Third Rune – 3

One wall crumbled, and monsters poured out from within. They were all trash mobs typically seen in early-game areas. It was as if they were blatantly urging me to test the rune’s performance.

Unless one possessed a Rune Release spell or something similar, by the time they arrived here, their rune slots would usually be full, making it impossible to test even if they wanted to.

I changed the attribute of Wingless Nightmare. The blade emitted a blue light. Since black magic is, after all, magic, it naturally received the attribute amplification effect of Wingless Nightmare.

I gripped the weapon in my right hand again. Then, I slightly bent the fingers of my left hand, preparing to use the black magic I had just learned from Nyx.

As I concentrated, I felt the unique sensation of mana draining away, along with the feeling of my HP decreasing. It was a similar feeling to when I used the special ability of the Blood-stained Sword.

As black magic’s hierarchy increased, the HP consumed also increased, and since it absorbed a fixed amount of HP, a single use of magic could push someone with a mere 1-stat, low-quality HP to a near-death state.

But from now on, HP costs didn’t matter at all. Because I had obtained the Vampire Impulse Rune.

As I finished preparations, a black flame, the same color as Nyx’s pupils, began to burn in the palm of my left hand. It was a peculiar flame that seemed to absorb light rather than emit it.

“Hehe, you’re doing great.”

Seeing me like this, Nyx let out a silly laugh.

I ignored Nyx’s words and brought my left hand just above the crossguard of the blade. Then, I pushed it upwards, as if drawing a sword from its scabbard.

With a *hwaleureureuk* sound, the flame that had bloomed in my hand transferred to Wingless Nightmare. As the black flame flickered, a heat haze formed. The monster’s figure, visible through it, distorted.

This was the ‘Blazing Black Flame’ enchantment, one of the final builds for a melee character in Dark Lord Mode.

I gripped the flickering Wingless Nightmare, engulfed in black flames, with both hands. Perhaps because it was a spell I had cast, the flame wasn’t hot at all.

The monsters shambled forward. Though they looked like that, they were actually strengthened to match the rune dungeon’s location, so even with these specs, it would probably take 2-3 normal attacks to defeat them.

I approached the nearest monster. It let out strange screeches and lunged at me.

ㅡTeoong!

A crisp sound was heard, and its right arm, which had been swung at me, bounced back. I had no intention of giving it time to recover from the stun. I swung my sword.

As Wingless Nightmare horizontally grazed its chest, black flames erupted from where the blade had cut, burning its flesh and gnawing away at its insides.

A follow-up attack ensued. The blade traced a trajectory from the lower left to the upper right, precisely sweeping past its head. Its legs staggered greatly.

‘As expected.’

The moment it staggered and was about to collapse backward, a bright red dot appeared in the center of its chest. For some reason, it was a UI element that looked exactly like it would in a game. It was probably a dot only visible to me.

Following my body’s instincts, I grabbed the monster’s head firmly and, just before the red dot disappeared, plunged Wingless Nightmare deep into its Adam’s apple.

Then, I felt my HP recover, exactly as if I had drunk an HP recovery potion while low on health. This meant the Vampire Impulse Rune had activated properly.

I pulled out the sword from its neck and casually tossed the corpse aside. Before long, the monster’s corpse was engulfed in black flames and turned into a pile of ashes.

“Wow…”

From behind, Nyx clapped her hands and let out an exclamation of awe. For a moment, I felt embarrassed and considered telling her to stop, but I left her be, thinking she might get sulky.

I rushed at the next monster. Just like before, I deflected its wildly swinging right hand and swiftly swung my sword, landing two normal attacks.

This time too, a bright red dot appeared in the center of its body. Just like with the first one, I grabbed its head with one hand and plunged the sword deep into its neck. Again, I felt as if I had drunk an HP potion.

I pulled out Wingless Nightmare and looked for the next target. Among the ones that appeared here, there was probably one that used ranged attacks.

‘Ah, there it is.’

I saw a monster loading its bow not far away and prepared to cast another black magic spell.

It was the first spell I had received from Nyx, which I was practicing just in case.

As I finished preparing the spell internally, my left hand suddenly felt heavy, as if a weight had been attached to it, but soon it became light again. I stretched my left hand straight forward.

ㅡPeoseok!

As soon as the arrow touched my left hand, it turned into a handful of black something. The black something was immediately sucked into my left hand. After confirming the absorption was complete, I pulled my left arm back and bent my elbow.

It was a success.

If I hadn’t had the Vampire Impulse Rune, I would have used up all my HP the moment I used Blazing Black Flame and then this spell, dying before I could even cast it. But now, I was perfectly alive.

‘Can’t I reduce the delay on this?’

I glanced down at my left hand.

It was a spell I had practiced for three days already, but its wind-up and recovery times simply wouldn’t shorten. I wondered if I could interrupt the action midway, but it didn’t work well.

“Wow…!”

I heard even more enthusiastic applause than before. I suppressed the sudden wave of embarrassment.

After killing two more trash mobs to recover my HP, I completely ignored the rest and retreated. Nyx was staring at me with eyes that sparkled even more than usual.

“The rest is your share, Nyx.”

“Hehe, yes.”

Without hesitation, Nyx created a large black fireball in her palm and then swung her hand, sending it flying. The black fireball directly hit the heads of the remaining monsters.

The trash mobs that were hit squarely by the black flame evaporated without leaving a trace.

“Good job.”

I gently stroked Nyx’s head. Nyx giggled. I also smiled contentedly. With this, the performance test for Vampire Impulse was complete.

The ‘Vampire Impulse’ rune, true to its name, was a rune that allowed one to recover HP upon defeating an enemy.

When equipped, and an enemy’s HP was fully depleted, a red dot would temporarily appear. Attacking the marked target would trigger an execution animation, executing the enemy and recovering the player’s HP.

There were over dozens of types of execution animations. The number greatly increased because each type of mob was assigned its own unique execution animation.

Even bosses, excluding those created by palette swaps, each had their own unique execution animations assigned. This was also one of the elements that encouraged multiple playthroughs.

‘It wasn’t very useful in practice, though.’

While it sounded like an essential rune based on its description, its adoption rate in actual gameplay was abysmal. At best, it was only used by hardcore players who had nothing else to do, for recreational purposes.

This was because the recovery amount was fixed regardless of which enemy was defeated, and even that fixed recovery amount was a mere 50.

Even with just 30 HP in stats, HP would exceed 1500, so what good was a measly 50 HP recovery? Especially for a knight whose past actions were blatantly newbie-friendly, reaching 30 HP in stats was truly quick.

‘But it’s different now.’

The initial HP of a character with a past action of 1 HP stat, ‘The Abandoned One,’ was only 100.

However, precisely because of this, it was also the character who could make the best use of the Vampire Impulse’s 50 HP recovery. No matter how much HP was lost, killing just two enemies would immediately restore full HP.

Equipping this ‘Vampire Impulse’ rune and fighting using the Blazing Black Flame enchantment was the final build for a melee character in Dark Lord Mode. It was a combination that achieved both stability and damage.

For reference, this build is entirely possible even in the vanilla game.

Rather than playing a character with 1 HP stat and walking a tightrope, it was simply much better to invest more in stats to be able to withstand a few hits, so there was no real reason to do so.

In Dark Lord Mode, no matter how much you raised your HP stat, you were almost always one-shot, so there was no need to invest in it, which is why this abnormal build was born.

‘Now I just need to get one more rune.’

If I obtained just one more rune, I could even eliminate the mana consumed when using black magic, making it possible to create a complete perpetual motion.

If that happened, I wouldn’t need potions or anything else in trash mob battles. Why would I, when HP recovery potions were abundant all around?

It would be an impossible tactic in boss battles where HP couldn’t be recovered by defeating enemies, but then I could just use Eclipse, Lunar Eclipse, or elemental enchantments instead of black magic.

“Heeheeheeheeheeheeheehee…”

I stopped my thoughts at the strange laughter. I lowered my gaze. As I had been thinking about the future, I must have continued stroking Nyx’s head, as I saw Nyx gradually melting into a puddle.

I took my hand off her head. Nyx, who had been on the verge of melting, snapped back to her senses.

“A-amazing. Truly, truly amazing.”

As soon as Nyx came to her senses, she showered me with praise, her eyes gleaming slyly. Her enormous chest swayed wildly.

“Amazing, what is?”

“That magic. The one you just used. How can you use it so well? Hehe. Even I, who created that magic, can’t use it properly. I tried to use it, but I got beaten up a lot and gave up.”

“Ah, you mean ‘Ashes to Ashes’?”

“Yes. Hehe.”

Nyx was talking about a spell named ‘Ashes to Ashes.’ The spell I used to block the arrow.

It had the ability to absorb any projectile, regardless of its type, and then amplify the power of the next black magic spell by up to 50% in proportion to the projectile’s damage.

Enchantment-type spells, like Blazing Black Flame, also saw an increase in the damage they granted to weapons, and if a truly powerful offensive spell was used, it was common for a single power amplification to change the number of digits in the damage.

Since it unconditionally absorbed any projectile attack and even returned amplified power, it was perfectly deserving of being called an overpowered spell.

If one could use it properly, that is.

‘I can’t even remember how many hours I invested practicing this.’

This spell is truly a pain in the ass to time correctly.

Its wind-up delay is terribly long, and its recovery delay is terribly long, yet during that time, it doesn’t grant super armor or invincibility, and even the time window to absorb projectiles is terribly short.

Someone data-mined it and found that the projectile absorption duration was only 0.35 seconds. This meant that the outstretched hand had to make contact with the projectile within that 0.35-second window.

The hitbox was fairly large, but it was wide horizontally, not front-to-back, so even if the timing was slightly off, either too late or too early, there were many instances where players would grab the back of their necks, thinking, ‘This isn’t working?’

Furthermore, its range was limited to the front, meaning it couldn’t block projectiles coming from the sides or behind. So, it could be said that there was a good reason why it wasn’t used properly.

‘Well, once you adapt to it, there’s no more overpowered skill than this.’

Of course, I was an exception.

As is always the case with good skills when used well, hardcore players who could even time the absorption with their feet used this as a basic skill. I was one of those hardcore players.

Although the wind-up and recovery delays were a bit annoying, I had already memorized which attacks to use it against and when, so there was no reason not to use it.

Because now, the HP consumption could be compensated for with the rune.

“It’s easy. Just practice.”

“I tried practicing, but it didn’t work for me, hehehe…”

Nyx fidgeted with her fingers in front of her chest.

She wasn’t wrong. It just required a lot of practice. Even in the game, it took dozens of hours of dying repeatedly to practice until I reached this level, so here, it would probably take decades.

“So, we can go back to the city now, right?”

“That’s right. I’ll set the teleportation coordinates to the front of the rune dungeon for now, and I’m sorry, Nyx, but it seems you’ll have to wait alone this time. I’ll go and bring the kids back quickly.”

“Hehe, it’s okay. You can take your time. I’m used to waiting alone.”

Perhaps she had memorized the coordinates since we had been there once before, but a black magic circle enveloped Nyx and me before I could even take out a map. With a familiar floating sensation, my feet lifted into the air.

‘Nothing bad will happen, right?’

I’d only been here for a few hours; surely nothing could have happened in such a short time.