Chapter 294
‘…This can’t be possible.’
He’s a dead man. She had pushed him away with her own two hands. She often dreamed of a Seo Dawon that had come back from the dead to hurt her, but…
Unbelievable–Ryu Hyerin raised her hands reflexively and groped the hand that was holding her face. Her fingertips felt the cold hard skin of a corpse, so different from a living human being.
‘Is that really…Seo Dawon?’ Ryu Hyerin raised her gaze and checked the Mage’s face again.
Red eyes, cold skin, and hatred seeping from his pupils. Ryu Hyerin could not deny that the person in front of her was a completely different existence than when he was alive.
Ryu Hyerin shed tears. However, those tears weren’t from fright. She didn’t even care how Seo Dawon reappeared before her. Her gaze contained all sorts of complicated emotions as she looked at the Mage.
He coldly laughed at her, “Tsk tsk, Hyerin-ah…”
“……”
“You’re still the same.”
Ryu Hyerin could not tear her eyes off the Mage as she listened to his chilly laugh. A broken, shattered feeling that she couldn’t fully comprehend flowed through her.
Simultaneously, she sensed a disgusting smell and a nauseating discomfort pierce her nose. It felt familiar: the dead she had trampled to a second death like bugs in the dungeon…the peculiar, putrid stench of the dirty undead… She could feel all of that from Seo Dawon’s hand.
Black burns even began to appear at the edges of Seo Dawon’s palms where it covered Ryu Hyerin’s mouth. This phenomenon always occurred when things that went against the power of nature invaded a High Priest’s divine authority by entering their space. Just by touching her, the ultimate sign of eternal depravity dissipated into ashes.
A sign that Seo Dawon… actually became an undead.
Ryu Hyerin shuddered.
Clack–!
Seo Dawon ignored the goose bumps raised along her forearm and flicked his fingers lightly.
She immediately felt a severe dizziness; when she closed and opened her eyes, she was in a desert-like field and felt few other human presences. The mage probably warped her to a deserted location.
Afterwards, the Mage pulled away from Ryu Hyerin as if he had touched something unpleasant. With one brush of his magic, his damaged hands slowly began to repair.
Ryu Hyerin looked blankly at that sight before laughing uncontrollably, “Ha… Hahaha! You’ve become an undead…?”
Seo Dawon looked at her quietly, no answer given.
Ryu Hyerin once held a delusion that one day Seo Dawon, who somehow survived miraculously, might come to find her. However, even in her delusions, she never imagined a scenario in which Seo Dawon was revived as an undead.
‘That man is an undead?!’ Ryu Hyerin burst into laughter the more she thought about it; she took a step closer to the mage. “Just what… How broken are you?”
“……”
“Dawon-Oppa, for you to choose something like that…”
“……”
“Did you really hate me that much?” Ryu Hyerin, filled with anticipation, looked at Seo Dawon. However, he showed no signs of emotional agitation.
Of course, Ryu Hyerin had guessed that, under that calm face, indignation and contempt would be bubbling inside. A person who had been at the peak of all Users had become a monster.
After raiding with Seo Dawon in dungeons over several years, Ryu Hyerin was well aware of the difference between Users and Monsters. Obviously, monsters were powerful; a monster’s natural power was the reason why they raided with parties of numerous Users. It was more advantageous to face them as a group rather than to initiate a fight one-on-one.
However, as the number of people and the User’s level increased, even monsters would eventually be trampled underneath a User’s feet. Once a method to clear a monster or boss has been found, the monster would be reduced to easy item drops or a source of experience. Even Aestheya, the boss of the [Second Company] dungeon, the most dangerous dungeon before [Tower of Command], merely became a supplier of reinforcement materials for accessories.
That arrogant man, who knows that fact better than anyone else, wants to kill his murderers enough to choose to lose his own ego? To think that man who believed in his limitless potential would shackle himself and become a slave to the system?
Ryu Hyerin grasped at her chest; her heart felt like it would explode. She smiled at Seo Dawon before opening her arms wide, “Kill me… No, you probably don’t want to kill me so simply, do you?”
“……”
“But, what should I do? I’m so happy right now. Dawon-Oppa came all the way here to kill little old me–just me. I’m so…”
“……”
“So, so very happy.”
She was nothing to him when he was alive, but she couldn’t believe that she became one of his goals after death. He never looked properly at her until the moment he died; the humiliation and despair she felt all this while seemed to be washed away by this single encounter.
Ryu Hyerin looked at the Mage with elation and contempt in her eyes. Almost as if she had expected the most miserable–the most pitiful, for he had lost everything–man in this world to shoot herself.
However, when she blinked, she found that the Mage wasn’t glaring at her. He didn’t even react to her taunts.
Just as he had done in the past, Seo Dawon stood back upright and head high as he looked at her. He burst into laughter when his eyes met hers under the light of the ominous red moon. More than hate, his gaze conveyed his sneer. “Why should I?”
“What?”
“Why would I kill you?” Seo Dawon laughed as if he had heard an incredibly amusing joke. He retreated as many steps as she took towards him.
Ryu Hyerin read in Seo Dawon’s clear smile that he felt no inferiority complex from appearing before her in an undead state.
While she paused her steps, he said as if he were driving a wedge into her, “You’re not at my level.”
“…What?”
The Mage slowly began to melt into thin air, as if he had been merely granting her some sage advice. At the same time, the chilling energy that filled this area gradually faded.
She became incredibly angry once she realized that Seo Dawon was actually disappearing before her eyes.
“[Divine Hold]!” She extended a rope of light straight towards the mage, but that rope, which aimed to circle around his ankle, broke midair and flailed in vain.
Ryu Hyerin gritted her teeth as she looked around the area for signs of the Mage–signs that he completely disappeared. Then, she quickly opened her inventory and called forth her staff. She looked around her car for a few minutes before shouting into the air, “…I’m not at his level? How dare someone who’s been reduced to an undead existence say I’m not at his level?!”
“……”
“Don’t make me laugh…! He must have run away in fear since he’s an undead man in front of a Priest. I’ve gotten stronger while you were dead, laying cold in the ground! Come out now!” In the first place, Ryu Hyerin had no intention of dying even as she provoked the mage with open arms.
It would be difficult for an undead to make any sort of meaningful attack on a High Priest; plus, she had enormous resistance against most magical attacks since she now wore a top-notch armor, the [Amazoness Armor], underneath her clothes. She made those provocations after calculating her chances.
‘This time…’
Ryu Hyerin prepared for Seo Dawon’s attack by bringing her hands together, mimicking a Catholic prayer–the [Prisoner’s Blessing] formation.
As soon as she posed–hands held together as if in prayer–transparent wings descended behind her back for a moment before vanishing. Ryu Hyerin then began to cast powerful, holy buffs on her body. “[All that is unclean under the moon, all that was buried under the earth and yet has risen again in denial of all that is moral reason. Please allow permission for this servant to call forth *your name*.]“
Her buff would cause great amounts of damage to undead creatures that came within a certain range.
A circle 10 meters in range from Ryu Hyerin’s feet, delineated by a golden line, began to shine. However, as soon as the buff was finished, a cold, dry wind brushed past her. Ryu Hyerin looked back for a moment in the direction of the bleak airflow but soon clenched her teeth and shouted another buff, “…[Protect me from the open jaws of darkness].“
Two bright crosses sprang up near her body; they soon began to rotate around her.
These crosses indicated that there was an undead approaching from an unknown location; the crosses were ready to guard her. However, the guardian signs were silent and still, as if they had found no target. Slightly relieved, Ryu Hyerin recited her last buff, “[Save me from this conceited evil.]”
When she finished her most powerful buff, the [Holy Descent], a sudden ray of light pierced through the black sky.
And, amid that brilliant light, a beautiful angel slowly appeared. With both eyes closed, the angel landed next to the Priest.
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TL: Why does Ryu Hyerin look so excited to be hated by Dawon? Ughhh. Goosebumps
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