Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Episode 12. Ranking Tournament (2)

The battleground was huge.

And 16 heroes were standing on each side of the battlefield.

Each unit’s formation was clearly different.

The black leopard unit had four members in the front and four behind them to support, but the devil hunter unit had two in the front and the other six members behind them.

Everyone in the devil hunter unit was wearing a skull mask. They looked intimidating, yet only two of them were in the front. That made everyone in the stadium wonder why.

―What are they thinking? I don’t think they’re guarders with shields.

Of course, I was standing in the front with Krathra.

And the reason I was standing in the front with Krathra…

Shriek!

Bam!

…Was to let the opponent know that we were at a different level.

I wanted to slay them without giving them time to breathe.

As soon as I heard the whistle, I hit the ground hard. Dust rose from the ground, and I was standing in front of my opponent in an instant.

“Uh? Uh…”

Thump!

I didn’t even have to use my sword.

While they were still confused by my speed, I hit their stomach with my fist.

Chink!

The shield that was taking the shock from my attack broke. It was hanging on their neck like a necklace, but when it absorbed the shock, it shattered.

In a single blow.

It wasn’t even a fight. I only hit him once.

“Ughhhh!”

The opponent vomited blood and fell down on the ground.

But I didn’t want to make it too simple. When my fist was hitting him, I made sure the electricity of the Lightning God’s power remained in my opponent’s body.

That meant…

The remaining electricity would eat up cells and block the blood vessels. Unless he could receive treatment from someone with a Unique level skill, he would die slowly.

There was no such person among humans, so his fate was set in stone.

The black leopard unit had been talking badly about my attack unit, not just in the guild, but to the people outside of the guild. I didn’t want to make it a simple fistfight.

I had to cut it clean so I wouldn’t have any trouble later.

I wouldn’t have started this if I wasn’t planning to finish it nicely.

“Ughhhh!”

Krathra’s spear pierced an opponent’s body, and Krathra spun the spear, then threw it on the ground. The shield was broken, and the opponent was also physically damaged.

A sheep and a wolf?

No, it was beyond a sheep and a tiger or lion. It was more like a hornet versus working bees. It looked like two hornets were slaying a few thousand working bees.

It was an impossible match.

Two attackers were slaying everyone from the other unit.

Members of the black leopard unit fell down on the ground one by one until there was no one standing on their side.

―What is… this…

The audience was silent.

Even the commentators didn’t know what to say.

Everything happened so quickly that everyone found it irregular in many ways.

Shriek!

The sound of a whistle to announce the end of the match echoed in the stadium.

Slash!

There were three preliminary rounds, and I finished all three of them with Krathra. Everyone from our opposing units was carried out by the medical team, and our unit became the one to watch.

When the first day of preliminary rounds ended, a video from the tournament was trending on the internet.

People who’d had to watch it online talked about the performance and the idol group, Mori. But the hottest issue was the devil hunter unit.

「Devil hunter unit? Way too strong. Their attack units look like a joke.」

「Are they the FC Barcelona of attack units?」

「Maybe members of the Guild of Heaven’s Will are just lame. Don’t know. Need to watch until the finals when the units from other guilds join the tournament.」

「Two members of the devil hunter unit slayed the game. When the rest start to fight, then it would really be game over.」

Some were sure, while others were doubtful.

However, all of them acknowledged that the devil hunter was such a strong unit that only two of them could slay other units.

That placed huge pressure on the other units that had to face the devil hunter unit. They had to concentrate on how to fight against them.

But the next day, they had to realize that all their efforts were in vain.

On the second day, the finals started.

Eight members of the devil hunter unit showed up on the battleground wearing skull masks.

They looked more relaxed than the day before.

They all knew that there were only two players in this game. The first day, I had told them “I don’t expect anything from you guys” and showed what I meant…

―Now, the hottest unit, devil hunter, is here to face the grizzly, the best attack unit from the Mythril Guild. Can they keep up with what they did yesterday?

The commentators were looking at the battleground with high expectations.

The day before’s preliminary grounds were only among units from the Guild of Heaven’s Will.

But that day would be different. For the finals, four other guilds sent their best attack units, and right before this match, the Dambi Guild, with a distance dealers only attack unit, crushed the opponent, so people were expecting to see something different from yesterday.

Shriek!

The whistle started the match, but nobody was moving.

All eight members of the grizzly unit were trying to figure out what I was going to do with Krathra.

I read their intentions in a heartbeat.

‘They’re planning to surround us when we approach them.’

I laughed and approached them.

A wall made of straw couldn’t stop me.

“Guarder! Strengthen the shield!”

“Strengthen the shield!”

Clank. Clank.

Four guarders were making a formation quickly. They were provoking me to attack, because they blocked all the directions that I could use to advance.

“Breath of Power!”

Was there a priest who could bless them as well?

They went all-in on defense.

It was clearly the best formation to fight against a strong opponent. If the opponent couldn’t go through the defensive line, they could have had a chance to win.

But it was different when fighting against someone exceptional.

It was the first time I felt rage during the tournament. My power, which was nearly 86, wasn’t something that some mere guarders and a priest could fight against.

Kaboom!

When I hit the surface of the shield, the shield shattered and scattered into bits as if there had been an explosion.

―Oh, Is that the effect of an item? Amazing!

Nobody thought it was the result of pure power.

Few suspected that my rage might have had such effects.

Kaboom! Kaboom!

Every time I hit a shield, it exploded with huge sound that almost sounded like a scream. Guarders stepped back, and close-range dealers stepped out, but they all fell to the ground under the merciless Krathra spear.

Grizzly was the strongest attack unit from the Mythril Guild, with select members, but that didn’t change anything. What happened during the preliminary rounds was happening again.

We were halfway through the finals.

Now, nobody was talking about the defeat of the devil hunter unit.

People felt bad for the units who had to fight against us.

There were some units that withdrew from the tournament in fear.

Only two members from the devil hunter unit were fighting.

I thought it was time when I smashed four members and let my unit take care of the remaining four opponents. The opponents still had to worry about me and Krathra, so it was an easy battle for my members to fight.

It almost looked like they were taking out the trash, but my members didn’t complain, because they knew it was all thanks to me that we were here.

The winner was already decided even before the tournament had started.

There was no exception.

S-Rank!

We received the certification that we were the strongest attack unit in Korea…

Now, everyone knew the name of devil hunter.

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I rejected all the requests for an interview and came back to my dungeon.

It wasn’t an official title from a country, but among the awakened heroes, the devil hunter was the undisputable best S-Rank attack unit. This was the name that belonged to the strongest unit!

I didn’t want any more publicity. I already had what I wanted.

‘Now I can make my plan work a little earlier than I expected.’

My plan was to make a bigger attack unit to gain influential power, but Kim Yongwoo’s idea to have a ranking tournament made it even easier to proceed.

In my former life, there had been no ranking tournament.

There were some competitions in which awakened heroes were fighting, but they weren’t meant to define ranking.

The natural progression was to have a ranking system that was set up by the collaboration between countries and awakened heroes to set standards. But I came along, and Kim Yongwoo decided to start a ranking tournament, and that changed the future.

It had been only slightly over a year since I came back to this life, and now all the awakened heroes knew of me and my unit.

I had been expecting to spend three years achieving this.

‘That was the only reason to go through all that trouble anyway.’

It saved me two years of time.

Because I didn’t have to smash everyone who was trying to hunt me down, I didn’t have to recruit or train new members, which would save a vast amount of time for everyone.

That was the only reason I had gone through such trouble.

‘Now, it’s time to prepare for the monster wave.’

The monster wave: an invasion of a country by the countless monsters from the dungeon!

To prepare for that, I came back to my dungeon.

I was planning to start a monster wave as soon as my unit had the reputation of being the best and the strongest attack unit, which I calculated to be after two years. But now, after only a year, I was able to start preparing for it.

When I arrived on the top floor of the dungeon, I gently pushed Lyhee’s forehead where she was sleeping on the Dungeon Core.

“Ouch! Sh*t! Who is it?!”

Lyhee woke up with a frown, but as soon as she turned her head to see me, she was frozen. She was crying out while rubbing her eyes a few times, and it started to look like tears were about to fall.

“You’re chilling as if there’s nothing to do.”

“I… I only fell asleep just now. Lyhee was waiting for her master day and night.”

She was lying without flinching.

I didn’t mind much and told her, “Doesn’t matter. How many points do I have left?”

“Hmm, wait. Let me see. We spent 100,000 points to purchase Elixir, so now we have 163,752 points left.”

“A little short.”

I spent a lot of points to buy things during the auction. Of course, I didn’t regret it, but that meant there weren’t many points left.

Lyhee was moving her head in confusion.

“Why, Master? Do you need to use points for something?”

“I’m planning to buy a few Orges and Twin-Head Orges.”

“Huh, you’re not a little short…”

When Lyhee finished her calculations, she made a sound of surprise.