Translator: HunterW3
Editor: RED
“Fire of the Flame Demon!”
“Chain Lightning!”
“Transform – Hellfire Arrow!”
[Insolent fools! Die! Touch of Darkness.]
“Iron Wall!”
“Great Heal.”
“Flourishing Incense of Cure.”
All of my party members looked like they were just about to fall over, but they kept up their barrage of attacks. I moved twice as fast as everyone else was. If I stopped now, everyone else would follow.
“Shit! This ends here!”
“Same here. There’s no way I want to ever come back here again!”
A couple of them refused to accept defeat, and kept up with my pace, but it just wasn’t enough. The healer with the Monster Detect skill scanned the Dark Caster again and her report echoed through the room. “It’s been two hours and twenty seven minutes since we started and its HP is at…10% now.”
We had fourteen minutes left when its HP was at 20%, but it took us eleven minutes to take off half of that. We had three minutes until it was going to fire its ninth volley. Then again, that was an incredible pace considering our current situation.
“Exploding Fireball!”
“Soaring Earth Pillar!”
“Razor Whirlwind!”
It was impossible. There was no way we could win. There was just no way any of our tanks could survive the ninth volley of curse beams. We could all see what our fate was, but my party members continued to fight.
At this point, they didn’t think about failing. All twenty of us had cameras on our shoulders, filming the entire raid and if we were to fail now, we had to record everything we could to make sure the next raid would succeed.
But I cared. I hadn’t come all the way to America to fail. There was still one more thing I could do.
I looked around at my party members. There were twenty of us in all; five tanks, ten DPS, and five healers.
“I’m splitting us up into three teams!”
“Sir?”
“What are you talking about, Jiwon?”
My other party members turned to me in confusion. Some of the DPS even stopped their attacks to look at me.
“I’m not ready to give up yet. We’ll get through the ninth volley and clear this raid.”
“But…”
“With our current condition, the ninth volley is just…”
They all thought that it was impossible and I understood them. It was obvious we were going to fail at this point. I ignored them, however, and shouted to all of them, “Two teams will have two tanks, two DPS, and one healer. The remaining six DPS and three healers will get behind me.”
Two tanks should be able to withstand the curse beams aiming for them and three others. The problem was me. I had to withstand ten curse beams at once and each one would be 256 times stronger than the first curse beams. I might have three healers ready to heal me, but there was a good chance I wasn’t going to survive. Either way, if we were going to fail, we were going to do it after I tried this method.
We all divided into three teams, as per my orders.
“Are you actually going to take ten beams by yourself? Dude! You know how strong they’ll be!”
“He’s right, captain. It won’t work, even with three healers,” Samuel said, eyes full of worry.
“I know. But this is the best chance we’ve got if we’re going to succeed,” I said, looking back into Samuel’s eyes.
“We’ll do as the captain says!”
“Alright, you’ve convinced me. If it weren’t for the captain, we wouldn’t have come this far in the first place.”
“Let’s do it!”
They moved into position while throwing attacks at the Dark Caster.
“It’s time. The Dark Caster’s HP is at 8% now.”
[Let’s see how you fare against this!]
Another volley of curse beams was fired at us.
“Tanks, switch with each other when you have to. Don’t go overboard and work together. Healers, keep them healed up.”
“Captain, the other teams seem like they’ll be fine. But we’re…” a DPS deva said from behind, antsy with worry. He didn’t know what to do.
“Take this chance to rest up and figure out how to best deplete his remaining HP.” Just then, the ten curse beams struck my body hard.
“Gah.” I could have dealt with one, but all ten beams were quickly depleting my close-to 9,000,000 HP!
“Mega Heal.”
“Great Heal.”
“Flourishing Incense of Cure.”
The three healers behind me cast their strongest heal spells, but they weren’t enough to slow the damage to my HP.
Forty seconds passed as my HP continued to decrease.
“Damn…is this even possible?”
“The other tanks were having so much trouble and scrambling to switch with each other.”
I could hear what they were saying behind me, but I was too busy focusing on my HP to care.
“Jiwon’s got less than 10% to his HP now! If Jiwon has to die, then I’ll die in his stead!” Jacob cried out and was about to run forward, but I quickly grabbed him by the collar.
“Quit saying stupid shit and heal me!”
The only reason I decided to get through the ninth volley was because I still had one last ace in the hole I could rely on. I still had my Bracelet of Eternal Fire.
It saved my life back when I battled the Predator Duke, preventing me from being completely consumed by him. As the Bracelet’s description stated, I wasn’t going to die, so I knew that whatever happened to me, the raid wasn’t going to fail.
“But Jiwon!”
“Just heal me, damn it!” I snapped at Jacob and continued to watch my HP bar drop. It was just about to hit 0.
==[Your HP has reached 0 through a considerable amount of damage. The Bracelet of Eternal Fire’s Last Breath has been activated.
35% of your total HP (8,815,700) has been restored (3,085,495).
Eternal Fire’s Last Breath has been deactivated for thirty days.]==
“Huh?”
“The captain’s HP is…” The healers who had been healing me were the first to notice.
“You can be surprised later. We have ten seconds left until that barrier falls! All of you, get ready!”
“Yes sir!”
Soon, the ninth volley ended, with all of us still standing.
“This is our last chance. Everyone attack the Dark Caster!”
“Yes, sir!”
Every single party member capable of attacking flung their strongest spells and skills at the Dark Caster. It didn’t take long for us to finally crush the dungeon boss.
[I swear I’ll have my…!]
==[You have successfully cleared the 27th high-grade dungeon’s boss raid.]==
“YES!!!”
“We did it! We beat it before the Spencer Guild!”
“Jiwon! Jiwon! Jiwon!”
My party members all ran to me and picked me up, throwing me into the air while chanting my name.
——
While Lee Jiwon and his party members were celebrating their win…
Five people were gathered in an expensive room around a large table at a high class hotel in Hong Kong. On one side sat Wai Chung and his guild mate. On the other side sat Okamoto, the guild master of Nayuta, and his guild mate. A single man sat between them.
Silence enveloped the room for a while before Wai Chung finally broke the silence. He spoke to the single man sitting to his left.
“Now then. Why did you ask to see me? You even called Nayuta over as well. So what does…” Wai Chung looked dead in the man’s eyes before continuing, “the Dungeon Maker, a member of the Seven Monarchs, want with us? Actually, it’s more like the Five Monarchs, isn’t it?”
Kazunari, famously known as the Dungeon Maker, smiled briefly at Wai Chung. It quickly disappeared when he finally spoke, “We all share a common enemy. It’s fine for us to meet at least once, isn’t it?”
“Sure. But I’m beginning to think that enemy is me. You have a decent relationship with Nayuta, don’t you? But Cheng Long and Nayuta don’t really like each other.”
“Whatever do you mean? The two of you joined hands once recently, haven’t you?”
“We did, somehow.” Wai Chung took a sip of his tea before continuing, “It’s better for us if Nayuta grows stronger instead of Sunbin. No matter how much Nayuta tries, it won’t ever rival Sunbin, after all.”
Okamoto smiled at the obvious insult. “That’s why we would like to thank you in advance for your help. We know we can’t do much against Sunbin, but Cheng Long has a better chance of becoming the dagger that ends Sunbin’s rule.”
Wai Chung stared at Okamoto, but Okamoto held his gaze.
“You’ve come a long way.”
“Hah! I’m still nowhere close to you.”
Wai Chung leaned back in his chair. “Fine. Let’s talk.”
“Lee Jiwon. We need to stop him, don’t we? From what I hear, he was the man responsible for ruining whatever plans you had for Yung Gong,” Kazunari said.
“Hmm…”
“He is on friendly terms with Sunbin, and is quite the painful thorn in the side to both Cheng Long and Nayuta. He’s also very annoying to me and my people, as well.”
“So what do you propose we do?”
“We need to hold him down. We have to stop him from getting stronger.”
“Are you suggesting we build some sort of prison and toss him in there?”
“No. I don’t know how to make a prison, nor am I strong enough to capture him in the first place. However…” The Dungeon Maker Kazunari had a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke, “I can make a prison-like dungeon.”
“It won’t be easy.” Wai Chung knew some things about Kazunari, especially because he was a damn Jap and not because he could create new dungeons with a snap of his finger.
“That’s why I have asked Cheng Long and Nayuta here today. The two of you share a common enemy.”
“What do you need from us?”
“I need two thousand devas willing to incur an irreversible death penalty each, a Rank 8 item, and 100,000,000 golden rings.”
“…That’s a steep price.”
“Because our enemy is none other than Lee Jiwon. I believe it’s a fair price to imprison him for at least a year or two. There won’t be any monsters, any food or water to keep him alive, and he won’t be able to use a Warp Scroll to escape. Even if he dies, he will resurrect within the dungeon, as well.”
“Hmm…”
Wai Chung and Okamoto had heard about this type of dungeon before and contemplated it. There were quite a lot of things required.
“Lee Jiwon always makes the impossible possible. While everyone else shook their heads, he always came up with a solution, as if it were in his pocket all along.”
Kazunari laughed and placed his right hand on the table. “You have nothing to worry about thanks to this little guy.” Something moved on his right shoulder and climbed down his arm to the table. “This is the dungeon mole.”
