Chapter 674

“Ah.”

The moment he realized where the rune he had absorbed was, a low groan escaped his mouth.

His eyes also opened slightly.

Right.

You were the important one.

Completely absorbing the Rune of the Giant.

So that was why it had settled in his heart.

He closed his eyes again.

He focused.

He thought he had to match the one beating out of rhythm with his own pulse and bring it into a steady rhythm.

The pain was still there.

Even so, it was better than yesterday.

He focused and focused again, trying to absorb the rune inside his heart.

It felt strange.

It felt as though a seed had been planted.

It felt somewhat different from the runes he had used until now.

However, the Rune of the Giant, rampaging out of rhythm, did not easily calm down.

Like a newborn baby, the rune insisted only on its own desires.

It seemed to demand even greater pain.

It was as though the will of a giant was trying to overturn and rewrite Su-ho’s blood and bones.

Endure.

I have to endure.

At the very moment he held on to his consciousness by muttering those words to himself, a long shadow stretched across the desert.

He opened his eyes at the darkened surroundings and looked toward its source.

Surprisingly, they were wolves.

Wolves in the desert?

However, they were unmistakable predators called desert wolves, and whether they had smelled Su-ho’s blood or the scent of the sandworms, their gazes were already fixed on Su-ho.

Right.

More guests have arrived.

Su-ho slowly raised his body.

His legs trembled.

It was not because he was afraid, but because he was in pain.

However, after taking a long, deep breath, he raised both fists again. 𝐟𝑟ⅇ

He could not use a sword.

Because all his powers had been prohibited.

Once again, he felt grateful to Sword Demon.

If it had not been for Sword Demon’s teachings, now that he could not use a sword, he would have been, in the crude words from the conversation the two of them had shared, a ‘cripple.’

“Grrr.”

Had it sensed Su-ho’s fighting spirit?

The desert wolf that appeared to be the leader growled lowly, and starting with that, they all spread out widely and began approaching Su-ho.

Right.

Since you are coming, come at me all at once.

The excruciating pain throughout his entire body was still there, but he turned his attention toward the wolves.

He had no intention of dying after coming this far.

Much less to mere wolves.

Even though all my powers have been sealed right now, does that mean I cannot deal with even the likes of you?

Therefore, he did his best to ignore the surging excruciating pain and focused on the wolves as much as possible.

At that moment, one of the wolves leaped first.

He did not avoid it.

Instead, he waited until the very last possible moment, formed his hand into a blade, and sharply stabbed its torso.

Puk!

Something astonishing happened.

As though it had been stabbed by a spear or blade, Su-ho’s hand blade pierced through the wolf’s body.

It did not merely stab into it, but pierced straight through and came out the other side.

The other wolves, sensing that something was wrong, attacked all at once.

Su-ho held his position.

Without moving more than three steps away from that spot, he moved his hands without rest like the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara and dealt with them.

If Sword Demon had seen it, he would have smiled in satisfaction.

Because every single wound on the wolves’ bodies looked as though it had been cut or pierced.

It was because he had dealt with them from the realm of Unity of Body and Sword, where he had become one with the sword.

Before long, when more than half of the wolves that had attacked were dead, the leader wolf gave the signal to retreat.

“Hoo.”

A short breath escaped.

The wolves had already piled up around the thoroughly dried sandworm corpses.

Su-ho dropped back down into his place with an indifferent expression.

He did not wipe away the blood smeared across his face and hands.

He considered pouring the wolves’ blood over his parched throat and face, but soon gave up on the idea.

Instead, he crossed his legs again and focused his mind.

It was the correct choice.

No more uninvited guests came afterward.

He focused on the rune and poured all his strength into becoming one with it.

The sun of the second day began to set.

The sun completely disappeared, and night arrived.

The cold came.

Strangely, it seemed colder than the cold that had come the previous day.

However, he did not react.

He tried to maintain his closed eyes and controlled breathing, and although only by a very small amount, little by little, gradually, he tried to narrow the gap between the uneven rhythm and the steady rhythm.

Fortunately, no more uninvited guests came.

Thanks to that, he was able to focus only on the rune, and at last, the third sun began to rise.

At dawn.

“Ah.”

A low groan escaped his mouth.

The sound of his heartbeat and the sound of the rune had finally become the same.

That was why he had made a sound without even realizing it.

It happened then.

The moment the two frequencies matched, an enormous resonance began.

The rune began to seep into him in earnest.

The peak of the pain began.

His heart rose to the very limit of the speed at which it could beat, regardless of Su-ho’s will.

A vibration like a lump of iron twisting arose inside his bones, and his blood boiled over and rolled through his body like stones rolling across the ground.

His vision spread and blurred, and only a pulsing sound like drumbeats rang in his ears.

“Ugh...... Ah.......”

He clenched his teeth so hard that they seemed ready to turn into powder.

He had to endure.

He had to endure and withstand it to absorb this completely.

The sun rose completely.

New light spread across the dark blue desert.

The world brightened.

The scorching sun rose, and his frozen body melted under the heat of the sun.

Around that time, the world became quiet.

The noisy dissonance occurring inside Su-ho’s body finally fell silent as well.

He slowly opened his eyes.

What he saw when he opened his eyes was thoroughly dried skin, heat haze that was slowly beginning to rise, and sand that had repeatedly frozen and thawed.

However, those things no longer bothered him.

He did not hate them.

Instead, he was glad to see them. ℯ𝕝.

The pain that had pushed him into hell for three days disappeared as though it had been a lie, and the desert air no longer threatened him.

He slowly moved his feet.

Clear footprints were engraved in the sand.

It felt refreshing.

At last, he had become one with the Rune of the Giant.

The end of the pain.

Then was the trial over?

It happened then.

Rrrrrrrrrumble!

A faint vibration.

It began far in the distance.

When he turned his head and looked, the earth was splitting apart as something approached this way.

What was it?

There was clearly something beneath the ground, which was why the earth was splitting as it came, yet its true body could not be seen.

Before long, when it entered Su-ho’s field of vision completely, something soared up from the split earth.

To be precise, the sand surged upward as though a sewer were backing up, and the surging sand grew larger and larger until it soon formed a gigantic human figure and finally even created a face.

“Guuuuuuuuh!”

The thing that had been fiercely approaching this way.

Its identity was a sand golem.

The gigantic sand golem appeared to be twice Su-ho’s size.

Right.

So you are the final guest.

He had certainly absorbed the Rune of the Giant.

However, the trial had not ended.

Because it had said the trial would end after three days.

Furthermore, there had been no notification saying that it would end early if he absorbed it ahead of time.

Therefore, to pass the trial, he had to completely absorb the Rune of the Giant and also survive in this place for three days.

The sand golem seemed to be the gatekeeper of that final journey.

If that was the case, he would gladly play along.

The creature that approached right in front of Su-ho soon raised its fist and swung it toward him.

Boom!!

Dust and sand spread in every direction.

A human figure appeared among them.

It was Su-ho.

Su-ho cut through the cloud of sand and dust and ran up along the creature’s arm.

Then he immediately launched his body and drove his foot into the creature’s head.

Boom!

Its head burst apart.

At the same time, the creature’s body lost its balance and collapsed into flowing sand.

Had he defeated it?

That was what he thought.

Until the sand vibrated and the creature grew again.

“Guuuuuuh!”

Letting out something that might have been a scream, the creature raised its body.

It did not die?

Well, he had not destroyed its core.

It would have been good to have the Eye of Wrath or the Eye of the Nightsmith, but unfortunately, his powers were currently restricted.

Then he had no choice but to find the core himself.

He decided to do so.

The sand golem rose while letting out a strange cry.

However, its body had become twice as large as before.

This is troublesome.

This was why golems affected by their environment were difficult to deal with.

Because if the material that formed their bodies existed nearby and their cores remained alive, they would endlessly resurrect and attempt to carry out the task assigned to them.

That was also why they were the servants mages and alchemists wanted to possess the most.

It was fine.

He only had to find and destroy the core.

He took his stance again.

The sand golem’s form was the same as before.

The creature thrust out its fist again and attacked.

Boom!

Its fist slammed into the ground, and the sand vibrated.

Its actions themselves were nothing special.

It had not learned martial arts, nor had it learned combat techniques. It was simply an ordinary golem that charged forward while relying solely on its own physical abilities.

Therefore, this time as well, he stepped onto the creature’s body, climbed up, and burst its head first.

Then, as though falling downward, he descended and inserted his hand into the creature’s body.

To find the core that had to be somewhere inside.

However.

‘It’s not there?’

He could not feel it.

Had he failed to find it?

Around the time that thought occurred to him, the sand golem’s body was restored again.

‘Damn it.’

Its body became even larger.

It seemed that each time it collapsed and was restored again, its body gradually grew larger.

His eyes narrowed.

He thought that instead of simply bursting its head, he had to find the core somewhere in its body first.

Therefore, he first threw a punch at its leg to break the leg apart.

No, he tried to.

However, the creature’s body had now become too enormous to burst a part of it apart with a single punch.

It was not only its height that had grown. Its entire body had enlarged, increasing in both thickness and width.

This had become troublesome.

Boom!

Once again, the creature’s fist struck.

He avoided it.

Its speed had not decreased just because its body had grown larger.

Instead, because the size of its fist had grown, the area he had to avoid had only become wider.

He furrowed his brow.

Where was it?

Where had it hidden its core?

Of all times, why did his abilities have to be restricted now?

However, rather than complaining, he tried to find the answer.

The sand golem’s body twisted once again.

Su-ho avoided it while attacking various parts of the creature’s body.

However, no matter how much he attacked, its body had become too large, so ordinary straight punches and kicks could not inflict overwhelming damage like they had the first one or two times.

‘If only our body sizes were at least the same......!’

At that moment.

‘Body size?’

The Rune of the Giant suddenly came to mind.

All his powers were restricted, but this was a new power he had obtained after the restriction.

It was the Rune of the Giant.

‘Right, with this......!’

Seeing once was better than hearing a hundred times.

He immediately widened the distance between himself and the creature.

Then he focused on the Rune of the Giant, which was beating together with his heartbeat in perfect rhythm.

It happened then.

Rumble!

The Rune of the Giant began responding to Su-ho’s call.