[Trantor - Kiteretsu]


    [Proofreader - Kyros]


    Chapter 258


    The method to summon the Death Knight is simple.


    - Legend, slumbering here.


    One only needs to ce the Complete Orb of Death in front of the tombstone engraved with these words.


    Jeong-hoon ced the orb in front of the tombstone.


    Seconds passed, and the tombstone began to absorb the energy from the orb.


    As the energy drained away, the orb turned from ck to white and eventually shattered into pieces.


    [Warning! Warning!]n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    [The Death Knight is appearing.]


    A message appeared before Jeong-hoon, announcing the appearance of the Death Knight, as ck smoke swirled atop the altar.


    [The Death Knight uses Sword Aura Release.]


    At that moment, sharp, thorn-like sword auras poured toward Jeong-hoon inrge quantities.


    [Using Barrier of Light.]


    Jeong-hoon deployed the Barrier of Light.


    Crash!


    With each collision, the barrier quickly began to break apart.


    However, the Barrier of Light constructed by Jeong-hoon’s stats was able to withstand the Death Knight’s sword aura to some extent.


    After blocking the Sword Aura Release, the swirling ck smoke subsided, revealing the enormous Death Knight.


    [Lv.1,100 Death Knight (Awakened)]


    Originally a Level 250 entity, the Death Knight had now leaped to Level 1,100.


    “What in the world…?”


    “This is insane…”


    Those watching from behind gazed up at the Death Knight with astonished eyes.


    Even when it was at Level 250, the Death Knight had been deemed a troublesome boss, but its current presence was iparably more overwhelming.


    “Human, are you the one who summoned me?”


    A low voice emerged from between the ck helmet.


    Jeong-hoon pointed Leviathan at him and nodded.


    “Yeah. Grateful, aren’t you?”


    “…How dare you defy the will of the gods!”


    The will of the gods.


    Jeong-hoon’s lips twisted into a crooked smile.


    “The will of the gods is for you to perish. You bastard.”


    “You’re a human who cannot be reasoned with.”


    The Death Knight stepped down the altar’s stairs with heavy, deliberate steps.


    Each step shook the ground, sending waves of ck magic that overwhelmed everyone nearby.


    Jeong-hoon was no exception.


    ‘My legs feel heavy.’


    Just having the Death Knight approach made his legs feel as though they weighed a thousand pounds.


    All his senses screamed at him to flee from the Death Knight.


    But what choice did he have?


    He hade this far, and he had to defeat it to progress to the next stage.


    Jeong-hoon’s mind was filled with only one goal: the subjugation of the Death Knight.


    But first, there was something he needed to do.


    [Potion of Absolute Fortune]


    - Type: Consumable


    - Grade: Unique


    - Effect: Significantly increases the sess rate for a single draw.


    Jeong-hoon had previously used this Potion of Fortune to great effect.


    And this time was no different.


    ‘Even slightly increasing the odds will help me catch it.’


    The Soul of Darkness, dropped at a very low probability.


    Specifically, it is the soul of the Death Knight.


    Jeong-hoon sought to obtain the tragic soul, eternally trapped here and used as a tool by a Transcendent.


    ‘It would be great if it dropped quickly this time.’


    Until now, the Soul of Darkness had not dropped even once.


    Expecting a dramatic change with just the Potion of Absolute Fortune was unrealistic.


    So, Jeong-hoon upgraded it by fusing it with other items.


    He purchased two items newly added to the Level 7 Achievement Shop:


    - Miracle Magic Quill


    - Illusory Timer


    The Miracle Magic Quill is a legendary item that brings to reality any phrase written with it. It is only avable at Level 7 of the shop and costs a staggering 300,000 points per unit.


    The Illusory Timer, on the other hand, can transform single-use items into timed buff items.


    Using the Potion of Absolute Fortune as a base, Jeong-hoonbined the two.


    The result was the Potion of Miraculous Fortune.


    [Potion of Miraculous Fortune]


    - Type: Consumable


    - Grade: Legendary


    - Effect: Dramatically increases luck-based probabilities.


    - Additional Effect: Has a low chance to create miraculous oues.


    - Buff Duration: Drinking the potion grants the Miraculous Fortune buff for 6 hours.


    Jeong-hoon downed the potion in a few gulps.


    [The Miraculous Fortune buff has been applied.]


    With the buff activated, it was time to begin.


    As always, Jeong-hoon started in the ck Field, activating all buff-type skills and items.


    The Celestial Aura enveloped his body, shimmering with radiant light.


    “All right, now I’ll exin the strategy for defeating the Death Knight,” he said, ncing at the camera recording him from behind.


    Jeong-hoon then activated True Heavenly Demon Lord’s Steps and dashed forward.


    “Oh? You’re fast,” remarked the Death Knight as it raised its sword for a wide swing.


    [*The Death Knight uses de of Ruin.]


    The de of Ruin was simr in concept to Jeong-hoon’s Annihtion de but vastly different in execution.


    While the Annihtion de marks a target and inflicts fatal damage, the de of Ruin is a weapon of total destruction, destroying everything it touches.


    As the de swung, the surrounding air pressure surged violently, sweeping across the battlefield.


    “At this point, you dodge downward,” Jeong-hoon said, demonstrating while keeping hisposure.


    However, the de of Ruin had its drawbacks.


    Unlike attacks that spread across a wide area, the de of Ruin only inflicted damage along the precise path it cut.


    In other words, as long as you observed its trajectory, evading it was straightforward.


    For a level 1,100 boss, the Death Knight''s movements were rtively slow due to the immense power required to execute the de of Ruin.


    Thus, with focus and timing, even other yers could avoid the attack.


    After dodging the de of Ruin, Jeong-hoon activated Heavenly Demon Lord’s Steps and closed the gap to the Death Knight.


    ‘It’s much easier to approach after the de of Ruin is triggered.’


    When the de of Ruin is activated, it consumes arge amount of mana, leaving the Death Knight in a stiffened state for 1.5 seconds.


    That brief window was the perfect opportunity to strike a vital point.


    [Third Style: Heavenly Demon’s Annihtion activated.]


    Jeong-hoon drove his de through the vulnerable gap between the Death Knight’s armor and helmet, piercing its neck.


    “Gah!”


    It was over.


    Jeong-hoon withdrew his sword and stepped back as the Death Knight copsed.


    Despite being a level 1,100 boss, it fell with a single, well-ced attack.


    Targeting its vital point was one factor, but the buffs Jeong-hoon had used had temporarily raised his stats to surpass the level 1,000 threshold.


    Unfortunately, the Soul of Darkness didn’t drop.


    ‘As expected, it’s not going to happen on the first try.’


    Jeong-hoon let out a wry smile and returned to his party members.


    “It’s... it’s over?”


    “A level 1,100 boss went down that easily...?”


    They stared at the Death Knight’s lifeless form in disbelief. Its bodyy motionless, facedown, confirming its death.


    “I told you it’d be over quickly,” Jeong-hoon said with a grin.


    “No, something’s off... That boss shouldn’t die so easily.”


    The Death Knight had been hunted countless times before, and its mechanics were well-documented.


    But no one had ever defeated it this quickly.


    “That’s because the strategy has been updated,” Jeong-hoon exined.


    “Updated?”


    He nodded.


    “Originally, the Death Knight had three phases, right?”


    “Yeah, you could only deal damage after it attacked three times in Phase 1.”


    “Exactly. But as its level increased, new phases were added.”


    When the Death Knight leveled up to 1,100, it gained two additional phases, bringing the total to five. Naturally, this also introduced changes and additions to its mechanics.


    “I see... So how did you manage to finish it so quickly?”


    “As you saw, it now has a new ability called the de of Ruin. This appears in Phase 1. While the de of Ruin is powerful, it has a critical weakness: after using it, the Death Knight stiffens for 1.5 seconds.”


    “Ah! So during that 1.5 seconds, you target its weak spot for an easy finish?”


    “Exactly.”


    The Death Knight’s leap from level 250 to 1,100 brought dramatic changes to its mechanics. The addition of the stiffness after de of Ruin was one of those new elements.


    “...What happens if you fail?”


    1.5 seconds.


    While Jeong-hoon was skilled enough to exploit that brief window to deliver a fatal blow, others weren’t.


    Taking down a level 1,100 boss in just 1.5 seconds was impossible for most.


    “You’d have to rely on another strategy.”


    “Another strategy?”


    “Yes. From now on, I’ll keep hunting the Death Knight and record everything.”


    There were a total of 13 strategies for defeating the Death Knight.


    Among them, only 4 allowed for such a swift victory like before.


    Jeong-hoon nned to capture every pattern and strategy in the recordings.


    The more people understood the boss, the easier it would be to defeat it.


    “You’re not nning to do all that alone, are you?”


    “Why not?” Jeong-hoon replied with a smile.


    Now that they had cleared the dungeon as a party, everyone here could move on to Darvis.


    That meant he could handle the Death Knight solo from this point onward.


    ***


    [Hyung, I’ll be sending you videos continuously from now on. Please review and edit them one by one.]


    With that text, videos started flooding in.


    “Man, he’s fast…”


    Even while reviewing one video, new ones kept arriving, meaning Jeong-hoon was defeating the Death Knight at an impressive pace.


    ‘Let’s focus on the first one for now.’


    The first video began with Jeong-hoon’s journey from the City of Warriors to the City of Martial Artists.


    Jang Dae-hwi wanted to thoroughly review the footage, but the video was over 120 hours long.


    He had no choice but to fast-forward through unnecessary parts and focus on key moments.


    Even so, it took him 8 hours just to finish reviewing the first video.


    ‘How long is this going to take…?’


    Dae-hwi sighed as he looked at the sheer number of videos still left to review.


    But as he started watching the recordings of the Death Knight battles, he couldn’t hide his astonishment.


    “What the…? A level 1,100 boss dies that easily?”


    In the first battle, the Death Knight was brought down with a single strike to the neck.


    The first video ended with that clean kill.


    Rushing to the next recording, Dae-hwi saw that this time the fightsted a bit longer.


    Yet, once again, the battle concluded with a decisive stab to the neck.


    The same pattern repeated across the other videos.


    The specific approach varied slightly, but the end result was always the same—targeting the knight’s neck to finish the fight.


    “It’s like art…”


    Even on repeat viewing, the precision and fluidity of Jeong-hoon’s battles were awe-inspiring.


    Despite the Death Knight’s level 1,100 status and its arsenal of diverse abilities, Jeong-hoon evaded every attack effortlessly and dealt the final blow.


    It became clear that Jeong-hoon could have ended any of the battles at will, yet he chose to continue hunting the boss multiple times to reveal all the strategies.


    “This is going to be a massive hit.”


    To progress to Darvis, defeating the Death Knight was mandatory.


    Revealing the strategies for its defeat ensured massive sess was inevitable.


    ***


    Jeong-hoonpleted his hunting spree 5 hours after sending all the videos to Jang Dae-hwi.


    "I finally got it."


    At the 5-hour and 45-minute mark, after tirelessly hunting even after sharing all the strategies, Jeong-hoon finally acquired the <strong>Soul of Darkness</strong> he had so desperately sought.


    [Soul of Darkness]


    - Type: Material


    - Grade: Legendary


    - The soul of the Death Knight.


    The long-imprisoned soul was now in Jeong-hoon’s possession.


    At that moment, a rift opened, and a pair of crimson eyes emerged.


    <Impressive… I never thought you’d obtain it so quickly.>


    Baal had been closely observing Jeong-hoon through their wager.


    "Quickly? Hardly. That was my <strong>281st hunt</strong>."


    Once the strategies were figured out, Jeong-hoon would enter, instantly sever the knight’s life, and leave if the soul didn’t drop.


    He no longer needed to use another Orb of Death , having already activated one earlier.


    Each time he re-entered, the Death Knight awaited him atop the altar.


    Since Jeong-hoon hadpleted all of the quests in Rease and already utilized the orb, he could engage in consecutive hunts without dy.


    ‘Honestly, I was ready to give up halfway.’


    Even after using the <strong>Miracle Luck Potion</strong>, a shortcut method, the soul refused to drop. With his buff duration nearing its end, he was running out of time.


    Yet, fortune finally smiled upon him; with only 15 minutes left on the clock, the soul dropped into his grasp.


    Thanks to that, he managed to win histest wager as well.


    ‘Now, time to im my rewards.’


    [Trantor - Kiteretsu]


    [Proofreader - Kyros]