Chapter 179 – God Has Spoken (7)

“That monster is a god?”

“It said it was a fragment that fell into Naraka. At least it seems to be something similar to a god.”

The group all had pale expressions at the black mass approaching while smashing through trees.

The black mass didn’t have a single part anywhere that looked like a realistic living creature.

It had the shape of a giant black sphere over ten meters in diameter with dozens of thin hands and feet attached, and the approaching sound wasn’t footsteps but the sound of that mass bouncing along the ground.

“Either way, it seems we have to fight. No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t seem like it’s approaching to talk.”

The group agreed with Daniel’s words.

The black mass was approaching straight toward the group, smashing through the trees blocking its way.

Even after approaching the group, it had no intention of stopping.

No matter how they looked at it, it wasn’t normal, and it didn’t seem like it was approaching to resolve things peacefully.

The group, who had been preparing for battle, changed color at the black mass that pushed forward without stopping.

“Damn it! Dodge! We’ll all be crushed at this rate!”

To avoid the black mass bearing down on them, the group scattered in all directions like grasshoppers. In the midst of this, flames shot by Alda’s spirit hit the black mass, and fire blazed up on the god’s fragment.

“Huh? Fire works on it?”

The group, who had barely thrown themselves to safety, was bewildered seeing the black mass that had stopped with fire on it.

Kyaaaaa!

The black mass rampaged while letting out an ear-piercing shriek, and the flames soon stopped.

The place where the flames had been attached was distorted as if deflated, but the group had no capacity to pay attention to that.

This was because the black hands protruding from the mass had stretched out long and shot toward the group.

The hands stretching like rubber gradually transformed into awls, spears, and blade-like shapes and approached the group, but the group was already waiting with formation prepared.

In front, Daniel and the Prince were waiting with greatswords and shields, Sun-woo was behind them, and at the very back, the spirit mage, priest, and priestess had positioned themselves.

Slash!

The hands shooting toward the group couldn’t even pass the Prince and Daniel’s defensive line and were cut off by their swords.

Dozens of black stems were cut off and scattered in all directions, and the arms that had detoured far around the Prince and Daniel were all cut off by the sword energy Sun-woo shot out.

“Huh? They cut easily.”

“They’re weaker than expected?”

The Prince and Daniel checked their swords with puzzled expressions. They had nearly lost their balance because the arms were cut off without any resistance.

The god’s fragment pulled all the severed arms into its body and created new arms.

“Is it a monster that recovers infinitely?”

At Van Shingwan’s question, the Prince shook his head.

“The mass has gotten smaller by the amount of newly emerged arms. They’re arms made by shaving off its own flesh.”

As he said, the god’s fragment had shrunk in size compared to before.

After that, it was a repetition of the same battle.

The god’s fragment shot out arms and the group cut off those arms. And in between, Alda shot out flames and set fire to the god’s fragment’s body.

There was no particular need for Sun-woo to step forward. He only dealt with the arms that escaped the Prince and Daniel’s defense.

If Sun-woo stepped forward to attack, there was a high possibility it would be dealt with immediately, but since he didn’t know what would happen if he attacked that mass, he decided to be as cautious as possible.

The god’s fragment continued to shrink in size by the amount of severed arms and the amount burned by flames.

Just in case, they checked the severed arms, but they didn’t return to the body. They fell to the ground as cut and melted away.

The god’s fragment that gradually became smaller eventually melted in the flames and disappeared without a trace.

At the appearance that didn’t match the name of god, the entire group looked back at Sun-woo, but Sun-woo had no way of knowing what had happened either.

“Let’s continue on our way? If the monsters that appear from now on are at this level, it’s actually good.”

At Van Shingwan’s words, the group nodded and departed again.

The clearing where the group had left showed only fallen trees and burned grass as evidence that a battle had taken place.

Squirm.

However, not long after the group left, something like black oil rose from the clearing’s floor.

The sticky black things that rose up gradually gathered in the center of the clearing and began to clump together on their own.

And not long after, the writhing black object transformed into a hard, crude large sphere.

It was exactly that black mass the group had seen until just moments ago.

Arms protruded from the mass as before. And those arms gradually changed shape.

In addition to the swords seen before, the shape of shields was also visible.

Mysteriously, the shapes of the swords and shields weren’t much different from the equipment the group had been carrying.

And some hands weren’t transformed, but instead those hands were creating flames.

The god’s fragment that had melted into the earth had recovered while acquiring the enemy’s techniques.

Thump, thump, thump.

The black mass began to bounce its body toward the direction where the group had disappeared.

***

“Eek! What should we do about this?”

Daniel, who was always calm, was flustering. The Prince also clearly had a pale expression.

And for good reason. Behind them was the god’s fragment chasing them, wielding arms shaped like brightly shining shields and magic swords, with dozens of fireballs floating around.

“Damn, every time we kill it, it gets stronger, so we can’t even kill it carelessly.”

Seeing the black mass that appeared again, the group thought they had seen a different god’s fragment.

Although it was similar to the god’s fragment they had seen before, they couldn’t think that the enemy that had become much stronger with various attacks possible was the same entity as before.

But after defeating it the second and third times, the group could figure out what was happening.

They didn’t know by what method, but every time they defeated that god’s fragment (they could no longer know if defeating was the right word), it appeared having learned their techniques.

Now even Sun-woo couldn’t keep his hands off. The Prince and Daniel were now barely managing just to protect their own bodies.

Moreover, now that they knew full well that killing it would make a stronger one appear, attacking recklessly was also impossible.

Eventually, the group had no choice but to keep running away with the god’s fragment trailing behind.

After running away for quite a while, they were finally able to shake off the god’s fragment that had been chasing them.

When an old ruin appeared before the group’s eyes, the god’s fragment chasing them stopped pursuing.

The group gladly entered the ruin, and the black mass lingered at the ruin for a moment before turning around.

“Wow, we survived. I thought it was nothing special, but is a god still a god even if it’s a fragment? If there hadn’t been a place like this, we would have been in big trouble.”

The Prince hid behind the ruin’s wall and said while watching the departing god’s fragment.

“But has it completely given up on us?”

“Let’s wait a bit. And I think we need to find out what this ruin is for that monster to leave.”

At Van Shingwan’s question, Daniel answered.

“Then, I’ll check where the god’s fragment is going.”

“Will it be okay? It might attack again.”

“I’m confident in hiding and avoiding.”

At Alda’s worry, Sun-woo said there was no problem, and Yeonhwa nodded to guarantee his words.

It was a somewhat lukewarm acknowledgment, but either way, it was a trap he had dug himself. Sun-woo immediately flew in the direction the god’s fragment had departed.

While concealing his body with illusion technique, Sun-woo carefully followed behind the god’s fragment.

Though it was merely a fragment, either way it was an existence that had been called a god.

Sun-woo, who couldn’t be confident whether the illusion technique would work, was tense and ready to flee at any moment.

But unexpectedly, the god’s fragment paid no attention to Sun-woo at all.

At first he followed from far away, but later Sun-woo followed behind the god’s fragment staying not far apart.

It seemed the god’s fragment wasn’t returning to a special location. The black mass seemed to be returning to where they first met, then just started wandering around.

Seeing that appearance, Sun-woo, who had been pondering for a moment, released the illusion technique and revealed himself before the god’s fragment.

When Sun-woo revealed himself right in front, only then did the black mass start squirming and approaching Sun-woo.

It was a completely different appearance from when it had rushed from afar when they first met.

But the attack itself was the same as before, no, much more powerful than before.

The fireballs floating around the black mass flew toward Sun-woo, followed by arms shaped like magic swords that unleashed magical effects shooting in.

They were fireballs imitating Alda’s flame spirits and arms imitating the Prince and Daniel’s swords.

Neither flame spirits actually appeared nor magic circles were drawn, but similar effects were implemented.

It was the ability of a god.

“Is this the appearance of a god that has lost intellectual capacity?”

While avoiding the flying fireballs, Sun-woo contemplated the god’s appearance in his own way.

But there was no way he could accurately grasp the cause just by observing the exterior.

Sun-woo, who had been thinking about other things for a moment, soon focused on the battle.

But unlike before, this wasn’t an enemy he could deal with while thinking about other things.

And winning this time wouldn’t end the fight either. Rather, because it would appear stronger, starting a fight now also seemed foolish.

But Sun-woo also had something he wanted to confirm.

Slash!

The arm transformed into a magic sword form was cut off by Sun-woo’s sword.

The severed arm bounced to one side and disappeared while scattering white light!

It was a completely different appearance from before when it had melted into the ground. Moreover, the appearance of the black mass from which the arm had been severed was also different from before.

Screee!

It let out a strange high-pitched scream and desperately began attacking toward Sun-woo.

“Does this work on it?”

As the experiment seemed to succeed, Sun-woo immediately charged at the god’s fragment.

Though they had been running away, it wasn’t because he was outmatched in skill. When Sun-woo started attacking in earnest, the black mass began to be cut up randomly.

Shortly after, after the main body, the black mass, was cut into dozens of pieces, all the masses disappeared while scattering white light.

At the same time, Sun-woo’s phone vibrated.

Since communication with the Summoner wasn’t working, Sun-woo’s phone rang instead of voice.

On the phone screen, the quest list he had seen before was displayed.

Sun-woo, who had been puzzled by the unchanged content from before, could see that an unexpected part had changed.

[Breakthrough Limits Quest]

Receive authentication from the gods.

[22 / 99]

The number authenticated remained the same, but the number of gods that needed authentication had decreased.

“Did I really kill a god?”

Sun-woo looked at the sword surrounded by corrupted energy (demonic energy).