[The final room of the dungeon has opened.]
[A new quest has been updated.]
[Dungeon <Eldudnir>]
[Hel has returned.
Reward: ???]
The first emotion that surged was awe. It was akin to the feeling experienced upon witnessing Apollo’s true form—a tidal wave of reverence crashing down.
Hel appeared exactly as the myths described—half of her body resembled a human woman, while the other half was that of a decaying corpse. For a moment, the group stood frozen by the sight of her. But soon they realized that Hel was shackled to the throne by a pair of handcuffs.
“N-now’s our chance!”
Kim Seong-jae, who had stepped back a moment ago, suddenly shouted in a panic. His face was twisted with dread, eyes widened in terror.
“If we attack now, we can take her down, right?”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Kim Seong-jae. There’s no need to rush—!”
“She’s bound!”
Kim Seong-jae shouted as he shoved Oh Kwon-hyuk forward.
“Isn’t this exactly when we’re supposed to strike?! Huh? Why—why are you all hesitating?”
The contrast was stark compared to how he’d just been saying he didn’t want to enter the boss room. Lee Tae-hyung, pupils dilated, nodded vigorously in agreement.
“This is it. If we don’t attack now, we’ll never be able to defeat that terrifying, horrific thing. Aren’t you afraid? Can you even imagine the massacre that’ll unfold if she moves? Or are we simply fated to die here? If that’s the case, then I’m running. I’ll run—”
“Tae-hyung, what’s wrong with you?”
Blue Star grabbed the trembling Lee Tae-hyung, who was speaking rapidly like a machine gun, his face contorted with worry. But just like Kim Seong-jae, something was clearly wrong with him too.
“We have to kill her now! No—death might already be meaningless to beings like her. The belief that we can actually kill her… maybe that’s nothing but arrogance… I think…”
“Lee Tae-hyung!”
“Hold on.”
Blue Star looked ready to slap him, so I stopped him and focused on checking their condition.
[Skill: Eye of the Dead]
[You activate the skill. Skill: Eye of the Dead]
[Eye of the Dead is activated. The Constellation’s blessing is delivered.]
[Listing target information.]
[Kim Seong-jae with the Scrawny Voice]
[Title: Scrawny Voice, One Who Scraped the Edge, Crimson Tent… Grade: B
Status: Fear
Contracted Constellation: Guardian of Clear Waters…]
[Lee Tae-hyung, the Worshipful]
[Titles: The Worshipful, The Attentive, The Curious…
Grade: B
Status: Fear
Contracted Constellation: None…]
As expected.
“They’re both suffering from a status abnormality.”
“What?!”
Just as I feared—Hunters ranked B and below appeared to be afflicted by a Fear status. Blue Star swept his hand through his hair as he stared at the laughing, muttering Lee Tae-hyung in disbelief.
“The battle hasn’t even started yet…”
“Wait! Mr. Kim Seong-jae!”
Kim Seong-jae shoved away Lim Chang-joo and scrambled frantically toward the mountain of corpses. Trampling the dried-out cadavers, he climbed in a frenzy that seemed like he was possessed by madness.
“I—I’ll kill her! I’ll destroy her!”
“Please, wait, Mr. Kim Seong-jae!”
“We should stop him, right? Want me to go grab him?”
Yoo Ji-won pointed nervously at Kim Seong-jae, but Oh Kwon-hyuk stepped forward.
“No, I’ll go bring him ba—”
But he never finished his sentence.
Something seemed to crawl out from the pile of corpses. Something pitch-black. At first glance, it looked like a long snake, but it turned out to be a finger—and then a massive hand followed. The black hand reached out from the corpse heap and in an instant, it seized Kim Seong-jae as he was climbing.
Even Baek Tae-beom hadn’t reacted in time.
“Huh…?”
Yoo Ji-won muttered blankly.
The long, pitch-black hand lifted Kim Seong-jae high into the air. Without even a scream, he was flung sideways by the sweeping arm, crashing into the wall with a resounding thud.
Yoo Ji-won hiccupped. The sound—hic—echoed vividly in the silence. I had to question what I’d just seen.
[CH.#fdl990/One More Dazzling Than the Sun] : Don’t just stand there in a daze!
[CH.#fdl990/One Who Guides the Dead] : Choi Ga-hyeon.
Lee Tae-hyung screamed, “We’re all gonna die!” while Lim Chang-joo shouted Kim Seong-jae’s name. I saw Baek Tae-beom step past me, moving forward, just as another hand crawled out from the mound of corpses.
From the two giant hands, countless smaller hands began sprouting like twigs. It looked like a time-lapsed video of a tree growing at unnatural speed.
“Mr. Kim Seong-jae, are you all right?! Damn it…!”
The multitude of hands stretched toward us. Baek Tae-beom dodged and slashed through them. I struck the ones lunging for me with my staff.
Oh Kwon-hyuk crushed every hand that tried to seize him. Lim Chang-joo had retreated to tend to Kim Seong-jae’s wounds. Jin Ha-yoon wielded his white spear with graceful swipes, flinging the hands away. Yoo Ji-won zipped across the mound on his skateboard, evading with ease. Blue Star chanted an incantation, summoning bolts of lightning from above.
But there was no end.
Aquila let out a battle cry and brought her pickaxe crashing down on one of the giant arms. In that instant, the outline of a bull with majestic horns flickered behind her. The moment the pierced hand recoiled in pain, flinching and curling its fingers, Baek Tae-beom charged in and sliced off one of the fingers.
Hel, seated on her throne, threw open her black maw and screamed—a shrill, earsplitting cry.
“The hands! Aim for those giant hands!”
But they moved so fast that we were more like prey being hunted than hunters. Oh Kwon-hyuk, locked in a tug-of-war with the swarming hands, was slowly being dragged away. Baek Tae-beom wasn’t faring much better. Even after cutting away the clinging hands, new ones snaked in from unseen angles and latched onto him again.
I pulled back as much as I could, moving closer to Lim Chang-joo, who was still treating Kim Seong-jae. Then I pulled out my phone.
“Hunter Choi Ga-hyeon?”
“Just a moment.”
[At your command, the Contractor’s real-time streaming service will begin.]
Baek Tae-beom’s figure filled my screen.
I had already realized I couldn’t contribute meaningfully to this battle. How could I possibly match that speed and precision? I’d end up like Kim Seong-jae.
In that case—
[The Constellation, ‘One Who Seeks to Escape Destruction,’ shouts “Behind you!” to Baek Tae-beom.]
Baek Tae-beom, who had just paused, swung his sword without even turning. Shrrack! The severed arms dropped to the ground.
[The Constellation, ‘One Who Seeks to Escape Destruction,’ shouts “To your right!” to Baek Tae-beom.]
[The Constellation, ‘One Who Seeks to Escape Destruction,’ shouts “Up-left diagonal!” to Baek Tae-beom.]
Without a moment’s hesitation, Baek Tae-beom followed my directions, his body moving fluidly as he sliced through the darkness. For a brief second, he seemed cloaked in a pure white cape, a crown atop his head. His blade shimmered, leaving streaks of light in its wake.
Lim Chang-joo, eyes wide, stammered.
“What… What are you doing…?”
I ignored him. I kept sending commands like I was controlling a third-person action game. Baek Tae-beom responded with unwavering trust. He slashed the hands that held Oh Kwon-hyuk in place and cleaved a massive hand charging toward him clean in half.
Boom—the severed hand hit the ground, shaking the very floor. Hel screamed once more.
Another hand had been chasing Yoo Ji-won and Aquila but suddenly shifted direction toward Baek Tae-beom, its clawed fingers spread wide.
[The Constellation, ‘One Who Seeks to Escape Destruction,’ shouts “Above!” to Baek Tae-beom.]
He ducked swiftly, rolling along the floor, and narrowly avoided the barrage of descending hands that smashed into the ground where he had just stood. Blue Star leaped high into the air and rained lightning upon them.
The massive hand turned to strike Baek Tae-beom again but was restrained—held in place by Oh Kwon-hyuk, who clung to it with gritted teeth. With fierce determination, Oh Kwon-hyuk blinked his jet-black eyes and snapped a finger. Hel let out another screech of agony.
That’s when a strange window suddenly appeared on my screen.
[<Sanctuary of the Soul> has been upgraded. A certain threshold has been surpassed, allowing ??? ???? to become available. Would you like to synchronize?
(Yes / No)]
‘Upgrade?’
I stared at the pop-up that filled the screen, stunned—but then quickly looked up again just in time to see Baek Tae-beom sprinting up the corpse mountain.
In the blink of an eye, he reached Hel, who was still screaming, and drove his sword toward her.
He probably would have landed the blow—
If not for the man who suddenly appeared out of thin air.
“……!”
Baek Tae-beom tried to recoil, but the man was faster. His blade swung first. In a panic, I slapped my phone’s screen blindly—
Then lifted my head just in time to see Baek Tae-beom falling from the top of the mound.
“Tae-beom!”
My vision flickered pitch black. A semi-transparent window popped up.
[Updating…]
But I had no time to pay attention to it.
Because standing atop the mountain of corpses, staring down at me—
Was unmistakably Kang Si-hoo.
