Friend (1)

Kang-hoo, who had perfectly hidden his appearance and presence with Shadowless and Stealth, added Suppression on top of that.

Then even his companions could not see Kang-hoo. It was because every method of detection had been blocked.

If even his companions were like that, there was no way the sand soldiers controlled by Tera would sense Kang-hoo’s location.

Kang-hoo immediately chose a straight route that allowed him to move toward Tera, and he slipped past the enemies here and there.

It seemed like he might narrowly brush against the arms or shoulders of the sand soldiers, but no accident happened.

“What calculation is he making?”

Unable to know Kang-hoo’s inner thoughts, Lemon tilted her head.

It did not seem like he was moving that urgently merely to summon them in front of Tera.

He must have been moving while laying down Blue-Position Exchange Formation because he had a tactic beyond that, or a method to deal with Tera.

For Lemon, who could not estimate the breadth of Kang-hoo’s tactics, her head could only be filled with question marks.

“There’s no need to think too complicatedly. You just have to think, ‘That guy must have his own idea,’ and wait.”

“……Isn’t that too irresponsible?”

“That’s his charm, I’m telling you. So has he ever actually been irresponsible? No, right? He has his own angle that he sees.”

Takashi, bound together by his faith in Kang-hoo, was full of confidence. There was not the slightest doubt.

Takashi thought Kang-hoo resembled him closely. When a brilliant strategy came to mind, he stepped forward first.

He did not fear adventure and challenge, and further than that, he did not drive his companions into danger first.

“It seems we can just crush the guys in front of us until we’re summoned.”

“That’s exactly it, Motko!”

At Mokomichi’s words, Takashi nodded repeatedly. As long as they did what they had to do, they would be called over on their own.

Meanwhile.

After passing through the sand soldiers and quickly approaching Tera’s location, Kang-hoo consecutively deployed Illusion Arts, Shadow Step, and Clone Arts to disrupt its vision.

Just in case, he placed Mumyeong in the rear, while also installing the Third Eye to secure his field of view.

‘It’s nice now that there are more illusions.’

The Elusive constellation, which he had plundered after killing Gwak Hyeong-su, one of the two leaders of Heuksaja.

Thanks to it, the illusions created by Illusion Arts increased greatly from the previous five to ten.

From Tera’s perspective as it faced Kang-hoo, it had to observe all ten illusions, five shadows, and one clone.

In other words, no matter how quickly it moved its eyes and body, it could not follow everyone’s movements.

Throughout his approach toward Tera.

Kang-hoo had raised the flow of Dark Energy inside his body to its maximum.

Even without using a separate Dark Energy skill, he was activating it by continuously inducing release.

Of course, if he did this, Dark Energy loss would steadily occur even while he was not using a skill.

However, since the warming-up process ended early, he could explosively release Dark Energy when needed.

Sasasasat! Saaat!

Illusions and shadows repeatedly scattered and gathered in different directions.

At the splendid, dazzling movements that made its vision dizzy, Tera lifted its hand with an annoyed expression.

Since Tera could use Dark Energy as well, it was trying to sweep away the things visible to its eyes.

The limits of illusions and shadows were clear. No matter how much they disrupted vision, they could not inflict physical damage.

So Kang-hoo subtly hid himself behind an illusion and greatly changed the movement of the clone he had sent forward.

If it was destined to disappear with one gesture anyway, he gave it a chance to vanish more meaningfully.

When the clone launched itself from the front and rushed in, Tera’s gaze naturally turned toward the clone.

In the meantime.

‘Good.’

One shadow slipped out of Tera’s field of view and finished moving behind it. It was a stealthy movement.

Paat!

The position switch followed immediately!

Having successfully taken Tera’s back, Kang-hoo immediately used Great Decapitation and stabbed Tera in the lower back.

Puuuk!

Kraaaaaak!

He felt the sensation of the dagger’s tip tearing through flesh and muscle as it entered. It felt like taking one step closer to the river of death.

Despite the dagger blade having gone in fairly heavily, Tera roughly released Dark Energy in that state.

Kwaaaaa!

“……Ugh!”

The fierce Dark Energy stretched out in all directions and struck Kang-hoo.

It was Dark Energy with enough heaviness to force out a groan against his will.

Kang-hoo had an idea why Tera had released Dark Energy.

‘Simply releasing Dark Energy alone doesn’t become an attack. And it doesn’t have ignition ability either.’

There was no way it would use precious Dark Energy without reason. There was only one aim.

Stealth tracking.

Because while Tera’s Dark Energy was “stuck” to him, even if Kang-hoo used Stealth, Tera’s Dark Energy would remain like an afterimage.

Then, even without seeing him with its eyes, it could track the location of the Dark Energy and identify Kang-hoo.

If one thought only this far.

They might think that a kind of tracking device, one that was one-sidedly disadvantageous only to Kang-hoo, had been attached to him.

However, Kang-hoo instead actively absorbed Tera’s Dark Energy.

Because it was the Dark Energy of another entity rather than his own, he could not accept the Dark Energy deep into his body.

But he could temporarily contain the Dark Energy around his hand, forearm, and elbow. It was a kind of Holding.

Guut! Guguk!

Meanwhile.

The sand soldiers that received Tera’s order were already charging toward Kang-hoo.

Kang-hoo infused a large amount of Dark Energy into his dagger, which was embedded in Tera’s lower back through Great Decapitation.

In that process, the Dark Energy he had just absorbed from Tera and held was naturally sent back in as well.

Huhuhoo.

With an unpleasant laugh, Tera gestured, and sand soldiers formed beneath Kang-hoo’s feet too.

Tera’s toughness was stronger than expected, and its servants had already gathered in considerable numbers for him to continue with a linked attack.

So Kang-hoo leaped backward without lingering regrets. There was no reason to engage in a flurry of blows right now.

Instead.

He activated Blood Flower to inflict additional damage on Tera’s lower back, where Great Decapitation had left a deep wound.

Puhpuhpuhpung!

Keheok!

A blood explosion occurred, and Tera’s body instantly leaned forward.

Perhaps because it was a completely unexpected explosion, its body was momentarily bent into a C shape.

The next moment.

He ignited all the Dark Energy he had allowed to seep in earlier.

It was Kang-hoo’s aim.

Originally, Dark Energy forcibly injected from the outside had a clear limit in penetrating into the target’s body.

That was because the properties of Dark Energy each person possessed were different, so the repelling force between them was considerable.

But just now, Kang-hoo had intentionally mixed part of the Dark Energy he absorbed from Tera with his own Dark Energy.

Then came the Dark Energy injection.

Tera’s body mistook the Dark Energy injected by Kang-hoo not as someone else’s, but as its own.

The activation mechanism of the body that moved regardless of Tera’s thoughts.

It had completely caught it off guard.

Hwareureuk! Hwareuk!

Kwoooooeok!

Tera, who was instantly engulfed in enormous flames, writhed in pain without any way to do anything about its body.

Because Kang-hoo’s Dark Energy, which had flowed in, was circulating amicably throughout its body together with Tera’s Dark Energy.

The flames caused by Dark Energy Ignition also arose evenly throughout its whole body.

They had even started inside its body, so they could not be extinguished.

The only way to be freed from the pain was death. The fire of Dark Energy was not easily extinguished even with water.

‘I think I can call them now.’

The game was already over.

Tera was not dead.

But Kang-hoo, certain that it could not fight with focus, immediately finished preparations to summon his companions.

Wiiing!

The summoning immediately followed.

“What is this!”

“Eh, it’s already over?”

“What is this fire chicken? Is that Tera?”

From a distance of less than 10 meters.

The three companions’ eyes widened when they saw the boss monster Tera going mad from the pain of hellfire.

They had thought additional firepower would be needed and had been prepared to pour out their skills, but the situation was already over to a point that made that preparation seem pointless.

Rather than bringing them over to add firepower, Kang-hoo summoning them was closer to telling them to watch its death.

“Shin Kang-hoo. When you said you’d pull us in when ready, you didn’t mean ready to ‘fight,’ but ready to ‘let us watch,’ did you?”

At Takashi’s words as he asked back with a hollow laugh, Kang-hoo shrugged and pointed at Tera with both hands.

Tera was burning brightly like oil-soaked firewood! If left alone, it seemed like it would easily burn for an entire day.

One hour later.

Kang-hoo and the party, who had come down to the second basement floor of the labyrinth, took a short rest before entering the field in earnest.

Lemon and Mokomichi found a reasonably flat rock, sprawled out on top of it, and sought sleep.

Takashi sat motionless in a proper posture. The “main body” was probably briefly doing something else.

The earlier battle had naturally ended as all the sand soldiers vanished the moment Tera died.

By obtaining a large amount of experience, Kang-hoo’s level rose by one stage to 456. Even a gain of 1 was considerable.

He had not obtained any useful reward through Tera. It was the typical so-called “beggar boss.”

Takashi interpreted the Tera raid, which ended without profit, as a good omen, saying “interpretation matters more than the dream.”

It was happy-circuit thinking that since the Tera raid had come up empty, a bigger reward would come next.

Of course, the fact that there was no reward only applied to Takashi, Lemon, and Mokomichi, not Kang-hoo.

Skill plunder, which naturally followed when killing a middle boss monster! There was also a useful harvest from Tera.

In fact, Tera had various servant-summoning skills, but Kang-hoo did not choose them.

That was because handling summoned creatures was already sufficient with Mumyeong, and they did not look particularly efficient either.

They were called sand soldiers, but if they met a high-level enemy, there was a high possibility that they would not even amount to dust scattered by the wind.

More than anything else, the merit of Orb of Jet-Black was too great.

It was not quite infinite power, but with this skill, his Dark Energy would probably never be completely depleted.

If so, he could steadily use Dark Energy-based skills. Regardless of any condition or influence.

At that moment.

Takashi, who had been sitting quietly beside him, twitched. It seemed the main body’s business had ended.

Since Kang-hoo had just finished checking the skill, he turned his gaze, and his eyes met Takashi’s exactly.

“Heh.”

Takashi’s clone smiled broadly toward him.

Although it was not the real Takashi’s smile, Kang-hoo felt good because he could sense the emotion and purity contained in the action.

Suddenly.

Kang-hoo had that thought.

The first reason he had wanted to become close to Takashi was to cut off his connection with Jang Si-hwan.

In other words, the purpose had been to create a crack in The Thirteen Stars.

To do that, at first, he had also acted while pretending to be a friend and had told lies.

Of course, now he was also growing closer to Takashi on a human level. He was newly realizing his charm as well.

But he had doubts about the opposite case.

Why did Takashi, despite being far higher in level, want to maintain his relationship and connection with him?

An existence other hunters could not even dare to approach!

He wondered why such a Takashi always had an open heart and interest only toward him.

What did he think of Kang-hoo? Kang-hoo wanted to know that.