Chapter 11
A blood-red glow saturated the narrow hideout.
The damn diamond spinning above my head blared like a lighthouse in the pitch-black ocean, advertising for all to see:
Listening to the sounds drawing in around me, I chewed down the last remnants of the chocolate bar in my mouth.
The sweet rest was over.
One, two, threeā¦
The presence of at least five people closed in, tightening a perimeter around me.
Peering through the gaps between the tree roots, I spotted several figures.
They were past caring about stealth altogether.
Panting heavily as they sprinted in, looking like whoever got here first called dibs, they resembled a pack of starving hyenas.
“Found him! Over there!”
“Get out of the way! First one to grab him wins the prize!”
The moment a burly brute carrying an axe roared, I kicked off from the hideout.
My chest hammered.
The thrill of the excitement and murderous intent directed at me filled my chest with pure euphoria.
Times like this made me feel alive.
At the same time, my mind cooled to ice.
It was not a bad feeling at all.
Paradoxically, the closer the enemies drew, the calmer my heart rate settled.
“”
The axe-wielding brute who rushed in first roared and brought his weapon crashing down.
A red trajectory drew a vivid diagonal across the dark.
As if mocking the solid red line, I slipped sideways with a casual shift of my body.
AĀ Ā tore past my ear.
Before the massive axe blade slammed into the spot where I had just stood, I was already slipping into his blind spot.
The tip of my sword punched deep into his flank ā right where his spine and vital organs converged.
Taking a sword thrust and miraculously launching a counterattack through superhuman strength was pure movie fantasy.
The moment the core muscles and nerve bundles that anchor the human body are severed, walking is out of the question; a person cannot even stay upright.
With a scream, the brute collapsed headfirst to the dirt.
“Haha! All that big talk, and look at you! You’re mine!”
Another one following behind stepped up and swung his sword. A man of Indian descent, by the looks of him.
Exhilaration had thrown the man’s sword path into disorder, making his swing look painfully sluggish to my eyes.
I flowed like a ghost between the onslaught of attacks.
Thrust, slash, thrust again.
Just three strikes.
Unadorned blows ravaged the man’s vitals one after another.
In an instant, with his left thigh, shoulder, and neck sliced open, the man crumpled into the dirt like a bundle of straw.
[You have slain Pro Warrior ‘Abhishek’.]
There was no time to soak in any satisfaction from the kill.
The rustling din rolled in from every direction like a rising tide.
As long as this red lighthouse over my head stayed lit, I was nothing more than a giant bullseye anywhere I went.
Without even flicking the blood from my blade, I immediately moved out.
I headed toward the outer rim of the jungle, where signs of human presence were relatively sparse.
Before long, a sharp red thread cut across my field of vision, tearing through the forest darkness.
Right then, a sword blade burst out of the brush like lightning, hurtling straight for my throat.
I reflexively tilted my head to let the strike slide off while sweeping my sword horizontally.
In that fleeting intersection, the sensation of sinking smoothly into the opponent’s neck traveled through my palm.
“ā¦”
The man slammed into the ground, crumpling like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
A bizarre, hissing wheeze leaked from his punctured windpipe like air from a deflating balloon.
A single exchange.
A crisp, no-nonsense blow.
[You have slain Pro Warrior ‘Gavin’.]
Advancing through the underbrush, I checked my physical condition.
Ordinarily, the pursued burns through stamina far faster than the pursuer.
The psychological pressure of never knowing when or where a blade might strike usually eats up several times more energy than normal.
Curiously enough, the more time passed, the more energized my body felt.
My ragged breath quickly evened out, and the fatigue that had stretched my muscles taut had vanished without a trace.
At this rate, having the mark almost felt like a stroke of good luck.
So what if my location was exposed?
It didn’t matter. I just had to kill whoever showed up.
I set off toward another red lighthouse shimmering in the distance.
As the night deepened, the heat of the battlefield only flared hotter instead of cooling down.
The red beams of light slicing through the primordial forest’s darkness were no longer fleeing beacons.
They were closer to predators hurtling forward to devour one another.
In particular, Go Taemin’s progress across the jungle behind an Akwi mask was more than enough to leave the spectators spellbound.
Instead of shaking off the crowd pursuing him, he sliced down any warrior blocking his path and sprinted in a straight line toward another mark holder.
The commentators showered his performance with unstinting praise.
ā
ā
ā
ā
ā
Meanwhile, Go Taemin tore through the dense canopy without knowing anything about the commentary.
Before long, the distant horizon began to take on a reddish hue.
Pitch-black night yielded to dawn, and soon enough, the sun was poised to dip beneath the horizon once more.
Having focused entirely on combat now that physical fatigue was out of the equation, the match was already rolling into its latter half.
Right then, a new notification window popped up before Go Taemin’s eyes.
[36 hours have elapsed since the match began. The second hidden rule is now revealed.]
[Hidden Rule: Crown of Honor]
[A special reward will be granted to the warrior who has held a Red Diamond the longest.]
[Special Reward: Waldstein Series No.113]
Another hidden rule had dropped.
The added rule was simple.
A special reward would go to whichever warrior endured the longest while holding the mark.
Such complicated messages barely registered in Go Taemin’s eyes, however.
His gaze stayed glued to a single line: the name of that special reward item.
Checking the alert window, Go Taemin came to an abrupt halt.
Waldstein.
One of the world’s most renowned master blacksmiths.
The swords he forged were known as the ‘Waldstein Series,’ each stamped with a unique number marking the order of its creation.
This reward, No.113, meant it was the 113th sword crafted by the master’s own hands.
Weapons forged by Waldstein were such masterpieces that a single blade fetched tens of millions of won at bare minimum, running up to hundreds of millions depending on condition.
This was practically a lottery ticket.
Tens of millions in prize money was floating right before his eyes; who wouldn’t lose their mind?
Go Taemin checked the current standings with cold, settled eyes.
The man who had felt satisfied with an eight-million-won bonus just a while ago was nowhere to be found.
[Current Mark Retention Standings]
[1st. ‘ę”鬼’ ā 28:04:33]
[2nd. ‘Juggernaut’ ā 23:18:13]
[3rd. ‘Antonio’ ā 12:37:55]
[4th. ‘Big Ravi’ ā 06:24:47]
[5th. ‘Ashen Phantom’ ā 00:09:38]
Go Taemin chuckled awkwardly.
Using the mark as a walking stamina potion ā the very thing everyone else panicked to get rid of ā had brought an unexpected windfall.
If he just held onto it like this, that monumental reward would soon be his.
Go Taemin roamed the jungle in high spirits.
A special reward was a special reward, and the bonuses right in front of him were another matter entirely.
Even while defending the top spot, he had zero intention of slacking off on hunting other Red Diamond holders.
A short while later.
Go Taemin encountered another red lighthouse wavering beyond the brush.
The man gave off an unusual aura.
With cleanly combed hair and intellectual glasses, he looked like a model student who belonged in a research lab.
In stark contrast to that gentle face, however, the physique glimpsed through his leather armor was intensely muscular.
And above allā¦
The bespectacled man was locked in combat with four other pro warriors blocking his way, yet despite the one-versus-four numerical disadvantage, he was actually overwhelming his opponents.
A solid red line carried more information than one might think.
The consistency of the sword’s speed, the precise distribution of power, and a clean, unerring trajectory.
In that regard, the red lines traced by the bespectacled man maintained an extraordinarily stable form.
“”
Before long, the bespectacled man brought down the fourth and final warrior.
Flicking the blood from his sword, he slowly turned his head, and his eyes met Go Taemin’s.
“ā¦”
“ā¦”
Go Taemin held his gaze.
A mark holder’s position was broadcast in real time.
Trying to hide was pointless anyway.
Parting the brush, he strode out and slowly advanced toward the man.
Moments later, the distance between them closed until they were nearly nose to nose.
Go Taemin halted at an infinitesimally precise point just beyond the reach of the bespectacled man’s red line.
The man hadn’t twitched a muscle, even with Go Taemin advancing right up to his face.
That unwavering posture proved the bespectacled man had an absolute grasp of his own spacing.
Likewise, the bespectacled man shot him a meaningful look when Go Taemin pulled up right outside his reach.
It was a glance that seemed to say,
“ā¦”
A taut standoff where neither encroached on the other’s territory.
Two red diamonds confronting each other at close quarters weighed heavily upon the jungle’s silence.
Watching the standoff unfold, the spectators gasped in admiration.
ā
ā
ā
Antonio made the first move.
Fixing his gaze on the Akwi mask, he surged in with a short, compact movement and thrust his blade.
A solid red line lunged straight forward.
A terrifyingly precise thrust hurtled toward Go Taemin’s heart.
Angling his sword, Go Taemin deflected the strike with ease.
The moment sparks flew, Antonio twisted his wrist to harness the rebound and immediately whipped around with a follow-up blow.
Terrifying speed.
It was an attack launched from a completely unexpected angle, delivered with an agility hard to believe coming from such a heavily muscled frame.
Go Taemin had already read the path, however.
Wasting no motion, he merely tilted his head aside, dodging the edge of the blade by a hair’s breadth.
“ā¦!”
Antonio’s eyes widened behind his glasses.
His train of thought locked up momentarily at a reaction speed that completely defied his calculations.
His thoughts went no further.
Slipping into that split-second opening, Go Taemin’s dagger carved deep across Antonio’s throat.
A chilling sensation washed through his entire body.
With that, a heavy silence settled over the jungle.
The hum of insects filled the surroundings.
Amid that stillness, the bespectacled man’s massive frame finally lost balance and collapsed into the dirt.
For a warrior who had distinguished himself while tearing through the forest, it was a hollow demise.
[You have slain Pro Warrior ‘Antonio’.]
[You have slain a Red Diamond mark holder. (Cumulative mark holder kills: 14)]
[Time remaining until match conclusion: 34:32:17]
ā
ā
ā
ā
Sheathing his blade, Go Taemin let out a faint sigh.
It might have looked like an effortless takedown from the outside, but the reality was quite different.
He had been startled inward when he saw the red line snap at an uncanny angle at the very last second.
He had managed to dodge it with some margin thanks to that, of course, but taking that blow head-on would have been far from easy without his knack for reading an opponent’s trajectory before it landed.
Be that as it may.
Glancing at the spot where the bespectacled man had dissolved into motes of light, Go Taemin brought up his status window.
Checking the leaderboard, he froze in place.
[Current Mark Retention Standings]
[1st. ‘ę”鬼’ ā 29:17:52]
[2nd. ‘Ashen Phantom’ ā 01:22:57]
[3rd. ‘Viktor Ivanov’ ā 00:37:46]
[4th. ‘Chen Xiu’ ā 00:18:11]
[5th. ‘Rafael de Santos’ ā 00:03:26]
In the meantime, the standings had shifted dramatically.
Juggernaut and Big Ravi, who had previously anchored the upper ranks, had vanished without a trace, while the Ashen Phantom, formerly idling in 5th place, had surged all the way to 2nd.
That could mean only one thing.
In particular, Juggernaut, who had occupied the number-two slot, was one of the three Named warriors competing in this match.
Yet that very Juggernaut, widely hailed as a favorite to win, had evaporated from the board.
The excitement over hunting bonuses vanished from Go Taemin’s eyes, replaced by razor-sharp focus.
With the information on hand, there was no telling whether those missing from the standings had been brought down in an ambush by multiple warriors or felled by a single powerhouse.
If it was the latter, howeverā¦
And if that single powerhouse happened to be the Ashen Phantom who had been lingering in 5th place until just moments ago, that changed the playing field entirely.
A monster who had cut down rank 2 Juggernaut and rank 4 Big Ravi in succession would inevitably come hunting him next.
Go Taemin’s prediction was right on the mark.
With light footsteps, the brush parted to reveal an ethereal-looking boy.
“Oh, hello there.”
He wore casual jeans and a white short-sleeved tee. In his hand, he held a sword dripping with fresh blood.
Was he around 160 centimeters tall?
A fair-haired boy whose youthful features hadn’t faded, radiating an aura so out of place it made one forget this was an active war zone.
“Kept you waiting, didn’t I? The toys out front put up a bit of a stubborn fight. Took me some time to clear them out before getting here.”
It was a familiar face.
One of the three profiles the senior had shown him with a warning to watch out.
That boy was one of them.
The Ashen Phantom, Christopher.
“Now you’re the only red thing left around here. You’re number one, right?”
The boy beamed, stepping forward.
