Cr-cr-cr-crk. The statue moved, its joints producing grotesque sounds. Jin-Woo glared at it. There were several differences between it and the other statues, but the most striking was that it had wings. An angel statue. It was the only statue depicting an angel. And it had six wings on its back. The seated angel rose to its full height, straightening its hunched back, and became a towering three meters tall. Pop! Jin-Woo quickly stepped back, drew a dagger in his other hand, and lowered his stance. The moment he decided to fight, every nerve in his body stood on end—from mind to flesh, he was optimized for combat.
'...'
But even though the angel could clearly sense Jin-Woo's intent to fight, it didn't wipe the smile from its lips. It was a grin so grotesque and unnatural it sent chills down the spine. The angel lowered its head briefly, glancing at the stone tablet scarred by the dagger, then casually tossed it behind itself. Naturally. Crack! The tablet hit the ground and shattered into pieces. Seeing the broken fragments, the angel let out a stiff laugh.
"Ha ha."
Jin-Woo's eyes narrowed.
'From the very beginning...'
He now knew that it had all been meaningless from the very start. That tablet, and all those rules inscribed on it.
'Otherwise, it wouldn't have treated it so carelessly.'
Then what was this place meant for? And what had it wanted?
'And...'
Quests, Level Ups, the Key Dungeon. What did all the strange phenomena that appeared after he left this place mean? The chance to find answers to all of these questions had finally arrived. At the thought, his heart thumped. Thump, thump, thump! His heart pounded against his chest. Normally beating calmly, at this moment it thrashed more violently than any engine.
'It knows.'
Jin-Woo let his guard slip not one bit as he asked in a low voice.
"Was it you who summoned me?"
He was asking: what is your connection to the System?
"Yes."
The angel wiggled its fingertips and continued.
"You've made it this far."
Next came the neck. It rotated its head left and right in a slow, spinning motion. Cr-crk. Crk. It was loosening up. What it was loosening up for wasn't hard to guess. Normally, Jin-Woo would never let the first strike slip. But this time was the exception. There was far too much he wanted to ask the angel to blow the conversation away with combat just yet. Jin-Woo asked again.
"Are you a monster?"
The angel's mana aura was clearly different from that of monsters. But the word "monster" was nothing more than a convenient term humans had coined. If that term meant creature, then this thing was the real monster. A statue that speaks and moves. Where else in the world could a more monstrous monster exist? What Jin-Woo wanted to know was whether it was kin to those creatures called monsters. Cr-cr-cr-crk. Cr-crk. The angel, who had been stretching with its torso bent, straightened up.
"The question is wrong." "..." "Instead of asking who I am, you should have asked who you are."
Jin-Woo froze for a split second, but the bewilderment didn't last long. Clap! The sound of the angel's palms striking together erased his thoughts.
"Now, this is the final test."
The smile had already vanished from the angel's face now that it had finished loosening up.
"If you're still alive when the test is over, I'll tell you everything. This—"
The angel flicked its finger, and red light seeped into the eyes of every statue.
"—is the reward I bestow upon you."
In that instant, every statue densely packed inside turned their heads toward Jin-Woo in unison. Thud. All the statues stepped down from their pedestals. Tap. All the statues raised their weapons. Jin-Woo surveyed the temple statues in a slow sweep. Even if they were puppets, they looked powerful. In fact, he had nearly died to them more than once before. Jin-Woo calmly summoned his shadow soldiers.
'Come forth.'
But then. Ding!
[For the final test, job-exclusive skills are restricted.] [Potions, shop access, and status recovery through Level Up and quest completion rewards are also prohibited.] [You cannot exit until the final test is concluded.]
'What?'
The mechanical chime ringing in his ears wrinkled Jin-Woo's brow only briefly. The statues began closing in on him. Quiet yet swift movements. An entirely different sensation from the hundreds of knights that had charged at him during the job-change exam.
'So this is how you want to play it?'
All manner of potions, quest rewards, and other ace cards he had prepared just in case had vanished into thin air in an instant. Having been together for so long, the System knew Jin-Woo far too well.
'Then I'll break through with my own strength!'
Resolved, Jin-Woo gripped the dagger's hilt tightly. The easiest way out of the crisis was to destroy the entity controlling the statues—the angel. But killing it meant he wouldn't get what he wanted. That was the last resort. For now, he would accept the angel's so-called "test."
'To do that...'
He had never stopped growing. A level honed ceaselessly to achieve what he wanted, no matter the circumstance. Hah! Hot breath burst from his nose and mouth. Things he couldn't see when he first set foot here, things that had been entirely invisible before, began filling his vision. The statues' movements, which once looked like teleportation, were now something his eyes could follow.
'Left.'
Clang! The dagger blocked a statue's spear flying in from the left.
'Left again.'
A statue stepped on the shoulder of the one holding the spear and leaped upward, bringing down an axe. Blocking a downward attack head-on was inefficient, so Jin-Woo twisted his body half a turn and let the blow slide past. Crash! Stone fragments sprayed from the shattered floor where the axe had struck. Boom! He kicked the axe-wielding statue's face with all his might, and its head burst apart. However. Shhh! Jin-Woo ducked his upper body back, and an arrow flew past, embedding itself in the far wall. There was no time to celebrate taking one down—the real assault had begun. Whoosh!
'Right.'
This time, a sword. Jin-Woo shoved aside the statue's blade with brute force while simultaneously bringing the dagger in his other hand down in a diagonal slash. Pop! The armless statue collapsed as if feeling pain, tumbling away. Left, right, right, left, front, front, right, left.
'It's working.'
The deeper he focused on the fight, the slower the statues' movements became, and the faster his own grew. A chilling sensation from behind.
'Behind!'
Jin-Woo leaped up, passing over the head of the statue approaching from behind, and cut it clean off. Skrrk! Where his eyes couldn't reach, the perception stat compensated. Haa! A burst of breath. His body, trained to the extreme—every single cell—was responding to the statues' movements. Jin-Woo's gaze gleamed. Brushing aside, blocking, and tearing through the statues' relentless attacks, he rapidly reduced their numbers.
'As if this moment were...'
As if made solely for this very purpose, the Demon King's daggers effortlessly cleaved through the stone bodies of his enemies. Feeling his body, his mind, his cells, and the daggers become one, Jin-Woo moved and moved and moved without pause. The angel, watching Jin-Woo's movements closely, trembled with a shudder.
'In a human body, to reach that level...'
The smile that had briefly vanished from the angel's face returned. The choice had been correct. But—it was still far too early to end the test. The angel turned around. And in the massive chair, the god-statue that had been biding its time had red light gathering in its eyes too. The creature gripped the ends of the armrests with its hands and slowly heaved its enormous body upright. Grooooooooan! Just looking at it was enough to freeze one's blood, it was so impossibly vast. Thud. The moment the god-statue took its first step, the entire cavern shook. Thud, thud, thud. Its stride was so wide that it closed the distance to Jin-Woo in just a few steps. Around Jin-Woo, the debris of statues had already piled into small mountains.
'...'
Standing before him, the god-statue raised its right arm. Jin-Woo, who had been fighting the statues in a trance, sensed the change at almost the same moment. He glanced at his darkening surroundings and raised his head.
'...?'
A colossal palm was blotting out his vision. The god-statue slammed its hand toward the ground without a care for the statues surrounding Jin-Woo. Boom! Jin-Woo flung himself out of the palm's range, rolled across the floor, and staggered to his feet. His expression hardened as he stared up at the god-statue.
'Right... I forgot about that one.'
Mountain beyond mountain, as they say. Jin-Woo's gaze dropped back down. The statues—still not destroyed, at least a hundred of them—were charging straight at him. They reached him in the blink of an eye. He nudged a hurtling flail with the tip of his dagger to redirect its trajectory, slipped forward like he was gliding past, and slashed the flail-wielding statue's neck. Pop. As the statue's head fell, the ones behind it surged in. But the truly dangerous enemy wasn't the statues at all. Every hair on his body stood on end. Jin-Woo jerked his head up in alarm.
'...!'
Just as he suspected. A menacing red glow was gathering in both of the god-statue's eyes.
'Dodging might... be too late?'
If he moved wrong, the statues could block his escape route, and he'd be melted by the beam—the thought flashed through his mind.
'Then.'
Jin-Woo released the dagger in his left hand and simultaneously thrust his left hand toward the statues bearing down on him.
'Touch of the Ruler!'
Five statues bound by the Touch of the Ruler overlapped midair. Ding!
[The skill 'Touch of the Ruler' has been upgraded to the final form, 'Authority of the Ruler'.]
'Good!'
But there was no time to enjoy the moment of triumph. Jin-Woo moved the makeshift shield of bundled statues into the path of the god-statue's gaze. Zzzzzzt! As expected, red beams erupted from both of the god-statue's eyes. Cr-cr-cr-crk! The shield of bundled statues melted in less than a second, but Jin-Woo used that brief window to escape the beams' range safely. When he withdrew the Touch of the Ruler, the remains of the statues clattered to the ground. Thud-thud-thud. Jin-Woo confirmed that the god-statue's power could obliterate even statues without a trace and revised his strategy.
'I need to take down the god-statue first.'
Target locked. The moment before the second beam fired from the god-statue's eyes, Jin-Woo's legs drove into the ground.
'Swift Foot!'
Da-da-da-da-da-da! Already fast, Jin-Woo's movement transformed into something far beyond the god-statue's perception range. In an instant, he reached the foot of the statue and planted both legs. From his lowered stance, tremendous leaping power condensed. The chance would come only once. In the air, where free movement would be limited, dodging the red beams flying in at terrifying speed would be even harder. But hadn't he learned that already? If you didn't accept a certain degree of risk, the opportunity wouldn't come either.
'Therefore—'
Jin-Woo clamped his mouth into a hard line and drove his legs into the ground with everything he had. His body shot upward like a rocket.
'Break!'