121. Semifinals (8)
“Wow!”
“Whoa!”
“Seriously?”
Exclamations burst from the guild members watching the screen.
Fresh blood was splattered all over the arena floor, and the three decapitated Vocalists were reverse-summoned.
Gi Jaehyuk and Kang Jihoe, even Hong Ari, sprang up from their seats and stared with their eyes wide open.
Really.
Was it actually possible to crush Xenos that completely with nothing but control?
Even without a weapon?
“.......”
But.
There was no excitement at all on Baek Jinwoo’s face as he watched. If anything, he swept his gaze around with coldly sunken eyes.
‘There’s no way this is all there is.’
There’s definitely something more.
Xenos is one of the Five Emperors .
‘I can’t let my guard down. Didn’t he push even Rachel, who overwhelms Hikaru in pure skill, all the way to the end?’
“...!!”
And right now!
Baek Jinwoo felt the entire ground writhing.
At the same time, Tyrant was charging toward HunGyo from behind again.
That movement looked as if...
‘He’s trying to make things hectic.’
“As expected, you’re a crazy bastard, God Ji-nu!”
It was then, together with Tyrant’s fist, that Xenos shouted.
Srrrk, thwack! Tadadak!
HunGyo smoothly redirected it, knocked it aside, and struck back.
Certainly, now that the Vocalists’ debuff was gone, it was much easier to block.
“Don’t tell me you copied Tyrant’s skill with your control? How is that even possible? And with the Training Instructor, no less. That summon uses a sword.”
“Hmm.”
Baek Jinwoo’s eyebrow twitched.
“You’re talking a lot for someone who’s supposed to be like a big brother.”
“...I’m saying it because I’m genuinely shocked, damn it. Honestly, that’s a total scam. Do you know how many skill book fusions I did to get Tyrant that skill?”
“No, that’s a lie.”
Baek Jinwoo’s gaze remained cold and heavy.
And wide.
For a while now, he had been taking in every summon’s movement with his eyes, thinking and thinking again.
Xenos was definitely stalling for time.
“Come to think of it, that Synthesis Alchemist from earlier. What’s he doing?”
“...The alchemist?”
Xenos kept controlling Tyrant, but Baek Jinwoo definitely felt it.
The bewilderment contained in that reply.
Had Xenos noticed that point too?
“Ha.”
He let out a hollow laugh.
“As expected, God Ji-nu is impossible to handle.”
“God Ji-nu, no. Baek Jinwoo, please.”
Please.
Please stop calling me God Ji-nu!
“Hahaha, okay. Okay, got it. Baek Jinwoo.”
Xenos let out a hearty laugh and nodded.
“You’re right. That alchemist has been buying time until now. But what can you do.”
Swish.
Xenos dropped to one knee and placed a hand on the floor.
Then the Synthesis Alchemist’s cylinder lit up once more.
“Looks like he’s already bought all the time he needed.”
Baek Jinwoo bit down lightly on his lower lip.
The monster a Synthesis Alchemist could create: a Chimera.
But there was no way to know what kind of Chimera Synthesis skill he had learned.
Because Xenos had never once revealed it to the public.
‘.....Should I assume the worst-case scenario?’
Some chimeras were weak, and some were strong.
And among them were a few utterly broken chimeras that drastically lowered a dungeon’s difficulty all by themselves.
‘One of them is Chimera No.9, and what makes that bastard so unusual is this.
The longer the period it goes unsummoned, the more devastating its destructive power becomes when it’s finally summoned once.’
‘Of course, the downside is that once it’s summoned even once, all of that gets reset.’
Why was that?
Baek Jinwoo had a feeling Xenos was about to bring out Number Nine.
The slight tremor in the ground.
That was Number Nine’s summoning effect.
“HunGyo, jump.”
Taat!
At Baek Jinwoo’s command, HunGyo, who had been fighting well, instinctively leaped into the air.
“Hoh.”
Xenos’ eyes gleamed.
“As expected of Baek Jinwoo!”
Just from seeing that motion alone, he knew which chimera was coming.
His insight was truly chilling.
‘But.’
Xenos grinned.
This Chimera No.9 would be on another level.
After obtaining the Synthesis Alchemist, Xenos had not brought Number Nine into the world for two whole years.
The power accumulated over two years would surpass even the bosses of the lower floors of the Tower of Trials.
“If you dodge even this, I’ll acknowledge you, Baek Jinwoo!”
Soft Alchemist Summon - Chimera No.9!
Kugagagagaga!
The earth split apart, and from beneath it rose an enormous giant worm.
Naturally, it was no ordinary worm.
It was a monstrous worm with hundreds of pale white teeth layered around its round mouth.
Crunch, craack!
The floor had already twisted grotesquely, and stone fragments sprayed in all directions.
Huhhk!
HunGyo recoiled in shock.
His lord had always said this.
In the face of overwhelming power, control and everything else became useless.
That worm was exactly like that.
If he had to compare it to something, it felt similar to the Yellow Dragon’s Ascension Breath.
“Focus, HunGyo.”
Kkagagang!
HunGyo’s fists and kicks struck the erupting worm’s teeth.
Even though it wasn’t working, he did not retreat.
Instead, he climbed onto it and grabbed one of its teeth.
“I was a little inconvenienced without a sword, but Number Nine’s tooth should be usable enough.”
‘That’s right, my lord!’
Tensing his face, HunGyo wrapped power around his hand and gripped the sharp tooth tightly.
Drip!
His flesh was sliced and blood flowed, but he paid it no mind.
“Yeah, Xenos. It only gets fun when it’s at least this much.”
That’s the Five Emperors, all right!
“If all you did was prepare Tyrant control against me, I would’ve been disappointed.”
Puhuak!
HunGyo ripped out one of the chimera’s teeth.
Kieeeeeeeeeek!
Green acidic liquid sprayed everywhere from inside its mouth, but HunGyo twisted through the air and evaded it as fluidly as flowing water.
Whirl!
After doing a midair somersault, gravity pulled him back downward.
At the exact same time.
Puuk!
He reversed his grip on the tooth he was holding and drove it straight into the chimera’s hide.
Chwarrrrk!
It was so sharp that the seemingly sturdy creature’s skin began to split wide open.
Xenos wasn’t just standing there and watching either.
“Tyrant! Rising Dragon Fist!”
Tyrant, who had been waiting below, shot upward like an ascending dragon.
‘Focus.’
Xenos’ heart pounded.
Chimera No.9 was the setup he had prepared over two years to face Rachel.
That irregular called God Ji-nu had suddenly appeared, forcing him to use the card first.
‘Now that it’s come to this, I have to win no matter what.’
He had spent a two-year cooldown on this, and if he still lost?
The loss would be immense.
But...
Could he really win?
Certainly, the situation had been in his favor from the moment Chimera No.9 appeared.
But look at Baek Jinwoo’s expression.
Was this what a mathematician looked like when faced with a difficult problem?
Expressionless, yet filled with exhilaration.
And on top of that.
Whirl!
HunGyo let go of the tooth he had been slamming down with, kicked off the chimera’s hide, and dodged the Rising Dragon Fist!
A clear smile was drawn at the corner of his mouth.
‘Damn it.’
It was always like this.
No matter how absurdly overwhelming the situation he created, Baek Jinwoo always broke through it.
Every single time.
The result was always the same whenever he challenged him.
HunGyo, after spinning once through the air, threw out another punch.
A fist strike that split into three branches!
‘Again.’
That damned summon was copying Tyrant’s punching technique again.
And this time... even more so.
“HunGyo! Rising Dragon Fist!”
Pababababat!
As HunGyo was falling, he suddenly shot upward and thrust his fist into the air.
The form, the power, even the speed of the move Tyrant had used were exactly the same.
“No, that’s seriously such a scam!”
If you keep running Top-grade dungeons over and over, there is an extremely low chance that a high-rank skill book will drop.
Every player has to go through that process.
And yet.
“There’s no such thing as copying a skill with control!”
Where else would there be? Right here.
After executing Rising Dragon Fist, HunGyo grabbed the tooth he had embedded earlier once again.
“Sorry, Xenos.”
Though it was only a short tooth, it was more than enough to serve as a substitute sword.
The difference in power between HunGyo fighting with his fists and HunGyo fighting with a sword was like heaven and earth!
Kwagagagaga!
In an instant, eight sword strikes unfolded.
Six smaller strikes precisely pierced Tyrant’s vital points, while two larger strikes slashed through the Chimera’s split hide again and again.
Puhwaaak!
The space turned red with blood.
“It was the same during the Battle of Summoners, and it’s the same now. I’ve never lost. And I have no intention of losing in the future.”
I don’t know how to lose!
Because of that, even his summon followed Baek Jinwoo’s commands with absolute certainty.
“Especially against monsters like these.”
Chimera No.9?
To Baek Jinwoo, who had conquered the Tower of Trials, it was just one more monster among many.
If anything, it was much easier and more familiar than a humanoid summon.
- Kieeeeeeeek!
The Chimera let out a scream.
For about a minute, tremendous skills and exchanges flew back and forth, but...
To give only the conclusion, it was this: Neither the Chimera’s nor Tyrant’s attacks could reach HunGyo, while HunGyo’s attacks continuously landed critical hits on them.
“Ah.”
Xenos opened his mouth and stared into the air as though in resignation.
That expert he had prepared in order to defeat Rachel just once...was collapsing before a monster that looked even more overwhelming than she did.
- Kiek, kieeeek!
It was thrashing wildly in agony.
Sswaeaeak!
As if putting an end to that pain, HunGyo stepped on the worm’s body and climbed upward.
The Chimera, already reduced to a battered wreck, was only writhing as if it had no attention left for HunGyo at all.
And then.
Puuk!
The tooth stabbed into the Chimera’s head.
Puhwak, puhk! Puhwaaak! Puuk!
He pulled it out, stabbed it in, pulled it out, and stabbed it in again.
HunGyo’s sword strikes, already dyed red, burrowed into the worm’s head and kept leaving critical hits.
“.......”
Soon after.
The strength drained from the worm’s body.
Once it lost the power to support its high-raised head, it swayed from side to side a few times before collapsing to the floor.
Kwaaaaaaang!
The Chimera fell with a tremendous crash.
Only then did a satisfied smile bloom at the corners of Baek Jinwoo’s mouth.
‘Right.’
Just as he had aimed from the start, winning with HunGyo alone!
He had pulled it off perfectly.
* * *
“Wow.”
“Waaah......”
A brief silence fell over South Korea, and only hushed exclamations escaped.
A battle scene so unbelievable it would be impossible to create even in a movie.
And that scene was being engraved directly into the eyes of the audience.
Really.
Was that truly the power of a Korean player!
With a single summon.
He was overwhelming Xenos’ utterly absurd summons.
HunGyo was amazing, but Baek Jinwoo was insane too.
No matter how many barriers surrounded him, he didn’t so much as blink inside that battlefield.
He waited for openings. And when he found them, he struck sharply.
As a result.
Kwaaaaaaang!
The Chimera that had seemed like it would never lose fell.
The winner was Baek Jinwoo of South Korea!
He, he really won...!
ㄴWith unbelievable combat power, he has taken down America’s Xenos...
ㄴTh-then does that mean the finals?
And the moment he defeated Xenos, a place in the finals was 100% secured.
ㄴYes! The finals! It’s the finals! Our country is writing the legend of reaching the finals!
Together with the commentators’ roar,
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Thunderous cheers erupted all across South Korea. People cheered, cried, and went absolutely wild.
And then.
“You worked hard, HunGyo.”
—......!
On the screen was Baek Jinwoo, having dealt with both summons, walking up and patting HunGyo’s shoulder—thump, thump!—as HunGyo bowed his head loyally.
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