Chapter 51. Payment Time (1)

A battle between one person versus many was usually in many’s favor. However, that wasn’t always the case.

There were exceptions.

Especially in the case of beings that were outclassed – ‘common knowledge’ didn’t work on these people.

Like now.

*Cl-cl-cl-cl-clang!*

Blake deflected five arrows that were flying at him with the side of the Ogreslayer. This wasn’t a special case, but just something he came up with on the spot.

Of course, there were skills that deflected projectiles like that as well. And those skills allowed for more sturdy and efficient defenses. However, it wasn’t like those skills could not be imitated without possessing the actual skills.

It was like that with dodge rates as well; although one’s own dodge rate stat was the most influential, it didn’t contribute to all the dodges made by the player.

Sometimes, players with lower dodge rates showed high dodge rates using their senses.

This was one of the core systems in EL.

Some people said that this made games too influenced by talent, but in the first place, games couldn’t be fair for everyone.

It was just that game companies developed the games so that differences in talent could be overcome with effort.

In any case, Blake could also imitate the deflection skill purely through his experience despite not possessing the skill.

*Tap-tap-tap! Fwoosh, crunch!*

And one more – a counterattack after a block was the basics.

Blake once again crushed an Alpha team member in front of him. The battle had continued for 20 minutes now…… but Blake was still alive.

Instead, 8 from the Alpha team collapsed down. Of course, this didn’t mean that Blake was still in a good condition.

He had 7 arrows sticking out of his body, and several deep wounds could be seen as well.

‘What the heck is this guy?’

Blackie looked at Blake with trembling eyes after seeing another Alpha team member turning into light fragments.

‘He’s a total freak.’

When the battle began, Blackie only thought about how he could torture Blake more, but now he was worried about whether they could beat him at all.

“There’s not a lot left of him! Keep pushing him back!”

Blackie thought that there was only one method left. What he was sure about was that he could not retreat in this situation.

‘My HP is at 21%…… dammit. It really isn’t easy.”

Blake habitually checked on his HP and looked at his surroundings. He didn’t have a lot of HP left, and it was currently dropping as well.

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At this rate, he would indeed fall before he defeated the remaining 6 enemies. However, he still had a trump card.

It was literally, a trump ‘card’.

A fusion card…….

Its cost was 16 and could only be used once every five days. It’s name……

‘Fusion card – a drop of phoenix blood…… this is my reversal card.’

The fusion card ‘drop of phoenix blood’ was currently the highest-grade fusion card he could synthesize.

This card was something Sanghyuk had told nobody even in his previous life. The reason being that he only found out about the formula for this card one month prior to his time reversal.

He had researched for over 5 years in the game using a few information and hints. He was thinking about giving up since he had clung on to it for so long without success, but he could miraculously discover the formula for this card at the last moment.

Due to this card consuming multiple mid-rank elemental cards and other precious materials in card form, it was even more expensive than S-grade fusion cards synthesized from high-rank elementals, but in any case, the effects were amazing.

Fusion card ‘Drop of Phoenix Blood’ [Special, Limited]

: A very special fusion card made from – Mid-rank fire elemental card, mid-rank blood elemental card, mid-rank earth elemental card, mid-rank lightning elemental card, Firepetal card, Red ogre’s heart card, Firelizard’s tongue card, Flamesnake’s bone fragment card – for a total of 8 cards. It is a miracle that this formula was discovered.

Effects : This card can only be used on self, and once used, all HP and vitality recover to 100%, and all injuries and poisoned status are healed. However, it will turn the user back to the original state after 10 minutes. The duration time increases as proficiency increases.

Duration : 10 minutes [Cooldown time : 120 hours]

Special effect : Once 10 minutes passes and the user returns to his/her original state, a special effect called ‘Traces of the Phoenix’ remains on the body. [Traces of the Phoenix : All healing effect is halved for 48 hours, but the damage received is decreased by 10%.]

Card proficiency : 0/250 [Proficiency rank D]

Cost : 16

This isn’t worth mentioning, but a drop of a phoenix blood card was an insanely expensive card.

Just the material costs to make the cards amounted to around 1 million gold. Even though Blake wasn’t worried about money, he couldn’t use this card all the time.

“Let’s start…… round 2.”

*Flash, crackle!*

Blake smiled as he inserted the card into his chest. Then, a streak of fire enveloped him before recovering his health to 100% and healed all of his injuries.

He would return to his previous state after 10 minutes, but he would be able to maintain his perfect state for 10 more minutes at least.

This was what he was counting one.

Although this could only be used once every five days, he would become strong enough to reverse everything once he used it.

This was the charm and power of Card Users.

It was naturally impossible for 6 people to kill Blake when even 14 people couldn’t. Of course, Blake only had 10 minutes, but 10 minutes was definitely not a short time.

***

One per minute.

Five alpha team members fell in exactly five minutes. No exceptions. The Ogreslayer mercilessly severed their bodies, and the 6 tired members of the Alpha team could not endure that.

In the end, the only one left on the battlefield was Blackie.

To be exact, Blake had made it like that.

“You…… you f*ckin…….”

Blackie couldn’t talk properly in front of Sanghyuk. This was the complete opposite of what he was expecting. He was imagining Blake kneeling in front of him.

Blackie could not believe this reality and once again charged towards Sanghyuk. However, Sanghyuk easily blocked his attack.

*Clang, Claaang!*

After lightly deflecting Blackie’s ax with the Ogreslayer, Sanghyuk slammed into Blackie to blow him away.

*Boom! Grind, crack!*

Blackie has mercilessly blown away. His HP and vitality were already below 5%. So, he couldn’t even stand up after that attack.

“Urgh…….”

Blackie tried his best to stand up again, but his body didn’t listen to him.

Meanwhile, Blake approached him and quietly looked down at him.

“F*ck…… this sh*t.”

If EL had a suicide function, then Blackie would just have chosen to commit suicide. He just felt that bad.

“How is it? Feel like waking up from your dreams?”

Blake mocked Blackie’s delusions.

“You f*cker, I’ll definitely-.”

*Fwoosh, crunch!*

Blake didn’t even listen to him and smashed the Ogreslayer into Blackie’s head. Due to the meticulous shock prevention system, he wouldn’t feel any pain, but he would feel horrible.

Mercenary ‘Blake’ of Skies Above Skies has defeated ‘Blackie’ of Gold Rush.

Congratulations, your gathered karma has broken through the limit and you have leveled up.

As though to congratulate Blackie’s death, it even gave him a level.

He felt very good about this.

He had earned a lot of karma through this war as well.

Currently, he was level 52.

He had leveled up twice throughout the Sky-Gold war. Not only his level, he had raised various skill proficiencies as well. His Ancient Knowledge was also slightly upgraded.

‘I planned to leave once I had enough…… but this is how you do things, eh?’

Sanghyuk had long anticipated this outcome and he already planned what to do once this kind of situation occurred.

“Skies Above Skies…… you will definitely regret it.”

Smiled he as he muttered. Then, he just left the battlefield like that. Then, he started mercilessly destroying the grinding mines of Gold Rush.

There was one reason he didn’t do this until now…… and that was to drag this war out for as long as possible. However, since he no longer had a reason to do that now, he started crushing all the grinding zones one by one.

The most important thing here was that killing a grinding user was counted as one kill just like killing a fighting member.

That meant 10,000 gold no matter who Sanghyuk killed.

Grinding zone users could be massacred over and over again, unlike the battle forces. That meant that the amount of Gold Sanghyuk would receive from Skies Above Skies would become astronomical.

Gold Rush receiving damage was a nice bonus as well.

The reason Taemin didn’t exclude Sanghyuk mid-way through this war was that Sanghyuk would act alone and start massacring people either way and would make no difference at all.

However, even he did not anticipate this situation.

Two days…… Sanghyuk had indiscriminately hunted Gold Rush for just two days. However… the number of kills he had increased over the two days was 716.

In gold…… that was 7.16 million gold.

Honestly, Skies Above Skies had no way to stop Sanghyuk. Due to one wrong contract, The entire Sky Line would go bankrupt and not just a single guild.

What was fortunate was that Sanghyuk stopped after 4 days. After he stopped his massacre, Sanghyuk even contacted Taemin to meet up.

Taemin knew that this would all be over unless he solved this problem. And he also knew that only he could solve this problem.

“So you are willing to end the contract here on the condition that we pay you fully for the deeds you did until now?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Blake smiled as he talked to Taemin. Honestly, Taemin thought that Blake would erupt out swearing at him. However, Blake was much more cool-headed than he thought.

“Before I answer you…… can I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Why…… aren’t you angry?”

“Angry? Why should I be angry? This is what life is. Do I need to be angry just because I was betrayed once? And let’s be honest here. What would change with me getting angry? Only I would feel horrible.”

Blake had said that with a smile, but Taemin could feel a frighteningly sharp thorn from his words.

‘We touched the wrong guy.’

He finally realized how big of a mistake he had committed.

Blake was a card he should have never thrown away.

“Okay then. Just one more…… why did you stop?”

“Skies Above Skies, no, the entire Line Sky’s supply. If I go over that, then you would go bankrupt, and that doesn’t do well with me. If I’m too greedy, I’ll lose everything after all.”

“Khm…….”

After hearing Blake’s answer, Taemin once again received a big shock.

‘He’s a total freak.’

Blake’s judgment made Taemin frustrated. His level of judgment could be seen from the time he contacted Taemin.

Right now, a forum post by one of the core users of Skies Above Skies, ‘Jetty’, was calling about a huge wave.

Although it was a long wall of text, to sum it up, it exposed the blatant scheming of Skies Above Skies. And the ‘main character’ of that wall of text was Blake.

‘He already knows that the social media is on his side. There’s nothing I can do here.’

Taemin despaired. There was no room for negotiation.

He could only give Blake everything he wanted.

‘Since it came to this, I may have to sacrifice myself to save the guild and the line…….’

Taemin had considered the worst case scenario. However, Blake continued his words as though he had already anticipated his thinking.

“If you’re thinking of sacrificing yourself, then don’t. Read the contract you wrote with me again. I definitely said that the contract is between me and the guild, Skies Above Skies, not you, Mr. Taemin.”

-Crunch- Blake’s words became thorns in Taemin’s heart. At this point, there was no need to talk anymore.

Taemin, no, Skies Above Skies had completely lost against him.

Like that, the titanic being known as Blake smiled while trampling on Skies Above Skies.