NOVPUB
Chapter 259
***
It had all been part of a meticulous plan devised by Beru the moment Suho received Kamish’s Wraths as a reward.
The instant Suho grasped the daggers—once the primary weapons of Jinwoo himself—the shadow ant had gone screeching to Jinho and began to pester him relentlessly.
“Daggers! Daggers, it is! Scour the earth for dagger-related skills and bring them to me!”
Beru had made these demands as he shook Jinho by the collar.
However, Jinho was no longer the timid rookie who once trembled under the shadow ant’s glare.
“Leave it to me. I’ll do what I can.”
He now met Beru’s gaze head-on with the calm confidence of a capable adult. He even dared to ask a question in return.
“So what skills did Jinwoo have, exactly?”
Skills like Ruler’s Authority and the authority over shadows were impossible to learn through rune stones, but others could definitely be acquired that way.
Jinwoo and Suho were exceptions. For every other hunter in the world, the search for rune stones was a daily grind. There was simply no other way to grow stronger.
Given this reality, it was no surprise that prices for rune stones had skyrocketed. Depending on the value and rarity of the skill, some commanded astronomical sums.
“Mutilation” was one such skill. It was a top-tier skill possessed by only a few assassin-type hunters worldwide, and it was far higher level than Stealth, making it a true treasure.
Things like that were never put on the market. Rather than selling the rune stone, it was far more advantageous for a hunter or guild master to learn the skill themselves.
Of course, careful consideration was still necessary. Assigning such a skill to one who was ill-suited for it would result in a massive loss. Assassin-type skills, after all, were most effective when learned by assassin-type hunters—that much was common knowledge.
As a result, once a rare rune stone was discovered, it was usually locked away in a guild’s vault, waiting for the ideal candidate.
But Jinho had managed to rifle through those vaults, so to speak, to find exactly what he wanted. In fact, he had pursued his goal relentlessly until the stone was in his hands.
“I told you. Squeeze hard enough, and you’ll get what you want.”
Beru could still recall Jinho’s voice, which had gained a sharper, more cunning edge.
“He has truly grown...” he murmured, smiling slightly. His words carried multiple layers of meaning,
Then he turned to the battlefield ahead.
[Skill: “Mutilation” has activated.]
Suho’s twin daggers slashed through the air with ruthless precision, each strike coming faster than the last. His movements blurred, becoming impossible to track with the naked eye.
Black arcs of destruction filled the battlefield, and along their paths, the bodies of high elves were torn apart with merciless efficiency.
“Do you see this, my liege?” Beru muttered in wistful appreciation.
“Aggggh!”
“Kyaaah!”
To Beru, everything about this was beautiful. The screams of the high elves echoed like an opera, a symphony of anguish. Above them, the thunder roared, sounding like the triumphant trumpets of angels.
The beautiful city of the high elves was now flooded with the flames of destruction.
[?? has been defeated.]
[?? has been defeated.]
[?? has been defeated.]
[...]
[Blessing: “Blessing of Gluttony” increases gained experience points.]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
With the chorus of dings, it all combined into something like some grand requiem.
Beru cackled.
“Listen, my liege!” he cried, praying that his voice would reach Jinwoo somewhere in the vastness of the outer universes. “Take a look! Your son treads the same path you once walked!”
The sight unfolding before him might as well have been both a prayer and an offering rendered to his king. “Mutilation” wasn’t merely meant for Suho—it was a form of tribute to Jinwoo.
Suddenly, Beru’s antennae twitched, and his sharp gaze turned in a specific direction.
“Found it...”
A clash was a natural part of war, but one could not lose sight of their goal.
“The energy of the Outer Gods!”
Even amid the chaos, Beru had not forgotten the reason they had ventured into this suspicious city. They were searching for whatever had transformed the area into a field-type dungeon.
As the city burned, the energy that was hidden within the trees was finally revealed, and Beru sensed it immediately.
“Young Monarch! I’ve found the gates! There are three of them, and they’re underground!”
But someone else reacted before Suho could.
“How dare you?!” Fores thundered, gritting his teeth.
The old elf extended his arm, which had been half severed by Suho earlier, and seized a nearby elf who was writhing in the flames and screaming in agony. The elf’s neck snapped, and their head came off like an apple being plucked from a branch.
Then something shocking occurred.
From the elf’s severed neck, spirits burst forth like a fountain, as though a shaken soda bottle had been cracked open. These spirits traveled along Fores’ arm and spiraled around his body in a fierce, swirling current.
The other high elves, locked in combat with Suho, began to mimic Fores’ actions. They grabbed their fallen comrades, whose bodies had been rendered useless, and tore them apart to absorb the spirits inside.
At an incredible speed, the high elves began to grow in size. They roared as they transformed into enormous tree-like beings, still faintly resembling their original elf forms.
“M-my god!” Sirka exclaimed.
The sight might have seemed beautiful in a way, but to her, it was sickening. She felt the urge to vomit.
“They were each possessed by more than one...? How many spirits did they have inside them?!”
“Heh! Young elf, what is it that you fear so much? This is the natural order between your kind and ours.”
Fores’ smile was strangely twisted as he looked down at Sirka’s terrified face and laughed.
She felt a chill. She found it difficult to believe he was an elf like her.
No, that is no elf.
The creature that stood before her—the same as all of these creatures—was merely pretending to be an elf.
Now Sirka understood. They likely had no need for eyes in the first place. Their bodies were brimming with countless other eyes, peeking at the world outside. The proof was in the way even the smallest wound seemed to unleash an overwhelming tide of spirits from within them.
They can’t be high elves!
If high elves were truly such horrific beings, she did not want to be one. She shuddered at the thought that she had wanted, albeit only briefly, to be like them.
“Suho! These are collections of spirits!” she shouted. “They are far worse than the Ice Golems we saw in Echo Forest!”
“How dare you compare us to the likes of that!” Fores spat.
A grotesque palm, filled with countless spirit eyes, descended toward Sirka as if to squash a mere insect.
Fortunately, two shadow soldiers rose up in front of her just in time.
“Hmm. Not too bad.”
“We can handle this.”
It was Greed and Iron, clad in full armor and armed with massive shields. They stood side by side, having successfully halted Fores’ attack.
Sirka’s eyes widened as she stood behind them.
Until recently, these two soldiers had been a high priest and a lower priest of the Church of the Outer Gods. Therefore, the sight of the high elves devoured by the spirits struck them slightly differently.
“It’s quite novel, this idea of replacing your eyes with Stones of the Outer Gods. Does it make you see something different?” Greed asked.
“Perhaps in return for losing their vision, they can see the Outer Gods directly,” Iron mused.
Fores, meanwhile, continued to grow larger. He radiated an overwhelming pressure that bore down on them.
“Sirka! Freeze him!” Suho shouted.
His voice snapped the small elf out of her daze. She activated Sillad’s Aegis without hesitation.
A raging snowstorm enveloped Fores, freezing his arm and hand solid.
Suho slammed his daggers into the frozen arm. The burning heat of his blades clashed with the ice-encrusted wood, snapping it in an instant.
“It’s no use!” the old elf bellowed.
In that instant, spirits erupted from the severed limb, surging directly toward Suho.
As the city burned, lightning rained down from above.
Still, the high elves smiled.
“We...”
“Cannot die!”
“Suho!” Haein cried out.
The swarm of spirits consumed him, and she abandoned her fight with the trees to dash toward her son.
Beru also flew to Suho’s side.
“Young Monarch!”
Meanwhile, the spirits surrounded Suho, whispering into his ear.
“Hehe! They think replacing their eyes with Stones of the Outer Gods lets them see the gods?”
They were mocking Greed and Iron’s words.
“Did you not consider that the opposite might be true?”
The opposite? Wait a second...
The realization hit Suho like a bolt of lightning.
“Don’t tell me those eyes let the Outer Gods see—”
The spirits scattered in all directions, only to regroup and charge at him again. This time, the dark crimson shadow encircling Suho’s body deflected them, sending them flying.
Undeterred, the spirits immediately switched their focus, choosing another target—Sirka, the descendant of the King of the Snow Folk.
“Young elf!”
“We offer you an opportunity.”
“Become one with us.”
Sirka’s eyes widened, and she froze in fear as she watched the grotesque beings swarm toward her.
At that critical moment, Suho reached out for her—not calling her name, but another.
“Sillad!”
[Skill: “Unknown” has activated.]
A flash of blinding light engulfed them, and just as Suho grasped Sirka’s hand, everything went black.
***
Suho’s mind was cloaked in a dense haze, or perhaps it was a pool of light. It was hard to tell from the violent storms raging around him.
The winds tossed him about, but despite the turmoil, he kept his eyes peacefully closed.
“Long ago, the ice elf warriors who were sent to fight in the Monarchs War were protected by the ice spirits.”
There was a voice speaking to him.
“Whether they wielded a bow or any other weapon, each of their attacks carried the Curse of Extreme Cold.”
Sillad...?
Suho realized who the voice belonged to.
I did it!
He had entered the world of Sillad, the Monarch of Frost and the King of the Snow Folk.
“The arrows we shot caused the wounds to freeze. Our swords never spilled blood, as it froze before it could flow. The cuts we made unleashed a cruel chill that spread through the veins.”
Suho kept his eyes closed. Sillad remained unseen, but his calm voice recounted an old tale for the hunter.
“Each strike compounded upon the last, and the enemy would ultimately freeze to death, slowly and painfully. We were feared by all... But this power was only granted to elven warriors who mastered the manipulation of spirits. Those devoured by the spirits met a fate far more dreadful.”
Suho suddenly recalled the fight with the ice elves on Facade Island, in the Sanctuary of the Snow Folk. Esil had clicked her tongue as soon as she saw them.
“What a sight! The Snow Folk, swallowed up by some ice spirits? How weak were they when they were alive?”
The elves were supposed to specialize in spirit manipulation, but they had been dominated by the spirits instead. The idea was absurd.
The present situation, however, was quite different.
Sillad’s voice continued, “The high elves of Elvenwood were not devoured by spirits because they were weak. They likely chose that fate willingly in their pursuit of power.”
Suho finally opened his eyes. He remained locked in the storm, but through the swirling winds, he could see Sillad’s figure standing beyond.
“Their true goal was likely to accept the primordial darkness into their bodies, not the spirits. Accepting the darkness would be the only way for them to ascend as Monarchs. But they first needed to locate it.”
The deceased Monarch’s expression betrayed a faint trace of bitterness as he observed the storm enveloping Suho. No matter how one looked at it, this was not normal spirit manipulation.
“The Stones of the Outer Gods? Implanting such dubious artifacts into their skulls... Even those fools would not have done so of their own accord. Someone must have lured them or forced them into it.”
Sillad extended his hand, summoning a white wind that spun through the storm. When he closed his fist, someone’s will, which had been trapped in the storm, bloomed in the shape of a small ice flower.
The Monarch clicked his tongue as he gazed at the tiny flower hovering before him.
“It’s been a long time, Fores... my terrible, unyielding friend.”
When there was no response, his expression slowly filled with rage.
“Now speak. Who placed you in this wretched fishbowl and turned you into an abomination?”
