CHAPTER 125

“Who are you?”

The woman tilted her head, hair flowing like ink off her shoulder. The motion of her red lips and every word from them was gentle.

“You’re a freshman who’s only been enrolled for a few months. Little boy, how did you achieve such speed?”

In many ways, she was elegant and enchanting.

However, the stench of blood coming from her was overwhelming, as if the smell was trapped in every cell in her body.

Huh, does she kill people as routinely as eating meals?

Was it okay for such a murderous monster to exist in the world?

Most people would have such questions, accompanied by a strong sense of rejection or fear toward the woman. However, Jae-Hyeok himself didn’t feel much. He had killed assassins to survive and had to kill his enemies to get revenge. His future might be more brutal than the woman in front of him.

Jae-Hyeok’s gaze fell on the woman’s head.

Something that looked like fox ears stood upright on her head.

A beastman.

He didn’t care if she was a killer or something else, but along with Roh Jun-Yeop and Jang Yeon-Ju, she was trying to target Elder Song and harm the Kang family’s interests. That was all Jae-Hyeok needed to know. He couldn’t let her go.

He calmly accepted that one of them would die.

“You don’t look like a child.” The woman’s expression turned cold. “How boring. Despite your good face, you must not be popular... Huh?”

The woman’s eyes widened.

“You... Your breathing has stabilized?”

When Jae-Hyeok had first arrived, his breathing had been rough and blood dripped from his fingers. It was easy to guess that he’d reached the thirteenth floor by climbing the outer wall of the Student Council building.

Climbing a smooth stone building with his bare hands? It must’ve been quite difficult. Yet he’d recovered in such a short time, which meant his physical strength wasn’t normal.

“Abnormal, just like the power of your sword... Are your overall stats around A-class?”

The boy with thick eyebrows doubted his ears.

He recognized that the person who’d saved his life was Kang Jae-Hyeok. After all, there was no way that a person who belonged to the Student Council didn’t know the Yaksha’s son, who was the protagonist of the admission re-examination uproar.

A child who was level 10 at that time has already grown to A-class?

Was that possible?

Naturally, it couldn’t be.

Even Britain’s Amelia, who’d set a record for leveling up in the shortest period of time by monopolizing the gate’s first clearance rewards, took six years to achieve A-class.

It must be the power of his Skill.

For some reason, the media had kept quiet about Kang Jae-Hyeok’s Skill. Still, it was widely accepted that he’d awakened his family’s Bloodline Skill.

A Skill passed down through a ducal family couldn’t be ordinary. It wouldn’t be strange if it had the effect of temporarily increasing his stats.

The speed of his sword-draw must have come from some sort of buff effect of his Skill.

Yes, that had to be it. There was no way any player in the world could level up dozens of times in just two or three months.

But since it was a buff, the thick-eyebrowed boy didn’t have high hopes for Jae-Hyeok. It seemed the benefactor who’d just saved him was about to die.

Meanwhile, Jae-Hyeok was silent.

He let the words of the fox beastman flow out her mouth as he focused on returning his body to its peak condition.

He had just rushed over after hearing a sudden explosion, only to find the Student Council building in a miserable state, and after the many explosions, many of the staircases were blocked. It would take too long to enter from the inside, so he’d climbed the building instead.

I’m glad I trained myself to climb normally.

He had frequently climbed the Kang estate’s walls to clean the graffiti left by protestors. Now it seemed that was indeed good training. If it weren’t for this, he wouldn’t have reached the thirteenth floor so quickly.

I’m tired.

However, although he’d restored his breathing, he was still physically exhausted after such a feat. Not to mention, the wounds on his ten fingers were bad.

He wanted to use a potion right away.

“......”

Just as Jae-Hyeok had this thought, the fox beastman’s bright yellow eyes were electrocuting Jae-Hyeok like a thunderbolt.

A sharp sense of danger gripped him. He knew he would be attacked as soon as he made a careless move, so he couldn’t risk taking out a potion.

She’s incredibly strong.I can’t afford to show any gaps.

The reason why Jae-Hyeok had climbed here was that the explosion on the thirteenth floor had been the biggest. Half of the roof was blown away, leaving him to imagine countless worst-case scenarios. What if Jang Yeon-Ju and Roh Jun-Yeop came to the thirteenth floor to escape the pursuit of the intruders, only to fall into the hands of the other beastmen?

“Look at how nervous you are. You’re so cute that I want to eat you.”

The fox beastmen’s eyes curved into crescents as her tongue flickered across her lips.

She shot forward, and her figure seemed to merge with a cloud of ink—her long black hair dancing wildly around her.

Jae-Hyeok was calm. Backlit by the moon, he seemed to glow as he drew his sword.

A silver crescent split the air.

When the fox beastman and Jae-Hyeok crossed swords, the night sky seemed to tremble like ripples in a lake. The fox beastman’s cloud of hair was blown back, looking like a line of ink.

"Interesting!” The fox beastman twisted her wrist and directed Jae-Hyeok’s hwando toward the ground. “Bleed! Make me bleed as well!” The fox beastman’s eyes gradually turned red.

The longer the battle, the stronger she became.

Bang!

Bang!

After several exchanges, the fox beastman suddenly switched from a slash to a thrust. Jae-Hyeok lifted his scabbard to block, but was still sent sliding back. Only after hitting a wall did he come to a stop. He lowered his gaze.

Seeing the massive crack in his green scabbard, Jae-Hyeok’s heart ached. No matter how many times he witnessed the symbol of the Kang family getting destroyed, he could never get used to it.

“How sad. Your main technique is sword-drawing. Whatever will you do, now that you’ve lost your scabbard?” the fox beastman asked.

The sword-drawing technique was, as expected, a technique that required both the sword and its scabbard to perform. Her attack just then had given Jae-Hyeok a choice—either he sacrificed his scabbard or allowed himself to get stabbed in the stomach

The fox beastman had an expression of pity and disappointment on her face, but her actions had been thoroughly calculated. Her every word and expression was carefully chosen to stir her opponent's anger and shake their composure.

Clang!

Jae-Hyeok threw away his scabbard. The damage was too deep. It would likely break if he were to use it again.

“Huhu, now that I’ve broken your technique, what are you going to do? Are you feeling desperate yet?”

A flush appeared on the fox beastman’s cheeks. She was excited just thinking of the moment she cut this handsome boy’s head in half and watched the fluids spill out.

The fox beastman’s attack grew bolder, and her breathing turned husky. She unleashed a stream of attacks—anything to create even one more wound on him.

Jae-Hyeok tried to fight back using King’s Roar and Two Scythes Block a Cart.

[King’s Roar Level 1

Unleashes the pressure of an innate king, briefly terrifying the target.

Applies to a maximum of three players. The lower the target’s level or total stats compared to the user, the higher the probability of falling into the Fear state.

Skill Cooldown Time: 10 minutes.]

The Skill he’d gotten from the Troll Lord was indeed powerful.

The fox beastman, who was much higher in level than Jae-Hyeok, was actually frightened and froze for 0.1 seconds, granting Jae-Hyeok a window to counterattack several times.

“Hahahahat!”

However, the fox beastman didn’t care at all. Rather, she looked euphoric with every new wound she received.

Soon, her eyes were tinged a faint red.

Thanks to Jae-Hyeok’s surprisingly good fighting abilities, even after losing his scabbard, several of her Berserker passive Skills were activated.

[All your stats have slightly increased due to the ongoing battle.]

[You have been wounded. Attack power has increased.]

[You have inflicted wounds on your opponent. Attack speed has increased.]

......

...

The sound of the bees became louder as the black aura around the fox beastman’s sword grew denser and denser.

He could hardly see the blade wrapped beneath all the black mana.

“Okay... It’s time to hunt.”

The fox beastman wiped Jae-Hyeok’s blood off her face and licked it from her hand. But her eyes were elsewhere, glancing at the door behind Jae-Hyeok and imagining all the adorable faces of the new prey she would soon encounter.

“Goodbye. It was fun.”

The fox beastman slashed down with a strength that was unlike before.

“Ah...!”

The boy with thick eyebrows sighed.

He felt sorry for Jae-Hyeok, whose head was about to burst. He could only console himself with the fact that he would be killed soon enough, so he didn't have to feel too guilty.

Just as the fox beastman’s sword was about to land, a round blue shield appeared in Jae-Hyeok’s hand.

Jae-Hyeok used Heavy Moon, a shield that could withstand even an ogre’s attack, to block the fox beastman’s attack. Then, he released the shield and spun in place.

His torn, fractured, and crushed right hand still held his hwando like an iron claw.

So this is your final move.

The fox beastman thought, smiling at the bloodied boy behind the falling shield.

The final move in a desperate battle determined life and death. It was nerve-racking, so it was only natural to make mistakes.

The fox beastman felt sorry for the boy as she caught sight of the hwando aiming toward the back of her neck. Perhaps this would be a memory worth drinking to for the next few days.

He made a mistake in the end.Poor child.

The pain of his shattered hand had likely confused him, causing him to miss the opportunity to cut her throat.

The boy had actually slashed with the backside of his blade, not the edge. Just then, time seemed to stand still as the fox beastman suddenly felt a chill on the back of her neck.

“...Bloom.”

“Wha...” The fox beastman couldn’t even scream.

A transparent red sword with a double-edge ripped through her throat.