Chapter 98: Cerulean Being (6)
Wine couldn't believe the scene unfolding in front of him.
The guild members were also astonished by what was happening in front of their eyes. Some guild members were already looking up to the man like a god with amazed expressions.
There was no hesitation or fear in his movements as he smashed the heads of his enemies with the blunt weapon in his hand with the red drops of blood dripping down on his body armor.
What was even more shocking was that the place where they were standing now was a Rebaccan camp.
“Oh... My god...”
“I can’t believe he’s a player like us...”
“He’s on a completely different level...”
The Watch Tower guild members couldn’t do anything but exclaim their admiration.
And in the midst of that, Wine hurriedly approached the player who had introduced herself as ‘Tei’.
“Could you... explain what this...”
“I’m not sure what this is really. I didn’t think that my brother was going to bring you along with us.”
Contrary to Wine's reaction, Tei was consistent with a sarcastic attitude to the massacre unfolding in front of her.
“He said his name was ManJuk, right...?”
“Well, yeah. He’s my older brother.”
“He’s the player that cleared the infamous Flames of Karma...”
“Oh, you know about that? The news spread much more underwhelming than I thought it would. Mostly because of that player named ‘Mose’, or something.”
“Of course, I know... Our guild works with the merchants of Bing Caravan. It’s only natural that we are well aware of the information from overseas.”
“Wow, you guys work at the Bing Caravan? That’s the place I really wanted to go for once!”
At Wine's words, Tei suddenly jumped and started to smile.
“I heard there’s an entire tower floating in the air, right?”
“Well... Yeah...”
“I heard that each floor is so huge that they all have different themes of cities in it!”
“Yes...”
“And...!”
“Uhm...”
Wine cautiously restrained Tei’s flamboyant reaction. Then he carefully opened his mouth to speak up while watching the scene happening in front of him.
“That person you call your older brother, is it okay to send him alone like that?”
“Your entire guild combined is probably weaker than my brother, I think.”
Tei casually let out an extremely bold remark in response to the wine's question.
However, Wine could not properly refute her words.
That was because of the overwhelming power demonstrated in front of his eyes.
“Then why did he tell our guild to follow him?”
“It’s a habit of his, ‘boosting’ other people.”
“...Boost?”
Wine shook his head as if it was absurd.
It certainly was ManJuk who saved his guild from the desperate crisis in the Rebaccans’ ambush.
Then he told them to follow him, and he told them to wait for him in front of the Rebaccans’ camps. Then he went out alone to fight and started this massacre.
What was even stranger was that ManJuk was battling against them while having the Watch Tower’s symbol on his chest.
[I will be a part of your guild for this one moment. It won’t be a great help, but I’d like to offer you a little bit of help.]
After hearing that nonsensical remark, Wine decided to stop thinking.
[ 17,564 / 1.500,000 ]
[ 19,311 / 1.500,000 ]
[ 21,098 / 1.500,000 ]
The number on the quest windows started to rise at a tremendous speed, and the quest share of the Watch Tower began to rise at an unbelievably overwhelming rate.
“That brother of yours, ManJuk. What is his level...?”
“His level is 84, but if you take into consideration his total stats, then he’d be around level 190-200.”
“How could that be...!”
He was 9 levels above himself, who was level 75. Wine knew very well how big of a gap that 9 levels are at the level range he was in.
While the bonus stat points given per level increase exponentially from level 60 or higher, leveling up becomes very difficult after level 60 to the point that the other players call it the ‘2nd job advancement’ as a joke.
The stat increase due to leveling up was increased tremendously, but the experience points required to level up was way too high.
In addition, if the level value obtained by estimating the stat value raised by items or skills was close to level 200, that man named ManJuk was definitely in the boundary of a monster.
Even Wine, the guild master of the Watch Tower, was revered as an extraterrestrial existence among guild members. But in front of him, there appeared a ‘real monster’ that would even make him seem like a normal person.
Bright lights started enveloping a few guild members whilst the massacre began.
“I... I leveled up!”
“This is crazy... I leveled up twice?”
The guild members started leveling up even though all they were doing was watch the massacre performed by the monster out there.
Unlike other games, is leveled up by 'vague and abstract experience' rather than numerically determined experience.
That said, from the point of view of the guild members, the massacre that ManJuk was unfolding made them experience something so tremendous.
“At this rate, he’s going to clear the quest by himself...”
“I can’t believe he’s a player like us...”
Wine too was watching the view mindlessly like his guild members.
ManJuk, without flashy skills or the effects of items, just bluntly smashed the Rebaccans’ heads with a blunt weapon and proceeded forward.
Smash!
Thud!
Unlike the situation where the people of the Watch Tower were watching him in wonder, ManJuk continuously swung his weapon with an indifferent expression as if he was doing simple repetitive work. However, he couldn’t help but frown as his arms started to feel a little fatigued.
The armor he was wearing had already turned complete crimson, as if it had been that color to begin with.
***
***
“You are strong, warrior.”
A Rebaccan clearly bigger than the other Rebaccans showed up in front of ManJuk.
His body had tightly shredded muscles, and a black tattoo painted on it glistened with oil.
The clean bald Rebaccan had fangs sticking out of his lips.
“You’re different from the ones I just fought.”
“I am the Centurion, ‘Furugal’.”
As soon as the Rebaccan had introduced himself, a phrase appeared in ManJuk’s sight.
The Rebaccan possessed a fairly high level.
However, ManJuk was disappointed at the fact that he was not the ‘Battalion Commander’ that the other Rebaccans had mentioned before.
That was because he ‘did not have a lot of time left’ for him.
He was not very happy with the appearance of the centurion, because he had to achieve the maximum within a set time.
According to the information obtained from the Rebaccans who left the battlefield for 5 days in , each of the Rebaccans was moving organically under the command of the Battalion Commanders.
Most of them showed unrequited trust and loyalty to the Battalion Commanders they worshiped.
In other words, it was safe to say that it’d be correct to view it as an allied force of units with a Battalion commander, rather than an army moving with one giant commander.
To put it even simpler, the general commanders of an army of 1.5 million men were the ‘Battalion Commanders’.
Therefore, if the Battalion Commanders were to be defeated one by one, the 1.5 million men of the army would disintegrate into pieces like scattered fallen leaves.
That was why ManJuk had decided to invade deep into Rebaccan camps in order to figure out the characteristics of the Battalion Commanders, but he found almost nothing and now a Rebaccan called the centurion was standing in front of him.
“Where are the Battalion Commanders that are supposedly the leaders of you?”
ManJuk calmly asked the Rebaccan in front of him as he pointed his weapon toward him. Due to the size of the Rebaccan which was twice as big as ManJuk, the weapon he was holding was forcibly raised upwards.
“That would be a foolish question. All of us are conquerors and commanders.”
“I’ve already crushed the skulls of thousands of you. That would mean some of the Battalion Commanders had completely lost all their underlings, no?”
The Rebaccan who introduced him as the Centurion Furugal exclaimed in a triumphant manner with his arms wide open, seemingly unbothered by ManJuk’s critical remarks.
Then the Rebaccans surrounding ManJuk started to let out war cries as they kept a certain distance from him.
“Battalion Commanders who had lost all their subordinates lose the qualification to be a battalion commander. He will become an ordinary soldier once again.”
“That’s a really weird military system.”
The black tattoo that wrapped around Furugal’s whole body began to glow red in response to ManJuk’s remark.
After that thick drools started to come out of Furugal’s mouth.
“Wrong, it is a flawless military system.”
“What?”
ManJuk raised one of his eyebrows after hearing Furugal’s response.
“All armies are destined to be ‘culled’. It quickly weathers and rusts like a bloodstained knife left unseeded and becomes filthy like mud.”
Then, pounding on his chest with a daunting attitude, Furugal looked down as if trying to stab ManJuk’s head with his arrogant chin and continued his words.
“However, we the Rebaccans, the Cerulean Beings are different. Our armies know no limit. As we continue to survive more battles, we become brighter blades than the ‘Genish’ shining on the sky. The one to survive through countless battles will eventually become the Battalion Commander, and the rest of the soldiers will fight to the death for the commander. In the end, as mentioned earlier, a flawless command system will be completed!”
“Then you’re saying that one of these soldiers could’ve been a Battalion Commander?”
ManJuk once again pointed out the core of the information.
“It’s become simple now. You people are not the kind that is born or becomes stronger through training. A certain ‘power’ is accompanied with the title of the Battalion Commander, isn’t that right?”
“Shut your mouth!”
After hearing ManJuk’s words, Furugal plunged the giant ax out of his hands straight down at ManJuk.
In an instant, the ground was dug, and the fragments were thrown in all directions and cut the flesh of some of the Rebaccans nearby.
Even so, the Rebaccans only continued to breathe wildly with a frenzied expression on their faces.
The sand and dust that arose in an instant were extinguished back to the ground after a while, and in the meantime, ManJuk remained where he was.
There was a shallow smile on ManJuk’s face as he dodged Furugal’s strike with only two steps backward.
“Then everything makes sense now. I thought it was completely absurd that the subordinates would show such incredible faith and loyalty in a military system where the leader is subject to change at any time, right?”
Then, holding the blunt weapon in his hand with both hands, he swung it towards the ax of Furugal that had been embedded in the ground.
“You are faithful and loyal toward the ‘power’, not the person who wields it.”
Bam!
As ManJuk finished speaking, a loud crashing noise resounded through the space.
The gigantic ax in Furugal’s hand shattered like a thin plate that fell straight to the floor.
The shards of the sharp ax flew in all directions and cut off the bodies of the Rebaccans that were surrounding ManJuk.
But even so, they did not back down and just continued to breathe heavily.
Looking at the ax that had been shattered like that, Furugal started to laugh gluttonously.
“How interest...”
And at that very instant, before he could even finish his words!
Smash!
ManJuk’s blunt weapon smashed his head.
Due to his crushed skull from above, Furugal’s mouth, which had been trying to express his arrogance until just a second ago, was tightly closed in a very precarious and bizarre way.
“Obviously, it probably has something to do with the black tattoos all over your body.”
He said, as he coldly stared at the Rebaccan’s dead corpse as he took a look around him.
The Rebaccans besieging him without a single movement suddenly started to take a few steps back, unable to hide their bewildered expressions.
“Well, then, since the centurion is dead, the power of this bastard must have passed on to someone else?”
Driven by that momentum, ManJuk pushed even further, and the Rebaccans eventually began to retreat in a hurry.
But in fact, that was exactly what ManJuk wanted.
Since, soon now,
His ‘time’ would be over.