Radiant light burst forth.
He hadn’t seen it wrong.
It really was starting to hatch.
'No, it’s suddenly starting to hatch like this?'
He was dumbfounded.
What the hell was this?
But Su-ho wasn’t the only one startled.
“Ts, tsura?!”
“G-Great King?!”
“Great King, are you alright?!”
“Tsuraaaat!!”
“We have to protect the Great King!!”
“Sothing happened to the Great King!!”
The lizardn nearby panicked and started freaking out too.
Su-ho cald them down first.
“Everyone, quiet!”
In a hurry, he shouted while pouring mana into his voice.
Then every lizardman around him froze like ice, and only then did Su-ho calmly give his orders.
“This is a sign that I’m about to grow again. So stop making a fuss and move according to the next step. I’ll be moving alone from now on.”
“B-But...!”
“Are you saying you don’t trust ?”
“N-No!”
“Tsura!”
“We obey!”
The flustered lizardn started moving in a flash.
Once the lizardn disappeared from his sight, Su-ho looked around, then entered the Subspace House.
It was to avoid any possible exposure.
[ Entering the Subspace House. ]
Even after entering the Subspace House, he kept a fair distance from Pi Seong-yeol.
Only then did Su-ho focus and check the hatching status.
[ Ti until the Dragon Egg fully hatches: 98%. ]
The hatching progressed more slowly than he expected.
Were dragons originally all like this?
Well, even just looking at the settings in novels and comics, these guys were a far longer-lived species than elves, so everything about them had to be relatively unhurried.
Su-ho decided to check other information in the anti.
'First, the status window.'
[ An Su-ho ]
Lv: 300
Class ▲: Rage Crusader
Rank: Middle Player
Traits ▲: New Blood ▲, Heracles ▲, King of a Ruined Nation, Grid’s Partner, Sun-Moon Body
Great Strength (P): 41
True Mana (S): 105
Senses (P): 16
Command (N): 119
Bonus Stats: 7
He reached level 300, and along with it, quest activation markers appeared next to each category.
In that sense, he’d originally planned to take on the class quest first.
Because he already knew the content.
But then the Dragon Egg suddenly started hatching and the plan got thrown off.
'Well, if you really get technical, Dragon Blood wasn’t in the plan I made in the first place.'
He’d obtained Dragon Blood in the Tower of Trials in a way he truly hadn’t expected.
So he wasn’t especially dissatisfied.
The order just got pushed back, that was all. It wouldn’t change the fact that he’d still handle the class quest he intended to do.
So for now, he decided to check the unlocked condition information first.
He started with Dragon Blood.
[ Dragon Blood ]
Rank: S
# The bloodline of a great dragon.
# Even if the bearer of Dragon Blood was not born as a dragon, depending on their effort, they can enjoy the power a dragon possesses.
# Lv.1 - Dragon Blood: Intimidation (S), Dragon’s Spirit (S).
# Lv.2 - Dragon Armor: Dragonkin (S), Dragon Skin (S).
# Lv.3 - Dragon Grow: Dragon Bone (S), Dragon Body (S), Dragon Sense (S).
# Lv.4 - Dragon Egg: Dragon Egg (S).
# Lv.5 - [ ??? ]: Locked.
└ Unlock Conditions
1. Reach level 300.
2. Answer the call of ???.
'Answer the call of ????'
What is that supposed to be?
Who is ????
There was no way to know.
There wasn’t even the bare minimum explanation.
Because it was information he’d never heard even from Dragon Demon, the only player in his previous life who had Dragon Blood.
Still, since the unlock condition was in bold, it looked like the mont he pressed it, the quest would proceed.
Su-ho hesitated for a mont.
'I should start after the hatching finishes, right?'
That would be better, wouldn’t it?
Yeah.
He didn’t know what would happen, so he should firmly take care of what he could firmly take care of first, then move.
Having made his decision, Su-ho sat down and waited patiently for the hatching to end.
[ Ti until the Dragon Egg fully hatches: 70%. ]
[ Ti until the Dragon Egg fully hatches: 51%. ]
[ Ti until the Dragon Egg fully hatches: 33%. ]
[ Ti until the Dragon Egg fully hatches: 12%. ]
...
Ti passed.
He wasn’t bored, because of the tension.
And then, finally, it was when 1% remained.
[ Ti until the Dragon Egg fully hatches: 1%. ]
At that mont.
[ ??? is calling you. ]
A system notification.
And at the sa ti, regardless of Su-ho’s will, the second unlock condition triggered and summoned him like it was abducting him into an unknown world.
*
The darkness that had covered his vision lifted, and his sight returned.
He wasn’t dizzy.
He was just a little... no, a lot flustered.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in a place he’d never seen before, not the Subspace House.
'Where am I?'
He looked around.
The newly arrived place looked like a forest.
No related system notification appeared.
What was this?
There were too few clues.
After thinking for a while, Su-ho started basic armant by activating his skills.
[ Summoning Heracles’s Club. ]
[ Blood Armor activates. ]
[ Blessing activates. ]
[ Holy Enchant activates. ]
[ Mana Detection activates. ]
[ Endurance activates. ]
[ Enhancent activates. ]
[ Wildsmith’s Eye activates. ]
[ Sword Energy activates. ]
Basic full armant.
After fully arming himself, he felt a little more at ease.
But then, at the mont Mana Detection activated, things that hadn’t been visible before finally began to co into view.
It was a faint, flowing current of energy. When he focused his senses and grasped what it was, it looked like the kind of energy players used—like mana.
'But to be precise, it’s not mana.'
Denser than mana, thicker... sothing with a packed, concentrated density.
Similar forces were the demonic energy he’d felt very briefly, and the True Mana he’d obtained recently.
Those energies stretched through the air like spiderwebs.
So Su-ho’s gaze followed those long, drawn-out strands, and before long, he could tell they were tangled like a bundle of nerves on a certain cliff.
'But it’s blocked over there?'
It was exactly as it seed.
The place where those unknown energy lines were tangled like nerve bundles wasn’t a cave, but a blocked wall that looked like a cliff face.
And yet, as if sothing was there, they were tangled in massive quantity.
What was it?
They said seeing once was better than hearing a hundred tis, so he approached first.
There wasn’t anywhere else that looked particularly special.
When Su-ho finally reached the blocked wall and reached out his hand toward that nerve-bundle tangle...
Bzzzt!
Sparks flew.
It was only for a mont, but as if he’d been electrocuted, the hand he’d touched with was charred black.
'Well, would you look at that?'
So there really is sothing here?
Having found a direction to proceed, Su-ho stepped back.
Then, this ti, he examined the wall again from a slightly different perspective.
'The energy lines are tangled in a mass, but when you approach, it reacts with strong rejection, like it’s trying to block access.'
Then even if there is sothing beyond this, that ans this isn’t a wall—it’s a barrier.
He didn’t know who ??? was, but he could tell it was soone with a pretty nasty personality, because this was the place that thing had called him to.
'But if it’s a quest, I’ll gladly play along.'
Su-ho raised his sword, compressed True Mana into it, and swung with all his might.
[ Enhancent activates. ]
[ Diamond Cutting activates. ]
[ Enhancent is applied. ]
[ Diamond Cutting’s power grows stronger. ]
Bzzzt!
What he chose first was Diamond Cutting.
Because it was far stronger than Sky Severing.
But even though it was an attack he’d swung after packing in True Mana as tightly as he could, the barrier repelled it, even bouncing off the shock wave option from Heracles’s Club, and nullified the attack as if absorbing it.
'So a simple cut isn’t enough?'
Then what if he didn’t touch the barrier itself?
No matter what, the host who invited him would be behind the barrier.
Su-ho pulled his sword back again.
Then he layered skills over it again and swung.
[ Enhancent activates. ]
[ Reverse Scale Slash activates. ]
[ Enhancent is applied. ]
[ Reverse Scale Slash’s power grows stronger. ]
Whooaaah!
He didn’t know how deep it went beyond the barrier.
But he swung his sword, estimating as far as he could.
However.
...Bzzzzzt!
For the first brief mont, it seed like there was no sound at all, but before that thought could even finish, a harsh frictional screech rang out.
And just like before, the attack was nullified and disappeared.
“So that’s how it is.”
He’d used two thods among his attacks that he believed absolutely had to work.
And neither worked.
Then there was only one thing left.
Su-ho lifted his sword again.
[ Enhancent activates. ]
And then.
Saaaaaah!
The air around Su-ho surged toward him in an instant.
A gigantic concentration of energy.
And just before Su-ho’s sword was about to discharge, the world in his sight was dyed in black and white.
At the sa ti, he began to see it.
A twisted, condensed rule—like a knot of laws—clumped within the barrier tangled like a nerve bundle: the Ring ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ of Runes.
'There!'
Su-ho swung his sword.
[ True Origin Slash activates. ]
[ Enhancent is applied. ]
[ True Origin Slash’s power grows stronger. ]
Slash!
The arc he carved was clean.
The sword scar, too, was etched high into the air—and deep.
He could feel it. He’d definitely cut sothing.
So was that why?
Bzzzzzt!
A harsh screech rang out.
But this wasn’t the “absorb and nullify” defense he’d felt up to now.
He had cleanly struck the point of impact.
That point was the Ring of Runes.
So this was definitely a valid hit.
'How’s that?'
But then—
Kraaanng!!
A sound like a mirror shattering rang out, and a sensation spread as if it were reflecting back.
Damn it.
Just like with Shiva.
He’d definitely cut it properly, but it was shallow.
Was his power lacking?
Or was the technique’s level too low?
Maybe it was both.
Shit.
Without realizing it, he bit down hard on his lip.
If this had been the next step beyond True Origin Slash...!
At that mont, the corner of Su-ho’s mouth lifted.
“Ah. So the timing cos to like this.”
The timing Su-ho was talking about.
That timing was the timing to raise the level of True Origin Slash.
True Origin Slash was a technique that cut not a target’s physical substance, but intangible laws hidden like an illusion.
That was why he couldn’t dare do sothing like repeated drilling and mastery.
Even Kim Seung-hwan didn’t work.
This was sothing he could only strike once he earned the System’s recognition.
So he thought the process of raising the form’s level would take a very long ti.
Just as he’d felt when promoting Destruction Fist Art into Void Flow, the stronger he beca, the harder it was to find an opponent who could make him grow.
And yet, unexpectedly, that timing had arrived right now.
“Fine. Let’s see you endure it to the end!”
With eyes gleaming with sothing that could’ve been joy or madness, Su-ho swung his sword.
[ True Origin Slash activates. ]
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