Tap the text to show or hide reading controls.
Maybe it realized the fire had been used on a “worthy” target—Hellfire of Karma popped up in the message window.
Hyeonseong shot the message a sideways glare, especially at the tacky attempt to act cute.
Ignoring the new message, Hyeonseong waited for the judgment result.
‘Got it!’
Just as she’d hoped, the Fire of Judgment attached to the lich successfully triggered a karma judgment.
‘Now the question is how strong it’ll actually hit…’
KkyaaaAAaak!
The moment damage began ticking in, the lich screamed loudly. From the noise alone, it sounded like the output had been set pretty high.
“Is that it?”
“Please let it be.”
The Baengnyeong Forest people muttered as they glared at the lich being burned by the Fire of Judgment.
“…It probably won’t be as good as we hoped.”
But Hyeonseong, the one who had dropped the Fire of Judgment, reacted pessimistically.
‘That bastard’s loud, but the damage isn’t actually that big.’
She hadn’t expected the lich to die instantly. Still, she’d expected a hit big enough to break at least one major trick.
‘But…’
Hyeonseong’s eyes swept the surroundings fast.
Kihit…?
Kihihihihihi!
Not a single Grudge Wraith in the chamber dissipated. The count was exactly the same as when she had dropped the Fire of Judgment.
Kkahahahaha!
A few Grudge Wraiths pointed at the burning lich and cackled. They must have been individuals whose grudge against the lord ran especially deep.
“…So we still have to clear these ghosts ourselves, right?”
Someone said, glaring at the still-living Grudge Wraiths.
“At least we won’t be getting interrupted by that bastard.”
“Let’s clear them fast.”
For the moment, the lich’s direct attacks and buff skills on the Grudge Wraiths were shut down. They decided to cut down the remaining Grudge Wraiths as much as possible before the fire went out.
‘At least it didn’t get worse than before.’
Hyeonseong thought as she threw gold coins to pull a few Grudge Wraiths’ gazes away.
‘Did I expect too much?’
From what she’d seen on the upper floors, the lord’s karma had looked plenty heavy. But the damage result fell short.
‘Honestly, that thing is probably the most karma-heavy target I’ve tried this on so far. And if the damage is still this low…’
There were two plausible reasons.
Either the “karma standard” of humans and the Fire of Judgment were wildly different,
or there was some other factor offsetting the lich’s karma.
‘If it’s just that the standard is different, then it’s Constellations being Constellations. But if there’s something that shaves karma down…?’
Keeeeek!
Hyeonseong turned her eyes back to the lich, still howling while wrapped in flames.
A vague hunch flickered through her mind.
“Hellfire of Karma-nim. Are you still here?”
Hyeonseong spoke while tossing one of her remaining gems.
“Hellfire of Karma?”
“What is that supposed to be…?”
The others reacted like it was the first time they’d heard the name—they hadn’t received Hellfire of Karma’s messages.
Thankfully, the Constellation replied quickly.
“This is something I’ve wondered for a while—what exactly is the karma standard for the Fire of Judgment?”
“Not that it follows it—‘you understand it to’?”
Hyeonseong frowned at the vague answer.
‘You handed me the item and you don’t even know the option details?’
“A hidden standard? What does that mean?”
It sounded important, so Hyeonseong pressed again.
She got a reply immediately—except the message became unreadable halfway through. The parts she most needed were covered in censor blocks.
‘This again.’
The moment she saw the censored text, Hyeonseong’s brow tightened.
She’d seen it several times already, but it never stopped feeling unpleasant.
Before she could even shake off the unease, a bolt-from-the-blue notice slammed down.
‘What?’
Hyeonseong hurriedly opened her item list.
‘You bastards?’
Hyeonseong opened Infinite Corridor above the lich’s head again. As a test, she tried to split off an ember of the Fire of Judgment and drop it.
With the warning message, the ember snapped back into Infinite Corridor.
‘What kind of strong-arming is this?’
Confirming the item truly couldn’t be used, Hyeonseong ground her teeth.
It had worked perfectly fine until now—calling it a “problem” at this point was ridiculous.
But she regained her composure quickly, because the sudden censorship had confirmed one thing.
‘Right. So there’s something you’d rather I not know too deeply, huh?’
Recently, as Hyeonseong ran dungeons, she’d come to feel two things.
One: the Interstellar Network had quite a lot of information it wanted to hide from those entering and exiting dungeons.
Two: and yet, its censorship was surprisingly sloppy.
‘It feels like they often “remember late” and only try to censor afterward. Like they just did by sealing Fire of Judgment.’
When people are told not to do something, they want to do it even more.
Hyeonseong decided she’d pry into what they wanted hidden this time.
‘Besides, this was a dungeon we could’ve cleared even without the Fire of Judgment.’
Her gaze returned to the lich.
The flames burning it had shrunk significantly. It looked like they would go out completely before long.
Huuuk—
As they dealt with the Grudge Wraiths alongside the Baengnyeong Forest people, the fire finally went out with a rush of wind.
The instant it went out, Hyeonseong checked the state of the lich’s blood jade first.
‘It’s messier than before.’
Even if it wasn’t as much as she’d hoped, some damage had landed—the blood jade’s coloration was now visibly dirtier.
Kraak! Uaaak!
The lich roared like it was furious. Each time it screamed, tiny, weakest-tier debuffs briefly applied and then vanished.
“Now! Kill that thing!”
With most Grudge Wraiths cleared, the moment the lich fully reappeared, everyone’s blades swung toward it.
“Going in!”
Kwaaang!
White beams of light, as if they’d been waiting, struck the blood jade embedded in the lich’s chest.
Kieeek!
Knocked far backward, the lich screamed in rage.
“Hey—look!”
The instant the glow from the attack faded, someone shouted while pointing at the lich.
A crack had finally appeared in the blood jade.
“It’s taking damage now!”
“Good—focus!”
Feeling the finish line, the Baengnyeong Forest people’s momentum surged. Most attacks concentrated on the lich.
Kkeuuuuuuh…!
As it began taking focused fire again, the lich swung its staff in irritation.
Uuung—
At the same time, a resonant hum—half wind-noise, half something else—filled the air. The staff batting away a few arrows and minor spells was the least important part.
‘Is it trying to summon one last time?’
Even the Constellations that had seemed quiet started butting in again. They must have judged the monster was about to make a final stand.
“Faster!”
People hurled attacks at the lich in a rush—trying to end it before the casting completed.
Ttaak
But the lich completed its skill anyway, indifferent to everything. Its staff struck the floor.
Ureureung……
“What is it this time?”
At the sudden noise, like something collapsing, everyone tensed.
“It doesn’t feel like an undead summon…”
“Over there!”
One of the people scanning the surroundings pointed at something. There was only one place it could be—the direction of the only door.
The door that had been closed was opening.
Beyond it, undead monsters were surging in.
Kihihihihik!
The lich let out a sickening laugh. It was like it had been waiting for them to see the scene.
“Damn…!”
People were visibly shaken.
“Should we have taken the time and cleared everything on the way here?”
“Even if we cleared them all, new ghosts kept coming down from above. More than once.”
“Yeah. Even if we did, it probably wouldn’t have mattered much.”
“Still, how do we stop that…”
“Ugh.”
Amid the frantic chatter, Hyeonseong’s sigh slipped in.
“Don’t worry about that.”
“What?”
“You have a way?”
“Yes.”
Answering curtly, Hyeonseong immediately opened her item list and found what she needed.
‘I’ve been carrying this around with no use for it—finally, it’s got a job.’
“Cover your ears!”
After shouting, Hyeonseong opened Infinite Corridor directly toward the entrance.
Kiiing—
With a shrieking mechanical noise, the train burst out of the split space.
KwaaAAaang!
The train slammed straight into the chamber entrance.
It shattered the entrance and kept rolling for a moment before stopping—only after every car had fully exited Infinite Corridor.
“W-what is that?”
The Baengnyeong Forest people stared at the train completely blocking the entrance, eyes wide.
‘Looks like it’s a world where they never built trains.’
Hyeonseong checked the state of the entrance the train had jammed shut.
The walls on both sides of the opening were slightly damaged, but they hadn’t collapsed. She’d done it only because she judged collapse was unlikely.
‘For something that’s supposedly just an underground prison, it was absurdly wide and complex. The traps too.’
That meant some artificial distortion had been applied to the space itself. Given the basement’s scale, it couldn’t have been a minor distortion.
In a space like that, breaking a bit of wall wasn’t going to cause a catastrophe. There were no special spatial rules in effect, either.
‘Anyway, that should block skeletons and zombies from getting in. Even if they do get in, it’ll take them a while.’
Mid-tier monsters were likely crushed or knocked down by the train in the first place. Stronger ones might not have died in one hit, but they would still have taken damage.
And even if some got lucky and avoided the train, it didn’t matter. To enter this room now, they’d have to come through the train itself.
Since it had been stopped while accelerating, the doors would obviously be locked. To use it as a passage, they’d have to break windows or the outer wall first.
‘The problem is the ghosts.’
Unfortunately, incorporeal ghosts could still get inside regardless of the blocked entrance.
Even now, one or two were slipping into the room—maybe they couldn’t pass through walls, but passing through the train was apparently no issue.
‘We’ll just have to kill them as they come. Not much different from earlier.’
Uuuh…?
The lich let out a faint cry, like it didn’t understand what had just happened.
“Looks like it’s flustered that it can’t call in the grunts it wants to use.”
“Good.”
The Baengnyeong Forest people were the first to fully grasp the situation.
“Then let’s keep going.”
With that, everyone resumed attacking the lich.
Reading Settings
