not process. And this is the consequence of my carelessness.
Clang!
The iron spear slipped through my fingers and clattered against the ground. My powerless legs gave way beneath me.
Darkness descended over my bowed head as I knelt.
– Tell me, human. How does it feel to pay the price for your reckless presumption?
I barely lifted my head, meeting burning crimson eyes. A voice squeezed through cracked lips.
“Of course it’s infuriating. You damn bastard.”
– That was a terrifying strike. I’ll give you that much.
The Arch Lich’s voice dripped with the intoxication of victory.
Though my left arm had vanished—evidence that even teleportation magic couldn’t completely evade that flash of steel—it was he who stood as the victor in this place.
The crimson eyes gazing down at me, kneeling like a criminal, flickered with joy.
– I waited until the very end. I endured and persevered through the humiliation of being bested by a human. And finally… this is my triumph.
Cunning and shrewd, this creature.
Just as I suspected, he had been waiting for that flash of steel from the beginning.
Earlier, I had swept away the Lich and Death Knight with that technique and recovered my vitality through leveling up, but he hadn’t missed the fact that I had exhausted all my strength in that single moment.
– Now do you understand? This is your limit. This is humanity’s limit.
Limit.
That single word burrowed deep into my chest.
The limit bearing the name F-rank, which I could never escape despite all my efforts. That very limit I had been breaking through day after day since obtaining the system.
‘Is this truly where it ends?’
I had strived unto death. For myself, and for those I love. No matter what danger descended, I clenched my teeth and pushed through. I lived that way. All of it was the process of transcending my limits.
“It’s… not over yet.”
A voice unfamiliar as if belonging to another, devoid of even a spark of vitality, escaped my lips.
I gazed up at the Arch Lich through dimming eyes.
– What?
“It’s not over, I said.”
A life-or-death duel ends only when one of the two falls. So this battle has not yet ended.
Only when someone finally dies does the one standing last claim victory.
I muttered through my hazy consciousness.
‘Inventory open. Summon.’
With the command, one of the spears stored in my inventory materialized in my grasp.
Or rather, I thought I had grasped it before immediately losing it.
Clatter!
I realized once more. I no longer possessed the strength to grip a spear, nor the vigor to wield one.
– Kuhaha! Kuhahahaha!
The Arch Lich erupted in wild laughter at my pathetic display.
But I did not surrender. I could not surrender.
‘Inventory open. Summon.’
I continued summoning weapons.
Clatter!
I continued dropping them.
‘Inventory open. Summon.’
Clatter!
– Human! You foolish, idiotic human!
Even as the Arch Lich mocked me.
It never stopped.
Courage to humbly accept death? If that’s what they call courage, I’d rather be a coward.
I… will absolutely survive. That is the final courtesy I owe to my life of struggling thus far, and what I believed to be the right answer.
‘Inventory open. Summon.’
That was the moment.
Ding.
–
[Endurance]
has increased significantly.
– Stat [Endurance]
has
transformed into
[Willpower]!
– Those with strong willpower are not easily broken and do not fall. They will burn their willpower until the very end and fight with all their might.
– Strong willpower sometimes manifests a strength that transcends limits!
– Special effect [Indomitable] has manifested. All stats temporarily increase slightly and fatigue decreases!
–
Indomitable
This has been awakened. All stats temporarily increase slightly and fatigue decreases!
I felt warmth spreading from deep within my body.
Though infinitely small compared to the power I originally possessed, it was on the other hand warmer than anything else.
It was the system’s response to my desperation, and my last chance.
With trembling hands still quivering faintly, I gripped the cool spear shaft with all my strength.
– You….
I was not the only one who noticed the change.
The moment the Arch Lich’s eyes—which had been observing me as one might watch a zoo monkey—widened greatly, I gathered all my strength and hurled my body forward.
Toward the figure standing tall in a world moving impossibly slowly, I extended the spear in my hand.
Shrieeeeek!
And the instant the spear blade cut through the air with a piercing cry, I saw it clearly. The Arch Lich’s eyes curving like a crescent moon.
It was mockery.
– Blood Explosion.
Boom—!
The sound of explosion. And shock waves sweeping across my entire body.
My body, which had been hurling forward with all my might, suddenly froze, and the spear slipped from my grasp, embedding itself diagonally into the ground.
I blinked my eyes with burst blood vessels. In a world dyed entirely crimson, something sticky and wet fell from the air and touched my face.
Pitter, pitter-patter.
‘…Ah.’
Blood.
Blood gushing like a fountain from my entire body was pouring down onto the ground like a downpour.
As I raised my trembling arms like aspen leaves, I could see tattered flesh and bone exposed white beneath.
Blood Explosion. A detonation of blood.
Beyond my fading consciousness, I hear the Skeleton Warlord’s cry.
– …You, human!
How long had it been screaming?
I wanted to respond, but what flowed from between my lips was not words—only blood mixed with fragments of my own entrails.
“Cough.”
My vision swims.
I reached toward the Arch Lich, barely visible through the blood coating my face, but my hand would not reach it—could not reach it.
Perhaps never would, for all eternity.
– Snap out of it! You must survive!
As if those words could change anything.
Of course I must. I have to survive, defeat that creature, and return to where I belong.
But….
‘Can I?’
In that moment, the world began to tilt slowly.
No—the world remained still. It was I who tilted. My body, overwhelmed by relentless hemorrhage and injury, was collapsing with every ounce of strength I possessed.
‘I can’t fall. If I do, everything ends.’
I forced my body to stand on an already-broken ankle.
The faint pain, like being pierced by thorns, was proof that I was dying, and the fragmented cries of the Skeleton Warlord, like static from a broken radio, were proof that I still lived.
– …Do it, human! Now!
Do what? What are you asking?
– Summon me at once…!
My already-ruptured eardrums and fading consciousness could not properly receive the Skeleton Warlord’s words.
Even if I had heard clearly, I could not have stopped what the Arch Lich did next.
– You possess an interesting object.
In the Arch Lich’s hand appeared something familiar.
Baek Yeom, my spear companion through countless battles, ignited with flame in this stranger’s grasp, yet even as its bones burned, the creature merely laughed.
– Having received such a generous gift, I suppose I should return it to its owner.
The Arch Lich drew its arm back. Overwhelming magic suppressed Baek Yeom’s flames and surged toward the spear’s point.
– Farewell. New rival—or perhaps merely a foolish human who might have been one.
Whoosh!
The sound of piercing air was brief, yet the moment stretched like eternity.
I watched in silence as Baek Yeom shot forth like a flash of light. Countless possibilities raced through my mind, and finally I reached my conclusion.
‘I cannot evade it.’
Then only one ending remains for me. Death.
In seven years of countless battles, never had the word “death” felt so near.
All I could do was watch the approaching end.
‘Yes, it’s over.’
In that very moment of calm acceptance.
Crack!
White Flame’s spear pierced through the center of my chest, shattering bone, and I froze with eyes wide open.
Not from pain, but from shock.
“…You.”
– Why, what.
I couldn’t find words and stared at the flickering blue light dancing before my eyes.
From a skull no larger than a soccer ball, the Skeleton Warlord—now transformed into a two-meter frame—spoke in a blunt voice.
– Don’t ask how I managed to escape alone. Even I don’t understand it.
“Then, why exactly?”
I asked, facing the creature before me.
The spear blade that had pierced through the Skeleton Warlord’s back and into its chest stopped exactly one hand’s breadth away from me.
Without something blocking it, the distance would have been fatal.
It had just thrown itself in front of me, saving my life.
– …I don’t understand that either. Damn it. I don’t understand anything anymore. Perhaps I’ve been enchanted by this blade.
Only then could I discern the identity of the sword held in the Skeleton Warlord’s hand.
“Hero’s Soul.”
Lei Fei’s only keepsake—a blade that none but those worthy of becoming a hero could even grasp.
That very Hero’s Soul was now held in the Skeleton Warlord’s grip.
In the hands of a Named Monster, not a human.
– Hero’s Soul, is it? For something humans created, it’s quite a fine name. Or rather, to be honest, it’s magnificent. Though I came too late to wield it properly….
The Skeleton Warlord’s voice grew quieter. The blue light that had always burned so brightly in its eyes was gradually fading.
I understood what this moment signified.
‘Dissolution.’
There was no doubt. Even now, the Arch Lich’s magic infused into White Flame’s blade was rapidly consuming the Skeleton Warlord.
“You.”
– Don’t say another word. I’m already regretting this as it is.
I didn’t believe those words. Because I heard a low laugh that didn’t match its blunt tone.
– Human. I have a question.
The Arch Lich drew closer over the Skeleton Warlord’s crumbling shoulders, but I simply nodded silently.
“Anything.”
The creature hesitated for a moment before asking in a small voice.
– That thing you said before. Was it sincere?
“Before? I…ah.”
Suddenly, I remembered. Shortly after Lei Fei’s death, the creature pondering its forgotten past.
And the casual words I had offered in response.
‘Well, I suppose it might have been a decent fellow, in my estimation.’
‘…Huh? Was that directed at me?’
‘No. Just thinking aloud.’
‘Heh, hem. Right?’
So that was it. That was why.
To the Skeleton Warlord that had awakened with power drawn from a specter stripped of all memory, I—always by its side—might have been its only friend.
My single word, small as a pebble cast into still water, had sent ripples across the depths of his heart.
‘How foolish.’
What was that supposed to mean? Why did it have to go this far over something so trivial?
For a moment, words failed me and something hot surged up from within, but I forced it down. I barely managed to open my mouth and respond.
“Of course I meant it sincerely.”
– Yes, I see.
The moment those precariously flickering blue eyes traced an arc—a desolate voice rang out, bringing everything to an end.
– Are the farewells finished?
“…!”
– Bone Explosion.
Boom!
I instinctively crossed both arms to shield my face, then was hurled backward by the shockwave that engulfed my entire body.
As I barely managed to rise, I saw skulls shooting skyward and bones shattering into fragments.
And… that was all.
The Skeleton Warlord was nowhere to be found.
Whoosh!
The Hero’s Soul, falling through empty air, embedded itself deep into the ground—along with the hand of someone who had never released the sword’s hilt until the very end.

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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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