Translator: HunterW
Editor: RED
Inside the Empire’s conference room…
“I’d like to first extend my deepest apologies. I wanted to stay in contact but I wasn’t able to,” I said to everyone in the room as I deeply bowed. I was not a normal guild member of the Empire. I was the commander and the face of this alliance. I had the same responsibilities as a guild master, and being out of contact for three months straight was no simple mistake. But I noticed that many still couldn’t calm down and were on the edges of their seats.
“It must be more serious than I thought.”
Song Daechul sighed. “Yes, you thought right, Jiwon.”
“I know we always give you the hardest job, and I’m sorry that we do, but… a very powerful enemy has appeared.”
“Stronger than Claudia?” I had thought that Claudia the Time Controller was Croot’s strongest deity, and boasted truly overpowered abilities. Had I not come back to the past, no one on Earth would have been able to stop her.
“He might… be stronger than Claudia. No, he is stronger.”
“Huh…” After what the officer said, a heavy silence came down upon the conference room. No one denied it, meaning they all felt the same. But I didn’t feel threatened yet. I was not the same as I was three months ago.
“Would you like to see for yourself?”
“Yes, please,” I replied with a nod. A Memory Gem was placed on the conference table and was soon turned on. “Hmm? Those aren’t our soldiers, are they?”
“The Empire was eventually attacked… but this video shows the enemy’s first appearance and has good shots of the enemy’s abilities.”
“I see.”
“This army was put together by an alliance of Cheng Long, Chambord, Ponferrada, and the Spencer Guilds, made up of nine hundred thousand of their most elite and veteran soldiers.”
“That’s a powerful alliance.” I knew each of the four guilds. They were the strongest guilds of their respective countries. The soldiers shown in the video seemed extremely confident and steely. Then, when they arrived at Section 104, they encountered three hundred thousand soldiers of the Crootian army. Soon, a single Crootian walked out alone. I knew right away that he was the powerful enemy that everyone was talking about.
I watched as he killed the Terran soldier sent out to meet him instantly and continued to walk towards the Terran army. I watched as he was pummeled by a volley of attacks, but walked out with not a single scratch on him. Even his clothes were untouched by the dust cloud formed by the attacks. He must have not taken a single point damage from the attacks and my assumptions were proved correct by Arthur Miller.
“During this entire battle, that man did not take a single point of damage.”
“Huh…” He must have been attacked by thousands of Skills and spells. No tank could walk out perfectly fine after all those attacks, no matter how strong they were. But I had more to be surprised about.
“He’s… a monster.” He had suddenly grown into a ten-meter tall, grotesque beast of pure muscle. Monster was the only word I could come up with to describe him. The transformation marked the beginning of the slaughter of the Terran soldiers. I never saw someone fight like that. His entire body was a weapon. Then again, I never fought against an enemy that was ten meters tall.
Being that massive was also a weakness; he became the sole target of the Terran army. I watched as every single Terran soldier still standing fired off their most powerful attacks. Not even a dungeon boss monster could stay standing after all those attacks.
“Is that not his real body? Or does he have a Skill that makes him immune to all attacks for some amount of time? Or does he have a high regen ability like the Blood Prince?” I couldn’t think of any other explanation. That monster just wasn’t receiving any damage at all.
“No, that is his real body. It’s hard to say that it’s a Skill, seeing as how he could use that ability whenever he wants to. Furthermore, he’s apparently a deity who knows the Unrivaled Skill. The only fortunate thing we’ve discovered is that he does not seem to possess any AoE debuffs.”
“…” I focused more on the video after I found my assumptions were incorrect. I also found it hard to believe that a deity actually knew the Unrivaled Skill.
I continued to watch the video in silence for the next couple of hours. As I watched, I couldn’t help, but scoff. I could now see what made them so depressed. After I activated Critical Weakness and Ripped Advance, my HP rose to almost one hundred million points. My DEF and MDEF are also increased incredibly high, allowing me to rush deep into an enemy army’s ranks and attack. But attacks from enemies still hurt me, which was why I had to dodge or block whatever I could and let my body handle whatever I couldn’t.
But this monster of a man didn’t even bother blocking or dodging the attacks that hit him. He just let them strike his body… and it worked. I was actually pretty envious of his ability to just shrug off thousands of attacks at once.
His attack output was just as amazing. He was so strong that he made the four Terran guilds look weak. Soon, the Crootian army had made its way behind the Terran army and surrounded them, as if that was their plan all along. The Terran army was quickly wiped out.
“Only a hundred and forty thousand Terran soldiers survived the battle. It was a huge blow, considering that Terran army was made up of elites and veterans.”
“What a monster.”
“Yes, he is. In fact, he said so himself. He was called Adora the Monster on his home world.”
“By the way…did I see that right? I think he had another ability.” Not a single one of the thousands and thousands of attacks that hit him were critical hits.
“Yes, you did. Critical hits do not work on him.”
“Hmm…” That piece of information hit me the hardest. My greatest weapon was my ability to get off critical hits over and over again, and inflict tremendous damage through them. That was how I was able to kill Angel and Claudia easily.
After the video ended, the officers began to tell me more about what they learned of Adora the Monster after the Empire fought him while losing twenty-four Sections to him, including all nine of our frontlines Sections. His immunity to critical hits and his Unrivaled Skill weren’t the biggest problems; his immunity to all damage was.
“We have no idea if his immunity to damage has a limit of if he’s just immune to all types of damage.”
“If he is immune to all types of damage…”
“…”
“We are assuming he has a limit to his immunity. There is always a balance to all Skills and abilities here on the Judge’s Continent, and back during the Otadolon stage. And…we hope that’s the case.”
After hearing what Alpha had to say, I leaned my head back and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I had thought that killing Claudia was the end of this war. That was why I had said all that back on Earth but now, an even more powerful enemy stood in my way. I was still confident that I wasn’t going to lose, since there was no way the system would allow Adora to be completely immune to all types of damage. I just knew that it took a lot of damage to hurt him; it only looked like he was immune to damage. I was also curious. Judge’s Gavel had a 100% chance to inflict critical damage. I wondered what would happen if a weapon that always inflicted critical damage struck a shield that was immune to critical damage.
We continued the meeting for another three hours, but couldn’t come to a unanimous decision. In the end, there was still so much we didn’t know about Adora the Monster. Still, now that I was home, the officers seemed to brighten up some. I hadn’t lost a single battle yet, nor did I have any intention of starting now.
—
After the meeting, I headed straight for my home. My mother, grandfather, and all three hundred of my clan members were waiting outside, and when they all saw me, they tearfully ran over.
“Where have you been, young master?”
“When a powerful enemy appeared right when we lost contact with you, we thought…we thought…”
“We thought something had happened to you!”
I was honestly surprised that they had waited for me this late into the night, but I understood how they felt. While it had only been three days for me, to them, I was gone for three months.
“Still, we’re glad you’re okay.” Because I had contacted my mother beforehand, my clan members calmed down sooner.
“Let’s go inside,” I said, leading my family back inside our home.
——
I went up to my private room and lay down on the same sofa I used whenever I took a break. It was late, but I didn’t feel tired after my little vacation on Earth.
“Summon: Dungeon Mole, Death’s Achilles Tendon.”
-‘Banana candy?’-
-‘Yes! I’m back outside!’-
I set the Tendon off to the side since it did fine on its own, and gave the Mole ten pieces of candy.
-‘Banana candy! Banana candy!’-
“Eat up. I got a lot out of you this time,” I said, as I petted the Dungeon Mole while it did its best to eat all of the candy in front of it.
“Now, as big of a deal Adora is, I still need to open this bad boy up.” I took out the Rank 10 Random Item Chest. The last time I opened one, I had gotten the Fated Crossroads.
“Hmm… I was going to use it at the Store later… should I use it now?” Fated Crossroads was now off its cooldown, and I could use it again. I was planning on using it before re-attempting an accessory upgrade.
“No. It’s going to be a Rank 10 item regardless. I shouldn’t waste it on this.” I opened the Item Chest right away, revealing an item shining with a purple light.
——
The next day, just when I was about to leave for the Store at Center B, Song Daechul and the other guild masters came to visit me.
“What brings you all here?”
“We want you to have this.” Song Daechul suddenly handed me another bundle of golden rings.
“Why?”
“We have a conscience, too. When we fought against Adora the Monster, we quickly realized that only you had a chance against him.”
“It’s not right to make you shoulder this burden each time, but you’re all we have.”
“…” I looked at the miserable expressions on each of the guild masters’ faces. They had experienced heavy losses against Adora, which prompted them to go this far. I didn’t turn them down, however. I just needed to defeat Adora in exchange for all these golden rings, right?
“Thank you,” I said, as I accepted the bundle of golden rings.
