Ranker Who Lives Twice
chapter-231

Team: HH, thursdays, Yahiko

The mercenary group entered the canyons as soon as they passed the portal.

Atran was among them.

In a normal situation, he wouldn’t have participated, as he never put himself in danger, but he was boiling with rage. He wanted to see the Red Dragon in despair for himself.

But when he entered the Monster World Formation, he realized something was wrong.

‘What is this?’

There were traces of vicious fights, and there were even famous rankers among the dead bodies. It was filled with monstrous looking chimeras as well.

Because of that, Atran and the others struggled quite a bit.

“Stop the attack!”

“It’s an attack from above! Take your aim!”

The mercenaries moved frantically to push the chimeras back, and the assassin guilds jumped out from the darkness to kill them.

But the group’s synchronization wasn’t great, so they continued to lose players. And since the witches appeared occasionally to bother them…..

“It’s a witch! She’s using magic again! Dispel! Use dispel!”

“You son of a bitch! It’s open there…..ack!”

When they entered the Disaster World Formation, their force of 500 had shrunk to 100. But there were those who stood out.

Black Skull, Twice, and the Ice King. However, people’s gazes moved to the others.

Pupupung!

“The witch was hit! That bitch is dead!”

“H, How was she hit? There should be a barrier?”

Everytime Jang Wei, who was disguised as someone else, pulled his bow, the heads of the witches exploded like watermelons.

Chwachwachwak!

“H, He swept them away in one stroke?”

“M, Monster…..!”

And a mysterious person covered in a black robe swept away the monsters around him.

Thanks to these two, the damage didn’t worsen, and they were able to arrive at the Calamity World Formation.

The S-Class mercenaries were envious of them, but that wasn’t what the lower level mercenaries thought.

Thanks to those two, most of their lives were saved, and they didn’t even feel jealous because the gap in their skills was too great.

However, the problem was that no one knew their identities.

‘Just who are they?’

If they were that strong, they were probably high rankers. But no one could guess who they were.

The same went for Atran.

‘Jang and Turn? Those are probably nicknames…..’

When he first employed them, they didn’t show their skills, so they were assigned as D-Class. That was why he didn’t know how powerful they were.

Atran attempted to engage in conversation with them to become closer to them. But every time he did, the two just replied curtly. The conversations didn’t go on for long.

But they were still doing everything they needed to do.

Atran didn’t have anything else to talk to them about.

“I think the Red Dragon and the Elohim are fighting ahead.”

When Moon Shadow brought new information, having scouted ahead, the atmosphere became stiff.

“The Red Dragon and the Elohim?”

The leader of Moon Shadow, Crescent, heavily nodded his head.

“Yes. I think it’s the Beginning, Tom, and Aether.”

“Mm.”

Atran was lost in thought for a moment. His goal was to hurt the Red Dragon, but there wasn’t any need to put themselves in danger.

“Is there another way to get to the fortress?”

“I think we can avoid the two if we go through the bypass…” Crescent’s words trailed off.

He probably meant that it was dangerous to go through the bypass. Atran glanced at where ‘Jang’ and ‘Turn’ were. The two were silently sitting a bit apart from the others.

Eventually, Atran came to his decision and looked back at Crescent.

“Then if we go through the bypass, can we get to the fortress? I’m asking if it’s possible.”

“Yes. It’s possible.”

“Then let’s do that. We have to get the real tablet.”

Atran’s eyes flashed fiercely.

* * *

“Dune, we have to establish countermeasures.”

“Dune!”

“Dune! Please!”

The Brocken Fortress was noisy.

The witches had faces showing their urgency.

Just a few hours ago, they had been confident they could fend off attacks from all the Large Clans.

If they had the knowledge and the Philosopher’s Stones, they thought they would be equivalent to the Eight Large Clans, no, that they could surpass them.

And things had been going smoothly until a mysterious explosion suddenly occurred.

“Dune!”

The witches left in the fortress held onto Vieira Dune with despairing faces. They needed to set up countermeasures.

But Vieira Dune just closed her eyes. She didn’t say anything. Her pale face looked even whiter than normal.

As she did, the witches felt themselves becoming even more desperate.

All their forces were outside of the fortress, ordered to stop their enemies, and they continued to be wiped out by the explosions. There were only scholars left in there.

If the fortress was broken through, it was really the end for them.

“The Sea of Time has arrived at the north entrance!”

“The West Wind mercenaries are quickly approaching through the bypass. In about 15 minutes, they’ll arrive at the west entrance…..”

“At the south entrance the Trafalgar Clan…..!”

“Ranker Shaun…..!”

“The Elohim is right about to pierce through the door! The barrier is almost down! Dune! Please make your decision…..!”

The longer the reports of the young witches went on, the more frantic the witches became. But Vieira Dune just stood still. The only motion recognizable was her green hair slightly shaking through her pointed hat.

Suddenly, the sound of a rock the size of a house falling onto the lake could be heard.

“The O, One-horned tribe h, has arrived at the G, G, Ghost World Formation!”

“What? Why are they here?”

“The Monster World Formation…..! The Disaster World Formation…..and the Underworld Formation have broken! T, They entered the Calamity World Formation!”

“What are you talking about? Even if it’s broken, there’s no way it would be destroyed that quick…..?”

“It’s the Martial King! The Martial King has arrived!”

“……!”

“……!”

News of the Martial King’s appearance made them go into shock.

‘We’re done for.’

That was all that they could think of.

They didn’t know why the Martial King had appeared, nor why the One-horned tribe, who didn’t care about the happenings of the Tower, was here.

But one thing was for sure. The clan couldn’t survive like this. This was a disaster.

Defeat was written on the witches’ faces. A heavy atmosphere descended.

Just then, Vieira Dune opened her eyes.

They were white eyes without any pupils. The leader of all witches and the manifestation of the Great Mother slowly opened her mouth.

“Mother has spoken.”

Color started to flow back into the witches’ faces again.

The Great Mother. The being that had birthed them but had not been answering their questions recently returned to save her daughters from danger.

“W, What did M, Mother say, Dune?” someone asked, but Vieira Dune stood up silently.

“We have to go to the lab before they come. The answer will be there. So everyone, please hold on a while longer.”

Vieira Dune’s voice quietly rang out.

“Mother will soon arrive to take care of her lacking daughters.”

* * *

Kwang!

With the sound of a gigantic explosion, the barrier of nine layers broke like glass, and the door of the fortress blew away.

The Elohim had succeeded in breaking through the fortress first.

Amidst all the dust, Ione spoke in a low voice.

“We’ll enter now. Kill all witches you see. They’re only dirty prostitutes who sold their souls to demons anyway. They have to disappear forever. However, leave their lab and archives intact. After the forbidden knowledge is separated, everything else will be taken.”

The players of the Elohim all looked sharply around and jumped forward. Mere prostitutes had held them back until now, so they were planning on destroying them as soon as they saw them. Everyone moved at the speed of light.

And from far away, there was someone watching them.

‘I don’t have to do any work.’

Yeon-woo smirked on a tree nearby.

Not only did they kill all witches they met, they broke the door of the fortress. He was thankful for that. It would’ve been nice if they did good acts like that from the beginning.

Yeon-woo pulled out Vigrid as he was thinking this.

Playtime was over. It was true he was thankful to them, but he wasn’t going to let them have Vieira Dune’s head.

‘I’ll set them back a bit.’

Yeon-woo activated his powers in succession.

[Dragon Body Awakening (3rd Step)]

[Stigmata of the Goddess]

[Hyoongshin Acksal]

Dragon’s Blood circulated around his body as scales popped up. Yeon-woo poured magic power into Vigrid with all the buffs he received. At the same time, he didn’t suppress the devilish aura he was emitting.

[Wave of Fire]

[72 Bian – Yul, Pa, Cham]

The trajectory of Vigrid’s black fire landed on top of the escaping Elohim’s head.

Urrr, kwakwakwang!

Kwakwaka—

Its effects were spectacular.

Before the Elohim could do anything, the black fire swept away all the Elohim at the front, and even shook where Ione was.

When Boo added supporting magic on top of that, the explosions continued to sweep the Elohim away, and it became chaotic where they were standing.

“Accck!”

“Just when…..!”

“Save me!”

The continued waves of heat and its aftereffects didn’t let them rest.

They couldn’t know how great the damage was, how much they were hurt, where their comrades were, or when another attack was going to happen. They couldn’t even move their bodies.

The combination of Boo and Yeon-woo was much more destructive than expected.

Meanwhile, Yeon-woo grew his wings of fire and flew into the fortress above where they were.

[I will. Show you. The map.]

Boo threw the map he got from the witches to Yeon-woo.

A 3D representation of the locations of the buildings and even where Yeon-woo was was marked blue on the map.

‘It’s like a navigation system.’

Yeon-woo moved towards where it was marked green, where Ananta was, and into the underground prison.

He didn’t get caught by the witches.

Rather, he killed those around him with Aura when he found them through Extrasensory Perception, not making a single sound.

When he arrived, Yeon-woo gathered his magic power and spoke.

“Boo, when I move into the prison, take care of everything underground.”

[Yes. Sir.]

It wasn’t just the prison underground. The underground was more complex than the fortress, and there were labs, magic archives, and even storage rooms with treasures in them.

They were all treasures that the witches of the Walpurgisnacht collected over time.

And on the 7th underground floor, the real Emerald Tablet was secretly kept.

Yeon-woo didn’t need it, but there was no need to let others have it.

He was planning on taking everything he wanted before the Elohim or the Red Dragon got there.

Since Boo knew all the secrets of the Brocken Fortress, it was definitely possible.

It seemed like there were a few guardians here and there, but he didn’t worry about it. After having eaten multiple Philosopher’s Stones on the way here, Boo was already strong enough.

Inferno Sight had grown in his eyes, so if he surpassed the final limits of his current status, he would be able to rise to an Elder Lich.

‘He must remember some things about his life as well. I should ask him when this is done.’

With that in mind, Yeon-woo kicked the door down with all his strength. As he did, the ground exploded, and a hole that went 6 floors down was created.

Feeling Boo leave his shadow, Yeon-woo dropped to the 6th floor.

Yeon-woo felt a sense of deja vu. There were glass coffins on the walls. Inside the coffins, people were sleeping in a purple liquid. It was a color similar to the Philosopher’s Stone.

It was the same sight that he saw when Arangdan had been making the Philosopher’s Stone.

Each glass coffin was connected with pipes to the center, and inside, Ananta was in a deep slumber.

As if she was a sleeping princess in a forest, waiting for her prince.