"A descent?"
Kim Cheol-mun's eyes went round.
There were cases where a Patron Star could not bear to watch and intervened.
Most of the time it was not because they cherished their contractor.
It was when their curiosity about the thing in front of them was great.
Right now that curiosity would certainly be the main cause.
'Is my Patron Star the sort of figure to go through with a descent?'
The <Lion Statue That Loves Riddles> was a guardian.
It was not a Patron Star to carry out a descent carelessly, drawn along by that kind of curiosity.
'And even so, for it to attempt a descent.......'
It meant its interest in Cha Geon-mu was great enough to cost it tonight's sleep.
A moment later, something began to seep into Kim Cheol-mun's body.
"Ngghhh......."
Mana and power were piling up past overflowing, past anything he could handle.
It was a bad sign.
If excessive mana and power accumulated, Kim Cheol-mun would fail to endure it and, quite literally, explode.
To survive, Kim Cheol-mun had no choice but to use his ability.
[<Riddle of Death> has been activated.]
The latticed space began to warp.
Sand began to rise up in the empty Simulation Room.
It was not simply monsters being made; a stage was made as well.
"What is this?"
"Why is sand suddenly rising up?"
The sand piled higher and higher until it covered the glass window.
The stage was made, and the leading actor was shaped.
A human with a dog's head, dressed in Egyptian garb, appeared.
-Summoned, I have come here.
[<Guardian of the Desert, Avatar of Anubis> has descended!]
Looking at the monster he had shaped, Kim Cheol-mun could not contain his shock.
'Not even a semi-boss but a boss class monster. Has the Patron Star lost its mind!?'
The Minotaur had been, to the end, a monster Kim Cheol-mun could control.
But the Anubis summoned now was another matter.
As a subordinate of the <Lion Statue That Loves Riddles>, it fell into the boss class.
Not only was it outside Kim Cheol-mun's control, it also meant he could not guarantee Geon-mu's safety.
'And on top of that, if the setting is made as well.......'
The desert was Anubis' home ground.
A buff would go to Anubis, a guardian.
The chances of victory sank without limit.
[The <Desert of Death> effect activates.]
[All of Anubis' stats rise by 50%.]
Absorbing the sand of the desert, Anubis' eyes began to glow red.
A moment later, its body swelled larger and larger.
Anubis, having grown enormous as well, stood five meters tall, twice the size of the Minotaur.
A change occurred for Geon-mu too.
[By the <Desert of Death> effect, all stats decrease by 30%.]
[Stamina speed decreases by 50%.]
As much as it benefited Anubis, the effect came back to Geon-mu as harm.
At some point even a sun had appeared.
It began to burn Geon-mu's skin and steal the moisture from his body.
'These conditions are far too unfavorable.'
Of course, even in such a situation he was not entirely at a disadvantage.
The title Geon-mu had obtained through the wager with the <Goblin King> came into its own.
[The title <Untouchable Man> is activating!]
[The effect has activated at maximum, and all stats rise by 100%.]
Peak condition, and beyond it, muscles and nerves all standing on edge.
The stats that had dropped by 30% were restored, and increased by a further 40% on top.
'Now I only need to deal with this thirst.'
He gathered internal force and wrapped it around his whole body.
It was the technique commonly called the Body-Protecting Aura.
[Through the <Body-Protecting Aura>, all effects have been reduced by half.]
The stat reduction fell to 5%, and the stamina recovery speed to 25%.
Geon-mu's internal force alone could not entirely block the harmful effects boring into his body.
'Should I have drunk plenty of water beforehand?'
The examination had already begun, and asking for a glass seemed absurd, so he did not say it aloud.
Having eased the conditions himself, Geon-mu took a combat stance.
Anubis reacted to Geon-mu's movement.
-There is not a trace of fear in you, mortal.
"Am I supposed to fear you?"
Geon-mu shot back curtly, as though it were a foolish question.
-Humans, and indeed all living things, are bound to fear death. The will to fight is a defense meant to shake off that fear. Yet you chose to fight the moment you saw me.
The Avatar of Anubis took its staff in both hands.
-Truly, you are timber worthy of my master's eye.
Anubis' weighty voice drove into his ears.
Geon-mu did not lend an ear to that talk.
Instead, through his own eyes, he saw through its ability values.
[<Myriad Phenomena> sees through Anubis.]
[Guardian of the Desert, Avatar of Anubis]
Level: 85
Lineage: Heaven
Rank: Guardian
Strength: 320
Agility: 290
Perception: 580
Stamina: 450
Magic Power: 700
Its level was far above Nandi's, and its stats surpassed Nandi's in every category.
Its highest stat was Magic Power at 700, and the other stats all held their own against Nandi and the Minotaur.
'High Magic Power means it's probably a magic type?'
Geon-mu smiled bitterly.
Humanoid or not, mages had never matched up well against Geon-mu.
He had grown used to the variables that physical ability produced, but grasping all of the thousands upon thousands of spells was effectively impossible.
-No answer, mortal. Do you intend to end it here?
"Hm? Ah, ah. My apologies."
Geon-mu had not been listening carefully to what Anubis said.
The gist of it amounted to asking whether he would give up, so he offered an answer to that.
"Of course we should continue."
Geon-mu shook his head and added a remark.
"I have taken down a whole ox, so what is so hard about taking down one dog that I should give up here?"
-Insolent creature......!
Anubis' red eyes burned.
As sensitive to authority as it was, the provocation landed easily.
-With this authority the god has granted me, I shall test you.
Geon-mu bent his knees and lowered his stance.
Anubis swung the staff it held in both hands around and around.
At that, the white crystal set at its tip began to shine.
-Foolish ones drawn into the Desert of Death! Vengeful souls who wander the sands seeking victims! Rise!
The sand desert writhed, and something began to rise out of it.
They were desiccated mummies.
[<Myriad Phenomena> sees through the Vengeful Spirit of the Desert.]
[Vengeful Spirit of the Desert]
Race: Dead
Lineage: Hell
Rank: Rabble
Level: 40
Unique Traits: <Deep Grudge (B)>, <Plague Host (B+)>
Strength: 150
Agility: 50
Perception: 0
Stamina: 200
Magic Power: 0
Skills
<Spread Plague>, <Bite>, <Claw>
The Perception and Magic Power accounted for the one-dimensional skills.
Its level and every stat were far below his, but that alone did not make them something to dismiss.
The number was exactly fifty.
'And on top of that, each individual carries poison?'
The route of infection would certainly be sharp places: teeth, nails, and the like.
If he happened to take a wound, mere contact with a body would poison him.
Being poisoned would be a headache, so it was a point he could not help being conscious of.
"Grroooagh......."
"Grrrooooagh......!"
The mummies rose with groans spilling out of them.
Unnatural gaits and hollow eyes.
Anubis lifted its staff and leveled it at Geon-mu.
-Go! Devour the foolish living!
Their staggering sluggishness lasted only a moment.
The instant Anubis commanded them, every mummy's head turned toward Geon-mu.
"Grwaaaagh!"
The mummies rushed him as though they had met a mortal enemy.
They kicked off the sand, flew up, and thrust their teeth at Geon-mu.
SMACK!
Geon-mu's palm struck a mummy's head upward.
Instead of the sound of a snapping neck, the mummy's head reached the ceiling with a light bursting sound.
It fell to the floor with a thud.
"Hm?"
Twitch, twitch.
The head was gone, but the body was still moving.
The mummy's body clawed at Geon-mu's thigh.
Geon-mu kicked out and shoved the mummy away.
The mummy moved no further.
The mummy's attack had gone no further than tearing Geon-mu's clothes.
'They're like insects.'
It was like watching those insects that can keep moving for a while even with the head gone.
'I think I've grown too used to living things.'
That would be the last time he let his guard down.
"In that case......."
Geon-mu clenched his fists.
He unleashed a chain-fist barrage at the mummies rushing him all at once.
SMACK-SMACK-SMACK-SMACK-SMACK!
His hands moved fast enough to look like afterimages.
The Vengeful Spirits of the Desert clung to Geon-mu doggedly, but Geon-mu intercepted every one.
He blew away every threatening part of their bodies in particular, eliminating each threat entirely.
And so all fifty rolled across the floor and returned to a handful of sand.
'What on earth is that?'
Kim Cheol-mun felt his thinking come to a halt for a moment.
Once at the Vengeful Spirits of the Desert charging in all together.
Once at Geon-mu, who faced them without fearing it in the least.
And once at the way he learned the instant he brought one down and gave them not the slightest opening.
'To think there is someone who handles undead that cleanly......!'
The reason undead were most frightening was that they could move for a brief while even as their health converged on zero.
He not only allowed such opponents no attack at all, even his responses were clean.
Against mummies that felt no pain, he finished it cleanly without allowing a single attack.
The movement was graceful enough to make it understandable that he had disposed of the Minotaur so simply.
While Kim Cheol-mun was swallowing his admiration, Geon-mu brushed the sand from his mouth with his thumb.
"All of your flunkies are dead. Do you mean to keep hiding like that?"
For a moment Kim Cheol-mun thought the words were directed at him.
But what Geon-mu was looking at was Anubis, far larger than himself.
Anubis raised one eyebrow.
-The Guardian of the Desert hides from no one.
"You push your underlings out in front and stand there with your hands behind your back, so what is that if not hiding? Judging by the way you refuse to step forward yourself, you are no guardian but a petty little man, are you not?"
At Geon-mu's provocation, the set of Anubis' eyes turned savage.
-Insufferably arrogant. I meant to test you as the god's words directed, but.......
Anubis gripped the staff in its hand roughly.
-For one who has insulted me, there shall be no more mercy.
Anubis took one great stride forward.
THUUUD—
The sand of the desert surged up, and the ground shook.
The moment Geon-mu came within the staff's reach, Anubis brought the staff down on his head.
WHOOSH!
At the fast, heavy attack, the sand desert split apart.
Geon-mu moved to deflect Anubis' staff with his palm.
"!!"
He did not.
Geon-mu, who had meant to let the attack flow past, changed to rolling aside and evading it.
His balance seemed to collapse for an instant, but he turned a somersault and recovered his core.
Anubis could have thrown out a sneer at Geon-mu's ungainly figure, but it did not.
-You saw through it? In that brief instant?
Anubis felt it clearly.
That Geon-mu had not been evading his attack but had meant to meet it head on.
And that in the very moment Geon-mu extended his hand, he had sensed something was wrong and evaded.
The time that judgment took was a mere hundredth of a second.
It was a speed that could not be believed as an immediate reaction by sense alone, with no information.
There was a reason Geon-mu could react that way.
"That staff. It is no ordinary staff, is it? To think it has the power to drink in life."
It was because there was qi absorption in the type of that attack.
'Qi absorption attacks are familiar to me.'
Qi absorption.
Exactly as the words say, the drawing in of qi; touch the staff, and Geon-mu's life force would be sucked away.
Had it caught him properly, his life would have been drawn into the staff without any response possible, and he would have become one of the mummies that had appeared.
'One of the Demonic Cult bastards liked to use it, so I'm quite sensitive to it.'
One of the masters of the Demonic Cult had used the Star-Absorbing Great Art.
At that time justice had taken a place in Geon-mu's heart, so he had helped a great many people without hesitation.
Knowing Geon-mu's heart, the man had disguised himself as a beggar and tried to absorb every bit of Geon-mu's internal force.
But he failed to kill Geon-mu, and Geon-mu, unable to die, came back stronger instead.
Ever since then, Geon-mu had trained himself to withdraw quickly whenever he felt something leaving his body.
Thanks to that, he had avoided a fatal mistake in the fight with Anubis as well.
'This world really does have a great many strong ones.'
Every battle felt new and set his chest pounding.
-There will not be a second mistake...... Hm?
Anubis looked down at its own staff.
The staff with the white crystal set in it.
When it drank in a soul, it was supposed to shine whiter still.
But the instant it drank in Geon-mu's soul, the crystal was being dyed a faint red.
Confusion showed on Anubis' face.
-What in the world is this...... Are you human?
Geon-mu raised one eyebrow.
He answered as though he had been asked something obvious.
"Human. What else would I be?"
-Can a human soul...... a soul that should be white, be dyed this crimson?
Geon-mu did not humor Anubis' wonder.
Geon-mu drew the swords at his waist.
They were the two short swords the elite goblins had used.
Geon-mu threw himself forward and hurled a short sword at Anubis' ankle.
SQUELCH!
It went in exactly.
"Let us stop with the talk. It lowers the tone."
There was no sensation of pain, but it was enough to provoke Anubis.
-Your arrogance shall be atoned for with death!
Anubis raged and swung the staff once more.
Geon-mu threw his body backward and barely avoided it.
'My life was drawn out again.'
It was as faint as a brush against the hem of his clothes, but Geon-mu could feel it clearly.
The longer the battle went on, the duller Geon-mu's body grew.
The debuff from the desert heat. And the chill sensation felt every time an attack grazed him.
He could feel the clear difference in level and power.
'I would rather not lose.'
Geon-mu had lived through many lives.
Even if he could not remember everything, the lessons he had felt to the bone were all carved into his head.
Win and you may lose a part; lose and you lose everything.
Life was struggle, and he knew that the moment you gave up the struggle, a reality harsher than before would come for you.
'So I have to win.'
Just as he had shattered the seized heavens with his fist and pierced the head of the one who reigned above them.
Geon-mu's will to fight burned like a flame deep in his heart.
'If my weight class won't do, then I strain a little and use that method.......'
Geon-mu drew a long breath in.
With the flame of the will to fight in his heart, he woke a sleeping power.
[<Nine Dragon Divine Meridians> stirs.]
Geon-mu's dimming mind snapped awake.
Geon-mu knew what it was.
Through the awakening, meridian points that meditation and energy circulation alone could not open were opened, and hot blood surged.
[A sleeping dragon awakens.]
Along with the message that appeared before Geon-mu, power began to well up.
It was a power that had once been familiar.
An immortal power that transcended time and space and dwelt in his soul.
One of them settled into Geon-mu's body.
[The Dragon of Destruction, Destruction, dwells within your body.]
'Good timing.'
It was a power of an entirely different grain from anything he had used until now.
And it was the greatest ally for breaking through this situation.
"Good of you to come, you bastard."