D.I.O

‘Argh! The marble broke through too easily. It slowed down slightly, but if it can pierce Younghwi so effortlessly, I can’t deflect it.’

Crack!

The marble punched through Shining as well. In the end, the spirits only bought Merlin enough time to take one additional step.

‘Should I use the Great Strength Vajra Hand on my right arm and swing at it? My arm will likely become useless, but I can just log out and recover from my injuries… no, that won’t do. I might be able to recover, but if I lose my arm, I think my HP will be permanently reduced.’

Merlin thought, thought again, and kept thinking. He came up with theory after theory, and after all this analysis, he chose the one that seemed to have the highest chance of success.

Whoosh.

Merlin started circulating his magic power. That was the answer he had landed on. Even if he could accelerate his thought process, ultimately, his body was still slow, so Merlin’s options were limited. However, his magic power was relatively unhindered by his physical restrictions. If his mind worked faster, his magic power should speed up in turn.

‘Gale. Gust of wind!’

Ping!

Merlin raised his right hand above him, his movement displacing the air. Yet, this minor breeze was dwarfed by the far-more forceful gust that rushed forth and deflected the oncoming marble.

‘This isn’t enough.’

Merlin’s efforts were successful, but this single action would not resolve any following attacks, as Inyup could send out another compressed poison marble at any time. Hence, after raising his right arm into the air, Merlin extended his left hand in front of him.

Click.

Attached to his arm was an iron wristlet, and despite being made from metal, it was quite thin. So, when it was under his clothing, the wristlet wasn’t easily noticeable. After receiving a magic signal from Merlin, it began to vibrate as if signifying that something was about to begin.

Burr…

These wristlets were the arm warmers that Scorpion gave Merlin during one of the level-up exams in the beta test; they had been exchanged for two sets of tyrannosaurus bones.

Together, the iron wristlets were called Piercing. Piercing was a type of railgun that allowed the wearer to use repulsion force and shoot preinstalled arrows, which were located about 20 centimeters above Merlin’s wrist. This force originated from his magic power instead of other energy sources, so the arrows wouldn’t be too quick. However, since the projectiles were merely about five centimeters long, they were akin to a bullet from a modern handgun.

Since each shot consumed a portion of his magic power, Merlin needed to wait ten seconds after every arrow, as he needed time to recover each time.

Bam! Sss.

“Kyak!”

Once Piercing fired an arrow, shattering the compressed poison marble, Merlin’s perception of time became normal once more. Despite the many thoughts and simulations that Merlin went through, just a tenth of a second had passed. An observer would’ve seen Inyup shooting some sort of projectile from his mouth, Merlin instantly reacting by raising his arms, and Inyup screaming in pain.

Bam!

Without delay, Merlin stomped on the ground and retreated from Inyup. Yet, Inyup wasn’t about to give up any time soon, and he immediately gave chase while suppressing his pain.

“Human…! Human! Screech. I’ll kill you!”

“Hey, why are you pushing me around? Also, your poison hit you, so how are you unharmed?!”

After being deflected, the marble scattered poison onto Inyup’s body, but the monster’s red skin seemed unaffected. The only areas where there appeared to be any damage were the crevices in-between Inyup’s carapace on his centipede body, but even that was minor. Since Inyup was a monster that used poison, it seemed he had a natural immunity to it.

Scurry!

“Woah, so fast!”

The Human-Faced Centipede moved rapidly, using the tens of legs on its main body to travel as fast as a speeding car without needing any special abilities.

“Die!”

The Human-Faced Centipede charged toward Merlin, opening its mouth as if to tear into the player’s neck. As this happened, Merlin was making his way to the ocean, and his right leg was knee-deep in the water.

Whoosh!

Instantly, Merlin headed toward the sea swiftly.

“Eh?”

“Huh?”

“Kyak! What the hell is this?”

A set of gasps rang out, with each representing a different feeling. This was how surreal the unfolding scene was. It looked like a giant monster had grabbed Merlin’s leg and dragged him into the sea as he was pulled 100 meters under in the blink of an eye, leaving a trail of white bubbles in his wake. Inyup wanted to attack, but he was essentially left sucking on his fingers since Merlin’s quick retreat made any assault impossible.

Sss…

After diving into the deep sea, Merlin clenched his fists, recovering the significant magic power he expended in one go.

‘I succeeded! I haven’t tried anything like that since elementary school!’

Accelerating his thought process was something that he’d occasionally done when he was young; actually, though Merlin wasn’t entirely aware of this, he had been using it every day. Since there wasn’t any set process required to accelerate his thought process, Merlin had been unconsciously using his innate ability without realizing it.

Obviously, the average person didn’t possess this ability, and the only way to accelerate one’s thought process was to just do it. It couldn’t be taught.

“Kyak! Dirty human! How dare you run away! Kyak!”

Inyup frowned and thrashed about angrily. His two eyes began turning a deeper shade of red, and he began releasing poison all around him.

“Inyup, stop! If you continue acting up, we’ll take matters into our own hands!”

“Screech! Take matters into your own hands? Hahaha! How laughable! Sure, try it! I’m already frustrated that I couldn’t kill and eat a human… you shall die in his stead!”

Whoosh!

As soon as Inyup finished speaking, he released a dense plume of poison. Instead of the previous poison marble, now he was using his poison as an area of effect attack.

“Narin!”

“Ugh! Stand back!”

Since Garam was a bruiser who had no way to counter such an attack, he quickly fell back as Narin stepped forward. She stomped down, rushed toward Inyup, and swung her bat.

Bam!

Surprisingly, the poison was driven back after being hit, but how could a solid object push a gaseous poison? There must’ve been some magic imbued into the bat. Yet, Inyup didn’t care as he started releasing more poison.

Bam! Bam!

Narin kept swinging her bat, but she merely postponed the poisonous mist’s advance, and the two goblins and the six-tailed fox were soon enveloped. As a mage, Narin could defend against the poison, but she wasn’t powerful enough to go head-to-head against Inyup. At most, she could buy some time. However, at that moment, Inyup’s face began burning.

Whoosh!

“Kyak! You six-tailed bitch!”

Miho withdrew her fox fire, Kitsunebi, after seeing Inyup scream and stop releasing poison. She had been able to ambush the centipede, but Kitsunebi was simply black magic that made an illusion and didn’t inflict any real damage.

“Let’s retreat first! If we reach the village, he won’t be able to continue with this behavior!”

“Yeah. I never thought that we’d have to face a compatriot like him… hmm?”

“What happened… oh?”

Immediately, Garam and Narin collapsed. Generally, the goblins liked fooling around, but this time, they weren’t playing. Something had gone terribly wrong.

“Huh?”

Soon, Miho’s body became stiff. She was circulating her Kitsunebi to cast more black magic, but it was put out in an instant as Miho started wobbling.

“Kik! Fools. Did you think all my poison was visible?”

As if it had served its purpose, the poisonous mist disappeared while Inyup walked toward the fallen monsters. Miho and the two goblins tried to stand, but they couldn’t do anything except tremble. They couldn’t even summon their energy, let alone get up.

“You… if Ms. Heavenly Flower ever hears about what you’ve done to us-”

“Ha! I’m not afraid of that bitch. Anyway, can the dead talk?”

While smiling sinisterly, Inyup’s human-like mouth suddenly stretched sideways. He planned on devouring Miho and absorbing her power, but at that moment, a voice rang out.

“Hey! Ugly!”

“Kik! Foolish human, how dare you-”

Boom!

“Kyak?!”

Enraged, Inyup turned his head and was immediately struck by an arrow as it pierced his eyes. When he looked over, the projectile was only a centimeter away, so he had no time to dodge.

Ting! Bam!

Soon, two more arrows flew at him and struck Inyup’s legs, the particularly massive ones, to be precise. Usually, an arrow wouldn’t injure a Human-Faced Centipede, but it was different if they were hit in the eye. This monster was strong, a monster among monsters; it could endure a shot from a small handgun unharmed, and a rifle bullet would simply scratch it.

“Dang, a Level 9 being is formidable. I guess it wouldn’t have been easy defeating that low-rank demon during the level-up test if it weren’t for Scorpion’s help.”

From the start, Merlin’s attack wasn’t too powerful, so unless he hit a vital point, the Human-Faced Centipede wouldn’t be hurt. If Merlin were near Inyup, the monster would’ve instantly counterattacked; yet, Merlin was 500 meters offshore, so Inyup could only grind his teeth and watch Merlin’s distant figure helplessly.

“Kik! You bastard! Human bastard! You dare damage my eyes… eh?”

As he was in the middle of shouting furiously, Inyup abruptly stopped, vomiting blood.

“You bastard… what did you do to me… it doesn’t seem like poison?”

A delayed attack skill. The internal force within the arrow became active once it struck Inyup, and after making its way into his body, it created a Qigong Deviation. While Inyup was a strong monster with a tremendous amount of qi, the Qigong Deviation rendered this worthless since he couldn’t control his qi anymore. In essence, forcing an enemy to have a Qigong Deviation was a critical attack. Moreover, Merlin’s version of Qigong Deviation was like a virus, spreading quickly to Inyup’s whole body and wreaking havoc from within.

‘However, that won’t be enough.’

Although the Human-Faced Centipede didn’t practice any particular cultivation technique, spiritual beings and monsters had their own methods to circulate their internal energy. As such, unless the monsters were lower leveled than Merlin, they wouldn’t necessarily die from a Qigong Deviation. Actually, this sort of assault just served to mess up a monster’s internal energy circulation so that the following main attack finished it off.

Creak.

Since Merlin was still too weak to use the Decian Bow, he drew back the bowstring of his Mithril bow. Of course, Inyup was watching all this happening.

“Screech! Bastard! Those types of attacks are useless!”

“Let’s see. We’ll soon find out.”

Ping!

Merlin loosed his arrow. For whatever reason, this arrow seemed relatively slow. The two prior to this one moved at such high speeds that they had traversed the 500-meter distance between Merlin and Inyup in a straight line. Yet, this latest projectile soared in a wide arc.

“Kik! Are you trying to play games with me!”

Inyup looked up to see the arrow, growing angry once he realized that it was just a normal attack. Inyup used one of his legs to deflect the oncoming arrow, but when he did that, a short spear landed on his remaining good eye.

“Kyak?!”

While shouting bloody murder, Inyup rolled on the ground. Miho and the two goblins had seen everything unfold, and they couldn’t help but stand dumbfounded at the unexpected progression of events.

“He sent his first arrow high into the sky, and then he shot a few more before firing a slow arcing arrow… Wait, even if he did that, how did his first arrow hit Inyup’s good eye so accurately?”

When Inyup was briefly preoccupied with the other monsters, Merlin had shot one of his short spears high into the sky. This was followed by another spear meant to remove one of Inyup’s eyes and imbued with the Qigong Deviation spell, wreaking havoc in his body. Afterward, Merlin fired two additional arrows to disable a couple of Inyup’s legs and give him no chance to think. Finally, he sent out the slow arcing arrow. When Inyup looked up to watch this projectile, the short spear Merlin initially fired landed directly on Inyup’s remaining good eye. It was a god-level show of archery skill. And soon…

“Detonate.”

Boom!

The short spear that had just pierced Inyup’s eye sent out a bunch of scrambled Korean characters before exploding. Merlin didn’t imbue the magic spell on the entire short spear, just the tip of it. This way, when the spearhead detonated, the spear’s shaft flew back from Inyup’s eye and landed 20 to 30 meters offshore into the seawater. Inyup’s body shuddered furiously before collapsing.

Boom!

Since Inyup’s skeletal structure was so durable and sturdy, his head didn’t fly off, but his brain took critical damage. It was instant death. However, Merlin didn’t immediately approach Inyup’s corpse.

“Ack. He got hit with that, but he’s still alive?”

“W-what are you saying? Isn’t he dead?”

Narin was still shaking while she tried to ward off the effects of Inyup’s poison, and she looked perplexed after hearing Merlin. As this occurred, Merlin drew back on his Mithril Bow to launch another arrow.

Ping! Bam!

An arrow soon entered the eye where the previous short spear’s shaft shot off, and without any resistance, it sunk halfway into Inyup’s eye. Yet, Merlin frowned.

“Still not dead? Damn it. It’s a little wasteful, but I guess I’ll need to use another short spear….”

“No, wait! Wait! He’s dead!”

“What are you talking about? His body is still there!”

They weren’t wrong; Inyup was dead. The reason why Merlin kept attacking his corpse was that it wasn’t disappearing into a puff of black smoke and dropping an item. Merlin thought that Inyup was playing dead to try and lure him onshore near the centipede’s body.

“What the hell are you saying? Inyup’s poison is potent, but it’s not capable of melting his own corpse.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is- huh? Wait…”