Free Web Novel■■■ (E)
A life-form residing in the Maze of Desire. Able to partially wield the authority of ■■■.
'This is ridiculous.'
I’d seen status windows similar to this more times than I could count in dungeons. It was just my first time seeing one floating over a human.
That didn’t mean I had no idea what was going on. I knew the information that corresponded to the original work.
In the latter part of the original—when all the dungeons ended, the story moved on to the title event, and Earth itself turned into a dungeon—the status windows that appeared over humans were exactly like this.
In other words, the guy who’d been standing there like a perfectly normal human a moment ago had become a dungeon creature in an instant.
But I didn’t have time to calmly think it through right now. I quickly pushed myself up and stepped back, away from him.
Mimic (S) is being activated.
At the same time, I poured mana into my hand and quickly activated the skill. Vitality surged through my body in an instant.
Boom!
I quickly raised a massive ice wall between us, then calmly brushed off my clothes and hands.
“You handle your skills better than I expected.”
I cleanly ignored his comment and spoke up.
“How long have you been here? Half a year?”
“What does that matter?”
“You seem suspiciously well adapted to this place.”
If he’d said that I couldn’t beat him here, that meant he understood his own condition was abnormal.
Gi Cheongmin slowly furrowed his brow, as if he’d caught on to what I meant.
The very next moment, with a sharp cracking sound, a hole opened in the ice wall under his hand.
'I figured.' frёewebηovel.cѳm
It was a wall I’d made bigger and weaker on purpose, so there was no way it would last long. After throwing a test punch, as if deciding it was doable, Gi Cheongmin rolled his wrist and unleashed a flurry of blows.
Thud! With the sound of heavy objects slamming together, the massive ice wall collapsed to the floor with a shattering crash.
Good.
It had only been for buying time anyway, so it didn’t matter. I shrugged off my outer layer and yanked the guards on my wrists up to cover my forearms.
'Let’s raise the implementation grade a little more.'
The Gate here was B-rank. No matter how transcendent that “god” was, there had to be a limit to the authority Gi Cheongmin could implement.
'About B-rank.'
The time I could implement the skill in a single burst became shorter, but fortunately, the Preservation Patch wrapped around my body minimized my mana loss as much as possible.
From my fingertips to my arm, a burning sensation flooded in an instant. Or maybe it was so cold I was mistaking it for heat.
“It’s big, but there’s no substance.”
Beyond the demolished ice wall, I could clearly see Gi Cheongmin looking this way.
The moment I felt our eyes meet, he rushed toward me.
With the sound of his shoes slamming against the ground, he closed the distance in an instant.
Whoosh! His fist sliced through the air and slammed down right beside me. I immediately pressed my hand to the floor and froze the spot where he was standing. The moment he pushed his foot back to put strength into it, he slipped across the ice plate.
Because his body had Body Reinforcement on it, the sound he made hitting the ground was like a massive boulder crashing down.
I took a step back and wrapped his wrist in ice, pinning it firmly to the floor.
As he tried to pull on his wrist to stand up, Gi Cheongmin hesitated for a moment and met my eyes.
“Wow, why are you acting like such a beast.”
I narrowed my eyes and sneered at him, and blood instantly shot through his gaze.
'I didn’t even mean to provoke him.'
The veins stood out sharply all the way up his forehead as he immediately put strength into his wrist, snapped the restraint, and rose to his feet.
At the same time, I fired a solid ice pillar straight at his body.
Whud!
The ice that had been aimed at his chest jolted as he was in the middle of standing up and ended up driving into his abdomen instead.
“Urgh!”
With a short groan, he clutched his stomach and was shoved straight back. The thin ice sheet spread over the floor was ground up under his soles, breaking apart with a harsh grinding crack.
'An ordinary person would’ve died several times over.'
I’d made that ice pillar pretty solid, so normally, it would’ve just pierced straight through and killed him. But all Gi Cheongmin did was stagger and collapse to the floor; his abdomen wasn’t even perforated.
'How much Body Reinforcement did he put on himself?'
There was no way it was just E-rank.
I seized the moment while he was still struggling to get up and quickly checked the status window again.
■■■ (B)
A life-form residing in the Maze of Desire. Able to partially wield the authority of ■로■.
'Ah... fuck'.
And in the status window, the rank of the guy who’d been struggling around at E-rank just a moment ago had jumped up by several steps.
This was something I barely had enough time to calmly analyze, and yet, in that brief moment, Gi Cheongmin had already sprung back to his feet and was charging again.
I stretched out my hand and stacked dense ice walls in front of him. Even if he broke through one, it would take time to break through the next.
The sound of his body smashing into the walls rang out with hollow thuds, a few seconds apart.
'Think.'
Fuck, I wasn’t the type to think while fighting—since when did I have to use my head like this?
Realizing all over again just how fucked this situation was pissed me off.
No matter how “human” he might look right now, I first had to treat him as a B-rank dungeon creature and fight accordingly.
In that case, what could you do if you ran into a dungeon creature with just your bare body and no healer?
'Running away is the best option.'
I turned my head and quickly checked behind me. On the floor, the “Boundary” Gi Cheongmin had set up was glowing red.
'Can I get out?'
When I reached out and shot ice toward the boundary, with a bang, the ice bounced right back inside.
“......”
At the very least, it was certain that if I walked out as is, I’d die.
'Then the ceiling?'
I quickly fired ice up at the ceiling; it went fairly high, then that ice also bounced back down and crashed.
Boom!
With a vicious sound, the ice slammed into the floor, tilted slowly, then toppled over to the side and shattered with a crashing noise.
And the very next moment, the last ice wall I’d set up in front of me crumbled.
'I’m so fucked.'
Striding up in big steps, Gi Cheongmin grabbed me by the collar in an instant and flung me.
Thud! My body slammed into the floor, and a dizzying pain shot up my back. I bit ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) down hard on my lips to spread out the pain, then rolled half a turn to dodge Gi Cheongmin as he lunged in.
I honed ice and sliced straight through his thigh; blood spurted out.
“Argh!”
With his scream, hot blood gushed out in heavy bursts. Without hesitating, I aimed for his head and fired another shot of ice.
'Fuck.'
Whether he somehow sensed it or what, he turned his head to the side, dodging the ice easily, and slammed his fist down again. This time, there was no way to avoid it; his fist drove straight into my abdomen.
A pain like my ribs were being crushed crashed over me. Felt like my lungs had torn a bit too. The pain that had been burning across my back until just a moment ago was gone enough that I barely remembered it.
But no matter how intense the pain was, I couldn’t afford any optimism that Gi Cheongmin would go easy on me. His fist slammed into the floor right next to my face immediately after.
'Not the jaw.'
I clenched my teeth and blocked my face with my arm. As expected, his hand crashed down right into my forearm.
“Urgh....”
The pain was so severe my consciousness kept flying off. I timed it just as he raised his fist again, intending to slice his wrist clean off, and brought ice to bear.
Slash!
Blood sprayed sharply.
“Fuck!”
Gi Cheongmin screamed and clutched his wrist. I’d meant to sever it completely, but it seemed all I’d managed was a deep cut.
Maybe my internal injuries were bad, because blood welled up from inside. As I tried to rise, I bowed my head and spat blood onto the floor.
'This much is fine.'
Just rendering one of his wrists unusable was an achievement. I could vividly feel the guard squeezing my forearm.
Seemed it had been the right call to remodel the Dragon Heart into armor. If I hadn’t boosted my durability with it, my body would already have turned to mush and scattered across the floor.
It was hard to breathe properly; low groans kept slipping out. The more I coughed, the tighter my lungs felt.
I’d cut his blood vessel; given enough time, I could definitely kill him. The problem was that I didn’t have much time left.
I lifted my gaze and looked at the status window.
Mimic (S) remaining duration: 63 seconds
I could mimic one more time, but if I did, my mana would be completely wiped out.
If my condition were just a little better, I would’ve copied his skill and gone for a straight slugfest, but at this point even that was difficult.
I drove through his thigh again, the one I was still holding onto.
'Go into shock.'
My mind kept fracturing. My breath kept coming up short, and I couldn’t stop clenching my teeth.
I kept wavering between pouring out more strength to kill him now, or holding on a bit longer and waiting. Normally I’d choose the former, but right now, I didn’t have Do Yehyun.
'Those fucking bastards...'
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
Isn’t it obvious? If Do Yehyun died, my life would get inconvenient and fucked. From the start, I’d brought him along because I planned to make good use of him.
'Not that I could just leave him out of dungeons either.'
Sure, people die at unexpected times, but this was especially fucked because he’d been snatched away before I could do a damn thing.
It wasn’t just that a carefully built tower had collapsed. From the start, he was mine, so of course it pissed me off if someone else put their hands on him.
'Ah... this is so fucking annoying.'
If I die like this, do I just start over? The status window said it repeats endlessly, didn’t it?
I didn’t know for sure, but judging from how my breath kept leaking, it was certain my ribs were broken. Adrenaline was barely keeping my mind together; if I relaxed even a little, I felt like my consciousness would fly off completely.
While he was still grunting and fussing with his wrist and thigh, Gi Cheongmin somehow made his way over here and groped for my collar with his remaining hand.
I was about to flip out and ask if he was some kind of pervert, but my voice wouldn’t come out, so I gave up on that fast and kicked him in the stomach instead. It didn’t really do anything. I was too drained.
He staggered once from the kick, then immediately felt around and clamped his hand around my throat, squeezing hard.
With the oxygen cut off, my already precarious consciousness flickered rapidly. For a moment, I found myself thinking that if we both died here in the maze, that’d be pretty funny.
'If we’re both going to die, you go first, Cheongmin.'
I quickly gave up on struggling for air and reorganized the mana I had left.
'Even if it’s just for a very short while, I’ll crank the skill’s rank as high as it’ll go.'
Death is always decided in an instant anyway.
A chill flooded my entire body. My lungs felt like they were being wrung out from lack of air. A sharp pain flared in my head, then, soon enough, it started working perfectly fine. There was a strange feeling as the pain gradually thinned out.
The very next moment, the status window flashed.
Then, a slender ice structure pierced cleanly through Gi Cheongmin’s body. With a crisp crack, his body slowly tilted toward the floor. freewebnσvel.cøm
Blood gushed out of the punctured abdomen, soaking his clothes completely. I wiped the blood that had splattered onto my own cheek off with the back of my hand, then looked back up at the air.
Mimic (S) remaining duration: 0 seconds
