Chapter 256
Chapter 256:
Cost 3 consumed - Summon Desert Rain Frog and make it cry.
Cost 0 consumed - An Abyssal Storm unfolds for a certain period of time. Within this storm, all mana gradually disappears. However, the longer the storm rotates, the greater the penalty imposed on the caster.
These were the abilities I had been given after contracting with Dookbi.
I had already experimented with both abilities as much as I wanted.
And ultimately, I had concluded that if I used this ability, I could withstand the Cleaner’s relentless assault.
‘In a world where mana is everything, gradually erasing an opponent’s mana is an absurd ability.’
Of course, befitting such a broken ability, the penalty was also extremely harsh.
‘I couldn’t maintain it for very long.’
I had practiced this ability several times, but the normal amount of time I could endure was 15 seconds.
If I maintained the ‘storm’ any longer than that, the penalty my body had to endure became painfully severe.
The longest I could maintain the ‘storm’ while enduring the penalty was only 4 seconds.
The moment I crossed that absolute limit of 19 seconds, a horrifying backlash followed, as though I had stepped onto the threshold of death, so I had never once exceeded that duration.
‘……Let’s go, Dookbi.’
The Dookbi card in my hand disappeared as though being absorbed into my palm…….
Soon, a small golden magic circle appeared in midair, and Dookbi tore through it as it emerged.
Piiii-!
Dookbi’s cry rang out.
Dookbi possessed debuff-type abilities that weakened the opponent.
In particular, this cry shook the enemy’s vestibular system, causing severe dizziness and loss of direction.
Since the Cleaner was an assassin-type ability user whose life depended on speed and balance, it should be quite fatal.
“…….”
The corners of the Cleaner’s eyes twitched faintly.
He tried to act calm, but the debuff ability was clearly taking effect.
‘And that’s not all.’
Whoooooosh-!
Thick darkness rose like storm clouds before forming into a massive vortex and beginning to rage.
‘The skill that reduces mana has started.’
I couldn’t feel any wind.
The vortex of darkness simply whirled around the Cleaner and me like people circling in a round dance.
But I had no leisure to admire it.
‘……He’s coming.’
Paaat-!
The bastard shot toward me again like a flash of lightning.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-!
Our blades collided.
As expected, his physical strength was still overwhelming. I desperately gripped the hilt with both hands and endured.
But.
‘Considering this is that monstrous second cycle…… this is pretty manageable.’
Right, if anything, I felt relieved.
Even though the Cleaner’s physical abilities should have been strengthened even further, thanks to Dookbi’s debuff, I actually felt like he was easier to deal with now.
‘Dookbi’s ability is definitely working.’
The Cleaner still acted as though he had plenty of composure, glancing at the Abyssal Storm even while locking blades with me.
Looking away during close combat against a swordsman was an act of openly looking down on the opponent and toying with them.
But what he had just done was nothing more than the Cleaner clinging to his pathetic pride.
The smile had long since disappeared from his face, and his brows were tightly furrowed.
As though something was deeply unpleasant.
The fact that he was putting on a show of composure while wearing such a serious expression, as though every sense was focused on the battle, meant the exact opposite.
He had no composure at all.
“……What kind of trick is this?”
“Who knows, what could it be.”
I looked straight into his eyes from behind the mask and answered casually.
It was the first thing I had said to the Cleaner.
And I said it while we were still locking blades and struggling against each other’s strength.
The reason I spoke wasn’t because I wanted to show off.
Everything was part of my strategy.
This wasn’t simply making conversation.
It was meant to provoke the Cleaner.
As though I were saying, ‘I can block your sword even while talking.’
And then the situation began moving exactly as I intended.
“You bastard……!”
As though he had fallen for the provocation, his bloodshot eyes widened and he unleashed a furious assault.
Clang-! Claaaang-! Claang-!
The metallic sound of sparks flying rang out in succession. Blue light flashed from the Cleaner’s pitch-black eyes.
I immediately recognized it as the pattern of the follow-up attack that had struck my shoulder before.
‘Not this time.’
The instant the Cleaner’s blade came for my shoulder.
I raised my arm without hesitation and blocked it.
Claaang-!
“……What the hell is this!”
The Cleaner’s face filled with shock when his attack was stopped by something solid.
What I had equipped on my arm was none other than a buckler made from Crovanium.
As befitting top-tier defensive equipment, it perfectly blocked his razor-sharp strike.
And coincidentally, this armor’s special property was mana annihilation.
“……!”
The force of the wind whipping around the Cleaner’s coat vanished in an instant.
With the Abyssal Storm surrounding us preventing mana regeneration as well, he was trapped between a rock and a hard place.
Taking advantage of his confusion, I launched my first attack.
Claaang-!
The Cleaner barely managed to block my strike, but his face was still filled with questions.
I opened my mouth with a faint laugh.
“How does it feel, assassin.”
The Cleaner must have spent his entire life fighting by draining his opponents’ mana and letting them wither away.
For someone who stole other people’s mana, he probably had never even imagined suffering from mana depletion himself.
Except for now.
“How does it feel to have the exact same thing you’ve done your whole life thrown right back at you?”
His greatest advantage had been completely taken from him and turned against him.
There was no way he couldn’t realize that himself.
“……You son of a bitch!”
The Cleaner’s pupils narrowed at my words. Breathing roughly with rage, he growled.
“Hey, you know me, don’t you……?”
After saying that, the Cleaner grasped the empty air with his free hand.
A new dagger appeared there.
Holding a dagger in each hand, the Cleaner kicked off the ground and charged at me as though determined to settle this with his life.
Claaang-! Clang-! Clang-! Clang-!
The daggers in both hands came at me without pause, but…….
‘Weak. Much weaker than before.’
His speed and destructive power had dropped noticeably. Blocking all of his attacks after his mana had been exhausted was no longer difficult.
“Black Knight, you know me. You know who I am, don’t you? Huh? Right?”
Claaaaang-!
Clang-!
Clang-!
Without saying a word, I focused calmly on knocking aside every one of his blades.
I could clearly see the trajectories of his attacks.
I could block them all.
“Who are you? Who the hell are you? I’m clearly ‘Dion’ right now, so how do you know who I am!”
Blood vessels stood out in his pitch-black eyes. He glared at me as though he wanted to tear me apart and wildly swung his daggers.
“I’ll rip it off! I’ll tear that mask apart!”
The Cleaner screamed as though coughing up blood.
‘……I endured 10 seconds. Just a little longer.’
Without even taking his 3-second rest, he entered the final phase.
Even then, his attacks never stopped, pouring down on me like lightning.
“I’ll tear out that proud face and heart of yours and see them for myself!”
Normally, the Cleaner should have grown stronger as the phases progressed.
But because Dookbi’s ability had depleted his mana, that effect barely showed itself.
If anything, he had become weaker.
Because of that, he was slowing down.
‘……This works.’
Claaaaang-!
Our swords collided.
A tingling shock ran up my forearm, but instead I felt deep relief.
He had shown me everything he had.
‘This works.’
I won the contest of strength against him.
‘Rather than just enduring…….’
I forcefully knocked away his dagger.
Then, I didn’t wait for the Cleaner to attack again.
Instead, I moved half a beat faster and thrust my sword forward in a counterattack.
‘I can win.’
Clang-! Stab-!
“Ghk!”
He tried to block my attack, but it wasn’t enough.
Red blood burst from his arm and scattered through the air.
For the first time, I had succeeded in wounding the Cleaner.
“You…… what the hell are you……!”
The Cleaner stared at me while bleeding.
“What a sight.”
The fear-stricken expression on his face was quite something to see.
The Cleaner had no name.
He had thrown his name into the trash long ago.
Now, he simply lived as the Cleaner.
He had abandoned everything and lived only for the destruction of the Empire that had erased his homeland from the map, and for the desire to kill the young knight in the ‘black mask,’ the former Empire’s Greatest Sword.
Of course, his revenge wasn’t driven by motivation alone.
He had miraculously awakened an extraordinarily special ability.
Unique skill, ‘Mana Steal’.
An ability that stole an opponent’s mana.
Without mana, magic could not be used, and death would come meaninglessly.
It was an ability that made the victim feel throughout their entire body that they were worthless trash incapable of doing anything, slowly drying up their blood.
The Cleaner liked this ability quite a lot.
Not simply because of its excellent performance.
Because it allowed him to make his enemies painfully experience the greatest trauma of his childhood, ‘helplessness.’
But…….
While attempting to assassinate the Imperial Princess, the Cleaner encountered the Black Knight, and his entire world was shaken.
As he fought the Black Knight, the Cleaner’s trauma was ignited.
How long had it been since he had felt this emotion?
He remembered his own helplessness as a child 10 years ago.
He couldn’t do anything.
Nothing at all.
Just like when he had encountered that Imperial knight in the black mask back then.
……Black mask?
The Cleaner’s eyes snapped open.
The nightmare from that day, which he had wanted to bury forever, overlapped with the reality before him.
“……Right!”
The Cleaner’s trembling face filled with madness.
“Black Knight……! That bastard back then wore a black mask just like you!”
A grotesquely twisted joy spread across his lips.
The Cleaner, having completely lost his reason, began radiating killing intent from his entire body like shimmering heat.
“I fooooooound yooooooou!”
A scream that sounded ready to tear apart his throat shook the entire space.
The terrible grudge he had suppressed for more than 10 years finally burst free as his blood-red eyes locked onto the ‘Black Knight’ before him.
The young Imperial knight in the black mask, the former Empire’s Greatest Sword.
“You’re that Imperial knight from back then!”
The Cleaner, who had lived solely to take revenge on that person, felt as though his blood were flowing backward.
“You’re the bastard who killed my sister, my brother, and my comrades!”
At last, he had found the target of revenge he had searched for all these years.
“I’ll kill yooooooou!”
The bastard unleashed a beastlike roar.
Hatred, resentment, rage, and murderous intent.
A sinister aura formed from every kind of negative emotion pressed down on the surrounding air.
“I’ll kill you, break you, cut you apart, and crush you into minced meat!”
Booooom-!
The floor beneath the Cleaner cracked apart like a spiderweb as fragments erupted upward.
In exchange for throwing away his reason, his body broke through even its own limits.
The killing intent condensed from his grudge clung pitch-black around the daggers held in both hands.
“Die! Diiiiiiiiie!”
Just as his beastlike charge, too fast even for light to follow, was about to begin.