SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 42

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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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Episode 42. His Time (3)
4
I had crossed through countless decisive battles.
I had endured endless duels.
And so I finally arrived.
The thirteenth Stage.
‘Of all things, a stage built from thirteen—an unlucky number.’
Perhaps because of that? This place exuded an extraordinary presence from the moment I entered. The instant I was transported into the Stage, two entirely different voices greeted me.
One joyful. One terrible.
[Welcome, Death King.]
First came that familiar voice.
The Tower no longer called me “Hunter Kim Gongja.” My epithet—my second name, Death King. Now I was properly recognized as a resident of this place, welcomed as a legitimate member of the Tower.
If I found small joy in this fact, was I simply too humble?
-KRRAAAAAAAGH!
And then.
-I will not forgive you!
A shredded, howling scream tore through the air.
-How dare you! How dare you take my children!
No.
The owner of that voice was literally being torn apart.
-To steal away the children I gathered and raised! Do you mock me? Do you deceive me? Are you taking my flesh, my blood, my very soul!
The Demon King.
The lord of the crimson nightmare was dripping filth from every part of his body.
-I curse you!
The Demon King’s form was literally tearing itself apart. Black blood. A sickly fluid that bubbled and churned bore naked witness to his agony. More pitiful now than when he had fled from the twelfth layer, he shrieked toward the heavens.
-I curse you! The world! Everything that is not me! If the world means to erase me, then I shall swallow the world whole! Your seas will become my bile, your earth my festering flesh! I will gnaw through every scrap of your flesh! Your bones! Your hearts! Your innermost entrails to the last!
“Huh…….”
The Witch beside me held her breath.
The Demon King’s shrieks were that ghastly.
A terrible killing intent.
Even the Sword Master stepped back and gripped his sword hilt tightly.
“What a dreadful wail.”
The Sword Master murmured.
“I’ve never heard a voice like that. It sounds as though thousands of mouths are torn open.”
“Precisely. What in the world is he screaming about……?”
The Sword Master and the Witch raised their Aura, wrapping it around themselves. Perhaps to avoid being swallowed by the killing intent. Even in this brief moment, they were clearly overwhelmed by the Demon King’s momentum.
Only one person.
-Huh?
Only my ever-composed Bae Hu-ryeong tilted his head in confusion.
-What’s with this guy.
And Bae Hu-ryeong said something truly unexpected.
-He’s gotten weaker than before.
‘Pardon?’
-Much weaker than when we fought in the lower layer.
Much weaker?
I studied the Demon King carefully once more.
‘…That one?’
-Yep.
Bae Hu-ryeong furrowed his brow.
-Well, the Witch or whoever got a good Aura burn on him. So naturally he’s taken damage. But here’s the thing—it’s not just an injury or anything like that… his very grade has dropped.
‘His grade has dropped?’
-Yeah. How should I put this. For instance…….
Bae Hu-ryeong chose his words carefully.
-Right. Let’s compare his combat power, roughly speaking, to a Grand Goblin. On the twelfth layer, he was like an SSS-rank Grand Goblin created when Alexander and Arthur fused with one.
‘Your analogies keep getting more inventive. Since when do you know about Alexander and Arthur?’
-A king never abandons his pursuit of knowledge. That is precisely how one becomes king, and remains king.
‘Ah, yes. Let’s go with that, then.’
I said to myself.
‘So on the twelfth layer, the Demon King was like that SSS-rank Grand Goblin, and now…….’
-Right. Now he’s more like a Grand Goblin with the SSS-rank stripped clean off. And not even the Grand Goblin that led armies on the eleventh layer—he’s like that weakened version you beat so pathetically while gurgling and whimpering like a coward.
In the Tower’s time, it had only just happened.
But measured by my own experience, it was a distant memory—and as Bae Hu-ryeong brought it up, he tilted his head in bewilderment.
“Huh? Strange, isn’t it? Normally, the higher you climb the Tower, the stronger the Boss should become. So why didn’t it? Could the Witch’s Aura have had some kind of level-scaling effect attached to it?”
“…….”
I looked around as I listened to the Sword Master’s words.
The Temple, reduced to ruins.
From the heart of it, the Demon King still roared skyward—like a lion struck down by an unexpected blow. The Red Nightmare was frustrated, and above all, he was furious.
‘…Perhaps.’
That sight gave me a strange certainty.
‘Has something unforeseen changed in the Stage?’
That was when it happened.
[Calculating Stage 12 Clear Rewards.]
[Calculation Impossible!]
A voice flowed into my mind.
[You are currently undertaking a Hidden Quest.]
[All rewards will be dispensed upon clearing Stage 19.]
[For now, only provisional rewards will be granted.]
Whoosh.
A translucent form unfolded before my eyes.
[Blessing: The Protection of the War God is strengthened!]
It was a map.
But it was nothing like the maps I had seen before.
[All maps from Stage 11 through Stage 20 are now unlocked!]
A World Map.
Until now, the maps granted to me as a privilege were, in name alone, “mini-maps”—at most covering a single Stage’s area. But what unfolded before my eyes now was in another dimension entirely.
A map of this world, and of this other realm.
In other words, the World Map itself began to appear.
“……!”
And the moment I saw the map, I understood.
“I know!”
“Hmm?”
The Witch and the Sword Master both turned to look at me. The Witch with confusion; the Sword Master with his usual stoic expression.
“You know? Know what?”
“Why the Demon King is acting that way. Black Dragon. Think back to the previous Stage.”
I spoke rapidly.
“The very history of the Demon King invading the capital—it never happened. The city changed completely. The Refugee Camp simply vanished.”
“So what about that……?”
“Come on, think about it logically! Where would those refugees have fled from? From every corner of the Empire, no—from every corner of the entire Continent, people must have sought refuge. And yet that entire Refugee Camp, where all those people gathered, just… disappeared.”
“…Ah.”
At last, the Witch’s expression shifted to one of understanding.
“I see.”
The Black Dragon’s master’s eyes narrowed.
“It’s not just the Empire’s invasion history that changed. It’s to such an extent that refugees scattered across the entire Continent have simply ceased to exist…….”
“Yes.”
I nodded.
“It’s not just the Empire that has changed—the entire Continent has. We’ve returned to the era before the Demon King began his full-scale invasion!”
Exactly.
“And right now!”
This was it.
“Right now is the moment this Temple is being attacked!”
Now that I could see the World Map, everything became certain.
The Continent of this world was divided in two by an enormous Mountain Range. The range was so high and so vast that not even birds would dare cross it without risking their lives.
But within that towering expanse of mountain, there was a section that narrowed to a bottleneck—a kind of gate, you might say. Through this passage, the Continent’s eastern and western halves could communicate.
This Temple had been built at that very point.
The Temple that united the Continent’s east and west.
Before this Temple was raised, there must have been tremendous history, countless legends—tales I could not even begin to fathom. Because of those stories, this place had come to resemble a fortress, resembling a defensive wall, and therefore functioned as a Temple.
This Temple was the Goddess’s Shield, spanning the middle reaches of the Mountain Range.
Within that shield, to the east, lay a vast plain. Across the plain stood the Minor States, and beyond them, the Empire. Beyond the Empire lay only the sea, so the Empire’s border began at the horizon and ended at the waterline.
It was a realm of humanity, endless and blue.
But to the west, beyond the Temple, everything was crimson.
All the land beyond the Goddess’s Shield was stained a vivid crimson.
It was the Demon King’s domain.
The Demon King had shattered this shield and surged eastward, swallowing the Minor States and the Empire, until at last he pushed forward to the very harbor.
In the original history.
If history had simply continued as it was meant to, that is what would have come to pass.
‘So this is what History Alteration means!’
I understood.
This world’s time was regressing into the past.
History Alteration.
Or perhaps it should be called History Regression—the proper name for what was happening.
-Kraaaaaah!
That was it.
Now I grasped why the Demon King was howling in such anguish.
Why Bae Hu-ryeong had spoken of the Demon King’s caliber.
I understood it all now, completely.
I muttered inwardly.
‘His Level is dropping.’
-Huh?
Bae Hu-ryeong narrowed his brow.
-His Level is dropping?
‘You know that voice we Hunters hear whenever our Level rises? That one.’
Yes, there was one.
Every time a Hunter grew stronger, the same voice would echo.
「Your existence becomes clearer.」
「Your Level grows.」
Bae Hu-ryeong seemed to recall those exact words instantly.
-You mean that thing about existence or whatever?
‘Yes, exactly that!’
The notion that one’s Level grew was easy enough to grasp. But what did it mean for one’s existence to become clearer? It had always struck me as flowery language, nothing more—but now, watching the Demon King, I understood.
Now I saw it plainly.
“That boss must have grown by slaughtering countless citizens and refugees. But all that bloodshed, all that hunting—it’s become undone. And so.”
That’s why.
“All the growth points tied to it have been deleted.”
His existence was becoming translucent.
“The path the Demon King has walked, the history of slaughter upon slaughter—it’s been erased.
Because I rewrote the entire history of the twelfth Stage.
Through endless duels, through countless decisive battles, stitch by stitch, woven through my own unfolding time—
-Kraaaaaaaaah!
The Demon King’s own time was pushed back, one stitch at a time.
[The Autumn Rain Demon King rages.]
[The Autumn Rain Demon King’s existence grows indistinct.]
The voice that came through proved my reasoning true.
-You cursed wretches…!
The Red Nightmare snarled.
The killing intent was no less than before.
But now no Hunter cowered beneath the Demon King’s momentum.
Neither I nor the Witch, nor the Sword Master—we all fixed our eyes upon him.
“Let’s go.”
I said it.
“Time to light the beacon of our counterattack.”
5
-A hundred thousand demons, arise!
Thrum-thrum-thrummmmm!
The Demon King’s body convulsed.
-Ten thousand demons, obey!
A voice almost like a scream.
-My children!
In answer, creatures stirred across the Stage. Not Summoning—these were likely monsters prepared in the thirteenth Stage from the start.
From the Temple pillars, from the ruined debris, the creatures rose slowly.
-Uuuaaaaahhhhh.
Thousands upon thousands of Zombies.
Were they once the people who dwelt in this Temple, the Goddess’s Shield? Some wore the vestments of high priestesses, others the armor of holy knights, still others the garb of merchants. They lurched forward, their vacant eyes rolling, uttering hollow cries—”Oooooh”—as their bodies shambled on.
The Demon King shouted.
“Kill them!”
The horde of Zombies surged toward us.
Beside me, the Witch exhaled a weary sigh.
“Sigh. I’ve always hated zombie movies, even back then…….”
“I can’t say I’m fond of them either.”
“Can you handle this, Kim Gongja?”
“It’s not a question of whether I can or cannot.”
I drew my sword.
“I will win.”
SSS-Rank Hunter: Must Live by Dying (Serialized)
Author │ Shin No-ah
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok
Address │ 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelung Posttower 1st)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
© Shin No-ah 2019
※ This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder. No part of this work may be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil liability.

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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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