Chapter 60. Beyond the Path to Death (2)

The strong and tenacious monster shredder became even stronger than he was in his previous life. So to name him again…… something like ‘Way too overpowered strategic weapon of annihilation’ would suit him better.

Sanghyuk did indeed brute force through the Path of Death with his strength, after all.

Numerous high-level monsters blocked his way, but Sanghyuk defeated them more easily than he had expected. The strength of a quadra-soul and the might of his equipment, as well as the experience he had gathered in his previous life had created an unexpectedly large synergy, and Sanghyuk could break through the Path to Death in a light manner.

Of course, he still had yet to tread on the last 1km, known to be the real hardship of the Path to Death, but at this rate, he would go through that zone without too many problems either.

*Slash, crunch!*

He vertically bisected a red-eyed orc once again with Ogreslayer and looked forward.

the terrain changed to a much rougher and narrower valley. Even light was scarce in the area. This area was the final kilometer of the Path to Death, ‘Dark Valley Road’.

This zone boasted the highest difficulty in all of the Path to Death.

In this area, the disgustingly large numbers of red-eyed orcs did not appear anymore.

Instead, undead monsters named ‘Darkness Knights’ appeared, and these had an average level of 69. They were stronger than red-eyed orcs, and they popped out from everywhere in this zone.

To be exact, they kept rising from the dark parts of the Dark Valley.

If Sanghyuk did not know their existence, he might have been stumped – there were just that many of them and they appeared suddenly.

However, that was not the case; Sanghyuk knew what was coming at him. He even thought up of countermeasures.

He took out a fusion card from his chest.

‘Fusion card Holy Light. Even Darkness Knights should have a hard time holding on against this.’

The main materials to craft this item was the Mid-rank Light Elemental card, and it additionally needed holy water card, high-rank ruby card, and high-rank diamond card. It was a relatively expensive card to make.

There were two effects to this card, and one was strong healing when used against an ally or to self.

The second was holy power enchantment when used against an item.

Sanghyuk imbued the Holy Light card to the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip.

*Tsts, flash!*

The power of light was imbued into the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip and it gained holy-attribute for 20 minutes.

Darkness Knights were of the undead-type and had the darkness attribute. Holy attribute was obviously a natural enemy for them. Of course, Sanghyuk didn’t just prepare the holy attribute when he planned this.

The enchant was to just gain a weapon that would allow him to fight them more easily.

The most important factor was naturally his own fighting skills.

*Slash, b-b-boom!*

Sanghyuk slashed out with his whip as he strafed to the side. With the holy attribute enchant, the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip severed the head of a Darkness Knight that was being spawned.

Since too many Darkness Knights rose up from the darkness simultaneously, the best method was to crush their heads before they even had the chance to completely take form.

He was already fighting four of them, and any additional one would cause him endless headaches.

*Kirrr, kirrrk.*

The Darkness Knights spat out very unpleasant breathing noises as they rushed towards Sanghyuk.

Sanghyuk was currently battling for two hours straight without a proper rest.

At this point, it wouldn’t be surprising if he fell down exhausted, but he still firmly held on. Since his basic vitality was higher than other users, and his defense was an evasion-type defense, he hadn’t used up a lot of his health.

In fact, he was worried that he would run out of fusion cards instead.

He had prepared a total of 12 Holy Light cards. Since each of their cost was 4, he had practically filled his entire budget with those cards.

But he already used up 5 of them.

Considering that he still had around 600m to go until he escaped this area, he felt as though he was lacking in cards.

‘Ugh, these damned creeps are everywhere.’

He already knew that there would be a ton of Darkness Knights blocking his path. But expecting it and experiencing it for himself was a lot of difference.

*Chiiik, fwoosh!*

Sanghyuk swung his Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip to wrap it around the Darkness Knight closest to him and pulled it towards him.

*Stab, kraa!*

Sanghyuk stabbed the silversword into the Darkness Knight’s head. It could not resist at all.

The silversword did not have the holy attribute enchant, but that didn’t mean there was no damage.

*Crunch.*

Sanghyuk mercilessly twisted the silversword embedded on the Darkness Knight’s head as he moved to the right.

*Psh-psh-psh-psh-psh!*

He blocked the attacks from other Darkness Knights with the one he just killed. Darkness Knights popped out from everywhere, but Sanghyuk did not panic in this situation.

*Psh! Crunch!*

Sanghyuk kicked the corpse of the dead Darkness Knight and swung his right arm at a strange angle.

*Fwoosh, z-pah! Crunch!*

This time, he used the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip like a sharp sword to slay a Darkness Knight slightly right of him.

Since it was already damaged in the process of fighting, it was killed in one hit with a severed head.

There were two left.

Since Darkness Knights did not feel fear as a characteristic of the undead, they still maintained their attacking positions.

In Sanghyuk’s view, this was a lot more comfortable for him.

It was much more bothersome to chase down monsters running away.

*Srr, srr.*

But only up to that. He could only frown when he saw the dark regions around him distorting again.

There was no end to these Darkness Knights.

He wouldn’t be as frustrated if they gave him a lot of karma, but these things gave him practically nothing.

“Oh! For god’s sake!”

*Fwoosh!*

Swinging the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip again, he shouted in frustration.

The Darkness Knights latched onto him endlessly.

As more time passed, and as he neared the exit, more and more Darkness Knights appeared, and he could feel their strong will to not let him pass the Path to Death so easily.

***

If this was to be drawn onto a canvas…… hundreds and thousands of black arms rising from the darkness grabbed Sanghyuk, and Sanghyuk would be shaking them off as he walked forward step by step.

The darkness behind him would be the Path to Death, while the arms would be the Darkness Knights.

Sanghyuk was currently fighting for 8 hours straight at the final kilometer of the Dark Valley.

The more he progressed to the exit, the more Darkness Knights there were, and Sanghyuk eventually ran out of Holy Light cards and was practically holding on with willpower alone.

Only around 40m was left of the end of Dark Valley.

Both his health and vitality reached their limits, but once he collapsed here, he would have to repeat this process from the very beginning.

‘I’m NOT doing that!’

Breaking through the Path to Death was something that even he didn’t want to repeat. Especially since he was so close to the end. The mental damage would be huge if he collapsed here.

*Fwoooosh! Crrrrrrunch!*

Sanghyuk squeezed out the last of his strength to use the Ten Millennia Goldbone like a sword whip whirl. That beheaded dozens of Darkness Knights in an instant.

However, this didn’t really mean anything. Behind those Darkness Knights were hundreds more.

Honestly, the Dark Valley Sanghyuk remembered wasn’t this difficult. These Darkness Knights latched onto him like zombies from an apocalypse movie.

No matter how powerful he was, it was impossible for him to defeat all of them. Dozens were hard enough, but hundreds? He could forget about it.

After Darkness Knights started multiplying into the hundreds, Sanghyuk kept swinging the Ten Millennia Goldbone whip and the Ogreslayer mindlessly. It was hard enough for him to defeat the one in front of him. All of this felt like a bug to him.

According to his memory, Dark Valley did not have this many Darkness Knights. It would be impossible to explain this situation without using the word bug.

In any case, Sanghyuk squeezed out the last of his strength to defeat dozens of Darkness Knights, and as a result, could earn a few seconds of time.

A few seconds at best.

After these few seconds, new Darkness Knights would fill their gap. He knew this well. The reason he still struggled to the final moment…… was to use his final method.

The one method he left until the very end.

Sanghyuk was planning to use that to exit this crisis.

‘There’s 40m until the end. If I don’t succeed in one go, it’s game over!’

There was no second chance.

This was all he got.

Sanghyuk quickly looked around him to find the exit. Then, he activated the item skill on his helmet.

Helm of Judgement item skill ‘Small Sandstorm’.

The final trump card he saved for the very last, was this. Of course, simply using this skill wouldn’t allow him to escape this crisis at no cost.

The sandstorm skill was something that could become OP or trash according to the user’s skills.

There were a few ways to use this skill, and what Sanghyuk was about to use now, named ‘sandstorm surfing’, was the most difficult of them.

Sandstorm surfing.

Like its name, it was the act of surfing in mid-air using the sandstorm.

Sanghyuk threw the sandstorms in the direction of the exit and immediately jumped into them.

The sandstorm did not harm the user, but other than that, it was possible to levitate the user using the wind.

Sanghyuk was planning to use that physical force to ‘surf’ the sandstorm.

It could be considered as jumping again in mid-air. In any case, he maintained his balance as he moved forward using the sandstorm.

Since the Darkness Knights were all deflected away by the sandstorm, they could not block Sanghyuk’s way.

However, Sanghyuk didn’t have it easy up there either.

Sandstorm surfing was definitely no easy feat. First, balancing on top of the sandstorms was practically impossible with normal senses. Even Sanghyuk had to try several times before he became proficient in it in his previous life.

Although he practiced it a few times after obtaining the Helm of Judgement a few days back, he wasn’t entirely proficient just yet.

Balancing wasn’t the end of the story; he had to proceed forward at the same rate the sandstorms did.

Most users failed this portion and were miserably flown away.

If this happened to Sanghyuk right now, then the results wouldn’t even need to be mentioned. He would have to maintain his surfing position until the exit if he didn’t want to get overrun by those Darkness Knights.

The sandstorm proceeded forward at a frightening force.

What was fortunate was that the valley was narrow and amplified the might of the sandstorm several times. As a result, the Darkness Knights in the path of the sandstorm could not even evade and were blown away.

Of course, with the might of the sandstorm amplified, the difficulty of riding it could only be amplified several times as well.

‘It will be over if I fall!’

Sanghyuk raised all of his senses to the limits and held on with all his power. His desperate intention to not fall and start this all over again was holding him onto the sandstorm. Eventually, he could cross the remaining 40m in the air.

As the sandstorm dissipated, he jumped towards the exit of the valley.

He only needed to exit.

There was nothing else necessary. Just leaving this place would mean goodbye to the Path to Death forever.

*Flash!*

At that time, strong rays of light poured onto his body and the message he wanted so much appeared in front of him.