The All-Time Best Talent was F-Class Purification - Chapter 65

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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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65
Chapter 65 – An Elite Talent Awakened as an F-Rank Purifier
I walked through the Mist Area, moving toward places with more acrid stenches, toward zones where concentrated contamination billowed forth. My vision remained limited to five meters, and I trudged forward in solitary march, my purification light barely illuminating the ground beneath my feet.
Suddenly, the flow of the mist changed. Until now, the toxic miasma had pressed in evenly from all directions, but now it began to blow from a single direction.
‘It’s close.’
The location of the Fissure. The source where the gas erupts.
I quickened my pace. That was when it happened.
Thud. Thud.
Footsteps echoed. Not my own. Far heavier, far slower—like a colossal mass of steel striking the earth with each step.
‘…What is that?’
Synchronization. I opened my mana circuits and sensed the aura around me. Something massive lurked within the mist—enormous, heavy, brimming with murderous intent.
Thud!
The mist suddenly split apart. No—something had torn through the mist and charged at me.
“Tch!”
I rolled reflexively to the side. A colossal steel fist crashed down exactly where I had been standing.
Boom!
A deafening roar reverberated across the entire area. The asphalt fractured in a spiderweb pattern, sending fragments flying.
I rolled across the floor, creating distance, then brightened my purification light to identify the creature.
“…You again.”
A Contaminated Juggernaut.
Over three meters tall. Its body was covered in rusted, twisted steel armor. The massive iron mace attached to its right arm was larger than my torso.
It was the same species as the one I had captured with Park Jae-jung in the past. But this one was far larger. Its gas-saturated muscles expanded and contracted without pause, and its crimson eyes burned with far greater intensity.
“Grrrrrr!”
It roared upon spotting me, then charged again.
Whoosh!
The iron mace flew horizontally. I leaned my upper body back. The wind pressure from the metal mass passing inches from my face stung my skin.
‘It’s fast.’
Far faster and far more ferocious than the one Park Jae-jung and I had captured. Back then, he blocked from the front while I targeted the core from behind. But now…
There’s no tank. No shield to block this insane charge in front of me.
Thud!
Its fist slammed into a concrete pillar beside me. The pillar crumbled like tofu, sending debris scattering. One direct hit would be the end.
‘Evasion alone won’t cut it.’
I analyzed its patterns while narrowly deflecting its attacks. Its movements were simple: charge, slam, swing.
If Park Jae-jung were here, he would have mocked it as “brutishly straightforward” while blocking effortlessly.
But now, that simplicity terrified me most.
One hit would end everything.
Whoosh!
The iron mace flew at me again. I lowered my body to evade. It pressed forward relentlessly.
‘There’s no opening.’
To attempt core deactivation, I need to touch its body. But that overwhelming reach refuses me even the chance to approach.
If I continue like this, I’ll waste away. My stamina will bottom out, my focus will crumble. That moment will be my death.
‘I need to change my approach.’
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the mana stone fragment I’d picked up earlier. It was useless debris, but I needed it now.
“Hey, tin can!”
I hurled the mana stone at the creature’s face with all my strength.
Clang!
The mana stone bounced off its steel helmet and ricocheted away. A mere pebble couldn’t possibly damage it. But for just an instant, its gaze was drawn to the glimmer of the fragment spinning through the air.
‘Now.’
I seized that fleeting moment. I stopped my backward retreat and instead drove forward into the creature’s embrace.
This was a gamble. If it reacted and swung its fist, I would die. But if it couldn’t react in time?
Thud!
My shoulder slammed against its steel armor. Pain like striking solid rock. But I didn’t stop—I gripped the white dagger in my right hand and thrust it into the gaps of its armor.
Screech!
The blade wedged between the steel plates. But its hide was far too thick. The dagger’s tip couldn’t reach the core.
“Roooar!”
Juggernaut finally detected me and bellowed. Its left hand came crashing down to seize me. If it grabbed me, I’d be crushed.
But I didn’t retreat. If the dagger couldn’t reach it.
“Then I’ll touch it directly.”
I released the white dagger. With my left hand—the alchemist’s hand—I shoved it into the gap in its armor, into that hole where purple toxin billowed forth.
Sizzle!
“Ugh!”
The horrific agony of my skin dissolving in the toxin. The sensation of flesh charring, bone beginning to show—the pain slammed into my consciousness like a sledgehammer.
But I didn’t stop. I pushed deeper. And finally, my fingertips touched something cold and hard.
Its heart. The corrupted core.
“Got you.”
With my blood-drenched hand, I clamped down on Juggernaut’s core. It thrashed in terror. But it was too late.
“Purify.”
Brilliant light exploded from my grip.
The very structure of the creature as a monster—inscribed upon its core—was forcibly torn away, and the energy condensed within was converted back into pure mana. The authority of purification.
Crack, crack, crack!
“N-no, nooooo!”
Juggernaut’s screams echoed through the mist. Its steel armor began to glow from within—red, then white.
An enormous surge of energy flooded back through my arm. It was like a dam bursting, water pouring in. My mana circuits expanded to their breaking point, shrieking in protest.
My veins felt ready to rupture. But I didn’t release my grip. If I let go of this power, it would revive and kill me. And more than that.
‘I can’t leave something this delicious behind.’
I gritted my teeth and consumed the creature’s energy. The essence of a high-tier C-rank monster. The me from my F-rank days would have burst apart after just a taste. But I am now the Guild Master of Moonglade, grown to C-rank through countless brushes with death.
“Give it all to me.”
Boom!
With the final flash, Juggernaut’s massive form collapsed. Steel plates clattered down, and the body within crumbled into white ash that scattered away.
Patter, patter.
I stumbled and collapsed onto the floor. My left hand was a mangled mess, dissolved by the venom. Yet a sense of fulfillment far greater than pain enveloped my entire body.
The creature’s energy was flooding through my mana circuits. Excessive mana that transcended my limits. My body burned with intense heat.
“Hah… hah….”
With trembling hands, I retrieved Han Su-jin’s first aid kit from my backpack. My bandaging was clumsy and rough. If Park Jae-jung had been here, he would have wrapped it carefully while nagging me about it.
“I can manage… on my own.”
I muttered while tying off the blood-soaked bandage. A lie. I’d nearly died. But I survived, and I grew stronger.
Throbbing.
Pain that started from my fingertips shot up my arm and pierced into my brain. I stared down at my left hand wrapped in bandages. Blood and pus seeped through, staining the white gauze red and yellow.
“Damn, this hurts like hell.”
This was the price of thrusting my bare hand into the gaps of Juggernaut’s armor. I’d purged the venom with purification, but the already-dissolved skin and nerves hadn’t fully regenerated. If Han Su-jin had been here with her healing, this wound would’ve been gone in a minute.
I swallowed my bitterness and pulled a painkiller from my backpack, chewing it dry. No point wasting water. I just chew and swallow. As the bitter taste spread across my tongue, my mind seemed to clear a little.
The excessive mana I’d gained from purifying Juggernaut was heating my veins intensely. I had to move before this heat faded. Staying still in a place like this was a losing proposition.
I gathered items from where Juggernaut had fallen. A mana stone it had expelled. Decent size. I pocketed it. I’d give it to Park Jae-jung when I saw him again.
I’d make a show of it—”Do you know how much trouble I went through to get this?”
Then I picked up the white fang that had fallen to the floor and tucked it back into my belt. My only weapon. I couldn’t afford to lose it.
I left Juggernaut’s remains behind and continued forward. Into the mist, toward the direction where gas was billowing out.
As I walked, a familiar landscape emerged through the haze.
Collapsed buildings. Twisted steel structures. And the sign of a half-buried subway entrance.
[Guro Digital Complex Station]
A place where countless people once passed through. Now it had become ruins—a monster’s domain.
A few days ago, the five of us had sprinted up these stairs like madmen. I thought my ass was going to burn off from the gas cloud chasing us from behind.
But now it’s the opposite. I have to walk into that gas cloud of my own volition.
Screeeech.
I pushed through the barrier gate of the ticket turnstile, forcing it to operate. It felt like an entrance to the underworld.
I stood before the stairs leading down to the platform. From here on, it’s truly uncharted territory.
Step. Step.
As I descended the stairs, the weight of the air changed. If the air on the surface was a thick mist, the air at Basement Level 1 Platform was nearly liquid. The density of the venom was so high that with each step, my body felt heavy, sinking downward.
I fastened the commander’s tactical jacket and cast purification. A thin white barrier enveloped my body, preventing the acidic venom from touching my skin directly.
Sizzzzzzz.
The toxins in the air burned against my white barrier—I could hear it. Mana was consumed relentlessly. Like a taxi meter running, my life force was draining away in real time.
“Expensive toll.”
I muttered. Since I’d paid such an exorbitant price to enter, I had to make it worthwhile.
I arrived at the platform. The screen doors had all been torn away. The railway tracks gaped like an open mouth in darkness. The research facility I needed to reach lay deeper along these tracks.
I illuminated the tracks with the light of my purification.
“…Hah.”
A sigh escaped me. The tracks weren’t empty. Black masses clung to the floor, walls, and ceiling—everywhere.
Mutated slime fungi. Plant-type monsters that had grown on gas. They filled the entire tunnel like a massive fungal forest.
They seemed motionless, but when my light touched them, they twitched faintly. They were alive. The moment I passed through them, thousands of spores would burst and digest me alive.
“They’ve completely blocked the way.”
If Park Jae-jung had been here, would he have pushed through with his shield? Or would Seo Eun-ha have burned them away with fire? Both are impossible now. If I forced my way through, my body would dissolve. If I set a fire, the gas in this narrow tunnel would explode and roast me along with it.
There was only one way.
I leaped down beneath the railway tracks. A wet squelch. My foot pressed into the viscous slime coating the floor. Revolting sensation.
Glub glub. The fungi around me swelled in unison at the sound of my footsteps. Like pus-filled sacs ready to burst.
“Calm down. I’ll feed you.”
I spread both hands wide. No need for white fangs. What I needed now wasn’t blade work—it was a thorough cleansing.
Synchronization.
My consciousness spread throughout the entire Fungal Forest. They weren’t so much monsters as one massive organism. Interconnected neural networks. Viscous malice.
I read the wavelengths of that network.
“Purification.”
Fwoooosh.
A gentle white wave erupted from both my hands. Not an aggressive flash. Like bleach seeping slowly but inexorably into a mold-covered wall—light that seeped in with absolute certainty.
Shhhhiiiick.
An eerie sound echoed through the tunnel. The fungi touched by my light began to dissolve, foaming white. The spore sacs that had been ready to burst shriveled like deflated balloons.
It wasn’t simply killing them. I was extracting only the corrupted mana they harbored, returning the residue to earth.
The mana I’d expended refilled. No—it actually increased. This Fungal Forest wasn’t an obstacle; it was an infinite refill buffet laid out on my path to the Research Facility.
“Looked unappetizing, but the nutrition is excellent.”
I chuckled softly and moved forward. Wherever my feet touched, the black slime vanished, revealing clean gravel and railway sleepers beneath. Like Moses’s miracle, a white, pristine path opened through the contaminated tunnel.
I walked that path. Occasionally, incompletely purified fungal clumps fell from the ceiling and struck my shoulder, but they touched the white membrane enveloping my body and evaporated with a sizzling sound.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes. The tedious cleaning work continued. Simple labor, but I couldn’t stop. If I did, the fungi would regrow behind me and block my retreat.
After walking for quite some time, it happened.
An incongruous sight appeared in the darkness ahead. A point where the Fungal Forest abruptly ended. And beyond it.
“…Found it.”
I stopped walking.
The tunnel floor had vanished. No—it hadn’t vanished. It had collapsed.
A massive sinkhole.
The explosion from days ago. Its aftermath had caused the Research Facility on Basement Level 3 to collapse, creating a subsidence that extended all the way to the Underground Level 1 Railway floor.
A pit easily twenty meters in diameter. Peering over its edge, pitch-black darkness stretched endlessly into its depths.
Kuooooo.
The wind sounded different. This wasn’t natural air circulation. It was a scream forcibly expelled from deep underground. The sound of compressed gas leaking through fissures.
The fissures we couldn’t seal. They were down there.
I checked my wristwatch. The tidal surge was ending. Soon would come the ebb. The time when gas would briefly subside.
“I have to go in now.”
I did a final check of my backpack. Han Su-jin’s first aid kit. Seo Eun-ha’s energy bars. Park Jae-jung’s note. Things my comrades had left behind. These had brought me this far.
I lowered myself to the edge of the sinkhole and peered down.
And my breath caught.
“…This is insane.”
The area around the sinkhole was moving. No—it wasn’t moving. It was writhing.
Dozens, hundreds. Mutants that had grown fat on the high-concentration gas spewing from the sinkhole filled the pit’s perimeter. Some had four arms, others had eyes embedded across their entire bodies. Not a single one maintained a normal form.
Gas that spewed forth with each tidal surge. That concentrated corruption had transformed them. Mutation. Berserk state. Monsters among monsters.
They crouched at the sinkhole’s edge like guardians protecting an altar, greedily inhaling the gas pouring from the fissures.
To descend beneath the Sinkhole and seal the Fissure, I had to push through that gap. I gripped the white fang tightly in my hand. The handle was slick—whether from sweat or blood, I couldn’t tell. It was at that precise moment.
Kieeeek!
One of the creatures lifted its head. Dozens of eyes embedded in its grotesque face turned toward me in unison.
I’d been spotted.
Kiiieek! Kraaaaagh!
Like a chain reaction, they awakened. Hundreds of crimson eyes gleamed from the darkness, fixed upon me.
“…Ha.”
A hollow laugh escaped my lips. I’d nearly died facing a single Juggernaut. And now they wanted me to take on all of these? But I couldn’t retreat. Behind me, the Fungal Forest was already regrowing, and before me stood this horde of abominations.
There was only one choice.
“Fine. Come at me, all of you.”
I ignited the light of purification in both hands. White radiance split through the darkness. I would sweep them all away and descend into the Sinkhole. The creatures roared and charged. I ran forward to meet them.
War had begun.

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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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