Chapter 244

The field froze as the level adjustment process kicked in. Monsters that had been in the middle of spawning stopped dead, hanging in place like paused holograms on a busted screen. Do-Jin looked at them and felt a cold certainty settle in.

This isn’t something they expect me to win by fighting.

The proof stretched all the way to the horizon. A solid tide of demonic beasts filled the land from edge to edge. Difficulty tweaks and level scaling didn’t matter here. No one could handle numbers like this. Not even in LOST, a game that regularly lost its mind, would they seriously expect a player to slaughter all of that head-on.

I hate that I’m not completely sure. Still, I need to deal with what’s right in front of me first and find the exit.

[When the field level adjustment completes, an exit will be generated.]

The system message popped up the moment Do-Jin reached his conclusion, like it was nodding along. Not long ago, system messages had gone almost silent, to the point where he wondered if the thing was broken. Lately, though, it had been weirdly helpful.

[Field level adjustment complete.]

[Prepare for the incoming threat.]

At the same time, a transparent flash shot upward like a pillar of light. The location sat far ahead, at enough of a distance to make people’s guts drop just thinking about it. The pillar appeared for only a moment before vanishing, but Do-Jin didn’t need to guess what it meant.

That had to be the exit. Do-Jin headed for it without delay, but the moment he drove his foot forward, the monsters answered with deep, rumbling roars.

“Gaaahhh!”

The beasts that had looked like a frozen screenshot all started moving at once. He kept the fighting to a minimum and cleared only what blocked his path. He burned that rule into his head because surviving mattered more than killing.

A monster shaped like a buffalo charged him. Its size had been scaled down by a lot, but the weight was still there. It felt like an entire cabin was sprinting straight at him.

Do-Jin raised a Frozen Wall beneath his feet and his viewpoint jumped high in an instant. Then, the lower half of the ice wall shattered as several monsters slammed into the spot he had just left.

He kicked off the wall a split second before the impact reached him and launched himself even higher. Do-Jin landed on the back of a buffalo monster that was still stiff from its attack animation and used it like a stepping stone to keep moving forward.

“Grrraah!”

The monster twisted its body in rage and swung its mouth and forelegs at him. Do-Jin moved like an annoying fly, hopping between raging beasts with barely any room to breathe. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Suddenly, a surge of pure chaos hit him harder than Psychokinetic Artistry and raw skill could handle. Do-Jin lost his footing and dropped.

Do-Jin had already prepared for a fall like this. The ground rushed up fast, but he planted a hand, rolled, and dispersed most of the impact even without a passive skill. He converted the fall into forward momentum and slipped straight between the legs of a monster he had already marked in his head.

“I fucking knew it!”

A massive hoof slammed down where his head had just been. Blind spots were always the most dangerous places to exit from, and this time the universe decided not to surprise him at all. Do-Jin threw himself sideways and hurled a fireball straight into the monster’s face.

The explosion and the impact rang out at the same time.

I was able to dodge it... at least for now.

He was alive, but his attacks had barely done any damage. Do-Jin could feel it when damage landed and when it didn’t. These unflinching monsters snapped their heads back around and charged again like nothing had happened.

Then, he noticed a red glow flash in the monster’s chest as it twisted its body to bring its hooves down again. Fur shifted aside for just a second and exposed a mana stone buried inside.

So that’s it! Do-Jin thought, already casting his next spell.

Whenever something looked suspicious, his plan was always to hit it first and ask questions later. The lightning he shaped with magic struck the red stone, and a clear ringing sound echoed through the air. The monster froze mid-motion as if someone had yanked the plug on it.

Is that their weak point, or is it just some stun gimmick?

He kept the question in his head while his body moved forward. Thinking could wait.

“Grrrraaaah!”

He tried to aim for the chests of the beasts as they charged in with low, rumbling growls. The red weak point that should have been there was nowhere to be seen.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Every one of these assholes has the weak spot in a different place?

The moment slipped past him. He missed the timing to fire the completed spell, his rhythm broke by a single breath, and the price for that mistake was a hit so violent it felt like the whole world flipped upside down.

“Kugh...!”

Impact after impact slammed into him and Do-Jin bounced across the ground like a flat stone skipping over water. A single headbutt hit this hard, and the fact that it didn’t kill him outright felt like a miracle.

[You have taken life-threatening damage from an entity of the Void.]

[Part of the power protecting you has been consumed.]

[Estimated protection duration has been reduced by 1 hour.]

“So I didn’t just barely survive on my own.”

The system message made it painfully clear why Do-Jin was still breathing. Whatever this so-called protection was, it clearly did more than just let him breathe and move around like a barely functioning corpse.

So as long as the charge in the key lasts, I’m practically unkillable?

After getting smashed once and tasting the River Styx on the way back, he figured out the basics fast. He dodged when he could, sprinted when he had space, and only targeted weak points on attacks he couldn’t avoid anyway.

Each monster hid its weak spot in a different place, but that problem disappeared once he pushed Silent Night to its absolute limit and scanned them properly. Once he understood the logic behind it, the method itself was surprisingly simple.

A deafening crash rang out, and once again, his vision went pitch black in an instant as something smashed into him.

What the fuck am I supposed to do if the mana stone is on its back?

Another precious hour shaved off the timer. The way it dropped in clean one-hour chunks made the rule obvious. Every time death got canceled, the clock lost exactly an hour, and each time, his HP and every other resource refilled to about half.

The sheer cruelty of that kind of mercy left him at a loss for words. If he ever got the chance, he seriously felt like shoving a grenade into the mouth of whoever designed this system as a heartfelt thank-you.

So, he ran again. Whoever built this place knew full well that nobody was meant to survive it cleanly. Playing it safe would only get him ground down. Taking damage and pushing through fast was the only real option.

He rolled, crashed, and got launched across the ground while burning through what little time he had left. Somehow, he still made it to a point where the exit was right in front of him.

“Wow. You assholes really went all out on this one.”

The ground flipped over, and a three-headed beast burst out from underneath it. Do-Jin had never expected a clean send-off anyway. He scanned the monster blocking the exit in front of him, fast and ruthless.

Do-Jin tagged every glowing point he could see, whether it sat on the shoulders, the stomach, or the forehead. Then, he set the detonation timing for the exact moment the monster’s attack closed in.

“GRAAAAAAAH!”

A flash exploded outward, and the massive body locked up for a split second. Do-Jin punched through that instant, slipped under the monster’s heavy torso, and threw himself toward the exit.

But the distance was too far. The beast moved again, and it moved because Do-Jin hadn’t tagged enough weak points. Out of the fifteen scattered across its body, Do-Jin had only nailed a handful.

Fuck. It’s too late to dodge.

Do-Jin dumped Psychokinesis straight into his legs. He accelerated forward at the same time the monster lashed out in a violent stomp, and a hoof three times his size came down and crushed him. Regardless, he was able to make contact.

[You have taken life-threatening damage from a being of the Void.]

[A portion of the protective force has been consumed.]

[Estimated remaining protection time reduced by 1 hour.]

[Field exit reached. Passage authorization confirmed.]

[The field is closing.]

Do-Jin came back from the edge of death at the cost of one hour. He opened his eyes and sucked in air like his lungs were on fire.

“Fuck.”

The darkness greeting him again felt way too comforting. Getting slammed over and over with more than enough force to kill him was pure hell. At that point, dying clean in one shot would have been merciful. This felt like getting clipped by trucks while half sedated and fully aware.

Remaining time I have now is... forty-seven hours.

How long had he been in there? He couldn’t even do the math anymore. His brain had been rattled way too hard and way too often.

Move first. Think later.

Tracking came before everything else. Only after leaving the field did Sion’s traces finally become visible again, and Do-Jin followed them without hesitation.

***

Sion and Do-Jin kept playing this twisted game of tag. After the world that had been packed to the brim with monsters, the trials never stopped coming. Some lasted thirty minutes, some dragged on for an hour. Others ate up five hours or more. The formats were all over the place, and the difficulty swung just as wildly.

Sion went first, and Do-Jin followed behind her by paying with his remaining time. As the timer kept shrinking, anxiety sank its claws deeper into him.

He wondered if he was moving too slow, wondered what would happen if he never caught up and the timer just hit zero. Those thoughts kept piling up, nasty and relentless.

[Estimated remaining protection time: 23:59:59]

As the remaining time dipped below a full day, anxiety slammed into him at full force.

Fuck me, another field-type? he thought. These bastards chew up time like nothing else.

Another shard of glass came into view. He had hoped for a maze or a puzzle this time, but that was wishful thinking. There was nothing to do but deal with whatever nonsense was thrown at him.

Just don’t die.

Do-Jin let gravity take him. The world stretched as he fell, like reality itself was being pulled into a long smear, and then he dropped straight into the field.

After some time, he opened his eyes to open sky instead of solid ground. The surface below was still absurdly far away. Right in front of him, a massive winged serpent flew in with its jaws wide open.

“KRAAAAAAAAH!”

“Motherf—”

Vulgar language slipped out on pure reflex as he kicked his Magic Circuits into motion. However, he already knew deep in his gut that it was too late. Worse than that, he had been thrown into a situation that never allowed a proper response in the first place. An unfair death was coming, and with it, another chunk of his precious time was about to get ripped away.

You’ve gotta be shitting me. This is how you waste my time, you fucking assholes?

Even if he couldn’t kill it, he wasn’t about to die without firing something. That thought crossed his mind just as Do-Jin unleashed a single bolt of lightning.

All of a sudden, the space twisted. The distortion ripped straight through the middle of the dragon-type monster’s body as it charged toward him.

“GRAA—!”

The creature’s scream stretched out and faded as its long body split cleanly in two. The tail end stopped dead, like it had slammed into an invisible wall. The head lost all momentum and fell away in a broken arc.

What the fuck just...

Before Do-Jin could make sense of it, someone appeared beside him and lightly tapped the shoulder of the falling, soon-to-be-dead mage.

Do-Jin turned his head and slowly registered who it was.

“Master!”

The hopelessly unhinged Archmage was standing right there, next to him.