The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 391

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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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The Maxed-Out Player’s 100th Return – Side Story Episode 15
15. Suspicion
There was one Host per country across the world.
Because of this, Ryu Min had no choice but to visit every nation on the globe.
Crack!
Each time, he eliminated the Host in a single strike.
Yet with each kill, Voluark’s growth accelerated.
“How many are left now?”
“Just five more to capture.”
Voluark’s black liquid had grown darker than before.
Where it had once been a dull black, it now gleamed with a lustrous sheen.
It was evidence of growth earned by harvesting 295 Hosts thus far.
Perhaps because of this, confidence radiated from his expression.
‘Heh heh, now there’s no one who can stop me. Even Arkizar wouldn’t stand a chance against me.’
Though they had never clashed, I could sense it.
I had evolved into a far stronger, more transcendent being.
Was that the reason?
“Lead the way.”
….
“What are you doing? Guide us now.”
“Ah… yes.”
As Voluark led the way, doubt crept into his mind regarding Ryu Min’s behavior.
‘Why is the God of Time so obsessed with the Hosts?’
Because he was born in defiance of time’s laws?
That’s what he claimed, but no matter how much he recalled, he had never heard such a story from his master Deorant.
‘If I could only contact Deorant now, I would have asked him about this…’
Watching the Hosts die in a single blow made him feel it was wasteful, yet doubt gnawed at him—was this truly right?
Hosts were entities that gathered human bioelectric energy and accelerated the growth of Seeds.
These beneficial creatures were being slain by the God of Time before they could even harvest energy.
In other words, the God of Time was hindering the Seeds’ growth.
‘But it’s too late to stop it now, isn’t it? I’ve already eliminated 295 of them.’
The God of Time wanted the Hosts eliminated, and he wanted revenge against Arkizar.
They moved as a business transaction—mutual interests.
Yet Voluark found himself doubting whether this deal was truly for his benefit.
He even questioned whether Arkizar was truly targeting him at all.
‘Should I send him a telepathic message?’
After deliberation, he made his decision.
He would have a genuine conversation with Arkizar.
If there was a misunderstanding, he would clear it up.
Of course, Ryu Min, who possessed the Rune of True Heart, could not have been unaware of this.
“Voluark. What are you doing right now?”
“….”
“Are you sending telepathy without my knowing? To Arkizar?”
Voluark flinched at the sudden accusation.
Without even reading his true thoughts, his emotions were laid bare across his face.
‘There’s no point in deceiving him any longer.’
Having reached that conclusion, I sighed inwardly and continued speaking.
“You’re suspicious about why I’m hunting down Hosts, aren’t you?”
“…To be honest, yes.”
“Want to know the real reason?”
At Voluark’s nod, I finally revealed it.
The hidden blade I’d been concealing all this time.
“Because I’m not the God of Time.”
“Ye-you really are…!”
In an instant, the surrounding space darkened.
The two of us had entered the heart of the Dimensional Gap.
“Here, you won’t be able to escape no matter what.”
“So you finally reveal your true nature! That claim about being the God of Time was a lie!”
“You’re only figuring that out now? How pathetic.”
“You wretched human, lower than an insect!”
Voluark revealed his own true nature with words dripping with contempt for humans, unleashing a dark aura.
Unlike before, it was a massive and lustrous energy.
“I knew something was off! I’ll kill you and escape from the Dimensional Gap!”
“So you’ve grown confident after consuming a few Hosts? Go ahead and try.”
Did my scorn become the spark that ignited him?
“I’ll kill you!”
Voluark charged forward with blazing eyes.
Splish splish splish—
He transformed his entire body into tens of thousands of liquid droplets.
Pap pap pap pap pap!
He sprayed the deadly liquid in all directions.
Sizzle— sizzle—!
My body that touched the liquid began to dissolve before I could even evade.
The scattered droplets gathered in one place and reformed into a human shape.
“Hahaha! It’s over! I’ll make good use of your bioelectric energy!”
Voluark emerged, believing he had secured victory, unaware of one thing.
“What are you doing?”
“…!!”
That what he had destroyed was merely my clone.
“I’m right here.”
“Damn it, you bastard!”
Seeing me hovering above, Voluark tried to react quickly, but it was already too late.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
“Gack, cough-cough-hack-hack-hack!”
My body convulsed under the high-voltage current as liquids burned away.
That single strike brought me to the brink of death, but didn’t finish me.
“Having consumed Hosts and grown, your durability has increased considerably. You’re holding up better than Lucainu did before?”
“Ugh, you… you bastard…”
“Can you survive a second strike?”
Lightning flickered once more, and Voluark’s screams pierced the air.
“Krraaaaaaagh!”
As the screams ceased, the lustrous black liquid had turned murky.
“Ugh…”
“You survived two? You’ve certainly grown, Voluark. But.”
I extended my hand once more.
“I can fire as many times as I need to.”
“P-please… spare me…”
Those were Voluark’s final words.
Sizzzzzzzzz-
The liquid vaporized and burned away completely.
Since I could no longer sense its thoughts, I could be certain.
Of Voluark’s death.
“So I’ve eliminated two Seeds now?”
I dispelled the temporal barrier and stepped back into the world.
After dealing with Lucainu and now Voluark, my expression remained unsettled.
I had no way of knowing how many more Seeds remained to be eliminated.
But what hurt most was losing my guide.
‘There was no choice. It was just before Voluark could contact Arkizar.’
I had already discerned it through the rune of inner thoughts.
That Voluark, having grown suspicious of me, would no longer search for Hosts.
So I eliminated it without hesitation.
Even at the cost of losing my guide.
‘Now how do I find the remaining Hosts? Do I have to search on foot?’
At least there was one consolation—five Hosts remained.
Having scoured nearly the entire world, I had a rough idea of where to find them.
‘Shall I go?’
My body moved at light speed.

* * *
‘When on earth is my brother coming?’
Ryu Won sprawled across the sofa like a limp puppy.
He’d spent the entire night scouring overseas articles with eyes wide open, desperate to be of use to his brother.
As a result, he’d managed to pinpoint the Host’s location and waited to inform his brother upon his arrival.
But.
‘A full day has passed, and he still hasn’t come home….’
His brother, who’d left to hunt down the Host, had gone silent after their last call from the United States.
‘Nothing’s happened to him, right?’
Unease crept in, though he quickly dismissed it as needless worry.
Who was his brother, after all?
Wasn’t he Black Scythe—the only one to survive until the Final Round?
And that wasn’t even the extent of it; he’d dealt with the gods who created The Game itself, and now he freely traversed between worldlines.
‘What could possibly trouble someone like him… I shouldn’t indulge in pointless worry.’
Even knowing full well his brother wasn’t the type to suffer defeat.
“….”
The shadow that fell across his expression refused to lift.
He’d tried not to worry, but no matter how extraordinary his brother was, the inability to see him made anxiety inevitable.
“Sigh, when exactly are you coming, brother….”
Ryu Won muttered while rubbing his drowsy eyes, finally surrendering to waiting.
He fetched a blanket and lay down on the sofa, thinking he’d get some rest.
He’d barely closed his eyes when sleep began to claim him.
Ding ding ding—dong dong dong—♬
A sound pierced through his consciousness.
It was the doorbell.
“Brother!?”
He bolted upright with joy and rushed toward the wall monitor.
A brief question flickered through his mind in the process.
‘Why would my brother ring the doorbell? He wouldn’t have forgotten the Home’s access code, would he?’
The question vanished the moment he saw his brother’s face on the monitor screen.
“It’s him!”
Ryu Won, his fatigue forgotten and his face suddenly animated, reached the Entrance.
Click!
He opened the door.
But.
“Gasp!”
Ryu Won couldn’t help but be startled.
A different person stood before the door—not his brother.
“Hehe.”
An Unknown Man smiled with an ominous grin.
Sensing something amiss, Ryu Won rushed to shut the door.
Thud!
The Unknown Man wedged his foot in and forced his way inside without hesitation.
“W-who are you? Why are you just barging in like this….”
“This is Black Scythe’s home, isn’t it?”
At the Unknown Man’s words as he closed the entrance door, Ryu Won’s expression hardened.
“And you’re probably Black Scythe’s family.”
“Who are you… Gack!”
The Unknown Man seized Ryu Won’s throat with a single hand.
His fingers elongated, gripping all the way to the nape of the neck.
‘This… this isn’t human!’
The transformation before my eyes made that abundantly clear.
Crackle—
Cracks spiderwebbed across the Unknown Man’s skin.
In an instant, he shed his human disguise entirely, metamorphosing into a creature of black liquid.
“Ah, ahhh….”
Though it retained a humanoid shape, facing a being that was unmistakably not human sent a chill down my spine.
“The internet is truly convenient. Information flows everywhere, allowing me to manipulate screens as well. Thanks to Black Scythe revealing his face, finding him was effortless. Hehehehe.”
The creature that could not be called human mimicked human speech, gazing at Ryu Won clutched in its grip.
“Now that I’ve secured Black Scythe’s family, shall I go meet him?”
Arkizar, the black entity, slowly increased the pressure around the human’s throat.
He could snap the neck like a chicken’s, but this human was Black Scythe’s family.
To coerce Black Scythe, he needed to keep this one alive.
‘First, I’ll render him unconscious.’
Squeeze!
He tightened his grip, compressing the carotid artery.
Cutting off blood flow to the brain would cause oxygen deprivation and unconsciousness.
He knew this fact from human knowledge.
‘Hmm?’
There was one thing Arkizar didn’t know.
‘Why isn’t he losing consciousness?’
Ryu Won was currently under the effect of Hero’s Protection—ten seconds of invulnerability.
Slash!
“Guh?”
Something passed through in an instant, followed by a sharp pain in his arm.
When his senses returned, the arm that had been holding the human lay severed on the floor.
The human he’d been gripping had freed himself and was now hiding behind a man.
“Who in the….”
The moment Arkizar saw the man, he froze.
He had just transmitted the man’s image on the wall pad, so he could never mistake that face.
“You’re… Black Scythe?”
“Enough talking.”
The man wielding the enormous scythe—Ryu Min—leveled his weapon with eyes gleaming with murderous intent.
“Prepare yourself to die.”

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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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