-KABOOOM!!
“Keuheup!”
Lee Cheol-heon’s fist flew in like thunder.
Yoo Da-huin’s body shattered into pieces, torn apart and scattered like cherry blossoms.
-Rustle….
Then it recombined and was restored.
“You bastard… truly are immortal…!”
“You son of a bitch!”
-SLASH—!
And the dagger of Oh Yuk-il that followed tore into Yoo Da-huin’s restored body.
-SLASH—! SLASH—! SLASH—! SLASH—! SLASH—!
It ripped him to shreds.
“Kh, cough…!”
Every part of Yoo Da-huin’s body had been sliced, and each piece began to slide down while retaining its own shape.
-Rustle…
Soon, it recombined and was restored.
“Fuck, he really is immortal!”
Even as blood flowed from his torn mouth,
Oh Yuk-il smiled as he watched Yoo Da-huin with eyes gone mad.
Because of that torn mouth, his smile looked even more soaked in insanity.
“You fucking lunatics…!”
Yoo Da-huin restored his body.
“Blood, Retrieval!”
He stretched his hand toward everyone.
***
-SPLASH—!
The blood scattered across the ground was absorbed toward me.
[ DING! ]
[ A moderate amount of blood is absorbed through Blood Absorption! ]
[ Recovery amount slightly increases! ]
I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth, watched that blood slowly absorb into my fingers, and opened my mouth.
“What the hell are you guys?”
What kind of bullshit was this?
I had barely, barely beaten Sylvatera, and just as I thought I was going to the next floor,
I was suddenly forced out of the tower because the tower had been subjugated.
The moment I came out, without asking or listening to a single thing, they smashed a person’s body apart and tore it to shreds.
What the hell are these bastards doing?
“What the hell are you bastards doing?”
I spat out exactly what was on my mind, and a man in golden armor stood up and asked solemnly.
“You bastard, you must be Yoo Da-huin?”
“Yeah. Why the fuck?”
I answered with venom in my eyes.
“Then that is enough. There is nothing more to ask.”
-Whoosh…
Before I knew it, the bastard held a golden spear that had appeared in his hand.
-SWISH—!
He threw it at me.
-SQUELCH…!
“…Ghk?!”
The spear pierced clean through my chest, and just as it seemed to heat my body with a sizzling, boiling heat.
-KABOOM—!
It exploded violently and erased my body without leaving a single fragment behind.
My thoughts stopped from the loss of my brain.
But only for a moment.
-Rustle…
“Haa, haa.”
After restoring my body, I dropped to my knees and caught my breath.
I had already experienced death tens of thousands of times, but this was the first time I had died like that.
To disappear without leaving even a single piece behind.
What kind of attack was that?
“So the epithet Immortal was no falsehood. I erased you without leaving even a single mote behind, and yet….”
“You have nothing to ask? I do.”
I spoke while clutching my still-throbbing chest.
“Fuck, what are you doing all of a sudden? Ganging up on me like….”
“Electric Shock: Sword of the Storm!”
But once again, without waiting for my answer, a woman holding a blue sword split my body in half.
-SLASH—!
“Kh, kghk, grkghk…!”
-THUD—!
The wound that had split my body in two recovered and joined back together in no time, but the shock that followed, gripping and shaking every nerve in me, made me foam at the mouth and drop to my knees.
Electricity.
I had never felt it before, but now I knew.
The pain of my brain and spine being seized and wrung out made my entire body unable to move.
Still kneeling, unable to move a muscle as I trembled beneath the pain and paralysis of my nerves still covering my body, the man in golden armor slowly approached me.
“Yoo Da-huin, I will arrest you and take you into custody for murder.”
“You lunatic… bastards…!”
I let out a hollow laugh, dumbfounded.
“What you guys, just did, fuck. What is that if not murder?”
“What is a bastard who doesn’t even die talking about?”
The man who had torn my body to shreds, the one whose cheek was torn all the way to his ear, spun his knife.
-WHOOSH! SQUELCH—!
Then he threw the knife into my shoulder.
At that moment.
“…Ghk!”
My entire vision twisted.
It was dyed green, and my body slowly sank downward.
“Well, looks like poison works after all.”
Poison?
Is this poison?
This time, even my tongue was paralyzed, so no words came out.
I simply went limp and slowly sank to the ground.
The man with the torn cheek approached slowly, grabbed me by the nape of my neck, and lifted me.
“Now. I’m taking this bastard. If any bastard has a problem with that, say it now.”
“Says who? You think 5 billion won is some dickhead’s name?”
“I, the Guild Master of the Typhon Guild, will have my revenge.”
They started fucking fighting among themselves.
“…Kh, khkh….”
“…Haaah?”
I started laughing.
“Did the poison not take enough? Or did it take strangely? What’s wrong with this bastard?”
-Pat, pat.
The man with the torn cheek tapped my cheek while holding me by the nape of my neck.
“Khi, khkh, khkhkh….”
Everything.
Started making me sick again.
Here we go again.
I can’t even die, so I just crawl around groaning.
I get thrown around somewhere, burst apart here and there.
Smashed.
Broken.
Crumbled.
But you know what?
[ DING! ]
[ Overcoming Death is activating! ]
[ Electric Resistance is granted! ]
[ Poison Resistance is granted! ]
The one thing I learned while climbing the tower.
Just one thing.
“If I go all the way, I win everything.”
-GRAB.
“…Haaah?”
I grabbed the wrist of the man holding me by the nape of my neck.
-CRUNCH—!
“Ghk?!”
Then I put strength into my grip and crushed his bones and flesh.
“What the fuck… What kind of strength is this…!”
The bastard grabbed his dangling wrist with his other hand and took one step back.
My stats had already risen to almost their peak through tens of thousands of deaths.
With my body’s paralysis gradually loosening because of Poison Resistance and Electric Resistance, I loosened my arms and shoulders.
“Man, fuck. I don’t know what kind of sons of bitches you are… police, Hunters, whatever.”
I curled my fingers at them and spoke.
“Kill me if you can. That’s my wish.”
“…Everyone, begin the attack!”
Starting with the words of the man in golden armor, the figures of several people beside him vanished in an instant.
Then.
“Vacuum Point!”
Some woman thrust her clasped hands toward me and shouted.
“What are you doing? Some kind of parlor….”
Then.
-Bzzzz…
“Koop.”
I felt some kind of vibration from inside my body.
At first, I wondered if it was tinnitus and moved to touch my ear.
-CRUNCH—!
“Kuhup! Bweeeeegh!”
I vomited the greatest amount of blood I had ever spat out.
No, I practically poured it out.
-Thud, thud.
My abdomen looked fine when I looked down at it.
The problem was inside.
“Keuheup, keuheok…!”
Pieces of flesh were mixed into the blood I vomited.
All my organs had burst.
“You, fuck…!”
I was thrown off by a color of pain I had never felt before, but restoration happened all the same.
-Ptoo.
I spat out the piece of flesh left in my mouth and glared ahead.
“That’s… I should have ruptured all your organs…!”
“Quite the thing to brag about, you crazy bitch.”
I snorted at the woman’s words.
“…What?”
“Looks like killing a person doesn’t bother you people at all. You’re talking about whether it worked or didn’t work, like you’re looking at some monster….”
“At least we do not kill people for whom death is the end.”
-STEP.
The one who cut off my words and stood before me was a huge man.
“Ah. You’re that old man from the start.”
“I am Lee Cheol-heon. I am the Guild Master of the Typhon Guild, where the three Hunters you killed belonged.”
Lee Cheol-heon, huh.
Anyway, he was the man who had thrown the first punch at me.
“Ah. Those fucking bastards?”
-Twitch.
Lee Cheol-heon’s eyebrows trembled greatly.
“…Mind your words.”
“Mind what?”
I snorted, shoved my hand into my pocket, and looked up at him, who was much larger than me.
“They dropped something on the road. I picked it up.”
“…….”
“They asked for it back. I tried to give it back, but it was gone. My body had absorbed it, apparently.”
“…….”
“Do you know what they did to me then?”
He listened to me in silence, or perhaps he did not.
To that man, whose veins stood out as he trembled faintly, I said.
“They killed me 4,000 times. For two days and half a day.”
“…What?”
“Do you know how my life changed after that?”
-STEP!
I spread my arms wide and asked.
“I’ve gotten used to dying. I don’t feel much about it anymore.”
Like a game.
“Pain? Even without the Skill, I’m numb to it. It’ll pass anyway.”
Like the wind.
“Now it’s fascinating when I learn another way a person can die. I know too many already.”
As if it were common knowledge.
“Those fucking bastards gifted me this fucked-up life and killed me over 4,000 times. What… am I supposed to apologize because I killed each of them once?”
“…….”
I looked up at him, still silent, and sneered.
“Tell them to fuck off.”
“…But you do not die. There must have been another way to escape from there….”
“Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck! Off!”
At Lee Cheol-heon’s words, I screamed until my organs felt like they would burst out and stomped the ground hard again and again.
“I was just an ordinary person, a goddamn ordinary person! So what the hell would I know? What could I have done while dying thousands of times? Huh?!”
“…….”
Lee Cheol-heon’s eyes held pity, anger, a desire for revenge, and shock.
With all kinds of emotions mixed together….
“…You’re, fuck….”
He was.
Pitying me.
“Don’t look at me with those eyes, you fucker!!!!”
-WHOOSH—!
The moment I tried to kick the bastard hard with a front kick.
“Lee Cheol-heon! Get out of there!”
-SLICE—!
“…!”
At the pain I felt in my left shoulder, I turned my head and looked down.
“…What is this?”
-Writhe, writhe…
Some black dimension had opened where there should have been something, and my arm was missing.
But that was not the only problem.
The lost part….
“Why…?”
[ DING! ]
[ Death Detection is activating! ]
[ User’s left shoulder has entered a non-regenerable state! ]
It was not regenerating.
-SQUELCH—!
“Keuheup…?!”
In the brief moment I was lost in thought, some greatsword sank into my right shoulder.
-SLAAAAAASH—!
That enormous greatsword, as large as my own body, slid down smoothly and cut from my right shoulder to my left pelvis.
“Kh, hak!”
-SPLAT—!
My upper body slid straight toward the ground, and as I watched my lower body still standing there for a moment, everything from my right shoulder to my lower body recovered instantly.
The problem was still my left arm, which was not growing back.
“What, what the fuck is this…!”
Slightly panicking, I rolled across the ground like a baby deer.
“Tch. He truly is immortal, as the epithet says. To think he restores his body instantly even after being cut in half…!”
The man holding the greatsword said that,
and beside him, the man wielding a blue crescent spear followed up.
“However, the bastard’s left shoulder, which I erased with my ‘Spatial Slash,’ is not restoring.”
Spatial Slash.
I did not know what that was, but that bastard seemed to be the one who had turned my arm into this state.
“You guys are Hunters?”
“That is right. You must be the bearer of the Curse of Immortality.”
“Ha.”
Why are all bastards called Hunters like this?
Instead of a greeting, they tear and cut with blades, burst people apart with fists. What kind of bullshit is this?
“That son of a bitch…!”
The bastard whose wrist I had crushed soon opened his eyes murderously and looked this way.
“What, idiot?”
I lay sprawled on the ground, laughed hollowly, and spat out a curse.
-Slide…
Adapting to the hard-to-grasp balance of having nothing below my left shoulder, I slowly got up.
Wait.
It doesn’t regenerate…?
“Hey.”
I pointed at a Hunter with the finger at the end of my one remaining arm and spoke.
“…….”
“You there, bastard with the blue spear.”
“…Are you calling me?”
“Then who else is holding a blue spear over there besides you?”
A crescent spear with a blue blade shining.
If that blade was what had turned my arm into this with Spatial Slash or Gang Gam-chan or whatever the fuck it was….
I slowly brought my pointing finger to my neck and spoke.
“Can you cut my neck with that?”
If he cuts my throat, maybe I won’t resurrect.
This time, I touched my finger to my chest.
“Or here. The left side of my chest is fine too.”
If my heart bursts, maybe I won’t resurrect.
This time, I traced my finger across my waist.
“You can just cut me in half too. My organs will hurt a bit, but I’ll try to endure it.”
“…What on earth are you saying…?”
“Ah, fuck. You’re really pretending to be refined.”
Sick of them, I growled at the bastards.
“You came here to kill me anyway, didn’t you? Then kill me, fuck. I’m asking because I think that might do it.”
“…What truly vulgar words.”
“Mind your own business, you fucking bitch.”
“…….”
-WHIRL—!
The man spun the spear once, its blue blade shining.
“…Do not regret it!”
I told you I won’t, idiot.
“Spatial Slash!”
-SWIIISH—!
He drew the spear horizontally.
“…Geh.”
Leaving behind a single pathetic cry,
-WHOOSH—!
I tasted my vision spinning several times through the air.
-THUNK—!
With a bit of pain, I crashed to the ground.
-THUNK, THUNK, THUNK….
Rolling slowly,
I looked at my own body standing without a head.
[ DING! ]
[ Error! ]
[ Head restoration to user’s body is unavailable! ]
“…!”
My pupils widened at that notification window.
Is this death?
The death I had waited so long for.
Is it finally coming now?
[ DING! ]
And then.
[ Death Detection Skill is used! ]
[ User’s recovery and resurrection are unavailable! ]
The notification window of that fucking dogshit Skill did not disappoint me.
[ Entering ‘resurrection-capable state’. ]
“…Ah.”
It began interfering with my death again.
[ True ‘Curse of Immortality’ unlocked! ]