The Former Empress Roughly Hides Her Abilities - Chapter 481

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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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Yeo Joo Saves the World
Part 3, Episode 85

Before the Parasitic Tree discovered the Gate, there was still hope.

[ Parasitic Tree (SS-rank)
: Once a World Tree that guarded life and abundance, now a withered husk due to the Dimensional End. Subsequently mutated into a Parasitic Tree within a Gate, it inherited its host’s abilities.
: Having discovered a new world to parasitize and feed upon, it has gone berserk. ]

Bewilderment at the appearance of an SS-rank monster lasted only a moment—once again, Kang Han moved first.

[ Skill ‘Strike of Heaven’ activated. ]
[ Skill ‘Strike of Heaven’ activated. ]
[ Skill ‘Strike of Heaven’ activated. ]

Boom! Crack! Boom—!
A blinding flash flooded the dungeon—so bright the eye could barely open—and enormous bolts of lightning struck down upon the Parasitic Tree in rapid succession.
Splinter! Crunch, crunch-crunch!
The tree, mouthless, could not scream.
Yet its enormous body, too vast to take in at a single glance, twisted and writhed, proof that Kang Han’s assault was effective.
Indeed, several of the black thorns that had seemed ready to collapse the dungeon’s very sky lost their power, drooped, and crumbled to ash.
That was not all.
Whoosh—!
Sa Ma Young gripped his sword in both hands and drew it in a long arc.
From lower left to upper right.
A blue hellflame traced a sharp curve and tore through the wind, swelling fearfully as it flew.
Crackle-crackle! Boom!
The flame pierced through the armor-like bark of the Parasitic Tree and clung tenaciously around the deep scar it carved.
“We’re… we’re getting through…!”
“Even if it’s SS-rank, it’s not completely immune to damage!”
The hunters clenched their fists.
In the same moment, their eyes—gleaming with hope and longing—turned toward the Justice Guild, whose expression remained relatively composed.
They had already cleared an SS-Grade Gate before.
A Dungeon Collapse was no different.
The Justice Guild had overcome dangerous situations like this numerous times already.
So there must be a way through this as well.
“Let’s give it everything!”
It had started as an A-rank Gate opening in a quiet park.
But the absurd difficulty trapped them without escape, and the Sama Guild’s guildmaster was even abducted by a monster.
After a cascade of trials, they’d reached the tower’s highest floor only to find that Sa Ma Jung, thought lost, appeared as part of the boss monster itself.
By then the hunters’ spirits were already shredded to tatters.
The only reason they could hold on at all was that whenever they seemed cornered, the Justice Guild would smash through the wall before them.
“SS-rank, right before Dungeon Collapse—but still.”
A wall incomparably larger than anything before had appeared, yet the hunters remembered that the Justice Guild remained beside them.
“Maybe… maybe it’s possible.”
It was only a sliver of hope.
But it was enough to grip their weapons once more.

[ Dungeon Collapse Progress: 8% ]

“Let’s go!”
“Come on! Let’s do this!”
The hunters, having overcome their fear and summoned their strength, began to fight against the Parasitic Tree.
Facing an SS-rank monster that was once a World Tree with a human body was never easy.

[ Dungeon Collapse Progress: 18% ]

There were moments when the collapse rate climbed into the twenties.
Yet the hunters did not retreat.
They swallowed Potions until nausea threatened, received healing from Yeo Joo, and continued fighting.

[ Dungeon Collapse Progress: 9% ]

As a result, they discovered something remarkable: the collapse rate could actually decrease.
‘Just a little more and…!’
That was when such hope began to take root.

[ ! WARNING ! ]
[ ! WARNING ! ]
[ ! WARNING ! ]

“What—what is it?!”
Warning windows flooded the vision of hunters caught up in frantic combat.
For the System to sound an alarm meant the situation was dire indeed, yet unable to grasp what danger was so imminent, they faltered in confusion.
Zip-zip! Whoosh!
Kang Han, who had been pouring lightning across the vast body of the World Tree, suddenly leaped onto it and shot high into the air.
Rising to a dizzying height where he seemed no larger than a bird, he spun his body and fell straight down.
“Is he… retreating?”
It looked as though he was withdrawing his body toward the rear where the Gate lay, away from the front lines.
The hunters’ confused gazes, turned upward to follow him, soon shifted to horror.

[ Skill ‘Spear of Justice’ activated. ]

Boom! Boom-crack-crack-crack—!
Before Kang Han’s feet touched the ground, a spear-tip made contact first, and a rough, threatening vortex tore forth from it.
The force, which compressed and exploded in succession, transformed one of the Parasitic Tree’s thick trunks into pitch-black ash.
“When did it reach…?”
“The collapse rate was actually going down!”
“Is it trying to control the entire dungeon?”
Shocked at the Parasitic Tree’s cunning—how it had subtly extended its tendrils beyond the notice of dozens of hunters—they were roused by Sa Ma Young’s hellflame.
Clang! Crack-crackle!
He cleaved through a different trunk than the one Kang Han had stopped and shouted:
“Get your heads in the game! Block the Gate!”
“The… Gate…?”
The hunters reeled in shock.
They had only just realized the Parasitic Tree’s true objective.
“No!”
Kuu-ooom—!
Han Ji Sung urgently poured his mana forth, creating a massive wall of ice before the Gate.
But even that was a moment too late.
A tendril of the Parasitic Tree forced its way through the cracks in the ice and touched the Gate.
At that instant.

[ ! WARNING ! ]
[ The Parasitic Tree (SS) has discovered a Dimensional Passage! ]
[ Dungeon Collapse Progress: 38% ]

The collapse rate, which they had painstakingly reduced to single digits, shot up catastrophically.
“Damn it!”
After that, there was no energy left to attack the Parasitic Tree’s main body.
The hunters threw themselves into blocking the Gate at any cost.
The struggle against the Parasitic Tree’s hunger for the outside world continued endlessly.
Or rather, it seemed as though it would never end.
“What kind of regeneration is this…!”
“Damn! No matter how much we cut it, it just keeps growing back!”
There was no time for despair.
The hunters severed the Parasitic Tree’s tendrils as they emerged before them, again and again.
Yet the climbing collapse rate showed no sign of stopping.
Tendrils burrowed around the broad Gate like ants, their numbers multiplying.

[ Dungeon Collapse Progress: 63% ]

As the tens digit changed once more and someone bit out a vicious curse at the collapse rate, a new voice cut through:
“Ugh! Disgusting!”
“Revolting! Absolutely revolting!”
“Reinforcements!”
A group of hunters pushed through the Gate, which was now covered with Parasitic Tree tendrils, and stepped into the dungeon.
When Lee Yu Eul, Yang Hwa Yeon, and Jang Su Ho appeared first, the Sama Guild and Muwoon Guild members thought the Justice Guild had sent additional forces.
But then, entirely unexpected figures began to emerge.
“We’ve come to help!”
Ryu Do Kyung of Cheongmun and Yoo Myung Hwa of Dongbaek.
“We’re here too!”
“Master!”
Lee Dan Woo, healer Moon Na Rin, and hunters from various other guilds.
Regardless of their guild affiliations, they had come as steadfast reinforcements to aid those struggling to prevent the Dungeon Collapse.
Among them, it was Yang Hwa Yeon, the Justice Guild’s flame mage, who moved with the most vigor.
“Out of the way!”
She called out loudly and hurled a massive fireball like a pitcher throwing a fastball.
Boom! Crack! Crack!
The blazing sphere, striking not the tendrils reaching for the Gate but the Parasitic Tree’s main body itself, bounced outward and triggered a chain of explosions.
Her attack found precisely the section where Kang Han and Sa Ma Young’s initial assault had struck—the part that had not yet recovered—and was precise enough to shake the momentum of the Parasitic Tree’s endless expansion.
“Anyone needing healing, come this way!”
“Master, please rest for a moment!”
The young healers began to do their part as well.
With the arrival of the new reinforcements, vigor returned to the battlefield, if only for a moment.
The hunters, sweat pouring from their brows, began to pour skills brimming with their full strength upon the Parasitic Tree.

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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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