Chapter 150

Chapter 150
## Chapter: 150
Chapter Title: Master’s Demise

His head hung low, shoulders quivering with faux sobs.

Grigon.

Ssssss!

Suddenly, a concealed blade slipped from his chest as he lunged toward me.

A desperate, last-ditch betrayal.

His gaze flickered with a brief, premature spark of victory.

Hoo.

I exhaled a soft, weary breath.

It was almost disappointing how he followed the exact script of a cornered rat, never once defying my expectations.

Splat!

Thud!

In an instant, both of his arms were severed, hitting the dirt and rolling away.

“Aaack…! My… my hands…!”

The fallen High Ranker Master shrieked, staring in horror at his empty sleeves.

Yet, his desperation to survive eclipsed the agony of his wounds.

With a face twisted by terror, he scrambled to find words, looking up at me.

“Wait! I haven’t told you everything! Keep me alive, and I can be your greatest asset…!”

Thud!

Roll.

The rest of his plea died in his throat.

His head detached from his neck, coming to rest beside his discarded limbs.

…Vile until the very final second.

I had no desire to trade even a single word with such a creature.

The mere vibration of his voice felt like a toxin entering my ears.

The moment the last spark of life left Master’s body, notifications flooded my vision.

《You have slain the player ‘Master’.》

《You have earned 100 points.》

《Evil karma has risen by 60.》

《You have reclaimed the ‘Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule (127h)’.》

《Experience points have surged significantly.》

《You have gained 120 SP.》

《Two stars dissipate across the continent.》

《All of Master’s equipment ranked below mythic has disintegrated.》

《Unique-tier crafting components have been randomly added to the ‘Golden Rule Shop’.》

《The name ‘Master’ has been erased from the Hall of Fame.》

《You have completed the achievement ‘High Ranker Slayer’.》

《The ruins city ‘Rundella’ is currently without a ruler.》

《You have fulfilled the requirements to inherit the ruins city ‘Rundella’.》

He proved to be quite a bounty even in death.

Rundella, the city of ruins. It was the foundation upon which Master had built his entire legacy.

‘He hadn’t even appointed a successor.’

It was the ultimate testament to his avarice.

He was so obsessed with total control that he refused to share even a fraction of his authority with a subordinate.

Because of that selfishness, Rundella was now mine.

All that remained was for me to physically enter the city and claim my prize.

-Ugh! Disgusting! This man’s blood is absolutely foul!

‘Winter’ finally spoke.

She had remained silent throughout the encounter, but the stench of Master’s lifeblood was apparently too much to bear.

-Watch yourself! The ‘Exterminator’ isn’t someone to take lightly.

She added a note of genuine caution.

It seemed Winter had some prior history or knowledge regarding the ‘Exterminator’.

I shifted my gaze.

“…The Exterminator has made his thoughts known. He views you as a threat.”

Standing there was a paladin drenched in shadows.

The insect summoner and the terrestrial brawler were nowhere to be seen.

While my focus was on Master, this individual had consumed his own allies.

To be precise, they were swallowed by the ‘black spots’ he manifested.

Those dark marks, the brand of the Balrog Church, possessed the terrifying ability to harvest life force.

“Intriguing.”

I gave a casual shrug.

Whether he was called the Exterminator or something else, the name was foreign to me.

As time moved forward, more anomalies outside my memory were surfacing.

Just as Master had hinted, it felt as though ‘the gears that had stalled were turning once more.’

It became increasingly clear that my understanding of Pangeniar was merely scratching the surface.

‘This wasn’t the end.’

I had assumed I reached the peak, that the journey was over.

‘This is the true starting point.’

As it turned out, I was only standing at the threshold.

The beginning.

There was something undeniably exciting about that word.

Furthermore, MintChocoDelicious was clearly no ordinary player.

Who was he, really?

Was he observing me from some hidden vantage point?

No, that’s unlikely.

He doesn’t truly understand who he’s dealing with yet.

If he did, he wouldn’t have relied on such transparent, cowardly schemes.

His name had been an eyesore from the moment I saw it.

‘I’ll track him down myself.’

A game of hide-and-seek.

And I’ve always been an excellent seeker.

《The ‘Hall of Fame’ standings have been updated.》

This alert flashed across the screens of every active player simultaneously.

The community erupted in chaos.

-What just happened?

-Is that a glitch?

-Did Master actually get taken out?

-His name just vanished from the top ranks.

-Did he get sent to the abyss or something?

-Can’t be, I just saw him looking for a party for the Rift Tower.

-Did the Rift Tower claim him?

-By whose hand?

The ‘Player Talk’ forums were losing their minds.

It was only natural for the disappearance of such a prominent figure to cause a stir.

Despite his waning popularity, he was still a 2-star transcendent.

He was a man who would crawl through glass to stay alive.

-Master had a long list of people who wanted him dead.

-Maybe a boss monster in the tower got lucky.

-Wait, who gets ‘Rundella’ now?

-Good question. Did he even have a second-in-command?

-Doubt it. That greedy snake wouldn’t trust anyone with his keys.

-Is it a free-for-all city now?

-Even if there’s an heir, they won’t have Master’s teeth. They’ll get torn apart in a day.

-Holy crap. This is huge. Rundella is a gold mine.

-Get ready for a massive territory war.

A city without a master.

Unclaimed cities were the primary catalysts for large-scale conflicts.

Even if a successor existed, without Master’s strength to back them, they were irrelevant.

Every major faction was undoubtedly preparing to seize Rundella for themselves.

-If he’s gone, does that mean only 6 Heroes are left?

-Yep. Maxim is out, Master is out—we’re down to 6.

-If you don’t count Wilhelm, it’s really just 5 lol.

-I refuse to believe it. Master is more persistent than a cockroach.

-True, but he pissed off way too many powerful people.

-Wait, is there someone hunting the Heroes?

-Who would have the guts?

-Phantom?

-Damn. If it’s Phantom, the rest of them must be terrified right now.

-They’re probably losing their minds as we speak lololol.

……

The comments were endless.

“…This is a catastrophe.”

Reading the feed, one of the remaining 6 Heroes, ‘Black Night’, whispered with a grim look on her face.

She wasn’t the only one feeling the pressure.

-Meeting. Now. (Lucifer)

-Agreed. We need a strategy. (Dark Star)

-Where? (Banhee)

-The usual coordinates. (Lucifer)

-Is Gracia going to blow us off again? (Banhee)

-…I’ll be there. (Gracia)

Her device vibrated relentlessly with incoming pings.

Unbelievable.

Why was Gracia actually showing up for once?

Was Master’s death significant enough to shake even him?

If that was the case, missing this gathering wasn’t an option.

‘Nobody is calling for me.’

However, not a single person in the chat was addressing Black Night.

It made sense. She had spent her career leaning on Master’s influence.

Now, she was like a kite whose string had been snapped.

The others had little respect for someone they viewed as a mere parasite.

Biting her lip until it nearly bled, Black Night typed a message.

-I’m coming too. (Black Night)

-Stay home. You aren’t needed. (Banhee)

……That arrogant brat.

Banhee never missed a chance to belittle her.

She loved playing the superior woman, always trying to keep Black Night in her place.

-Are you sure? I’m the only one with the keys to Master’s research and secret data. You really want to lose all that? (Black Night)

-Come to the meeting, Black Night. (Lucifer)

A cold sweat broke across Black Night’s brow, but she forced a triumphant smirk.

Master was the public figurehead, while Gracia didn’t care for politics.

Dark Star was a hedonist, and Banhee was content being a big fish in her small pond.

Lucifer, however, was the ‘unseen hand’—the true power steering the heroes.

He was the real boss.

With his approval, her seat at the table was secure.

‘Fine. I’m still in the game.’

The heroes were being picked off.

She knew she could be next on the list.

In times like these, isolation was a death sentence.

Black Night gripped her phone so hard her knuckles turned white.

《Party member ‘Master’ has been eliminated by ‘???’ of an opposing party.》

《Total party score has been reduced by 100 points.》

Laktusha’s brow furrowed in annoyance.

Master.

The man who had convinced them to enter the Rift Tower was dead.

But who could have done it?

He wasn’t a weakling by any stretch of the imagination.

‘Well, it doesn’t change much.’

She only cared about the 100-point deficit.

If she had known he’d die so easily, she would have abandoned him sooner.

Points were replaceable.

Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted.

Whoooosh!

A sudden, unnatural chill gripped the air as snowflakes began to drift from the heavens.

The terrain was a scorched, desolate wasteland.

It was a place where snow should have been an impossibility.

‘A winter storm?’

It felt as though the season itself had been summoned.

-99.9%

The Apostle of the Exterminator.

The shadow-clad paladin couldn’t wrap his mind around the current state of the battle.

‘I’ve consumed every possible stack—how is this possible?’

He possessed infinite scaling buffs through his black spots.

He could siphon the vitality of anyone marked by those dark sigils.

The moment they let their guard down, he had entirely absorbed the essence of the insect mage and the earth warrior.

《Overload 200%》

《Physical vessel has reached maximum threshold.》

As a high-ranking apostle, he had pushed his physical form to the absolute limit to inflate his power.

He currently wielded strength that should have required several more stages of transcendence to reach.

The ‘ominous evil eye’ he utilized had been completely burned out in the process.

‘Then why?’

Why were his strikes failing to land?

It wasn’t just a matter of defense.

The opponent was parrying, binding, and controlling the very fabric of the battlefield.

‘This blade work… no, this is something beyond standard technique.’

As an elite servant of the Exterminator, he was a master of every known combat style and the secret arts of the church.

He prided himself on being a peerless martial artist.

He was certain he had seen every variation of combat in the world.

But the swordsmanship displayed by this stranger was unlike anything in his records.

‘This isn’t just a style…’

Whoosh!

Rumble!

He swung his massive hammer, discharging bolts of black lightning.

The air hissed, but the blow hit nothing but shadows.

They had exchanged over ten blows, and yet he hadn’t managed to graze the man.

“There is an essence within your blade. What… exactly are you?”

This went beyond mere skill.

Calling this ‘swordsmanship’ felt like an insult to its complexity.

Warping space, redirecting force, reflecting intent—how could a mortal achieve this?

The art itself carried a weight of profound divinity.

Specifically, it felt as though an ‘entity of unmeasurable status’ had been distilled into the sword itself.

It was something that couldn’t be copied, a unique power belonging to only one soul in existence.

And the most terrifying part.

“You’re holding back, aren’t you? This isn’t the third stage. What lies beyond?”

The man hadn’t revealed his full hand.

Everything so far was just a prelude to the main event.

There was a deeper level of power he was keeping hidden—or perhaps wasn’t ready to unleash.

As a master of all worldly combat, the black paladin was certain of one thing.

“…You’re a very observant one.”

The man gave a thin smile.

It seemed he found the paladin’s realization amusing.

But that confirmation made the reality clear.

‘A pure art that ignores everything but raw essence. It only interacts with fundamental power. Buffs, gear, and artificial stat boosts are irrelevant to it.’

That was why his mountain of stacked buffs meant nothing against that blade.