chapter 46

BOOM!

A side wall of the Denomination’s holy temple was obliterated.

Dust powder from the crumbled stones rose up like clouds and blocked the view.

Vulcan roughly got rid of it all using a wind magic and looked inside the temple.

There was Bellon looking at Vulcan with an expressionless face.

The two servants that were usually around to do his bidding were nowhere to be found.

“Looks like you don’t care that we are inside the city. Did you want to kill me that badly?”

“It looks like you were waiting for me.”

“That’s right. I figured it would be a useless effort to try to run. I felt the battle when you and Ho-Gyoung were fighting.”

Bellon sighed and explained more.

“I didn’t think I’ll live forever, but looks like I’ll be going sooner than I thought.”

“Didn’t you live close to a thousand years? According to what I heard, you were here before Ho-Gyoung.”

“That’s right. However, I could have lived that long in the lower dimension as well. If I knew this was going to happen, I should have killed Sarantis and ran away to the lower dimension.”

So there was a way like that.

Vulcan looked at Bellon as if he was trying to ask why he didn’t.

“Kuku. When I heard the Order’s assassin squad did not return, I kept thinking… It can’t be, it can’t be… Still, I didn’t think you would grow so much in just two years. I never thought you would grow beyond Ultra-Zenith Rate in such a short amount of time and come back. There probably weren’t enough monsters for leveling up. I still don’t understand how you grew so much.”

As if he found it funny, Bellon was still laughing.

“It looks like you might be able to make The Six’s wish come true.”

“What is it that they want?”

What Bellon just said was out of blue.

However, Vulcan did not panic.

It was because Bellon was scratching the part that was itching for a long time.

‘I always felt The Six wanted something from me.’

The interest that the The Six, including Filder, showed to himself…

Vulcan remembered the way they talked, how they were acting like they were hoping Vulcan would go to Act 2.

Because The Six was not forcing Vulcan, he had it set aside as a distant memory. However, Bellon said something out of blue that was related to it.

Vulcan was quite intrigued.

However, Bellon shook his head.

“Well. It’s not like I’m one of The Six. It doesn’t feel right for me to tell you. Why don’t you go to Filder and ask yourself? He probably will tell you now.”

“…”

“Also, it’s nothing big. It’s just a vicarious satisfaction for old people who have given up. In a way, they are bastards just like me.”

Having said this much, Bellon started to mumble to himself as he brushed his chin with his hand.

“Now that I think about it, even before you became Ultra-Zenith Rate, it seems you have had received many indirect advices from them. It must have been great to receive such high expectations from them. Hahaha!”

Bellon was laughing over it once more with a loud voice. Watching Bellon, Vulcan stood there without any words.

Bellon laughed for a while as if he had a psychological problem.

The temple was already half destroyed as it was. Now with Bellon laughing so loudly, it was shaking dangerously.

Vulcan was watching, wondering how long he would laugh, but Bellon suddenly stopped laughing.

With an expressionless face, he looked at Vulcan and said,

“I’m a worshipper of the God Powel, yet I had been hiding in fear of battle all this time. Perhaps it’s obvious I should be meeting a pathetic end like this.”

“Are you done with what you wanted to say?”

“How did Ho-Gyoung die?”

“He died a painful death.”

“That’s not so bad.”

Bellon raised his power as he smashed his two fists together.

His entire body started to turn blue as it grew in size.

“Also, I also feel great about how that bastard died before I have.”

Perhaps it was because Ho-Gyoung was Bellon’s sworn rival.

Even at this moment, when his life was in danger of coming to its end, Bellon was still conscious about Ho-Gyoung.

Meanwhile, Bellon’s body didn’t stop growing.

The change was unbelievable. It made Vulcan wonder how such a change was possible.

Vulcan stared at Bellon that kept on getting bigger.

‘Just how much bigger is he going to get?’

It was a ridiculous growth. It was over 5… 10 times the original size.

It was an incredible feat that Vulcan had never seen in other places. Watching it, Vulcan was impressed inside.

Even as Vulcan was thinking about such things, Bellon was not showing any signs of slowing down with his growth.

DUDUDUDUK.

Finally, his growth stopped.

He looked like he was made from pouring iron. He looked overwhelming.

He was about as big as usual giant monsters. Watching this, Vulcan was impressed.

Bellon didn’t just grow in size.

His entire body was surrounded by unidentified semi-transparent layer. It contained dangerous energy. If felt like an ordinary Zenith-Rate warrior of Asgard would be seriously hurt just from coming in contact with the layer.

‘It looks like an ordinary energy blade would not be enough to put even a scratch on it.’

Bellon looked like a high demon from some legend about gods.

However, it didn’t make Vulcan feel fearful or terrified.

Vulcan had the Heavenly Lightning Blade and SS Rank lightning mastery, two very powerful weapons.

Both in terms of power and speed, Vulcan was confident about neutralizing the opponent in either way.

Bellon became a 33 ft tall monster.

He was almost the size of a high rise building. He stared down at Vulcan.

“Can you fight me with all of your might? At least for the final moment, as a worshipper of Powel, I don’t want to be shameful.”

“All right.”

TSUPAT.

As soon as he finished his words, Vulcan went behind Bellon.

Surprised, Bellon quickly moved his hand toward the back.

However, with his stance compromised, there was no way his attack would be carrying proper power.

Vulcan created several dozens of Hellfires and shot them toward Bellon’s hand.

BABABABOOM.

Although they were extremely powerful, well beyond comparison to how it was before the awakening, they were not able to inflect much damage.

It was because the semi-transparent layer demonstrated incredible defensive power.

However, it was enough to make Bellon lose balance, and that allowed Vulcan to carry out his next attacks with ease.

Thunder God’s Strike.

Vulcan’s lightning blade stroke Bellon at a speed that even he, a Ultra-Zenith-Rate warrior, could not respond to. The blade cut about half of Bellon’s neck.

It was a critical attack, enough for Bellon to almost lose his life. The semi-transparent layer that surrounded Bellon disappeared. Vulcan swung his sword once more and cut off Bellon’s head clean.

In a blink of an eye, Bellon’s body and head were separated.

Bellon died with a panicked expression on his face. It was from when he panicked when Vulcan suddenly went behind him.

He was the strongest that ruled Beloong City for a long time. However, he was not powerful enough to handle Vulcan’s full strength.

KUAGUAGUANG

A boulder sized head fell, and the giant body made loud noise as it fell on its knees.

The temple was not able to withstand Bellon’s weight. Its floor started to crack like a spider web.

Vulcan murmured as he looked around the broken temple.

“It felt great when Ho-Gyoung died, but it is just so-so with Bellon’s death.”

Could it be that his desire for vengeance was satisfied when he squashed Ho-Gyoung with overwhelming power?

Could it be that Vulcan thought the true enemy was just Ho-Gyoung?

He couldn’t know for certain.

Well, it was no longer important to him anyway.

“I think I should go slay Sarantis.”

Sarantis was said to be in the furthest corner of the north gate field.

It was the reason Vulcan leveled up all this time while enduring all that hardship.

Cutting off Ho-Gyoung and Bellon’s heads were not his final goals.

‘It’s time to put an end to it all.”

In order to see the end of all this grunt work, Vulcan started to walk.

However, he stopped after only taking a few steps.

‘Ah, I should at least say goodbye to big brother and Mr. Jake.’

Now that he thought about it, Vulcan realized he rushed out without saying anything to them.

Back then, he acted on instinct. He was swept away by the awakening on lightning and flame magic. Now that his senses were returning slowly, he started to worry about them.

Although it was unlikely, there was the possibility of the remnants of the Order seeking revenge on Dokgo Hoo and Jake.

Vulcan thought it might be a little dangerous.

‘Since Ho-Gyoung died now, it wouldn’t matter to them… Still, I can’t know for sure, so maybe I should go back.’

Vulcan decided to go back the way he came and meet with Jake’s group.

He was worried, but even if that wasn’t the case, he still had to meet them.

It would be rude if Vulcan just left Act 1 without saying proper farewell to them.

Vulcan got through the rubbles of the temple and came out.

He was about to run toward the hidden location on the north gate field, but he could see familiar faces.

“Yo! Little brother! You totally destroyed them.”

“… I thought you were hot tempered at times… Still, I never thought it would be this much.”

“Big brother. Mr. Jake.”

Vulcan was glad to see them. He walked toward Dokgo Hoo and Jake.

Until this morning, for the past two years, Vulcan saw their faces to the point of getting sick of seeing them. However, now, for some reason, it felt like it had been a long while since he saw them last.

When Vulcan looked to the side, there were also Lee Jung-yup and Jang-ho. Vulcan looked at Jake and asked.

“By the way, how did you get here so fast? I wasted some time fighting Ho-Gyoung, but it would have been hard to get to Beloong city faster than I did.”

Jake looked at Vulcan as if he was trying to say Vulcan is an idiot.

“Did you hurt your head while fighting Ho-Gyoung and Bellon? You can get here at an instant by using the return scroll. Just why did you rush out like that for?”

“Ah…!”

“It all worked out because you have reached a new height that is far beyond what we thought. Still, if you were around the borderline height, with a foul luck, you could have been killed in middle of the hunting ground if you ran into a group of men from the Order!”

“You had no need to worry about that… It wasn’t that I was overconfident. I rushed out because I was absolutely sure of myself.”

“By the looks of how you are talking, it seems like you regained some of your senses.”

“So, little brother. From what I heard, you were even more thoughtless than I was, weren’t you? Causing a huge ruckus like this in middle of the city? Even I would have never imagined doing something like this! Hahaha!”

Dokgo Hoo smiled big refreshingly and patted Vulcan’s back hard.

Vulcan glared at Dokgo Hoo with a displeased look on his face, but he could hear someone calling his name from the back.

“Yeah. I think so too.”

Vulcan turned his head and looked at the person that just called his name.

Folken, the captain of patrol, was looking at him with a smile on his face.

“Master, have you been well?”

Dokgo Hoo looked as if he suddenly turned into a well mannered child. Watching Dokgo Hoo, Folken made a face as if he just chewed on poop.

“You. That gives me goose bumps, so please stop that.”

“If I don’t call my master as master, how should I address…”

“Shut up. I was wrong. Just stay quiet for a bit.”

Folken and Dokgo Hoo exchanged chitchat.

Standing amongst them, Vulcan was trying hard to keep a fake smile on his face. Vulcan greeted awkwardly.

“… How do you do?”

“I’m well, but looks like you caused a big accident.”

With a friendly face, Folken came to Vulcan and patted his shoulder.

“It would be best if you followed me quietly, right?”

“… I guess so.”

The patrol was lenient when it came to incidents outside of the city, but for things inside the city, they dragged people away even if it was something small like picking a fight after having drinks.

Vulcan put his blade away to the sheath and quietly followed Folken.

Standing in middle of rubbles of the temple, Jake’s bunch just stood there with blank faces.

***

“… I didn’t know I’ll be coming here.”

It was a mysterious place with a wiki crystal that had a magnificent emerald tint.

They arrived at Filder’s pub. Folken sat at a random chair and said,

“Why? Were you thinking I’ll really arrest you?”

“You always dragged away people when they caused ruckus inside the city and almost beat them to death, so…”

Vulcan also picked a chair and attached his butt to the chair.

Vulcan brought out a beer bottle from his inventory and scanned Folken’s level.

He thought it will be possible now.

[Act 1 Manager Folken]

[899Lv]

‘… They had levels like these, so that’s why scan was not possible.’

Vulcan turned his head and looked at the table to the side.

By Filder’s discretion, the pub was not open today, so there were no customers.

Instead, there were The Six sitting quietly and watching Vulcan.

[Act 1 Manager Beruneru]

[921Lv]

[Act 1 Manager Logweed]

[876Lv]

[Act 1 Manager Haywood]

[900Lv]

[Act 1 Manager Meruham]

[899Lv]

‘They are all same. They are all monsters.’

Vulcan was currently at level 470.

Because his lightning mastery was increased to SS Rank, his true height was higher than the level, but even so, Vulcan could say he was perhaps barely at level 700.

It looked like The Six would be counted among the top warriors even if they were at Act 2. Compared to them, Vulcan was still lacking in many ways.

‘And… Mr. Filder is…’

[Act 1 Head Manager Filder]

[999Lv]

‘He is the real monster.’

His level was just one below one thousand.

Vulcan was shocked inside, but Folken gave Vulcan a late reply.

Folken chugged beer. Refreshed, he said ‘kuuuaaa’ and put down the mug. He looked at Vulcan and said,

“I don’t know what you were thinking while you were following me, but there won’t be a beating to death or things like that, so don’t worry.”

“For managers of Act 1, the way you all were handling this here are quite shabby.”

“Now you realized it? We are actually like that. Other than squashing ones causing serious problems, we don’t have much to do. Anyway, it looks like you can see our titles and levels now.”

“Yes. I increased my specs quite a bit this time.”

“Kulkulkul. I can really see how much stronger you have gotten. This time, we will finally be able to see a human achieving something incredible.”

Beruneru entered the conversation as he laughed with his unique laughter.

Vulcan didn’t quite understand what Beruneru was talking about.

With a slightly crumpled face, he was about to ask a question to Beruneru, but Filder also jointed the conversation.

“Now, if it is something like Sarantis, it looks like you could defeat it easily.”

“…”

Vulcan looked at Filder in silence.

It felt like he knew what Filder was going to say.

‘By chance, he isn’t trying to force me to go up there, right?’

Filder had his gaze fixed steadily on Vulcan and said,

“Mr. Vulcan, instead of stopping here, how would you like to challenge Act 2?”