Chapter 434: Sorting Waste (6)
Atroc’s neck snapped. Kai didn’t stop there and slashed his waist with the Holy Sword.
That was easier than expected.
For the highest authority in the Church of Muldine, he was far too easy an opponent.
Kai felt the tension in his body release all at once. However, just as he thought that, Atroc’s skull, which had fallen to the ground, suddenly began to roll.
“You're more impatient than I thought...” Atroc muttered as he reattached his severed waist and picked up his head to fit it back onto his neck.
“What the...?”
“Haha. You underestimated a lich’s body, didn’t you?”
“You have such pride for a bag of bones.”
“I like to call it confidence.”
Having instantly restored himself, Atroc pulled his hood off. At a glance, he looked no different from an ordinary skeleton, but something was off.
His bone structure is different.
His bones were ornate enough to clearly show he was a high-level monster.
“I even cut your waist and neck, and you're fine... Should I grind you into dust instead?”
“Hahaha, why don’t you test that yourself?” With a sly grin, Atroc looked up toward the sky. “So you were hiding above the storm clouds...”
“It seemed like the perfect spot to observe you.”
“I’m really curious now. How did you survive that explosion?”
“I’m more curious. How did you think you could kill me with just that little blast?”
Kai smiled from ear to ear and provoked Atroc. Of course, he was bluffing. In fact, Kai died in that explosion, unable to withstand the attack.
“Hmm...” But Atroc, unaware of that, said with a calmer voice, “Adventurers seem to be far more remarkable than I anticipated.”
“Nothing new. By the way, Muldine’s instincts are pretty sharp.”
Kai had waited for him, but in the final moment, Muldine sensed something wrong and fled.
“How arrogant. If Muldine came in person, someone like you would be—”
“Exactly, that’s why I wish he would just show up. Since someone like me can be defeated so easily. What a coward.”
Atroc had laughed off insults toward himself, but the moment Muldine was mentioned, the humor vanished from his tone.
“His actions are not for the likes of you to predict. All of it is by his design...”
“Sure, whatever you say.” Kai’s Holy Sword was the only light in the dark plains. “That’s enough talk. Let’s get started.”
“You remain arrogant even after being defeated once.”
Atroc snapped his fingers. At once, the ground burst open and dark holy power surged upward.
“The fight has already begun.”
Even before Atroc finished speaking, dozens of Holy Chains shot out from Kai’s sleeve. Twisting midair to dodge the blast, Kai immediately swung the chains. The ground shattered under the barrage of chains, and Atroc, who had been standing atop it, hastily stumbled back.
I won’t lose him this time.
Kai’s eyes shined. He had encountered Atroc twice before. However, both were indirect confrontations. This was the first true meeting face-to-face.
If I let him slip away again, who knows how long I’ll have to search.
So now that they had met, he would see it through to the end.
As Kai clenched his teeth and landed on the ground, Atroc extended his hand.
“Baptism of Darkness!”
Dark tentacles rose from the ground and lunged toward Kai.
“Absolute Zero.”
Kai lightly touched the ground with his fingertips. With that light touch, dozens of tentacles and even Atroc’s legs were frozen solid. And that wasn’t all. Kai looked to the sky.
He looked at the pouring rain and muttered again, “Absolute Zero.”
For a brief moment, the roaring rain abruptly stopped. It lasted no longer than two seconds, but that short time was enough to draw a groan from Atroc.
“Ugh!”
The frozen raindrops had each turned into sharp bullets. It was like a blizzard. Even the targeting had been completed perfectly through Kai’s gravity field—a large-scale attack.
“It’ll chill your bones a little.”
With Kai’s warning came a rapid clatter! The ice bullets pounded Atroc’s entire body. Atroc hastily tried to make a shield of darkness, but each time he formed one, the ice bullets tore it apart.
“Argh!”
He couldn’t even retreat since his feet had been completely frozen. Even a lich seemed to feel the cold, as his teeth clattered together irregularly.
Now’s the time.
Four spears appeared behind Kai. As soon as they formed, they shot forward and shattered each of Atroc’s limbs.
“You look like a broken toy,” Kai muttered while looking at the bones scattered across the ground.
“Hah... haha...” Atroc still didn’t lose his grin. “You only seem to see the tree in front of you.”
“What?”
Atroc’s bones rolled across the ground and returned to him. He restored his form in an instant and let out a faint sigh.
“It’s always the one who sees the forest that wins the match.”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know you’ve got ridiculous vitality.”
“You cannot kill me.” Atroc laughed and his shoulder bones shook. “Unless my soul vessel is destroyed, my life is infinite.”
“Soul vessel...” Kai murmured unconsciously.
Tardal had indeed warned him about the soul vessel.
He said it might be hidden in the temple of the Dark Zone.
But in the end, what had been hidden there was not Atroc’s vessel. It had been a Hellgate that spewed dark energy, and led to the Demon Realm.
“I’ve left my soul out of my body right now. Did you call me a toy earlier? Not a bad metaphor.”
“But your mind is still here, isn’t it?”
At Kai’s question, Atroc nodded. “Of course. I am always myself.”
“Good enough,” Kai replied nonchalantly, as if it didn’t matter. “Soul vessel or whatever. I don’t need it.”
His cold gaze locked straight into Atroc’s hollow eye sockets. “I’ll just make you beg to tell me where it is and plead to be killed.”
“Hah, that will never—”
Kai’s Holy Sword slashed across Atroc’s body. Not just once. It was the sword of a true master, swung with full intent. Atroc instantly shattered into hundreds of pieces and fell with a thud onto the rain-soaked plain.
“I’m sure I told you that’s pointless...” Atroc reformed again and muttered with annoyance.
Kai no longer bothered replying.
“Hellfire.”
Atroc’s bones were burned into ash.
“Divine Wrath.”
He even tried to erase Atroc’s very existence with holy power, but no matter what method he used, Atroc always managed to restore his body. Nevertheless, Kai continued to kill him, again and again, with a blank expression.
When he killed him for the seventieth time, the newly restored Atroc hastily raised a hand and said, “W-wait.”
But Kai ignored him. “Blue Plague.”
The gray bones, once nearly black, turned blue then corroded and melted away. Atroc managed to restore his body again, but his voice sounded more desperate this time.
“Just stop for a moment! Can’t you hear me?”
“Gravity Field.”
Like a scrapyard press crushing a car, hundreds of times normal gravity turned Atroc’s body into fine dust. After the eightieth, then ninetieth merciless assault that left even the bystanders speechless, Kai finally paused his attack.
Atroc barely restored his body and let out an exhausted breath.
Kai, who had been watching, nodded.
There’s definitely a difference now.
The speed of Atroc’s restoration had changed. It was gradually slowing down. Of course, the gap was so slight that an ordinary person would never notice. It was only a fraction of a second at most. However, Kai’s perception of time was already beyond the realm of the ordinary.
At first he was restored in one second.
But now it took exactly 4.82 seconds.
“The location of your soul vessel?”
“W-wait...”
Boom!
The Solar Photon Cannon swept across the plain. Atroc vanished without even dust left behind and reappeared exactly 5.16 seconds later.
“Shall we begin after I reach 100?”
At the mention of the number 100, Atroc fell completely silent. Kai had only been testing him, yet Atroc’s fingertips trembled ever so slightly.
So 100 must be the limit.
Since this was a game, the soul vessel couldn’t give him infinite life. There had to be some kind of restriction. Kai concluded that the restriction was the number of resurrections.
Geez, the fact that this boss can even revive a hundred times... damn it, which developer designed this content?
Of course, the standard route would be to destroy his soul vessel first, then form a raid party and defeat Atroc once and for all. But Kai hadn’t been able to find Atroc’s soul vessel.
“That’s why I just kill.”
Until the soul stored inside the vessel ran dry.
Atroc involuntarily stepped back from Kai’s absurdly brute-force strategy.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
With just a casual voice, the gravity field surged and bound Atroc’s body. The highest authority of the Church of Muldine, and the "hero" who led the church for centuries, he too was one of those beings obsessed with life.
Well, if he hadn’t been so obsessed with living, he wouldn’t have become a lich.
He must have wanted to survive no matter what.
“Sorry, but I don’t plan on letting you live.”
If one could kill the enemy, they killed them. There was no need to ask why—it was simply obvious.
When Kai showed not even the slightest hint of negotiation, Atroc ground his teeth. “I didn’t spend centuries in hiding just to die at the hands of someone like you... a mere adventurer!”
Dark power condensed in Atroc’s grasp and soon took the shape of a sword.
“A sword... of course.”
Kai recalled Tardal’s words.
Atroc. He is said to be a being Muldine created to conquer the Human Realm. He mastered martial arts and divine magic, and even reached into the domain of dark sorcery to create countless monsters.
A prodigy of the century, skilled not only in swordsmanship and magic but even in dark arts. However, Kai didn’t even flinch.
“If you were really confident in your swordsmanship...”
He would have drawn it much earlier. To hide your power after dying ninety times? What kind of fool would do that? Yet throughout those ninety deaths, Atroc had only ever used the holy power of the Church of Muldine.
“You might’ve been a prodigy in your day.”
A revered figure of his time, perhaps.
“But now you’re just an old monster who couldn’t let go of his obsession with life and turned into a lich.”
The passage of time changed many things.
“No need for a long talk. Come at me.”
Provoked by Kai’s command, Atroc kicked off the ground. His stance, the angle of his blade, the way he channeled mana into the sword, everything flowed as naturally as water.
“However...”
Clang!
Kai’s Holy Sword easily blocked Atroc’s blade. So easily it looked like an adult swatting away a child’s attack.
“What the—”
Atroc let out an exhausted breath. It felt as though he were blocked by a towering mountain. Long ago, when he fought Patrick before becoming a lich, he had never felt such a gap in power.
Then does this adventurer possess strength that even surpasses Patrick...?
No, that couldn’t possibly be true. Patrick was a man whose sword alone made his name known even in the Heavenly Realm. Though both were masters of swordsmanship, the gap between him and Kai still remained when it came to the sword alone.
“But why...”
“You’re asking something obvious.”
Kai’s emotionless gaze swept over Atroc’s entire body.
What filled his vision was nothing but the brittle bones of a lich with not a single trace of muscle.
“The foundation of swordsmanship is nothing other than stamina and strength.”
Having abandoned a human body and become a skeleton, using swordsmanship was nearly impossible.
“Centuries have passed, yet you're still trapped in the past.”
In that era when he stood shoulder to shoulder with Patrick. In those radiant days when the Church of Muldine soared into the heavens and overpowered the continent.
“Those who live in the past can never defeat those who live in the present.”
Kai’s Holy Sword easily split Atroc’s sword and destroyed his bones.
“Nine times left,” Kai’s quiet warning fell across the plains.