Chapter 529: Corrupt Star (6)

A stream of memories and emotions struck Seo Jun-Ho.

'Jun-Sik has perished.'

He lasted fifty-six minutes, well over the half an hour Seo Jun-Ho expected him to last. He had done a great job. If he were next to Seo Jun-Ho, Seo Jun-Ho would have patted him on the shoulder for his hard work.

'But...'

Seo Jun-Sik had sacrificed himself, but he was still in a bad situation.

"Heup!"

Seo Jun-Ho swung Cruel Executioner.

Claaang!

The approaching swords were cut cleanly like tofu.

"Idiots! Don't try to block his weapon! Avoid it!"

"Just stop him from running away!"

"Keep in mind that our goal here is to stop him from running away until the generals arrive!' The Overminds roared and jumped away.

Seo Jun-Ho frowned at the encirclement.

'...I'm getting tired of it.'

There were at least three thousand of them—three thousand Overminds had come to surround him. He tore two teleport scrolls while he was running away, but none of them worked.

'I have to completely shake these guys off before I can escape.'

He knew that it would be difficult, but it turned out to be much more difficult than he had expected. Perhaps the emperor had done something. He still had no idea what the emperor looked like, but Seo Jun-Ho was confident that the emperor had plans.

'The empire's generals will soon be here.'

They were likely as strong as Ceylonso, and it would be impossible for him to escape once they got here.

"Just leave me here."

"Hush. Let me concentrate," said Seo Jun-Ho. His eyes turned cold as he said, "Frost, get ready. We're going to kill them all and carve a way out of here."

"Can your mind handle it?"

"I'll do my best."

The Frost Queen hesitated. "Y-you've consumed a lot of mental strength to push the prison above ground earlier..."

The Frost Queen was sure that Seo Jun-Ho was exhausted, so she asked, "Are you sure you'll have enough energy to run away if I were to go wild?"

- I'll help you with that.

Keen Intuition spoke.

- Right now, Partner's current mental strength as a percentage is about 64%. If you leave him with about 6%, it should be good enough for him to escape.

"Hm..." The Frost Queen was doubtful. "Are you sure?"

- How cheeky. I know my partner better than you.

"Ha, how absurd. I know my contractor's limits because I even had to give him medicine."

"All right," said Seo Jun-Ho. He interrupted before their argument intensified. "Intuition, give me updates about my mental strength, and I'll be the judge."

- Got it.

The Goddess of Time was smiling at the enemies rather than at them.

'I can't afford to waste any more time here...'

Seo Jun-Ho's eyes shone golden. "...Dignity of an Emperor."

His senses were instantly sharpened as he became a pseudo-transcendent, and his senses expanded to envelop the surroundings.

'I can see it.'

Seo Jun-Ho could see everything from a bird's-eye view, making him feel as though he was playing a game,

"The encirclement is the thinnest in the south. Let's go and carve a path," said Seo Jun-Ho before making his move.

"South! They're moving to the south!"

"Surround them! Don't let them get away!"

The knight captain shouted, and the troops moved together as if they were parts of a living creature.

The troops in the south welcomed Seo Jun-Ho.

"How daring of you to try and move past us. Soldiers! Be as sturdy as a boulder!"

The soldiers abruptly transformed, becoming rock giants that were three stories high.

'...It doesn't matter. I just have to cut through them.'

Seo Jun-Ho moved even faster.

Darkness wrapped around Cruel Executioner as Seo Jun-Ho swung through them as though he was painting a blank canvas.

Claaang!

'It's working...!' Seo Jun-Ho was relieved. Their skin was tougher than he thought, but they still couldn't withstand his power to scorn. However, he immediately found himself between a rock and a hard place.

"Gotcha!"

"We possess the regenerative abilities of trolls, and we are the best shields of the empire."

"No one can go through us!"

The enemies recovered in the blink of an eye.

"...What?" muttered Seo Jun-Ho as a huge hand loomed over him.

Unfortunately, it was too late for him to dodge.

'Damn it!'

Seo Jun-Ho bit his lips and rolled into a ball. Then, he encased himself in ice.

Boom!

There was a loud noise as Seo Jun-Ho flew backward from the impact.

"Ugh! Cough!" Seo Jun-Ho rolled a few times before he recovered and stood up.

Whoosh!

However, it was clear that his opponents didn't want to give him time to breathe as a shadow loomed over him once again. Seo Jun-Ho looked up and saw dozens of wyverns in the sky.

"Damn it!"

He moved away, and a wyvern's claw struck the ground where he had been standing.

Boom!

Unfortunately, the wyvern claw carried with it so much force that the ground exploded the moment the wyvern claw made contact with it, sending debris flying toward Seo Jun-Ho.

'Cold weapons are a no-go; I won't be able to reach those wyverns if I were to use those.' Seo Jun-Ho opened his Inventory to change weapons.

"Die!" a wyvern roared and attacked him.

Seo Jun-Ho immediately pulled the trigger.

Bang!

There was a spray of blood as the wyvern crashed to the ground upon taking the brunt of Seo Jun-Ho's shotgun.

"Contractor! There are monsters everywhere! They transformed...!"

"Shit..."

Overminds were capable of transforming into monsters, and their transformation allowed them to use a hundred percent of their strength.

Seo Jun-Ho swept his gaze across the monsters and shouted, "Frost! Freeze as many of them as you can!"

"Got it! Just give me a moment!"

The Frost Queen started channeling while Seo Jun-Ho focused on the wyverns.

'I'll leave everything on the ground to Frost. I have to get rid of the flying monsters by myself.'

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Seo Jun-Ho killed seven wyverns in the blink of an eye.

'There are only seventeen of them left.' Seo Jun-Ho's eyes shone.

The scared flying monsters started to fly even higher.

'Shadow Movement.'

Swoosh!

Seo Jun-Ho instantly arrived on a clump of darkness that he had attached to a wyvern's neck.

"Hmm...? Ah! he's on my back!"

"What?"

"Drop him!"

The wyvern trashed in mid-air, but Seo Jun-Ho grabbed onto one of its scales and pointed his shotgun at the trembling wyvern.

"You, you devil...! Even in the afterlife, I will never—"

"Don't forgive me..."

Baaaang!

The wyvern's head exploded like a watermelon, and it fell almost immediately to the ground. However, Seo Jun-Ho was nowhere to be found. He had already appeared in the shadow of another wyvern.

"H-He's moving onto our backs by becoming a shadow!"

"Run away!"

"It's too late." Seo Jun-Ho had already attached a clump of darkness to each and every wyvern here, so if they wanted to escape from him, they had to go up to the stratosphere at the very least.

"I'll kill all of you first before running away."

Seo Jun-Ho glued his legs to the wyvern he was riding and started shooting at the other wyverns.

"You bastard...!" the wyvern quickly realized what Seo Jun-Ho was trying to do, so it immediately started spinning like crazy. Seo Jun-Ho's world spun madly, but Seo Jun-Ho was glued to the wyvern, so he remained calm.

'Slowly... just like he taught me.'

A certain gunslinger had told him to hold his breath and take his time aiming for his target before shooting—that was exactly what Seo Jun-Ho did.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A wyvern fell with every shot.

"Aaaaaaaargh!" The wyvern that Seo Jun-Ho was riding shed tears of blood, and it finally reverted to its human form.

"You should have done that sooner, you could have saved some of your friends," said Seo Jun-Ho.

"Shut up!" The soldier embraced Seo Jun-Ho tightly while they were falling and growled. "You'll die here with me! Go to hell...!"

"Oh, hell? Many people have nominated me to go to hell, but..." Seo Jun-Ho muttered, "I don't want to go."

Swoosh!

Seo Jun-Ho turned into darkness.

"...Huh? Huuuuh?!"

Crunch!

There was a grotesque sound as the knight crashed to the ground.

Meanwhile, the darkness coalesced to form the figure of a certain individual.

"He's on the ground!"

"Kill him!"

The Overminds charged toward him.

The Frost Queen exclaimed, "Contractor!"

"Yeah." Seo Jun-Ho nodded. He took a deep breath before saying, "Do it.".

Craaackle!

A deafening crackle echoed, and the world itself seemed to have frozen over.

Ring!

Seo Jun-Ho couldn't hear anything aside from a ringing noise, and his vision abruptly swam.

'Ugh, t-the impact is stronger than I thought...!'

It took Seo Jun-Ho a few seconds to realize that he was on all fours.

After a while, he could finally hear Keen Intuition's voice.

- Eight percent! Seven! Six...! Stop it, Spirit! We've reached the threshold!

"Haaa, haaa...! Contractor! Are you okay!? Did I go overboard?"

"No, it's fine..." Seo Jun-Ho said with a pallid look. He looked up and saw that the plain had become a graveyard of spears. There was nothing else aside from spears as far as Seo Jun-Ho's eyes could see.

Perhaps there were hundreds of thousands of them on this plain.

"Perhaps some of them are alive, but they have definitely been immobilized."

Seo Jun-Ho nodded at the Frost Queen's words and forced himself to stand up.

He leaned against the Frost Queen's shoulders, but he stumbled and collapsed to the ground after only a few steps.

"Ugh...!"

"Contractor! Come on! We're so close!"

Of course, Seo Jun-Ho knew that they were close. He reckoned that they only had to run a few hundred meters, and they would finally be able to use a teleport scroll.

He knew it, but he couldn't move...

'I have to stand up.'

'How do I stand up?'

Riiip!

A tearing noise echoed, and Seo Jun-Ho felt weightless.

"Haaa—w-what is it?" asked Seo Jun-Ho while gasping for breath.

Rahmadat had gotten off Seo Jun-Ho's back, and he shook his head at the latter's question. "Jun-Ho, I think this is it."

"Stop the nonsense. Just get on my back. We don't have time," said Seo Jun-Ho before asking, "How many?"

Rahmadat stretched out a few fingers.

Maybe two... No, was it four? Rahmadat heard Seo Jun-Ho's sigh.

"Your injuries are too severe. I think it's a miracle that we can even talk like this," Rahmadat remarked.

"..." Seo Jun-Ho wordlessly closed his eyes. He knew the extent of his injuries.

"Still, I came all the way here to save you, so we have to leave together."

"If I could walk, I would have gone with you somehow," replied Rahmadat.

Tremble.

Rahmadat raised his hand with difficulty, and he placed it on Seo Jun-Ho's shoulder.

Seo Jun-Ho could feel Rahmadat's trembling through his shoulder.

"You've done your best. You can't escape with me."

"I told you not to speak... nonsense..."

"Look." Rahmadat pointed. Seo Jun-Ho turned and saw a cloud of dust.

"I'm sure they're reinforcements, and the generals are probably with them," said Rahmadat.

"And that's why I'm telling you that we have to run away now!"

"I can't...!" Rahmadat shouted and coughed a mouthful of black blood. His visage rapidly paled as he explained, "They poisoned me, and I won't be able to absorb it anytime soon. I don't want to be your burden, so go..."

"..."

Seo Jun-Ho's eyes quivered violently. The cloud of dust was so huge that there were probably a thousand approaching Overminds. There was no way that Seo Jun-Ho could deal with so many Overminds considering his current condition.

'W-what do I do...?'

'God... if you exist and you're looking at me, then please—please help me.'

Drip.

Water dripped down Seo Jun-Ho's cheeks, but it wasn't because he was crying.

It was all because it was raining...

"Oh? Tsk, tsk..." A man clicked his tongue and said, "Does this even make sense? Did they do it together?"

"No, he did it by himself. The big guy there can't even walk because he's poisoned."

"Wait, really? He defeated two divisions on his own?" the man asked in disbelief.

He quickly turned hostile as he said, "We definitely can't let him live."

"His Majesty told us to bring him alive."

"How can you say that when you can see all these? We ought to tackle a problem at its roots. Since we cannot possibly control him, then we have to destroy him."

There was silence between the two men, but they didn't argue anymore.

"Just remember that I tried to stop you...."

"I know. I'm doing this arbitrarily. I'll just offer my own head to His Majesty if he tells you to take responsibility."

It was raining cats and dogs, but Seo Jun-Ho could still make out the splashing footsteps of the two men.

"You're an enemy, but I'll listen to your last words. Do you have any?" asked the man.

"..." Seo Jun-Ho's vision was still swimming. He had to get up and fight, but he couldn't even think straight anymore. He felt like his brain had been fried.

"I'll take your silence as no."

Schwing.

A sword was unsheathed, but a deafening noise interrupted the man.

Rumble!

It was the enraged rumble of thunder.