novelraw Chapter 200 : Toward a Broader Stage - (4)
Chapter 200 : Toward a Broader Stage - (4)
Chapter 200: Toward a Broader Stage - (4)
Until now, countless players had participated in the Astaroth raid as mercenaries and had been evaluated.
The moment Sanghyun stepped forward boldly, Sarah, Kyle, and Laphern all thought the same thing.
It was fine that he brimmed with confidence from possessing an Almighty-grade Artifact, but there was no way he could subdue it.
Even Laphern, who could easily be considered second to none, had never handled the Gatekeeper easily.
The Gatekeeper had immense stamina and was what people called a “meat tank,” so it had taken quite a long time to take it down.
And now Sanghyun was stepping up alone?
No matter how much potential or talent a player had, could this really be done solo?
They all thought the same and, with no room for doubt, crossed their arms as if they had agreed in advance.
“Fine then, do it your way. Let’s see if it goes how you want!” That was the look on their faces.
Right at that moment.
Out of respect for their comrade who had entered combat, everyone naturally stayed silent.
But then, the sight that unfolded before their eyes made everyone stare at each other wide-eyed.
“……?”
Sanghyun had completely vanished from sight. He had disappeared so cleanly that there was no way to track him.
Everyone tried to pursue Sanghyun’s traces with mana detection or mana amplification techniques.
Even Kyle, who was known for his exceptional sensitivity, could not pinpoint Sanghyun’s location. It was perfect, complete stealth.
The duration of Wind Stealth was 10 seconds.
Sanghyun had definitely invested five of those seconds in swiftly closing the distance and erasing his presence.
“…….”
The Gatekeeper was dull.
He was still staring at Sarah’s group in the distance.
And even that was only because the three of them weren’t moving; soon, the Gatekeeper turned his gaze elsewhere.
As the gatekeeper defending the entrance, it was natural for him to keep vigilant both forward and sideways.
At that moment.
Siiing!
A dense killing intent surged from the empty air.
It was the innate murderous aura emitted by the Nameless Sword itself.
The Gatekeeper wasn’t a fool.
Sensing the killing intent, he immediately turned his head.
There was only one reason.
He had kept a solid watch forward, and though something felt off, he hadn’t thought a person could be there.
But that assumption was completely wrong from the start.
Shwaaak! Phwaaaah!
Sanghyun’s Nameless Sword cleanly slashed horizontally across the Gatekeeper’s neck, sending it flying.
The strike, made by focusing all of his skills in a single instant, was not something sheer stamina could endure.
If Sanghyun had targeted the center of the torso, or the arm or thigh, the outcome might have been different.
Those areas had far higher natural defense and were wrapped in tough hide.
But the neck wasn’t like that.
Its reinforced stats had a limit, and they were ridiculously insufficient to withstand Sanghyun’s blow.
Thud. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The Gatekeeper’s head rolled helplessly on the sandy ground.
“Did that… really work?”
What they had dismissed had become reality.
The three were shocked not only because Sanghyun, a swordsman, possessed stealth, which didn’t suit his class—
But also because he had instantly decapitated the Gatekeeper, whose neck was nearly impossible to damage.
After all, they had data.
Compared to the players who had come as mercenaries before, the result Sanghyun produced was the first of its kind.
For the first time, alone, without anyone’s help, and in less than ten seconds, he had taken a life.
“Come on in, feel free!”
Then Sanghyun’s cheerful voice echoed across the entire desert.
It was the kind of voice that made you feel like you couldn’t just sit still after hearing it.
Some might say it was just a simple beginning.
But for someone who saw it firsthand—especially Laphern, who was also a swordsman—the thought was completely different.
A swordsman didn’t operate with a “jack of all trades” concept. What that meant was, their direction was singular.
For example, a nimble swordsman who’s good at tanking, or a heavy tank with strong attack power—
Those kinds of combinations couldn’t coexist.
It was like trying to form a square with a string of fixed length.
If you lengthened one side, the other had to get shorter; if you reversed it, the reverse would happen.
That was the nature of being a swordsman—yet Sanghyun possessed a trait that ignored that entirely.
Stealth that even they couldn’t track! Plus, the mobility to instantly close gaps.
On top of that, he decapitated the Gatekeeper in a single blow. In other words, he had destructive power as well.
Trinity. In other words, a complete form. Fully equipped, and so absurdly powerful it was unfair.
“Not yet. It’s not over yet.”
“No need to be impressed so soon.”
“Let’s keep watching. You can’t judge everything from one moment.”
Soon, the three regained their composure.
Constant doubt and verification—that had always been their way of doing things.
It was true that Sanghyun had shocked them right from the start, but there were still many things left to evaluate.
Their eyes turned cold once more.
* * *
After that.
During the dungeon raid, Sanghyun spared no effort in using his abilities and focused solely on the strategy.
There was no need to hide his skills strategically.
Hiding his strength didn’t make sense in a situation where he had to prove himself with full power.
Even if all the information about his skills were revealed, it didn’t matter.
‘After all, I’ll keep devouring Artifacts, and the number of skills I have will continue to grow.’
Because he would gain more skills, at least as many as were known—no, even more than that.
It wasn’t baseless confidence.
It was belief in the probability systemically confirmed by the system, and there was no variable in that.
‘So this is what it feels like to run without any sandbags.’
Sanghyun thought to himself as he swept through the Astaroth Dungeon like a fish in water.
He wasn’t even raiding the dungeon alone.
He worked in sync with Kyle, Sarah, and Laphern to take down tricky tank-type monsters.
Depending on the situation, he sometimes charged in first to break the monsters’ defensive formation.
Sanghyun was all-around.
He didn’t make mistakes, nor was he slow to assess the situation or fumble around frustrating his teammates.
Rather, it was the others who couldn’t keep up with Sanghyun’s tempo.
In particular, Laphern, at one point, was panting as he barely managed to keep up with Sanghyun’s heels.
As they advanced rapidly to the middle part of the dungeon—
The moment Sanghyun volunteered to scout ahead, a natural opportunity arose for the other three to talk.
Of course, it was also Sanghyun’s tactful way of giving them some space.
“……”
But no one opened their mouth until Sanghyun’s figure disappeared beyond the horizon.
It felt as if, with Sanghyun’s current abilities, he might even have a skill to eavesdrop from that distance.
They’d already seen more than 50 of Sanghyun’s skills with their own eyes up to this point.
At that point, it felt like he was manufacturing skills rather than acquiring them—a truly absurd number.
And once it was confirmed that Sanghyun had truly vanished to a point where even they couldn’t see him—
“Phew.”
Laphern let out a heated sigh and was the first to break the silence. It was Sarah who brought up the topic directly.
“What do you think?”
Laphern replied.
“Want me to be honest?”
The usually talkative Kyle, for some reason, kept a long silence.
“What, you gonna lie instead?”
“He’s beyond expectations. His skills are at least three times the scale of what we got in the advance briefing from the Master.”
“……Definitely.”
Anyway, the three of them were veterans who’d been through countless battles.
Even if it was just the afterimage of a quickly used skill, they could tell them apart.
They had seen it all.
And they realized—
Sanghyun didn’t just have similar skills stacked up.
Each and every one of them had unique characteristics, a true variety of skills arranged in balance.
In particular, the instant-cast status removal skills, starting with Recovery, were astonishing.
And since they included a period of full immunity, it was practically invincibility.
While the three struggled to remove stiffness or blindness caused by monsters using Artifacts—
Sanghyun removed the status instantly and, using his immunity, butchered the monsters.
It kept going like this.
While the three were busy responding, Sanghyun had already responded and taken the lead in attacking.
A mercenary who was always one step ahead.
And the original team members who, by comparison, kept falling behind.
With the situation completely reversed, it wasn’t surprising that they felt small.
At some point, the three had completely forgotten that their level and stats were higher than Sanghyun’s.
“Our Master has forty skills. That alone was considered a lot, and he himself thought so too.”
“Right.”
“But Shin Sanghyun has over fifty. And if we assume he has passive skills that don’t require activation—”
“At least sixty?”
“And don’t forget the innate effects of that Almighty-grade Artifact sword. Those count as skills too.”
A shiver ran through them.
It was like opening a worn-out box only to find gold bars inside.
That’s exactly how it felt.
Whenever they saw Sanghyun dart across the battlefield, empowered by Over Psychedelic’s awakening effect, it was dazzling enough to call him the God of Battle.
And as dazzling as he was, the monsters—distracted and mesmerized—fell like autumn leaves.
“Are we even qualified to verify him?”
“Not once have we taken the lead up to the midpoint of the dungeon. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“Extras.”
“Yeah. That word fits perfectly.”
It was a level of self-deprecation hard to believe was coming from three players in the 400s.
They felt no need for further evaluation.
No—more accurately, they believed the person verifying Sanghyun needed to be of a higher tier.
That’s what they thought.
And for good reason: even after analyzing all of Sanghyun’s skills, they couldn’t even understand the mechanism of some of them.
In other words, confined within their own thought frameworks, they realized they couldn’t fully comprehend Sanghyun.
Rather, they thought Frederick Villain, the Master, needed to see Sanghyun in person.
With his unparalleled observation and insight, and deep connections with many top-tier players—
He would surely be able to grasp the full scope of Sanghyun’s monstrous skills and abilities.
“Haha. Hahahaha.”
“A really insane player came from Korea.”
“He’s the good kind of crazy! Wouldn’t it be amazing if we had someone like him in our guild?”
“Isn’t he the one Han Hyunjeong marked with saliva already?”
“They say it’s a short-term contract. When it comes to throwing money, our Master can’t be beaten, right?”
Regardless of what Sanghyun himself thought, the three were already smitten and couldn’t stop talking about him.
His first trial.
The infamous first test that had ruined so many was now Sanghyun’s perfect stage of self-promotion.
The first step onto the global stage! A first step couldn’t be more flawless than this.
Having immediately recognized Sanghyun’s true worth, they all thought the same phrase in their heads.
Another Level!
There was no phrase more fitting than that.