The Return of the Legendary Golden-Handed Blacksmith - Chapter 254

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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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Chapter 254
254.
—Health is decreasing.
—Stats are declining.
—Status Abnormality: Paralysis
—Status Abnormality: Fear
—Status Abnormality: Misfortune
Countless debuffs wrapped around his body.
“No, this can’t be real.”
Not all Necromancers are created equal.
The Necromancer class had countless subdivisions.
It depended on whom you followed.
What sect you devoted yourself to.
And based on that, the skills you could learn varied entirely.
Eureka was a Necromancer of Crushing, excelling in bone techniques and the art of resurrecting the dead.
Moreover, he possessed skills that could transform his surroundings into terrain favorable to the undead.
A technique to declare one’s domain—Domain Declaration.
But that Domain Declaration had been swallowed whole.
With overwhelming debuffs descending upon him, Jin-woo was demonstrating that even among Necromancers, there existed a hierarchy of power.
“Damn it—!”
This was the first time he’d been turned against like this.
“Nightmare!”
Eureka gestured toward Nightmare.
Screeeech—!
!
The same thing was happening to Nightmare. Experiencing this for the first time, the creature flailed its limbs wildly in frenzy.
Though the movements appeared chaotic, each one carried tremendous force.
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
First severed one of Nightmare’s arms cleanly. Simultaneously, Pur swung the extreme blade, freezing and shattering its legs with frigid cold.
In that instant, countless new limbs sprouted from Nightmare’s body.
Crack—! Snap—! Screech—!
But as fast as they grew, First and Pur sliced them away.
For a moment, Nightmare’s attack struck First and Pur directly—but only for a moment.
Boom—!
Nightmare’s body was driven violently backward.
“!?”
Nightmare was bewildered.
Usually when its attacks landed, opponents were crushed.
Yet now it was the one being pushed back.
The two familiars who had taken the blow were completely unharmed.
“That was quite an impact.”
Pur examined the shoulder where the blow had struck.
“My armor appears to be superior.”
Pur smiled as he glanced at First.
“Grade. Difference. Very. Small.”
First stomped the ground with force, driving Nightmare back aggressively. Without its exceptional recovery ability, Nightmare would have been dead a dozen times over by now.
“Ah, Nightmare.”
Eureka watched despair with his own eyes.
His greatest trump card and finest familiar, Nightmare, was being hunted by First and Pur.
Bang—! Bang—!
Nightmare, which had been on the receiving end of one-sided assault, began to retreat.
“Retreat…? Nightmare is running away?”
It was a sight he’d never witnessed before.
Running away from another undead of all things.
Eureka’s body trembled.
This meant the familiar was being outclassed in terms of grade itself.
“How could you possibly…”
How precious must a familiar’s soul be for this to be happening?
Eureka’s expression suddenly hardened.
Was it because of that method—constructing the skeletal framework from scratch and infusing the soul into it?
That was something no one else could replicate.
Necromancer and Craftsperson—a combination no one had ever attempted before.
“Damn it—!”
Eureka’s expression grew frantic.
Failure.
This battle might end in failure.
Retreat?
Or…?
“A gamble.”
Jin-woo was a great tree.
To fell such a tree, one must swing the axe many times over.
There was still a way.
A final method he’d been saving for the absolute last moment.
“Prepare Counter Steer!”
!
The expressions of the Mydongpung guild members hardened.
The final of the final moves.
The last technique that could be deployed was now activated.
Screeeech—!
“Counter Steer.”
Whoosh—.
—Counter Steer skill is activated!
—Skills are sealed!
—Minion Summoning skill has been sealed.
!
!
Counter Steer.
This was the most risky skill among all of Eureka’s abilities.
Obtained through the patronage of the Seal and Summoning God, it was a divine-tier skill capable of perfectly constraining an opponent.
The skill’s effect was simple: to seal any skill the user could visually identify in their target.
And the price for that sealing was a loss of levels.
—Level is declining!
—25 levels have been lost.
At the cost of 25 levels, Jin-woo would be unable to use the designated skill for three hours.
“Designate skill!”
Eureka designated one of Jin-woo’s skills.
—Minion Summoning becomes unavailable!
“I’ve blocked Minion Summoning!”
Screeeech—.
First, Pur, Bon, Fin, Moltus, and Beom.
“Interesting.”
Jin-woo slightly furrowed his brow as he watched his familiars disappear.
—Skills have been sealed.
—A powerful force has bound the skill.
Thanks to the job effect of Rune and Necromaster – Lord, most debuffs have no effect.
Yet seeing it work on him suggested it was wielding divine power.
‘A good skill. Though the constraints must be enormous.’
The six summoned familiars vanished, leaving only darkness behind.
Eureka shouted forcefully.
“A Necromancer must have corpses!”
The members of Mydongpung knew this fact well thanks to their guild leader, Eureka.
Corpses.
They were both the greatest strength and weakness of a Necromancer.
The more dead bodies available, the infinitely stronger a Necromancer could become—but without them, they were essentially non-combatants.
Jin-woo could summon familiars without corpses, but with Minion Summoning currently blocked, there was nothing he could do.
A fleeting moment.
This brief window of complete incapacitation was the only chance to capture Jin-woo.
“Now’s the time!”
Eureka cried out desperately.
He’d lost to Jin-woo.
Utterly defeated in a familiar-versus-familiar confrontation. As a Necromancer, he couldn’t defeat Jin-woo.
But.
He had his guild members.
Though he lost alone, they would not lose as a team.
“Jin-woo can’t summon any more familiars! A Necromancer without corpses is powerless!”
Since he himself was a Necromancer, he understood better than anyone.
He understood it painfully well.
This moment was when Jin-woo was at his weakest.
In fact, he came to the realization that they could never defeat Jin-woo unless it was now. His equipment evolves.
It’s not just the equipment that evolves. The familiars wielding that equipment also evolve.
So now was the only chance.
“We can win!”
The Mydongpung guild members charged forward with all their might.
All nodded in agreement at Eureka’s cry.
Jin-woo was now utterly powerless.
Thud—!
They stamped the ground hard.
Because of their earlier duel with Nightmare, the guild members had maintained considerable distance.
So the distance to Jin-woo was great, but now he was in a state where he couldn’t do anything.
At this distance, they could easily close the gap.
Here and now.
“Today we capture Jin-woo!”
Jin-woo tilted his head from side to side as the guild members charged toward him.
“A crisis, indeed.”
Until now, Jin-woo had faced many crises.
In the Underworld.
In the Tower of Trials.
Especially in the Tower of Trials, there were times when even Minion Summoning itself had been blocked, just like now.
‘Though technically, that trial involved all my equipment disappearing.’
Since familiars counted as equipment, Jin-woo couldn’t use them.
But the situation was different now.
Right now, Jin-woo was merely a Craftsperson.
A non-combatant, pure and simple.
Yet Jin-woo smiled.
‘All I can’t do is summon minions.’
Nothing about him had changed.
“You said a Necromancer needs corpses?”
Minion Summoning was blocked?
So he couldn’t do anything?
“Let’s see if that’s really true.”
Jin-woo pulled a bone from his possession.
The situation was urgent. There was no time to pull out the Summoning Workshop.
Then he began carving the bone at incredible speed.
Jin-woo didn’t need corpses.
He connected bone to bone, joined them, and refined them with waves.
Snap—. Snap—. Snap—!
Faster.
Even faster!
Jin-woo’s hands blurred beyond visibility.
Corpses. He had no need for such things.
“Because I can make them myself.”
Snap—. Snap—!
As though a robot were transforming, the bones assembled and joined in an instant. A complete skeletal framework materialized in Jin-woo’s hands.
It was a skeletal framework created with emphasis solely on speed. Yet even so, it lacked nothing in completeness.
Jin-woo, in absolute concentration, had already entered a state of Hyper Focus.
In this state.
‘Even if I wanted to make a mistake, I couldn’t.’
—Skeletal Framework created!
In the most urgent of moments.
—M Grade Skeletal Framework created!
—Synchronization Rate increases by 0.2%!
—Craftsmanship [Precision] stat increases significantly!
Jin-woo had just created the highest grade skeletal framework he’d ever made.
“Because I’m a Craftsperson.”
Necromancer is merely a secondary profession.
Jin-woo caused Mirus’s soul to permeate into the completed skeletal framework.
—A powerful soul infuses the skeletal framework!
—Familiar contract complete!
—Please designate a name for your new familiar!
The name was already decided.
“Speed.”
—Tenth familiar contracted: Speed!
—Achievement unlocked!
—Achievement [One-Man Army] unlocked!
Upon creating his tenth familiar, Jin-woo unlocked a new achievement.
Crackle—!
One-Man Army.
“For now, I can only deploy one.”
Now Jin-woo had become a commander, leading an army.
“Fire!”
And at that exact moment, the Mydongpung guild members reached Jin-woo. They unleashed the greatest skills they could muster.
Screech—.
A blade of freezing cold.
A barrage of root-like arrows.
And a massive sphere formed from thunder and lightning.
All of them were the greatest spells that could only be used by depleting all their mana.
And if the spells landed directly, rogue-class members of Mydongpung were already rushing in from behind, ready to launch a second assault.
Though they couldn’t move properly due to the Heavenly Declaration, they all endured the debuff as much as possible using Artifacts.
“No matter what you do, it’s already too late!”
Boom—!
Countless spells struck Jin-woo directly.
With a thunderous roar, smoke filled the area.
“We… we won…”
Before the words could finish, the smoke cleared.
There was something standing before Jin-woo, who should have been lying defeated.
!
Speed, the new familiar, had blocked all the numerous attacks raining down on Jin-woo in a single instant.
“Too slow.”
Then it uttered a single remark.
“Speed.”
“I await your command, Master.”
“Clean it up.”
“Yes.”
Speed lived up to its name—swift beyond measure.
All that remained were afterimages.
Snap—! Bang—!
With sounds of collision.
“Gaahhh!”
Screams filled the air.
* * *
He’d thought it was over.
The moment he’d stolen Minion Summoning.
He’d aimed for the most fatal moment, attacking while Jin-woo was off-guard. Eureka had targeted the instant victory seemed closest, piercing his heart with a constraint.
So he’d felt assured.
In this situation, he’d believed everything was already lost.
When Jin-woo pulled something out and moved his hands rapidly, Eureka had seen it as nothing but a final death throes.
Bang—!
Snap—!
“Gaahhhhh—!”
So the situation unfolding before his eyes now made no sense.
“Why.”
Why.
How.
“There was nothing…”
Minion Summoning was sealed.
Moreover, there were no corpses.
The corpses of the fallen users had already been utilized by Eureka.
Eureka couldn’t understand why a familiar now stood before Jin-woo.
“Could it be.”
In that brief moment, while moving his hands, he’d created something.
“A skeletal framework… a familiar?”
He couldn’t believe it.
It was so brief.
Really, just a moment.
“In that brief span, he created a familiar and…”
Now that familiar was overwhelming his guild members?
Bang—! Snap—!
Its form was barely visible. Each time it moved, guild members fell, but he couldn’t tell what was striking them down.
“This is insane. This can’t be happening!”
Screech—!
Suddenly, Eureka saw the new familiar Jin-woo had created.
It was a skeleton with considerable grace.
As if all body fat had been stripped away, leaving only optimized muscle, the skeletal structure took on a muscular form.
Its silhouette resembled something thin and swift as wind.
!
Eureka looked at Jin-woo.
From the very beginning.
“There was no chance of victory.”
Eureka recalled stories that had circulated in the early days of NewGen.
Numerous rankers from different games had started NewGen. They’d demonstrated excellent skill, and the top rankers from each game were indeed exceptional.
In that process, those from Eternal Sunshine had performed poorly.
Seeing nothing special about them, the rankers from other games had scoffed at the Eternal Sunshine players, but they all spoke of one thing.
That everything would change when Jin arrived.
That when the Ranker of Rankers came, all rankers from other games would be beneath him.
Back then, he’d laughed mockingly at such claims.
Calling them frogs in a well. Jin was merely the top ranker of Eternal Sunshine.
Since the top rankers from other games had also come to NewGen, there wouldn’t be much difference, he’d scoffed.
But experiencing it directly, he could now feel it.
He was the frog in the well.
Jin was the serpent.
A serpent that would devour all the frogs.
“It was real…”
Everything was real.
Snap—! Crunch—!
After Speed had mopped up the entire situation.
Jin-woo deliberately left Eureka alive.
Eureka stared at the approaching Jin-woo with a vacant expression.
Was this real?
Had he truly lost so devastatingly? After using everything he had?
“Ah, that’s right. I should’ve asked sooner.”
Jin-woo bent his waist toward Eureka, who was on one knee.
“Who sent you?”
It was truly a late question.
“…”
Eureka didn’t answer. It was both a matter of pride and respect for the industry’s code.
Yet Jin-woo smiled wryly.
“Doyak sent you, didn’t he?”
At Jin-woo’s words, Eureka’s jaw clenched.
“You knew and still asked.”
Then, turning away, Speed, who had appeared beside him, disposed of Eureka.
“Damn…”
—You have died!

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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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