The Hero Returns

The pitch-black clouds emitted a bright light.

The searing light blinded the Naga's vision with pure whiteness. At the same time, scorching and viciously powerful electrical energy coursed through its entire body.

"What is the meaning of…?"

RUMBLE—!

The rumble of thunder came a short moment later.

And that's when it happened—the electrical energy flowing through the Naga suddenly began burning the creature's entire body.

Kyah-aaaaaah!

The Naga's scream reverberated throughout the desert.

The snakes on the desert floor had long turned into ashes by then.

* * *

Fuu-wuu—

Su-hyeun made a long exhale.

The dark clouds were slowly rolling back, as the Somersault cloud's effects were slowly dissipating.

"It takes way too long."

Back when Sun Wukong was lost in his Yogoe's instincts and started rampaging around, Su-hyeun got to wield the Somersault cloud anyway he liked.

But that was only temporary. After he regained his consciousness, he found it hard to control the cloud as he did back then.

Of course, there was no denying that controlling it had become much easier than in the past. However, he knew it was still not at a satisfactory level because he had already tasted what the Somersault cloud was fully capable of.

While controlling the clouds already existing up in the sky was doable, creating clouds where there was none proved to be incredibly difficult. Not only did this act consume a lot of his magical energy, but it also simply took far too much time.

"Still, I'm glad that the Naga fell for it," he thought.

After learning that the goal of this trial was to kill the Naga, Su-hyeun ended up agonizing over the ways to do that.

Killing the Naga itself wasn't an issue. As long as he could find it, then cutting its head off wouldn't pose much of a challenge, after all.

No, the real issue at hand was the fact that the Naga's life was connected to the other snakes. The creature enjoyed an ability that made it semi-immortal, such that unless every single snake it had summoned was killed off, it would never die.

Su-hyeun debated on the ways to deal with such a creature before finally coming up with an idea, that is, to use the Somersault cloud.

He stared at the desert that used to gleam in a golden hue before the battle had commenced. The entire terrain had become scorched black now.

Even after acquiring the Somersault cloud, Su-hyeun still didn't have enough power to create such a scene. Sure, he could cause a lightning bolt to strike down once, maybe twice. Any more than that would be too tough even for him, however.

So, he made some preparations. For the past four days, he began casting clouds in this location of the desert and prepared that one incredibly powerful strike.

Then, he lured the Naga in.

He fought against the snakes the creature had summoned for about half a day and deliberately acted exhausted. And by pretending to be too exhausted and ready to fall at any time but continued fighting on, he forced the Naga to reveal itself.

In the end, Su-hyeun had been basically gathering his strength for precisely this very moment.

"What a relief that the Naga chose to personally act in order to kill me. If it wasn't for that, this trial might have taken a lot longer to clear."

Five days.

Considering that this was the 99th floor's trial, he sure did clear it pretty quickly. If his plan had failed, however, then he would be at a loss from the prospect of needing to kill all these snakes.

"I'd have eventually killed all of them, but..."

At the bare minimum, he would have to waste another half a year in this place.

"Are...you...really hu...man...?"

"Really? You're still asking me that?"

Su-hyeun furrowed his brows as he stared at the Naga's scorched-black body on the ground. He was wondering why the trial's clearance message hadn't appeared yet, but as it turned out, the creature was still alive somehow.

He walked toward it with a slightly unsteady gait. As expected, using the Somersault cloud drained too much of his powers.

"Enjoy your trip to hell."

Snap—

Ruuuumble—

Su-hyeun lightly snapped his fingers, causing the divine Flame to ignite on the Naga's burnt body.

He didn't even use a lot of his magical energy, yet the body of the creature that was barely holding on rapidly burned away and disintegrated into ashes.

Pa-sususu—

The Naga's ashes were scattered everywhere by the desert winds.

At the same time, several messages popped up one after another.

[You've acquired 5,000,000 achievement points.]

[You've attained the highest degree of completion.]

[You've perfectly cleared the 99th floor's trial.]

[Your achievement ranking is being tallied.]

[You've achieved the first place.]

[You've acquired "Snake's Blood."]

[Your stamina, magical energy, and recovery abilities have all received adjustments.]

[You'll be transferred to the 100th floor.]

* * *

The world of the 100th floor was peaceful. And no, this peace didn't imply that there was no fighting or bickering in this place.

The village found here looked peaceful at a glance—simple, charming buildings, beautiful scenery, and an ever-blue sky above.

The village, located on a small island with expansive oceans surrounding it from all sides, was the world of the 100th floor itself—the "Village of Beginning."

"It's really been a long time," Su-hyeun thought to himself.

"Over here! See how cheap this is! Fresh fish caught earlier today for sale!"

"Young man, why don't you stop by here for a second? Looks like you've arrived here today. Do you need some provisions? You seem to like a challenger..."

"It's dangerous to walk around without a weapon, you see? Come here and..."

"My man, over here..."

Su-hyeun, having finally reached the 100th floor, looked around at the village's entrance and fell into a deep reminiscence of the past.

Unusually, there were a lot of inhabitants found on this floor. The village was small, to begin with, and that kind of forced many people to gather around in one spot, but even after taking that into consideration, there were still quite a lot of people here.

Rather obviously, many awakeners chose to settle down on a floor with a good environment to live in. Not many people would want to settle down in a place where freezing winds blew nonstop throughout the year, a hot desert, or even a world where it rained every single day, after all.

Su-hyeun took a look at them before settling down in a corner of the plaza. He acquired a new skill after going through so much hardship, so he wanted to confirm how good the effects of his prize were first before doing anything else.

[Snake's Blood]

* Blood of the Naga, the king of the snakes. The king of the snakes possessed tenacious recuperative powers, which allowed it to enjoy immortal-like vitality.

* Category: Passive

* Proficiency: 0%

* Effects: Stamina recovery rate +15%, magical energy recovery rate +5%, regeneration rate +25%

It was rather useful—no, scratch that. This skill was so much better than some random, neither-here-nor-there offensive skill.

In a certain sense, this could be that one skill Su-hyeun needed the most right now. He really liked the fact that not only it recovered his stamina and injuries, but it also enhanced his magical energy recovery rate.

"After I raise its proficiency high enough, this one should also turn into a ridiculous cheat skill."

As expected of the 99th floor's reward.

Although not as stunning as the Palm Leaf Fan or the "Sage" title, it was still more than satisfactory as a reward.

"It'll take a bit of time until my sword is ready, so..."

Su-hyeun tore open space and transferred back to the world outside.

"I guess I'll take a break while waiting."

* * *

His intention might have been to relax and wait, but the situation on the outside wasn't all that relaxing at all, as he found out after exiting the tower.

After learning that Su-hyeun had returned, Lee Ju-ho urgently sent a text containing coordinates first rather than a welcome-back message.

—In the past few days, four green dungeons and two blue ones showed up. Sorry, I know you've just finished your trial and all, but please help me deal with this one.

It seemed that the amount of work had increased in the past couple of days.

Without any warning, two blue-colored dungeons popped up in South Korea. One of them was being raided at the moment, but there wasn't enough manpower available for the other, so things had gotten quite troublesome.

As things stood, no one could tell how long it would take to raid the first blue-colored dungeon. In the end, Su-hyeun did as Lee Ju-ho requested and finished raiding the second blue dungeon that had appeared in Daejeon.

"Thank you so much. A new dungeon showed up yesterday, so I was even thinking of sending a request for assistance to other countries, but man, you really saved my skin," Lee Ju-ho said.

"The manpower shortage was that bad?"

"Even Thomas hasn't been around for the past few days, you see. Mister Bak Yun-gyu said he'd take responsibility for one of the two, but most of our S-Ranks hadn't returned from the tower yet."

"The timing was bad, in other words."

"You know, that documentary you filmed earlier? I think that thing was responsible in some ways."

"…You mean, that?"

What Lee Ju-ho brought up just then caused an awkward expression to form on Su-hyeun's face as he tried to avoid meeting the other's gaze.

Not too long ago, he filmed a program during a couple of days he was back in the outside world. The objective of the program seemed like a good one, so he said yes to the filming. And he was relieved to hear that it had some positive effects, but he also felt a bit embarrassed at the same time.

Lee Ju-ho carried on, "We're not climbing the tower for ourselves only, and someday, the world will need our combined strengths. No, wait. That day has already arrived..."

"Argh, please stop, bro. I remember even without you reminding me."

"Kekeke. You know, it was funny and cool to see you in it."

"What do you mean, funny?"

"That wasn't your first time being in a TV show, so I couldn't help but wonder why you were so stiff and stuttered like that. You should've just read off from a script like a newsreader or something."

Lee Ju-ho chuckled by himself and then waved his hand and changed the topic when he saw Su-hyeun respond with a lengthy groan.

"Okay, okay. In any case, after that program was broadcast, the people's perception seemed to have changed really quickly. And a portion of the awakeners even seemed to be feeling the weight of the responsibility, too."

"...With great power comes great responsibility."

"Although a bit cheesy, yeah, it's a cool saying, alright. An idealistic one, too. But, you can't deny that some people will feel something after witnessing you, the strongest person in the world, taking the initiative and setting an example for the others to follow."

Su-hyeun nodded at Lee Ju-ho's words.

If things really worked out that way, then he would feel greatly relieved. This would be the main reason why he agreed to go on that program despite his misgivings.

He hoped that people would feel a bit more responsible for the powers they possessed and also get stronger at least a little bit more so that they would be ready to tackle any calamity heading their way in the near future.

"Fafnir won't be the only monster I have to fight, after all," he thought.

Back then, Su-hyeun never got to properly fight Fafnir. That creature was powerful, but honestly speaking, he didn't know how powerful since they had never properly fought each other.

Fafnir was smarter than humans and always, always sent out other monsters to do its bidding first. Su-hyeun was forced to fight against hundreds of thousands of monsters until he got dead tired and had to run away eventually.

In the end, he risked his own life and dragged his exhausted body to fight Fafnir. But he failed to even inflict a single injury on it. That was what he remembered—his final battle as Kim Sung-in.

"At the bare minimum, a one-on-one fight against Fafnir needs to be engineered somehow."

In order to facilitate that, the world needed to become much stronger.

More importantly, he must not run away. Not from that monster.

Lee Ju-ho continued, "In any case, all these dungeons suddenly flooding this side are driving me up the wall, man. But I can breathe a bit easier, thanks to you."

"If you need a helping hand, don't hesitate to call me. I'll do what I can to help when I'm on this side."

"Thanks for the sentiment, but if it's at all possible, I'll make sure that your help isn't necessary. I mean, it's the 100th floor, right? You should focus on that instead."

"But I'll have a bit of time in my hands for a while, you know? To challenge the 100th floor, I need the sword that I asked uncle to—"

Bzzzz—

It was then that Su-hyeun's smartphone resting on the café's table vibrated. A text message had arrived.

Lee Ju-ho pointed at the phone, implying that Su-hyeun should check it out first, and then began slurping away at his drink. The latter leaned back against the chair and accessed the message.

"Bro, I'm sorry about this, but..."

"Mm?"

"What I said just now? Looks like I'll have to take them back."

The corners of Su-hyeun's lips curled up.

Judging from his reaction, it didn't seem to be bad news. Lee Ju-ho, who was making a curiosity-filled face, asked, "What happened?"

Rather than a verbal answer, Su-hyeun turned his phone around and showed Lee Ju-ho the text message itself.

—It's complete. Come and get it.

It was too obvious what had been completed without someone mentioning it outright.