The All-Time Best Talent was F-Class Purification - Chapter 13

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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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13
Chapter 13 – An Elite Talent Awakened as an F-Rank Purifier
The operation had begun.
In the darkness, I took my first step toward the decrepit maintenance Catwalk suspended precariously dozens of meters overhead. I pushed off a rusted pipe jutting from the wall and landed on the trembling steel platform.
Screeeech—
A sound like tearing metal erupted beneath my feet. The Catwalk, abandoned for over a decade, seemed barely capable of supporting my weight.
Looking down, I glimpsed the roiling Acidic Lake beyond the toxic haze. A fall meant annihilation—a perfect death that would leave not even bone fragments behind. I swallowed hard and gripped the shaking railing with white knuckles.
Cold sweat streamed down my back, but I refused to hesitate. My E-Rank body possessed exceptional balance and agility. I lowered my center of gravity and moved across the Catwalk in feline silence. My target: the first Energy Supply Device, the one affixed to the wall in the three o’clock direction.
Below, Park Jae-jung was locked in desperate combat. Using the narrow Entrance Corridor as a shield, he fought to repel the cascading tentacles. Crack. Crack. His B-Rank Gigass Shield shrieked under the relentless assault, yet he did not yield an inch. He was betting everything to buy me time.
‘I need to hurry.’
I accelerated. Where the Catwalk was corroded and fractured, I leaped across using embedded pipes and protrusions as stepping stones. My E-Rank jumping power barely bridged each gap. Several times my feet nearly slipped, but enhanced reflexes saved me from disaster.
At last, the first Energy Supply Device came into view. Up close, it was far more grotesque—a bizarre mechanical apparatus clinging to the wall like a leech. Its surface was webbed with crimson energy lines like veins, and from its core, an ominous light pulsed as it fed power to the Boss in the lake’s center.
I anchored myself on a stable structure beside the Catwalk to avoid its sway. Then I sent Park Jae-jung the agreed signal—I pulled out my flashlight and flicked it three times toward the floor below.
Seeing the signal, Park Jae-jung’s movements changed. Rather than pure defense, he struck the ground more violently with his shield and roared, drawing the Boss’s attention. His desperate provocation fixed the Boss’s massive crimson eye solely on him.
‘Now.’
I drew my Purification Dagger. Pouring all my strength and Purification energy into the strike, I drove it toward the thickest energy line connecting the device to the Boss.
Clang—
As the blade pierced the connection, a tremendous backlash surged through the hilt. The corrupted mana rejected my Purification and thrashed violently. My entire body convulsed as if struck by lightning. Gritting my teeth, I held firm and forced my Purification energy deeper.
Crackle—
Pure white light erupted from the dagger’s tip, incinerating the crimson energy lines. As the connection severed, the entire device began to convulse violently. Red sparks erupted from within as if the mechanism had overloaded.
Boom—
The first device exploded with a deafening roar. The shockwave hammered the Catwalk, and I barely managed to hold onto the structure.
I immediately assessed the Boss’s condition. As expected, the protective aura surrounding it noticeably weakened when one device was destroyed. But simultaneously, the Boss erupted in fury.
Roooaarrr—
Its enraged roar shook the entire Dome. The Boss’s massive crimson eye finally turned from Park Jae-jung to me. And from its gaping maw, a crimson flash began to condense.
‘What is that? A breath attack?’
I sensed the danger instinctively. This was an attack of a completely different magnitude. Park Jae-jung, seeing me, cried out urgently.
“Boss, dodge!”
A powerful acidic breath capable of dissolving everything erupted from the Boss’s maw. Its target was precisely the Catwalk where I stood.
I prepared to throw myself clear. But the breath’s speed far exceeded my expectations. I couldn’t escape.
That was the moment.
Crash—
A massive shield of brilliant blue light materialized before me. It was Guardian’s Wall, a C-Rank defensive skill that Park Jae-jung activated by squeezing out every last drop of his core energy. Without his ranged support, I would have been engulfed by the acidic breath.
But even Guardian’s Wall couldn’t completely withstand the Boss’s breath. The blue shield shrieked horribly as it dissolved, and the shockwave slammed into the Catwalk.
Crash—
The ancient Catwalk beneath my feet shattered like it had been bombed. The ground gave way beneath me. Below, the crimson Acidic Lake gaped open, ready to dissolve everything.
‘I’m falling.’
I plummeted toward the boiling inferno without even time to scream. The sound of wind rushing past my ears, the hot and acrid steam rising from below, and the terror of death—all my senses heightened instantaneously.
Time seemed to slow. If I fell like this, it was over. I would dissolve without a trace. No—I couldn’t end it like this.
In that moment of being hurled into the void, I instinctively snatched at the wire coiled at my waist. I desperately scanned my surroundings. The steel cable streaking past my vision was my only lifeline.
‘There it is.’
A relatively thick steel cable that had fallen along with the collapsing Catwalk Section.
There was no time to hesitate. I hurled my grappling hook.
Clang!
With a metallic screech, the hook miraculously caught between the steel cables. The moment the impact of the fall transmitted through my arms, I gripped the wire with every ounce of strength I possessed.
“Ugh.”
My body snapped back violently with a metallic sound, and a searing pain shot through my shoulder as if it might dislocate. I stopped. Just three meters below my feet, the Acidic Lake bubbled and churned, its surface gaping like a hungry mouth.
“Boss.”
Park Jae-jung’s voice echoed from the distant Entrance. He appeared consumed with blocking the Boss’s tentacle attacks, yet his gaze never wavered from me.
I lifted my head to look upward. The cable I hung from connected to the Catwalk Section above—the part that hadn’t yet collapsed. But climbing back up seemed nearly impossible. To make matters worse, I felt the Boss’s crimson eye turn toward me once again.
‘No time.’
I had to escape before it unleashed another breath attack. Instead of climbing the wire, I chose a different approach.
I drew a standard dagger and hurled it toward a protruding pipe on the wall—one connected to the cable I hung from.
The dagger embedded itself perfectly deep within the pipe’s crevice. I secured the wire tightly around my waist and shouted to Park Jae-jung.
“Park Jae-jung. Five seconds.”
He understood my intention and began provoking the Boss even more violently. The moment all of its tentacles focused on him, I hooked the wire onto the embedded dagger and launched myself across the void toward the opposite wall.
Whoosh—
My body skimmed perilously across the Acidic Lake as the wind screamed past. The Boss belatedly spotted me and lashed out with its tentacles, but by the narrowest margin, my feet touched the opposite wall’s protrusion. I quickly concealed myself. The wire and dagger that had been suspended dissolved without a trace as the tentacles struck them.
“Hah. Hah.”
I leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. I had survived. It was a miracle born from Park Jae-jung’s desperate covering fire and my newfound E-Rank abilities.
I paused to catch my breath and surveyed my surroundings. This location was close to where the second Energy Supply Device lay. Using the wall’s pipes and structural elements as handholds, I carefully climbed back up to the Catwalk Section above.
The second device was positioned even higher than the first. And hovering around it like a sentinel was a new type of monster I’d never encountered before—a translucent, jellyfish-like body with multiple electrode-like tentacles.
‘Shock Jelly?’
I’d seen this monster on Hunter Net before. It had a reputation for being troublesome even among E-Rank creatures. Its direct offensive power was weak, but it possessed the ability to emit powerful electromagnetic shockwaves that could paralyze opponents or disable equipment.
I signaled Park Jae-jung once more. While he drew the Boss’s attention, I silently approached the Shock Jelly from behind. Before it could notice, I pierced its central body with my Purification Dagger.
Crackle—
Powerful electrical current erupted from its body and coursed through my arm. Thanks to my enhanced physiology, I didn’t become paralyzed, but the unpleasant sensation of every hair on my body standing on end was undeniable. I quickly cast Purification to dissolve the creature.
The second Energy Supply Device appeared before my eyes. Just as I had with the first, I destroyed the device’s energy connection point with my Purification Dagger.
Boom—
With the second explosion, I felt the protective barrier enveloping the Boss noticeably weaken. Half of it was now destroyed.
“Good.”
I muttered to myself. That was when I noticed something strange. The residual energy that flowed out as the second device was destroyed—its flow wasn’t directed solely at the Boss. A faint but unmistakable portion of the energy was streaming upward toward the Dome’s highest ceiling, toward something concealed in the darkness above.
‘What is that? There was nothing up there.’
I pushed my Core Resonance ability to its maximum and traced that flow.
The contaminated energy leaking from the severed pipe didn’t scatter into empty space. It was drawn in as if by an invisible funnel, converging toward a single point in the darkness of the ceiling. This was no simple leak. Something far larger than the Boss lurked in that darkness above, silently consuming the energy.
‘Were these devices simply supplying energy to the Boss? Then where is that energy going?’
My heart began to pound with ominous foreboding. The structure of this Dungeon, or perhaps the very existence of that Boss, might be far more complex and dangerous than I had ever imagined.
I looked down to inform Park Jae-jung of this discovery. But he remained preoccupied with defending against the Boss’s relentless assault.
‘First, I need to destroy the remaining devices.’
I suppressed my unease and moved toward the location of the third Energy Supply Device. Yet the nagging discomfort in my heart refused to fade. I had no way of knowing if I was awakening something dangerous.

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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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