The All-Time Best Talent was F-Class Purification - Chapter 94

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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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94
Chapter 94 – An Elite Talent Awakened as an F-Rank Purifier
Steel giants towering over four meters tall.
Four Mana Golems—unmanned weapons crafted from the pinnacle of mana engineering.
Crimson mana cores embedded in each chest pulsed like hearts, bathing the surroundings in scarlet light. Mana engineering structures interlocked with precision at every joint. Built-in mana cannons were mounted at the wrists, and each footfall left deep imprints in the concrete floor.
A single unit would require an A-Rank Hunter party to face. Four were moving simultaneously.
The Blue Tower’s contingency plan—unable to deploy an S-Rank Hunter.
They were unleashing unmanned weapons that left no official records, intent on grinding this entire territory to dust.
“Insane… releasing Mana Golems into the Black Market? That’s a blatant declaration of war!”
Dr. Junk’s face went ashen as he cried out.
“They must be getting desperate.”
I rose to my feet. The Mana Golems’ crimson optical lenses had locked precisely onto the container where we stood. The lead golem’s massive arm drew back, its colossal steel fist preparing to strike.
Park Jae-jung’s arm condition flashed through my mind. I couldn’t calculate whether that limb—which had endured thousands of impacts over seven hours—could withstand the punch of a four-meter steel giant.
I couldn’t let Park Jae-jung face this alone.
“Park Jae-jung.”
Park Jae-jung met my eyes.
“Even if my bones shatter, I’ll hold them back.”
“I know.”
I gripped the short blade firmly.
“That’s why I won’t let you face it alone.”
Kuuuuung—!
Each time the colossal steel feet, towering over four meters, trampled the Black Market’s scrap metal heaps, the air inside the container shook violently. Four Mana Golems appeared, replacing the Cleaners who had retreated after their visual sensors burned out.
The Blue Tower’s pride—unmanned siege weapons. The fastest and most certain method of severing loose ends, leaving no official Hunter records.
“Insane… bringing four of these things, bigger than armored vehicles.”
Seo Eun-ha swallowed hard, tension evident in her voice.
Dr. Junk kept his eyes fixed on the monitor, his voice low with warning.
“One thing to know first. Those bastards have mana-reflective coating on their surface. I personally formulated it ten years ago. If you cast magic carelessly, it’ll bounce right back and detonate inside the container.”
“Magic won’t work?”
Seo Eun-ha hesitated, her staff faltering.
“It’s the Blue Tower. The pinnacle of mana engineering. Weapons designed to hunt mages. Forget about using magic from the start.”
I calculated rapidly. Magic unusable. Bullets wouldn’t penetrate that thickness of titanium alloy either. Purification absorption was possible, but absorbing four units simultaneously would burn out the circuit first.
‘A frontal approach won’t work. I need to find their weak points.’
“Dr. Junk. How do we destroy those golems?”
Dr. Junk quickly pulled up a transparent schematic of the golem on one side of his holographic keyboard.
“They move using corrupted mana cores as their power source. The armor is titanium alloy, but there must be cooling exhaust ports to dissipate the core’s heat. Directly beneath the armor at the back of the neck, and behind the knees.”
Dr. Junk pointed to the red dots on the schematic.
“Just before the pile bunker strikes, the exhaust port opens for exactly 0.5 seconds to prevent overload. Either drive a physical strike into it or shove that disgusting purification ability of yours in.”
A clear strategy.
But 0.5 seconds was far too brief.
Moreover, it meant I’d have to leap into the trajectory of that massive steel fist descending.
“I’ll… I’ll target the back of its knees.”
Han Ae-ri rose to her feet, gripping her dagger as she caught her breath in ragged gasps.
“Ae-ri, if you overexert yourself….”
“I’m D-rank, so my strength is lacking, but I’m confident in my speed and precision.”
Her eyes were unwavering.
Rather, now that she’d identified a clear weakness, the calculating bloodlust unique to a slasher intensified in her gaze.
“Eun-ha, right before the golem brings its fist down, just cast Wind Step beneath my feet.”
“…Understood. You set the timing.”
“Guild Master, they’re coming.”
Park Jae-jung, positioned at the entrance, bent his knees and lowered his shield’s angle. The leading magical golem emitted a metallic screech as it drew its massive arm back. A thick pile bunker—serving as a battering ram—was mounted on that forearm.
“Hold the line!”
Crash—!
The entire container lurched. The destructive force of the steel fist slamming down upon the Gigas Shield was in an entirely different dimension from the barrage of live ammunition and artillery fire that had poured down before. Pure, brute collision of mass and kinetic energy.
“Ugh—!”
Blood sprayed from Park Jae-jung’s mouth. The Gigas Shield remained unbroken, but that tremendous impact transferred entirely through his bones and muscles. The container’s steel plating beneath his feet buckled and tore.
“Brother! Accelerated regeneration! Skeletal reinforcement!”
Han Su-jin, her face drained of all color, poured her mana forth. A healer and tank locked in a desperate tug-of-war—forcibly mending shattering bones while regenerating torn muscle.
Boom! Crash—!
The golem felt no emotion. Untiring, it unleashed a second and third blow upon the shield. At this rate, Park Jae-jung’s body would be crushed to pulp before the Gigas Shield ever broke through.
“Park Jae-jung! On the next attack, don’t block it—deflect it!”
“Understood!”
I compressed pure white mana to its absolute limit into the shadow dagger’s fangs.
[07:15 AM – 4 hours 15 minutes remaining]
The golem’s red sensor flared. The pile bunker on its right arm emitted an eerie sound as it drew back to its fullest extent. It was the prelude to the compression press attack that Dr. Junk had warned could pierce even reinforced armor.
“Here it comes!”
Crash—!
The instant the golem hurled its steel fist toward the container entrance, Park Jae-jung angled his shield diagonally and rolled toward the floor. Rather than meeting the blow head-on, a parry—deflecting the attack’s trajectory.
Screech—!
The massive fist skidded across the shield’s surface, scattering sparks. The golem’s posture lurched forward, its enormous upper body tilting into the entrance.
“Now!”
Dr. Junk shouted.
“Ae-ri!”
A whirlwind erupted from the tip of Seo Eun-ha’s staff, lifting Han Ae-ri from beneath her feet.
[Skill Activated: Shadow Dash]
Han Ae-ri’s body shot forward like an arrow. With the wind’s acceleration added to her speed, she was nearly impossible to follow with the naked eye. She scaled the golem’s massive leg, sliding through with precision until she reached the exact spot behind its knee—the hollow of its joint.
Hiss—!
For the briefest instant to prevent overload, the steel armor plating opened, venting scalding coolant steam. A mere 0.5 seconds.
“Die.”
Squelch—!
Han Ae-ri’s twin daggers plunged precisely into the narrow gap of the open exhaust port, shredding the mana cables within. Not brute force, but thorough structural destruction.
Screech—!
Sparks erupted from the golem’s right leg as its knee bent at a grotesque angle. The massive creature lost its balance and staggered. As its leg collapsed, the nape of its neck descended to my eye level.
“Allow me to finish this.”
I pushed off the ground and launched myself upward. As the golem crumbled, the second cooling vent at the back of its neck was forced open. I gripped Shadow’s fang and drove the blade deep into the narrow gap.
Clang!
I felt the blade’s tip make contact with the corrupted mana core at the golem’s center. Without hesitation, I detonated the pure white mana I’d absorbed from these creatures through the blade’s energy.
“Purify.”
Whoooosh—!
Brilliant white light erupted from the vent where I’d plunged the short sword. The pure force of purification collided head-on with the corrupted power source animating the golem, triggering catastrophic logic errors and power backflow.
[Warning. Core mana conversion failure. Power system collapse.]
A mechanical error voice emanated from the golem’s internal speaker. Its crimson visual sensors flickered and died, and the four-meter steel colossus crashed to the ground with a thunderous clang, nothing more than scrap metal now.
I landed and caught my breath. My fingertips trembled slightly.
Checking my mana circuits, I’d consumed more energy than anticipated to eliminate one unit. The reserves I’d built up from absorbing the siege cannon had dropped below half.
Han Ae-ri was on her knees on the ground, breathing heavily. Her breathing was ragged, but her eyes remained sharp. Seo Eun-ha leaned on her staff, wiping sweat from her forehead. Park Jae-jung held his shield up, his left shoulder noticeably tilted—the lingering aftermath of his parrying.
The numbers didn’t work out to capture the remaining three golems using the same method. We needed a different strategy, not a direct frontal assault.
‘I burned through this much taking down one. Three remain.’
Thud. Thrum.
The three remaining golems waiting behind the fallen one synchronized their footsteps as they advanced. They seemed to have shared real-time data on the destruction of the previous unit—this time, I heard the sound of their armor locking double-sealed around their knee joints and nape.
“Damn it… machine learning is active. They won’t fall for the same pattern twice!”
Dr. Junk alternated his gaze between the monitor and the outside, crying out in despair.
“And the three remaining ones are preparing simultaneous bombardment! One shield can’t possibly block it!”
[Tactical adjustment. Physical impact nullified. Target elimination via close-range compressed bombardment initiated.]
The three golems formed a semicircle around the container entrance. Their chest plates opened as blue-tinted high-density mana cannons began charging simultaneously.
“Tae-hyun! Can’t you absorb it like before?!”
Seo Eun-ha asked urgently.
“If I absorb the energy from three units at once, my mana circuits might rupture first.”
High-density mana cannons—something I’d never experienced with my purification ability. If I tried to withstand that overwhelming barrage in this narrow container and failed, we’d be annihilated.
If I couldn’t block it, there was only one option.
I had to redirect their attention before they fired.
“Dr. Junk.”
I turned around. His monitor screen still displayed dozens of hacking windows, and the decryption rate had just crossed fifty percent.
“You said you were planting a backdoor into the Blue Tower main server.”
“Huh? Yeah, that’s right. But why—”
“Can that backdoor interfere with the control of those golems?”
Dr. Junk’s eyes widened at my question.
“Are you insane?! I’m barely managing to breach the main server firewall, and you want me to seize control of the golems too? My brain will fry!”
“Not seize control—just for a moment, introduce an error into those three golems’ sensors so they recognize each other as enemies. A moment is all we need.”
“An error… friend-or-foe identification code disruption….”
Dr. Junk paused briefly.
“You want me to touch both the golem control code and the helmet firewall simultaneously? I only have two hands! If one slip happens, everything goes down!”
“We’ve already completed over half of the firewall bypass code. Why don’t we set that on an automatic loop and just focus on the golem interference?”
“An automatic loop?! If we run such delicate work on an automatic loop, false positives will trigger, and the moment they do, Blue Tower’s firewall will reactivate and we’ll have to start from scratch!”
“Then just ten seconds. Exactly ten seconds.”
Dr. Junk splashed cold water on his face. He looked at the monitor, then at me, then back at the monitor. The charging hum from the three golems’ cannons was intensifying.
“Damn it, I don’t care! Either my brain fries or you bastards turn to ash! Ten seconds! I’ll time the cannon fire with the code injection in ten seconds!”
I turned to face the shutter entrance again. I looked back at my companions.
“Park Jae-jung, Seo Eun-ha, Han Ae-ri.”
I whispered low.
“In ten seconds, they’ll fire their cannons at each other. The shockwave from that explosion will engulf the container, so everyone get flat on the floor and focus only on defense.”
“We can’t die like this….”
Han Su-jin’s eyes glistened with tears as she poured healing magic into Park Jae-jung’s back. Without a word, he lowered his shield and gave her shoulder a brief squeeze before throwing himself flat on the floor. Han Ae-ri clutched her dagger to her chest and closed her eyes. Seo Eun-ha laughed incredulously before flattening herself against the ground.
“This is insane. Really insane.”
[AM 07:30 – Time Remaining: 4 hours]
“Five seconds!”
Dr. Junk’s cry. The three golems locked their cannons’ aim on the interior of the container. The charging hum reached its crescendo.
Flat on the floor, I closed my eyes.
Cold steel pressed against my cheek. As the golems’ charging hum grew louder, the very air itself seemed to vibrate. I had never felt ten seconds stretch so long. Only the frantic sound of Dr. Junk’s fingers on the keyboard continued. If the operation failed, we would vanish without a trace in this cramped container. But all I could do now was trust him.
“Three seconds! Two seconds! One second!”
[Charging complete. Firing… Error. Error. Target identification failed. Hostile entity detected.]
“Enter!”
Dr. Junk slammed his fist down on the enter key. In that instant, the three golems aimed at the container turned their cannons toward each other with mechanical grinding sounds.
Krakoooooom—!
A colossal magical explosion that shattered the morning of Neo Seoul swallowed the entire underground black market whole.

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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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