Chapter 277
Chapter 277
The main monitor in the S.A. Group executive boardroom displayed a simple, staggering list.
[Ultimate Enhanced Extortion (+10)]
[Ultimate Enhanced Troll King's Black Coat (+10)]
[Ultimate Enhanced Boots of Kurson (+10)]
[Ultimate Enhanced Obsidian Drake Leather Gloves (+10)]
Director Yoon Sangmin stared at the screen. He held a lukewarm cup of hot chocolate. He did not drink it.
"Four items," Sangmin said. His voice was completely hollow. "He achieved Ultimate Enhancement four times in twenty minutes."
Yoon Nahee, the Head of Operations, tapped her tablet. She looked over her glasses at the Director.
"He spent the equivalent of seven million dollars to do it ," Nahee said. "He emptied his territory's entire stockpile of enhancement stones he had ordered to be created, in addition to all the enhancement stones he got as a part of his raiding various bosses."
"The success rate is zero point zero one percent," Sangmin replied. He pointed a shaking finger at the screen. "The success rate of going from +9 to +10 is 0.01% and it is even lower to go from +8 to +10. So how did he manage to do this 4 times in a row. Is there finally a bug discovered in the system?"
Chairman Lim Cheolho sat at the head of the table. He rested his chin on his hands and smiled.
"The system is bug-free, Director," the Chairman said. "It’s just that one of his titles seemed to have helped in the enhancement ."
Nahee swiped a new window onto the main screen. It showed the title discussed from Rudra’s title list.
[Alchemist Who Transcends Matter]
[You have proven that absolute mastery defies natural laws. The world’s elements bend to your stubborn will.
- You can forcefully fuse and combine ingredients or materials that inherently reject each other.
- Mixing conflicting elements now has a high success rate instead of automatically failing.
- Dexterity and Intelligence Stat growth speed is increased by 10%.]
"Enhancement is fundamentally an alchemical process," Nahee explained. "It is the fusion of two materials. At the +9 stage, the materials inherently reject each other. That is why the success rate is so low."
Sangmin frowned. "And this title bypassed that?"
"It did not bypass it," Nahee corrected. "It merely made sure the conflicting elements do not automatically fail in the combination. The title raised the baseline success rate from 0.01% to a flat 1%."
Sangmin blinked. "One percent?"
"Yes. It was still a massive gamble," Nahee said. "He did fail repeatedly and he only succeeded because he had used over a thousand enhancement stones until that one percent hit four times."
Lim Cheolho let out a loud laugh.
"A brilliant workaround!" the Chairman cheered. "He used an alchemy title to get his ultimate enhancement without even knowing it. He truly is worthy of being one of the Six Miracles."
Sangmin rubbed his temples. "Fine. But the economy—"
A sharp, blaring alarm interrupted him.
The main monitor flashed red. A high-priority system notification overrode the enhancement logs. Morpheus, the supercomputer running the world of Satisfy, rarely interrupted the executives directly.
"What is that?" Sangmin asked, his posture straightening instantly.
Nahee’s fingers flew across her tablet. Her eyes scanned the incoming data stream. The calm, analytical look on her face vanished entirely.
"An anomaly in the Murray Kingdom," Nahee said. Her voice was tight. "Coordinates match Stormbreak. A dimensional seal has been breached."
"A Great Demon?" Sangmin guessed. He leaned closer to the monitor. "Did the balance patch trigger regarding the Magic Saint's resurrection?"
"No," Nahee said. "This is not the balancing event that was hypothesized by Morpheus."
The screen shifted. The camera feed zoomed in on the ruined courtyard of Stormbreak.
A man in a perfectly tailored dark suit stood on the cobblestones. He looked devastatingly beautiful and polite.
Lim Cheolho stopped smiling. "The Devil Monarch."
"Lucious," Nahee confirmed. She pulled up the real-time system diagnostics. "It seems he sacrificed a portion of his own status to forcefully squeeze a clone through the dimensional seal."
Sangmin stared at the screen. The polite man in the suit sent a red pulse of energy which washed over the courtyard.
"He just applied a fifty percent stat penalty and various other debuffs to the entire territory," Nahee reported. "He nullified all healing and regeneration."
"Morpheus," Lim Cheolho said quietly. "Run the combat prediction."
A cold, mechanical prompt appeared on the side of the screen. The supercomputer calculated the variables in a fraction of a second.
[Anomaly Assessment: Devil Monarch Clone (Lucious)]
[Probability of the anomaly eliminating all targets and escaping unharmed: 97.53%]
[Probability of the anomaly being defeated: 0.09%]
"0.09%?" Sangmin asked, his voice cracking. "Zenith and the others actually have a chance of raiding an Absolute’s clone"
"The calculation includes external variables," Nahee read from the prompt. "That 0.09% chance of victory only exists under the premise that the Absolute of the Tower of Wisdom arrives to intervene. And Morpheus calculates that is highly unlikely."
"Then they are dead," Sangmin said. He slumped back in his chair. "He just got his ultimate enhancement items, and to balance that good luck, he is going to lose his territory and his NPCs."
Lim Cheolho did not speak. He just watched the screen.
For the next several minutes, the boardroom was completely silent. They watched the massacre unfold.
They watched Mumud, the newly resurrected Magic Saint, get erased from the waist up by a casual flick of the Devil Monarch's finger. They watched Piaro step in front of Rudra and lose his entire right arm. They watched the Genesis Guild players burn single-use items to break the suppression field, throwing their bodies in front of a shockwave just to save the NPCs.
Sangmin gripped the edge of the conference table. His knuckles were white.
"Come on," Sangmin muttered. He wasn't thinking about game balance that was constantly destroyed by Rudra anymore. He was just a fan hoping that the Zenith would somehow manage to make a miracle again. "Move. Do something."
The sky on the screen shattered.
Four figures stepped through the dimensional tear.
"The Tower of Wisdom," Nahee announced. A hint of relief bled into her voice. "Morpheus predicted they were the only ones who could handle this kind of scenario."
"But the Absolute of the Tower didn't come with them," Lim Cheolho noted. His eyes narrowed. "Only the Transcendents."
The boardroom watched the True Transcendents engage the Devil Monarch. They watched Ken throw a punch and get his arm shattered by Lucious's vacuum reflection. They watched Abellio paint waterfalls that did nothing.
They watched Piaro swing a farming plow and tear space itself.
"Space Sword," Nahee whispered. "And Heart Sword. The Dual Legend just unlocked the true ultimate techniques of a Sword Saint."
"It's not enough," Sangmin said. "The clone is barely scratched."
On the monitor, Rudra suddenly vanished into a blur of violent blue lightning. He bounced off a stone wall, careening out of control.
"He's creating new skills to adapt to the fight," Nahee said rapidly, tracking the data. "He just created a skill called Godspeed. It overclocks his nervous system. He can't even control it."
Rudra aligned himself behind one of the Transcendents. He aimed his staff.
A beam of grey-black energy erupted from the weapon. It tore through the courtyard and grazed the Devil Monarch's collar. A single drop of blood appeared.
"Twilight Annihilation," Nahee read from the system log. "He seemed to have created a watered down version of the clone’s technique."
“He finally managed to create a legend’s ultimate technique, hu?" Sangmin asked.
"Barely," Nahee replied. "It’s can be compared to a legend’s ultimate technique like Pagma’s 3 or four linked sword dances, or even Braham’s Enhanced Magic, but unfortunately the internal damage backlash would not allow it to safely reach that ranking. Though in Rudra’s hands it can be considered a semi-ultimate technique."
On the screen, Lucious touched his singed collar. He smiled. He spoke a few polite words to Rudra, then reached out and tore open a dimensional rift with his bare hands.
The Devil Monarch stepped through. The rift closed.