Chapter 177 - Chapter 177 (1/2)

[Level: 122]

'Heok!'

Jin-Woo confirmed his new level and swallowed back a huge gasp of shock.

His level reached 100 after hunting down all the ants on Jeju Island. However, his level stayed pretty much the same for a little while after that, probably because of the wide gap between him and the monsters he ran into.

After asking for other major Guilds' understandings, he got to sweep clean every single high-ranking dungeon in the vicinity for a week and only then did his level rise up to 103.

But now, his level had jumped past 120?

This was all thanks to the Giant-type monsters, each possessing a boss-level worth of experience points, as well as the King of Giants who gifted him with an enormous amount of experience points. Which was as much as eight levels' worth, no less.

'Very nice.'

Jin-Woo nodded his head. He had made the right call by killing the King. It was definitely not a coincidence that his level shot up by eight in one go.

This being was able to emit enough pressure to make breathing difficult for him even though its powers had been sealed away by these special chains. If this thing got freed and was allowed to roam freely in the outside world, then....

Jin-Woo shook his head left to right.

He should thank the lucky stars that he got to discover its true nature before that happened.

It was then – the King's corpse suddenly began splitting up like the ground suffering from drought, and soon, changed into sand-like dust and collapsed to the floor.

The words the King told him abruptly brushed past Jin-Woo's mind just then.

["Once such a spiritual body dies, it's destroyed and can't be turned into one of your Shadow Soldiers. Meaning, I can never become your soldier."]

The death of a 'spiritual body'.

For the first time in his life, he got to witness the death of a so-called spiritual body.

What the King said was right. Its corpse transformed into sand and no black smokes came up from it, nor did he see a message regarding Shadow Extraction pop up.

Jin-Woo dug out the black Magic Crystal from the pile of sand and lightly dusted its surface.

'It's a bit of a loss that I couldn't get me a new Shadow Soldier, but... I guess I should satisfy myself with this thing, then.'

Jin-Woo studied this large Magic Crystal.

Its mirror-like clear surface reflected his face. As he peered deeply into it, he felt the ends of his fingertips tingle from all the power contained within this thing.

'So, it's those Rulers that keep sending these things over here....'

Why did it happen? Back when he first heard the term 'Rulers', a scene automatically began replaying itself in his mind. And it was about four 'angels' descending from the heavens.

Even though it hadn't really happened to him, Jin-Woo felt a chill run down his backside simply from 'discovering' them in the playback.

Tumble.

He felt as if his heart fell to the pit of his stomach.

'Could those things be the Rulers?'

If those things were planning to invade Earth, then he definitely lacked enough power to stop them as he was right now. He gripped the Magic Crystal even tighter.

'I need to get much stronger.'

In that sense, it was an incredibly fortunate thing that he was bestowed with the powers of the Shadow Sovereign. He had gained an unimaginable power, and there was a very good possibility that he'd grow even stronger in the future.

What would have happened if he lacked enough points back during the Class quest and was not chosen by the System? Jin-Woo quietly engaged the yet-to-be closed Status Window with a bit of banter.

"Oii... Will you say something back already?"

Too bad, the System still didn't bother to reply back to him.

"...."

Jin-Woo told himself that one day, if he was left with no choice but to compile a bucket list then he'd definitely put 'have a serious chat with the System' somewhere in there. He stood up from the ground to leave.

But as he turned around, his foot touched something lying on the floor.

Tap.

'Mm?'

He took a look below and discovered that it was the black chain that used to be wrapped around the King of Giants. Immediately, curiosity filled Jin-Woo's eyes. And very soon, that curiosity morphed into full-on interest.

'Maybe these things.... might come in handy?'

He sneakily reached out and grasped onto one of the chains still attached to the dungeon wall.

And, sure enough, he could sense his strength being sucked away.

'Ohhh.'

Indeed, this chain was absorbing his magic energy.

Only one wouldn't be a problem, but if these chains were tightly wrapped around you in several layers, even the holder of an incredible power wouldn't be able to extricate themselves out any time soon.

Jin-Woo confirmed the MP reserve being steadily eaten away and grinned brightly.

'Isn't this an unexpected harvest?'

Feeling rather pleased, he summoned out a 'Demon King's Shortsword' and cut one of the chains off. However, he couldn't sense any magical effects taking place from the now-severed chain.

"Huh?"

It wasn't just this one, either. It was all of them.

'What's going on?'

Jin-Woo shifted his gaze over to the dungeon wall.

He grasped a chain still connected to the wall, and felt the same sealing effect as before. However, all the severed chains didn't display that magical effect at all.

He could venture a guess on what was going on here.

'….So, that's how it was.'

These chains were not some sort of artefacts. No, the sealing effect was simply the power of this dungeon. In other words, these chains were no better than some scrap metal when outside the dungeon.

'I can't use them.'

Jin-Woo lowered the chains that had become regular items to the floor.

Although he couldn't say for sure that he didn't feel a bit rueful here, he found some solace in the fact that he still had gained a lot on this trip already.

Through this expedition, the shadows of the Giants had been added to his Shadow Army, and his level had shot up to 122 after killing the oversized monsters and their King.

All these alone were results that already far exceeded his expectations.

Jin-Woo decisively gave up on the chains and turned around with a grin.

Beru courteously lowered his head at his Sovereign. He then raised his head back up and pointed to the exit with his finger. The Shadow Soldiers standing in front of Jin-Woo stepped aside at once and created a large pathway.

Jin-Woo saw that Beru's shoulder was all clean from unidentifiable substances and lightly patted him there, before walking over to the exit himself.

Beru felt moved by that gesture of his Sovereign and quietly followed after Jin-Woo as well. And right behind them, the near-thousand Shadow Soldiers who had contributed a great deal in the battle against the Giants, maintained the perfect formation and advanced out of the boss chamber.

Chut, chut, chut, chut.

The interior of the dungeon was soon filled up with the heavy footsteps of the marching Shadow Soldiers.

In the distance, the mouth of the dungeon could be seen.

Jin-Woo formed a smile as he looked at the sunlight permeating into the entrance. It was the moment that this seemingly endless raid had come to its conclusion.

***

The situation room of the Japanese Hunter's Association.

The inside of this situation room was draped in a deathly silence; not even a squeaking noise could be heard. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the staff members had forgotten to even breath right now.

All of their attention had been focused on the giant monitor located in front of the room.

Gulp.

Gulp...

Only the subtle noises of dry saliva being swallowed would sometimes murmur out from here and there.

The footage as displayed by the giant screen currently showed the image of Shinjuku, shot from the spy satellite's magic energy detection camera looking down on Earth from space.

This camera displayed the magic energy detected in terms of light spheres. The stronger the magic energy, the brighter the light would be. Weaker magical energy would naturally lead to a smaller light sphere.

There was not one person among everyone present in this situation room who didn't know what that gigantic light sphere making itself at home in the middle of Tokyo represented.

Almost a thousand smaller light spheres gathered and stood right before that large ball of light. Every Association staff member watching that enormous number turned pale from sheer fright.

"T-those, all of those are Hunter Seong Jin-Woo's summons?!"

"Oh, my god...."

"Even with a casual headcount, isn't that over five hundred?"

The Association President Matsumoto quietly leaned his head closer to the agent from the analysis department sitting next to him.

"How many of his summons are there exactly?"

"Because several lights are overlapping with one another, it's difficult to tell exactly, but at the least, I believe there are well more than eight hundred creatures, sir."

Eight hundred creatures, he said.

Since a member of the analysis department even bothered to mention 'well more than' in his sentence, the offered number should be seen as the absolute minimum value.

Even when looked that way, this was already twice the number of summons first seen back in Jeju Island.

Matsumoto was inwardly astonished.

'It hasn't even been that long ago, but just when did he double the number of his summons?!'

No, it was already not normal to increase the number of one's summons, to begin with.

His trembling hand wiped the area around his mouth.