episode_0024

Swish! Clang!

Anticipating the teleportation movement of the zombie behind me, I swung my sword backward and took down the zombie teleporting towards me.

Deeply plunging the knife into the neck of the zombie that didn’t fall despite hundreds of slashes in front of me, I felt a sense of intimidation from the very existence of the zombie, which I also took care of.

Crackle! Boom!

Now that some time had passed and most of the nearby mutant zombies had been dealt with, even the long-range ability zombies, hesitant to attack for fear of hitting their own kind, now unleashed their attacks without concern for who they hit.

I deflected the long-range abilities with the shield of God, carefully slicing the throats of the approaching zombies with my sword as I moved forward.

Swoosh-

Thud!

Failing to block the flames flying towards me with the shield of God, I dodged them by bending my body and leaped to avoid the lightning that followed. Using my long arms to swiftly stab the head of the zombie attacking me, I created a barrier of flying knives around the fast-moving zombie and slowly narrowed the range, causing it to be mercilessly slashed in the storm of knives.

Bang! Thud! Clang!

However, the shield of God, which continued to shatter, consuming my mana and divine power, had to be temporarily suspended. I dodged attacks flying from a distance, either blocking them with other zombies or taking them with my body, meticulously severing the throats of the zombies.

“Ugh…! It’s dangerous…”

The consequences of not using the shield of God appeared faster than expected, leading to a rapid crisis.

Crackle!

“Argh…!”

Unable to block any of the incoming bombardments, I was caught off guard when ice and rock shards flew towards me, followed by lightning striking me from the sky, turning my body into a mess in an instant.

Caught off guard, I was hit by a zombie using a fist enveloped in a green aura, sending me flying into a building. I struggled to use my abilities to slowly heal the wounds and cool my head.

“If I grab their heads, I can definitely win. But I can’t grab them because of those guys… I need to think of another way quickly!”

Thinking of a way to overcome the crisis, I turned my gaze to the zombies rushing towards me.

Swish!

Clang!

Throwing a hook, a basic move learned in boxing, I attacked a zombie from its heart to its neck, dodging the attack of another zombie behind me.

Boom!

Kicking a zombie that the knife couldn’t penetrate, I blocked the exploding flames with my foot, and threw a knife at the zombie emerging from the shadows, stealthily cutting its throat.

Swish- Thud!

Thunk!

However, being hit by a zombie swinging a giant fist, I was pushed back and overwhelmed by a zombie with a body like a gas. I tried to break free with all my strength, but the overpowering creature didn’t budge.

Thunk- Thunk- Boom!

Completely overwhelmed, as I helplessly endured the attacks from the zombie swinging a giant fist and the skills flying from a distance, I had a realization.

“Ah… this is it!”

As Cheonsang-il uttered those words, the zombie attacking his face and the one overpowering him slowly turned to dust and disappeared.

“The hint was in the name of the ability!”

Cheonsang-il’s ability was called ‘Corrupted God,’ a god tainted by corruption, using abilities related to corruption.

Previously, forcibly curing incurable zombies would turn them into dust and make them disappear, similar to the principle of re-infecting the contaminated parts of the opponent to revert them back to normal.

In this way, zombies that were originally not human and were created through a phenomenon of magic concentration or a fusion of magic and death energy would return to nature as they were before.

However, using this ability is quite wasteful. It would be difficult to use it on all 100 zombies, and even if used to face enemies at a distance, it would likely reach its limit after 2 or 3 times, even if magic and divine power were fully restored.

But what if the ability to completely turn the target into dust is not used and stopped midway? Depending on when it is stopped, it could save up to 10% to 50% of magic and divine power. Zombies that are not turned into dust by stopping the ability midway may experience a significant decrease in their abilities, and in severe cases, they may even lose the abilities they had.

“But it’s still not enough.”

Even with using the ability, something was lacking in dealing with the remaining 83 zombies.

Clang!

“Maybe I can do it…?”

Quickly wiping the blood-splattered faces of the zombies, I retreated as much as possible from them and even used the divine shield that I had not been using to protect myself.

“Infecting magic…”

Continuously thinking of new ways to use the ability, I came up with the idea of contaminating my magic and converting it into divine power, and immediately put it into action.

“I know my magic the best… so if I tamper with it like this…”

The magic within me was contaminated like a computer without security software, and gradually changed the nature of the contaminated magic, slowly transforming it into divine power.

“It’s working…!”

Feeling the magic decreasing and the divine power recovering little by little, Cheonsang-il focused more on converting the contaminated magic into divine power. The process of contaminating magic and converting the contaminated magic into divine power brought me many things.

For example, I learned more about divine power, allowing me to slightly increase efficiency, or I discovered new aspects of the ability of contamination, leading to various new applications.

“That’s how it is.”

Having found a very important key to overcome this situation, Cheonsang-il smiled as wickedly and despicably as a villain who had successfully dealt with the protagonist at that moment.

Eeeng-

With a chilling sound as if hearing it, the flow of magic around Cheonsang-il became unstable, causing the magic of the surrounding zombies to become unstable as well. As a result, the zombies’ bodies also became uncontrollable due to the turbulent flow of magic, and the attacks coming from a distance collided with the whirlpool of magic and disappeared.

Cheonsang-il’s current actions were to contaminate his surroundings to make it his controlled area. The magic within the contaminated area naturally moved according to Cheonsang-il’s will, and the dominated magic even included the magic of the zombies.

Kyaak!

Ki-e-

Feeling strange as their magic was being drained away, the zombies immediately rushed towards me, struggling to regain the stolen magic. However, slaughtering zombies who could no longer use half of their abilities and even had decreased physical abilities was an easy task.

Chwajak!

Within the storm of the sword, all the zombies around me were torn apart, leaving only 40 zombies remaining.

“Divine power is continuously recovering through the use of magic…”

While in the past, abilities were used in a form where magic assisted divine power or divine power assisted magic, now I could move pure divine power to use stronger abilities more efficiently and quickly recover divine power through magic.

“If I continue a little more, I feel like I can gain something…”

The more I used my unique ability, Contamination, the more I felt like enlightenment was just within reach, which made me feel frustrated. In order to resolve that frustration, I actively utilized all of my abilities to seek answers.

“Let’s start by controlling the mana around me.”

Like dripping black ink on a blank canvas, the contamination spread rapidly, even reaching the commander’s mana. I focused even more on the commander resisting the contamination.

The attacks that were coming towards me were already within my domain, so when they reached that point, the magic became unstable, giving me the upper hand as it disappeared, just like in the beginning. Therefore, there was no need to worry. My current concern was finding a way to contaminate the commander.

At that moment, a change came to my skill.

“Huh?”

The skill ‘Corruption’ is evolving.

Awakening the ability ‘Contamination’.

Through the evolution of the skill, I awakened the ability of contamination, realizing that the methods I had been using to contaminate were truly inefficient.

“Converting contaminated mana…”

In the process of converting contaminated mana into divine power, I contaminated the mana once again, making it completely mine. The contaminated mana, now completely mine, became identical to divine power and soon merged with it. I contaminated the doubled divine power once again to make it my own.

The ability values of ‘Mana’ and ‘Divine Power’ are combined and enhanced.

The ability value ‘Origin’ is created.

The newly created Origin ability, rated C, became my will itself, helping me use my abilities more powerfully and precisely than before.

Thanks to this, I was able to easily contaminate the mana of the commander and the remaining zombies, and while the zombies were confused in a situation where my abilities were under my control, they lost their lives in an instant to the swords moving by the will of the gods.

“Phew…”

Thud-

Having used all my strength to defeat all 100 zombies, the celestial being sat on the ground and sighed, looking at Jang Cheonsu, who was hiding and writing.

“It’s amazing that those zombies didn’t notice you.”

Doubting Jang Cheonsu’s still-mysterious hiding ability, I felt relieved that this crisis had been a great help to me, dispelling any sense of complacency.

I thought I had overcome my arrogance when I first encountered the Level 1 mutant zombies, and what I have now is not confidence in myself, but arrogance. Facing the current situation, I realized that it was arrogance, not confidence.

I armed myself mentally, vowing to act more cautiously in the future and put more effort into my growth. Then, I walked towards Jang Cheonsu, who was writing diligently, and used my abilities to move to a new world with him.

Whoosh-

In the ruins that had become a wasteland due to the abilities of the zombies and the celestial being, there was a camera firmly attached to the shoulder of a fallen zombie, blinking a red light.

“Found it.”

Continuously blinking a red light in a place where nothing could be felt, the camera seemed to have turned off, not emitting any light, causing an inexplicable sense of unease.