Chapter 262 – The Hoarder (2)

Team: HH, thursdays, Yahiko (4/12)

[This is the 26th floor, the Wailing Wall.]

Yeon-woo slowly opened his eyes in the light. When the light faded away, a cold air that bit at his bones surrounded him.

Then, a snowstorm rushed towards him.

Yeon-woo fought away the cold by spinning his Magic Circuit around. At the same time, he turned his Magic Armor into a robe and covered his face with a hood. The crisp wind bothered him less.

Everything around him was white.

All he could see was snow, and snowflakes as big as a person’s fists came down from the sky. It was hard to stand in the storm.

He also couldn’t see easily.

However, when he looked around closely, he realized that he was standing above a large city wall.

Flags fluttered in the wind, and the city wall was so tall that he couldn’t see the bottom.

It was a fortress surrounded by mountains of different sizes

This was the 26th stage.

‘This will be annoying.’

Of course, he wasn’t saying that it was going to be annoying subjugating the floor. Walking down a new path with every floor had never been annoying.

What was annoying were the gazes he felt around him. They weren’t just curious; they were on their guards.

“That person…..?”

“Yeah. It’s the Hoarder.”

“I heard he disappeared after the Summer Queen incident. Is he starting to climb again?”

“S***! That means this attempt is a fail for us.”

The players of the lower floors all knew that ‘There’s nothing left where the Hoarder passes through.’ Of course they would be wary of him.

「Hehe. Our master’s pretty popular.」

「You don’t have to worry about the good-for-nothings.」

Shanon burst out laughing, and Hanryeong shook his head.

Normally, Yeon-woo would’ve just ignored the looks he was getting. He didn’t care about what others thought.

But this stage would be tiring if others were on their guard.

Just then, a new message floated up with a scary wind.

[The trial of the 26th floor is beginning.]

[Trial: The ‘wall’ built on the snowy mountains of Nahatma symbolizes the blocking of the snow monsters from the north. However, countless people have collapsed in front of this ‘wall.’ so it earned the name Wailing Wall.

However, information has been received about unrest among the snow monsters, and it is predicted they will attack.

Their leader is at least a spiritual-body level.

For the next month, protect the ‘Tears of Ra’ that is inside of the Wailing Wall.]

Yeon-woo frowned looking at the message.

‘I need the help of other players to protect the Tears of Ra.’

Easily said, the Wailing Wall was a defense game. Once every day, when the moon is high in the sky, monsters come from beyond the snowy mountains.

They definitely weren’t normal monsters. Each of them was specialized for the cold, and they didn’t feel pain even when their limbs were cut off. Rather, they were excited at the smell of blood.

If thousands, no, ten-thousands of those monsters came running……it was horrible just thinking about it.

The most important thing was to protect the castle walls. Of course, even the strongest person couldn’t do the work of 10 people, so working with other players was key.

You could block them off for the first two weeks by yourself. Even though there were a lot of monsters, there were also many players and soldiers inside the castle walls as well.

The problem came with the third week.

There would be a lack of food, and the soldiers would be hurt.

The snow monsters that were 10-meters tall appeared at this time, and their attacks were enough to make the firm castle walls crumble.

And of course, with the suddenly raised difficulty, there would be tension between the players.

It definitely wasn’t easy to spread resources among them. Unless someone with leadership arrived to distribute it fairly, if things weren’t done in a democratic way, everything would become a mess.

We suffered because of this too. When we entered the 4th week, the internal enemies were worse than the external ones.

A month definitely wasn’t a short time. Furthermore, the attacks from the enemies wouldn’t decrease but increase.

The exhaustion and lack of resources pushed the players onto the edge.

Yeon-woo was planning on having the players protect the Tears of Ra when the stage began, but it was obvious what would happen.

‘There goes that idea.’

Even if he asked for help, it was likely that it wouldn’t be done properly.

Of course, he could force them to do it, but…..

‘There’s no need to go that far.’

It could be a bit annoying, but it seemed there was nothing else he could do except to do it himself.

He thought that wasn’t too bad of an idea either, since he could show them that the Hoarder was really a hoarder.

‘Ah, I wonder if it’ll be hard to find people like this.’

Yeon-woo didn’t think it was too important. If they were skilled enough to stand out, he would notice them one way or another.

Checheche—

Yeon-woo organized his thoughts and moved the Monster Portents inside the Despair of the Black King.

His shadow stretched out in the shape of a thorn bush that went all the way up to the iron door that led to the base of the castle.

The players who had been trying to scout the base stopped in their tracks.

They would’ve ignored it if it was just a shadow, but there were eyes embedded in the shadow. Tens of eyeballs met them.

They all got shivers down their back. The eyes were like those of a wild beast that was after its prey.

“What are you doing, Hoarder?”

The players all glared at Yeon-woo. They didn’t attempt to chase the shadow away. The monsters inside the shadow would probably swallow them up easily.

However, Yeon-woo just said what he wanted to regardless of the glares he was getting.

“Don’t worry about anything else and just focus on the guarding. I’ll hand out resources for you when you need them. I’ll protect the Tears of Ra.”

“What are you…..?!”

Yeon-woo didn’t care about what the players were saying and lightly jumped atop the castle walls.

The players all had stiff faces. A few of them had faces that were asking ‘Maybe?’ These castle walls were extremely high. The winds were also sharp and fast as well. Even if he used magic, he would be swept away by the strong winds and become a pile of bones and blood.

Also, even if he arrived on the ground, the snowy mountains were surrounded by snow monsters.

Most of the players here had challenged this stage before, so they knew how tenacious and evil the snow monsters were.

The general-rank monsters that were leading the monsters were enough to swallow the players in one bite.

This was a mission to ‘protect the castle,’ not ‘destroy the enemies,’ after all.

However, Yeon-woo didn’t respond to their gazes and dropped down with his wings of fire spread apart.

“Huh? Wait!”

“He’s crazy…..!”

Yeon-woo softly slid down, riding the wind. The snowflakes blocked his vision, but nothing bothered his sharp Extrasensory Perception.

Also, because of his strengthened Consciousness and soul power, it was much easier to move his body.

Tak!

Yeon-woo landed on a snowy mountain close to the castle walls. The snow reached up to his knees, but his path was cleared when he exuded heat waves.

[Wind Path]

When he took a step forward, a whirlwind started to swirl around him. With his opened Draconic Eyes, he could see the crushed flaws splitting into different sides.

Option, Pathfinder.

In the different split paths, Yeon-woo took the path that was intended for him.

Gust.

Kwang!

Sweeek—

Yeon-woo began to dash, raising a fierce wind. In the gust that followed him, there was also a heatwave. It was because of his new title, Controller of Fire.

[Controller of Fire]

Summary: The quality of fire is emitted from skills and Authorities. Also, you have control of the fire property.

It was a passive skill of the fire property coming from his every movement. He had stolen it from the Summer Queen. Because it didn’t use up a lot of magic power, it was very useful to Yeon-woo.

The gust that Yeon-woo created swooshed around the mountain, and he expanded the range of his Extrasensory Perception to a nearby snowy mountain.

He could feel things from all over. Beyond the snowy mountain, there was an army of ten thousand that was ready to move towards them at any second.

As Yeon-woo ran in that direction, he opened his hand. A shadow came up, and a round bead appeared on his palm.

It was a shiny bead that looked like it was made of rubies. It was the Tears of Ra that they had to protect on this stage.

‘There are two things I have to get from this stage. The Tears of Ra and the Apophis’ Poisonous Fang.’

The motif of the 26th stage was the battle of the sun god Ra and the magical creature Apophis.

The snow monsters born from Apophis would attack when Apophis’s Grace was the strongest – at midnight. Then, there were two ways to solve this trial.

You could last a month like the summary, or you could steal the Apophis’s Poisonous Fang that was in the middle of the snow monsters.

Of course, if he could get both of them, he would earn a pretty nice item.

An item that could help him grow instantly.

If Yeon-woo’s growth hadn’t stopped, he wouldn’t need it, but because his latent potential was deeper, Yeon-woo was desperate for whatever he could get. Hoarding the items was crucial for his new plans.

Stealing Apophis’s Poisonous Fang was incomparable to the difficulty of stealing the Tears of Ra.

Running into a place bustling with monsters was hard, even for rankers, especially as he got closer to their center, but Yeon-woo had his faithful servants.

‘Shanon. Hanryeong.’

His shadow stretched out, and his Death Lord and Death Knight appeared. Inferno Sight flamed under their helmets.

Shanon and Hanryeong let out the demonic energy they were holding in at once.

……!

A silent energy shook the mountain. Urrrr. An avalanche came from high above them. The snowy mountain was trapped in a loud commotion as the white dust flew around.

Shanon and Hanryeong, who had also been training like Yeon-woo, didn’t hide their strength anymore.

Yeon-woo released his strength, too. His heat erased the snow and created a desert effect. As the vapor clustered, it became a fog to cover the snowy mountains.

Just then, Yeon-woo met the monster army.

There were about ten thousand monsters lined up like a human army.

However, each of them looked different.

There was a lion with wings, a chimera with an elephant for a face and a human body, and lean zombies atop beasts that looked like rhinos.

One thing they had in common was that they all exuded a cold aura.

It was an aura that you would freeze from. The sharp wind around them was like knives.

They were magical creatures of the night, the monsters that Apophis created.

They shrieked after discovering Yeon-woo, who had a completely different property from them, but it was impossible to understand what they were saying because of the avalanche.

Of course, Yeon-doo didn’t plan on listening.

His mission was just to sweep them away. He didn’t know how he would deal with all of them, but Yeon-woo had a nice card up his sleeve.

‘Wave of Fire.’

Yeon-woo pulled out Vigrid from the subspace and swung it around roughly.

A loud thundering noise that was incomparable to the avalanche and light and heat that could blind people covered the snowy mountain.