The Hero Returns

* * *

The administrator said that "godhood" was the qualification to become a god, as well as achieve godly authority.

When Su-hyeun first heard that, he couldn't simply think of that statement as some kind of dreamy nonsense because he could tell.

Even though he only managed to cross the threshold just now, he could already tell that the power of godhood indeed deserved to be called the "godly authority."

Somewhat ironically, though, Su-hyeun had no way of finding out just how much physical strength he could actually exert.

The heaviest weapon he knew of would be the "Yogoe Beating Mace" that Prince Nezha used. It was a massive war hammer that used its incredible weight to utterly crush opponents—as a matter of fact, it was too heavy even for Prince Nezha, someone who rivaled Sun Wukong in terms of physical strength, to swing around freely.

Even then, Su-hyeun didn't find the weapon all that heavy at all.

And also…

"This creature doesn't seem that heavy either."

The story remained the same while he observed the prey, which boasted the size of a small mountain.

If he would only consider the prey's weight, then the prey would never match up to the Yogoe Beating Mace. The weapon's mass and weight would be several times greater than a mountain once it had become bigger, after all.

The issue here would be with the strength of the prey, then. And even in that aspect, things were just as simple to determine.

"I'll definitely not lose in strength."

He was certain of it. His head hadn't come to this conclusion but his body did, and the result was on full display right now.

"Wow, it really worked," murmured Su-hyeun while looking at his own fist.

If his strength was found lacking and he ended up getting swallowed up, he still had other means to get out of this thing's maw, so he gave punching this monster a shot while thinking that if it worked, great, but if not, it would not matter much.

But he was successful in the end.

Crack—!

Kah-aaaah—!

The prey raised its head that was buried on the ground and made a monstrous howl.

And as Su-hyeun was standing right in front of it, the loud noise coming out from that large mouth caused his eardrums to ring painfully. He covered his ear with one hand and glared upward at the prey.

"Man, you're really noisy."

While scowling deeply, he gripped a spear tied to his back.

[Dragon Slaying Spear]

[Flame]

Ruuuuumble—

The divine Flames permeated on the Dragon Slaying Spear.

Perhaps due to the magic count reaching a higher number than in the past, the concentration and the amount of magical energy permeating the spear currently were quite considerable. On top of that, the proficiency for his divine Flame had improved much further in the past three years as well.

Split—

The prey opened its mouth one more time. It sure was one stubborn bull.

Despite getting its face smashed into the dirt, the creature hadn't learned its lesson and tried the same exact tactic—all because of the simple desire to devour Su-hyeun in any way possible.

"One, two…"

Su-hyeun wasn't in a hurry.

He bent his body backward like he usually did and focused the strength of his whole body on his arms and the spear as if he was getting ready to shoot an arrow.

In the meantime, the humongous maw of the prey descended on his body from above.

Kwa-dudududuk—

Grab—

Then, the prey swallowed Su-hyeun up.

Right at that moment…

"…Three."

Fwhooooosh—!

The Dragon Slaying Spear split apart into many pieces inside the prey; its fragments, permeating with the divine Flame, rushed madly toward all corners of the monster's body.

Pow, stab, puh-pupupupuhk—!

Bang, papapang—!

House-size holes began opening up on the huge body of the prey after it gobbled Su-hyeun up.

Ruuuumble—

Not too long after that, flames suddenly lit up all over the body of the prey that now resembled a block of Swiss cheese, and as its crimson eyes lost color and darkened, its ruined and dying figure powerlessly collapsed to the ground.

BOOM—!

Driiip—

All the blood flooding out from the prey pooled and formed a large puddle on the ground. While dusting off all the blood on his body, Su-hyeun strode outside the wide-open hole in the prey's maw.

"I got showered by blood, it seems," he muttered to himself while scanning the remains of the prey.

However, the creature wasn't dead, and its whole body was still trembling. In human terms, this guy was basically riddled with dozens upon dozens of bullet wounds, and yet, it was still somehow holding on to life.

"…How tenacious."

Squeeze—

Su-hyeun clenched his fist again and then powerfully punched the lower jaw of the prey mercilessly.

Splaaaat—!

At that very moment…

[You have passed the 101st floor's trial.]

[You have acquired 10,000,000 achievement points.]

[Will you transfer to the next floor?]

The trial clear messages floated up to his view, indicating that the prey was dead for good this time.

"Delay it for a little bit."

Su-hyeun wasn't planning to travel to the next floor right away, however. There was one more thing he still had to do.

[Soul Accumulation has been used.]

[The targeted soul is too large.]

[You have exceeded the number of souls that can be stored.]

Su-hyeun used the Soul Accumulation to assign the prey as his new summon, but those messages caused his brows to quiver.

"Seriously now?"

The Soul Accumulation was a skill that allowed him to store away a targeted soul and, at a later stage, insert that soul inside a summoned corpse.

To do so, though, he needed greater strength and mental focus than the targeted soul. However, the current situation was a bit different. The condition this time required a larger number of available soul slots.

Even though the unoccupied slots for the souls right now exceeded well over 10.

[Soul Accumulation]

* You can now accumulate a targeted individual's soul. The number of souls you may accumulate will depend on your proficiency and the soul's grade.

* Proficiency: 29.27%

* LV: 9

* The number that can be stored: 15

The number of soul slots required heavily depended upon the types of the monsters. And especially in the case of the monsters with large souls like Ouroboros or the Chief Gatekeeper, they eat up a lot of available empty slots.

For instance, Prince Nezha alone took over 20 open soul slots.

Su-hyeun used the Necromancer trait to take a look at the soul of the prey. And by doing that, he immediately figured out why the number of soul slots required was so many in order to command this creature.

"It's an aggregate of countless souls…No, wait. Quite a few souls haven't been fully merged yet."

The creature's soul wasn't exactly "one." The prey devoured everything in the world that it came across, which included even souls as well. And those souls were plastered over the prey's soul to become its flesh and blood.

The prey that Su-hyeun had dealt with was such a creature.

[Required number of soul slots: 35]

"That's a bit on the high side."

To think that the required soul slots would be 35…

That number was almost double than that of Prince Nezha.

The requirement that easily exceeded his expectations gave him a brief moment's hesitation, but Su-hyeun came to a decision pretty quickly enough, and that was to discard some other summons currently in his roster.

"Okay, so the Abyss Worm I got just now, the Death Knight, Cerberus, Pantera, and also…"

After releasing a handful of souls, he managed to reach the required number.

* The number that can be stored: 35

"Okay, cool."

Su-hyeun nodded after confirming the number of souls he could procure now and then activated the Soul Accumulation skill right away.

[Soul Accumulation has been used.]

[The soul of ?? has been acquired and stored away.]

[The target for Dead Summoning is being set.]

[You can now summon ??.]

[Please assign it a name.]

"A name?"

This was an unusual situation, which must've happened because its soul was an aggregate of many others.

Su-hyeun pondered a bit before settling on a name.

"Gluttony."

[The name of ?? has been set as "Gluttony."]

Gluttony.

It was a name meant to denote the one that devours.

He checked the application rate, but it hovered at only around the 50% mark. It seemed that the summoned creature's strength and the grade of its soul were too great, which caused the application rate to be judged lower as a result.

If the proficiencies for both the Necromancer trait and the Dead Summoning skill were low, the rate would've been no better than 30% or so.

"If it's about 50%…I wonder how much of its original strength it can use."

There was only one reason why Su-hyeun decided to command Gluttony as a summon.

"As it's a monster about to become the predator, and only has its appetite remaining…then there's a good chance that it would become stronger by consuming other monsters."

This creature's ability was to devour endlessly.

Su-hyeun's new summon, Gluttony, was a monster that nearly devoured an entire world and became unimaginably powerful in the process. What Su-hyeun wanted to get his hands on was Gluttony's unique ability.

"In any case, it's now over, so…"

After the Dead Summoning skill prompted Gluttony's remains to vanish into thin air, Su-hyeun turned his head toward the therianthropes standing some distance behind him.

Every single one of them was staring back at him with completely stupefied expressions.

"Although it's been brief, I had fun, everyone."

Su-hyeun lightly waved his hand at them.

The trial this time was rather short.

Less than half a day had passed by. If only he knew the trial would end this quickly, then he would have had a meal together with them at least once despite how unappetizing the food on offer was.

When Su-hyeun decided to head to the next floor immediately…

[Transferring to the 102nd floor…]

**

Su-hyeun stared at the desolate desert and the shabby little village he was standing in.

He should definitely be in the world of the 102nd floor. The system said so, after all.

However, he got the feeling that this place somehow resembled the interior of a dungeon instead. A desert covered by thick gloomy clouds above and a dust-covered village as small as a proverbial hand, really?

"What's wrong? Are you disappointed?"

Su-hyeun turned his head toward his side when that voice suddenly came to him.

A figure had appeared there before he had noticed it—a figure with burned-out gray hair and darkened skin. Su-hyeun thought that this being wasn't there originally and simply appeared abruptly.

"Where did you appear from?" he asked.

"What's so important about knowing where I came from?"

"I guess you have a point there," said Su-hyeun while nodding at the reply. He then changed his question, "Are you the administrator?"

"I am. Name's Phaethon."

"Phaethon, is it?"

It didn't really matter what his name was, but Su-hyeun was somewhat curious why the administrator decided to reveal his name, in the first place. Up until now, no one else volunteered to reveal their name like this.

Perhaps that was why he found this situation rather unique.

"What's your reason for telling me your name?"

"No real reason. Sounds like the others didn't tell you about theirs?"

"They didn't."

"What a bunch of uptight people they are. What could possibly be a problem with them telling you their names, anyway?"

"A problem?" Su-hyeun thought.

Su-hyeun gleaned yet another information from Phaethon's rant just then. "Information regarding the administrators is a secret, and maybe it'll cause some kind of a problem if they were leaked?"

All the administrators behaved similarly until now.

While interacting with Su-hyeun, they never brought up any detailed information. As for the administrators of the 43rd and 100th floors, they must've been the special cases because they revealed little bits of information to him.

However, they still didn't tell him their names. Maybe they thought mentioning their names didn't have much of a point under the circumstances.

"As for this person…He doesn't look like he operates that way," he mulled.

To him, Phaethon seemed different from the administrators of the 43rd or the 100th floors.

He didn't seem all that friendly toward Su-hyeun. More correctly, he didn't look like the type to voluntarily offer up information. If that had been the case, he would have started talking nonstop by now.

Although the administrator willingly revealing his name, Su-hyeun quickly lost interest.

"His name isn't all that important, anyway," he told himself.

Indeed, there was only one thing important to Su-hyeun.

"Please give me the hint and send me to the next floor right away."

In all honesty, the trial on the 101st floor hadn't been difficult at all. He didn't need a lot of time to clear it either, and perhaps that was the reason why he didn't receive any other rewards besides the usual achievement point payout.

"You seem to be in a hurry. You just cleared the 101st floor, but you're going straight to the 102nd already?"

"Well, it's not like I'm tired or anything, anyway."

"Is that so? In that case, well…" Phaethon shrugged his shoulders and replied, "There's only one hint. I don't need any fee for the info, so you should consider buying whatever items you wanted to buy."

"Do you really not need the fee?"

"Yeah, really. Oh, and by the way, you can access a new point store from the 100th floor onward. You can take a look later or something."

Now that was good news.

The types and effects of the items found in the new store that only appeared after the 100th floor should be far better than the ones found on the lower floors.

As a consequence, they should cost an arm and a leg, but Su-hyeun was swimming in points right now anyway, so this certainly was a piece of great news to him.

"Now, let's see. The hint for this floor is…"

Phaethon contemplated for a while before opening his mouth, "Right, Hercules. That dude might be a problem."